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ADAM WARREN

Gen 13 card: Freefall

Writer/artist of Dark Horse Dirty Pair comics, Bubblegum Crisis: Grand Mal, Gen 13 Bootleg Grunge: the Movie, Magical Drama Queen Roxy, Marvel's Livewires, and his own sexy, superhero comedy Empowered.

Published work
Bubblegum Crisis Grand Mal #1 page 24
Issue #2 page 14
Spin: Car and 2 girls illustration
Dirty Pair: I Honestly Hate You page 5

Pencil commission drawings
Dirty Pair Cowgirls
Knight Sabres (Bubblegum Crisis)
Knight Sabres diptych
Asuka Langley and Rei Ayannami (Neon Genesis Evangelion)
Vision (Bubblegum Crisis)
Priss (Bubblegum Crisis)
Harley Quinn (Batman Animated)
Rally Vincent (Gunsmith Cats)
Naked Killer poster homage
Black Magic M-66 from Masamune Shirow manga
Kiki (Kiki's Delivery Service)
Sylia Stingray (Bubblegum Crisis)
Urd (Oh! My Goddess)

Pencil preliminary drawings
Dirty Pair: Start the Violence! p. 1 ...3
Magical Drama Queen Roxy #1 p. 1 ...3
MDQR #2 p. 3
MDQR #3 p. 10 ...13 ...14 ...30 ...31 ...35 ...36
Dirty Pair:Run from the Future #2 cover Page 7
Issue #4 p. 12 ...21
Battle Chasers #9 p. 7
Star Wars Manga #1 cover
Empire cover sketch
Return of the Jedi cover
Spin magazine rock climber illustration
Mangaphile #1 cover
Trouble Express #1 alternate cover

Convention sketch
Priss sketch, Santa Clara Anime America 1993
At the signing session, I first met Kenichi Sonoda, character designer for Bubblegum Crisis, then went to see Adam Warren. While looking through Adam's photocopies of his BGC Grand Mal story, I complimented Adam on the improvement in his artwork over the first Dirty Pair series. Adam, indicating Sonodasan, said he was following a master.

Linna Yamazaki sketch by Kenichi Sonoda, Santa Clara Anime America 1993




Spin magazine illustration
Original color work by Joe Rosas

Notes from Adam's Fanimecon 2001 panel

        At his Saturday morning panel, Adam introduced himself as writer and cover artist for DC/Wildstorm's Gen 13. He's done a 12-page back up story for Battle Chasers #9. Helps out with Seraphic Feather in Super Manga Blast. He does have a contract offer for doing a creator-owned series from DC/Wildstorm. A failed animation project took up three months of his time. Warren apologized for not getting more work out. He knows he's slow.
        Dark Horse is coming out with more Dirty Pair merchandise. As well as the shot glasses and lighters, they have t-shirts coming. Adam reports it is hard to get a comic project approved, but DH is doing very well with merchandise sales. There may be action figures or statues. No lunchboxes.
        Studio Proteus is anticipating doing Masamune Shirow's Ghost in the Shell sequel, Man Machine Interface. Adam said Shirow has fallen in love with the panty shot and outdoes Masakazu Katsura. (At the SP SD panel, Toren Smith said for one issue of the US comic release, there will be an adults only version offered in Diamonds adult catalog. Shirow will modify his work for the general version.) Shirow is also adding 20 pages for the soft cover Japanese release.
        Adam dislikes the trend toward smaller size books like Lone Wolf and Cub, but book stores really like that size. Warren spoke of the treasury size comics from DC and Marvel when he grew up and how he loved those.
        Opening up to questions, someone asked about his introduction to the Dirty Pair. Adam described being at the Joe Kubert school in the winter of 1985 and drawing the Phantom on an elephant and not enjoying it at all. He was disillusioned with American comics, although he liked American Flagg, Love & Rockets, and some of the independents. One weekend, a friend of his roommate brought over Dirty Pair and Urusei Yatsura episodes and a couple Hayao Miyazaki movies. They watched all of them and he got excited about anime. Seeking out the DP rights with Toren Smith, they made a deal with Studio Nue and DP creator and science fiction writer Haruko Takachiho, but did not have permission to use the Sunrise animation studios character designs. Adam almost had a nervous breakdown dealing with reinventing Kei and Yuri. It was also a sore topic with anime fans when the American comic came out not looking like the DP they were used to seeing. Now Adam is glad not to be confined to the studio look, but does feel somewhat restricted by dealing with someone else's characters. He has been pushing the idea of having some other artists like Terry Dodson or Bruce Timm doing the art for his story. That's doubtful, but he has hopes for getting Ryan Kinnaird, his Run from the Future inker, and Chynna Chugston-Major. For Chugston-Major, he wants to do a teen Kei and Yuri, before they join the WWA. He first needs to get approval from Studio Nue, but said Ryan is better than he was when he started doing the DP.
Ryan Kinnaird Dirty Pair commission

        Another fan complimented Adam on the ending of the Magical Drama Queen Roxy with its devolving B&W, then pencil, then script pages. Warren said it was a reference to Neon Genesis Evangelion and his own take on Hideaki Anno's final two episodes. He feared it was too coded a reference for American mainstream audiences.
        On Bubblegum Crisis and any follow up to the Grand Mal story, the rights to the series are all messed up. The Dark Horse book still sells and Toren Smith could not get any of the three companies holding BGC rights to accept the royalty check. The first time Adam became aware of the series was seeing the Japanese kana logo in a magazine and being intrigued trying to decipher it. Bubblegum crisis, what could it mean? He saw the first three episodes, then only saw the final four and the sequel Bubblegum Crash after he'd gotten the rights to do the Grand Mal story. Seeing the latter made him appreciate how good Bubblegum Crisis was.
        On the alternate covers for DP: Run from the Future, he said it really doesn't sell that well anymore, but its neat to see Adam Hughes and Bruce Timm versions of the DP. He mentioned Hughes' cover winning an illustration award.
        Describing his life, Adam says he lives a Unabomber lifestyle out in the woods. He left San Francisco years ago because of the cost of living, but sees it's gotten really crazy since then. He reads 7-10 books a month, hikes, does house maintenance, and plays video games. He cautioned artists to watch out for thumb damage from playing too much. He suffers some from Carpal Tunnel. He says he plots while playing Robotron 2040. Goes online only to do research. Goes to the city a couple times a week to eat out, pick up books on tape, and see movies. Warren says he marvels at other artists with families and such getting the work done.
        On the sketchbook printed in Japan, he says he's too lazy and shiftless to do it himself and could not get it published in America because of all the copyrighted characters. The first book came out in '96 so he has four years worth of material he could add. Some of these commissions will be published in the back of the remastered, colored DP: Sim Hell. He described the doujin market in Japan as being huge with some printers doing only doujin. He saw one by Utatane (Seraphic Feather) which was a hardcover on good paper. The book looked like a children's book, but was inappropriate for minors. Adam discarded his own copy because it was too disturbing.
        On fans and the manga/nonmanga issue, Adam did not want to get deep into it, but keep it simple as comics done by Japanese people. He mentioned a friend born in Japan who created comics there and now lives in the US doing comics. Some American fans of Japanese material argue whether it should still be regarded as manga.
        On his characters' lips which some fans really object to, Adam says it will probably will go away, but style evolves less and less as one gets older.
        Someone commented on the Hot Wheels tracks prominently featured in Gen 13 Bootleg #10. Apparently Mattel was not happy about it, but Wildstorm did not worry over it much. DC would probably get really upset over the product placement of Coke, Irish Spring, and other common products displayed in the Bootleg story.
        He really prefers to work on futuristic comics because he can make up the details, but does not think he can create a good fantasy world.
        On the kanji which shows up in his work, he really does it just to look good. Typically, it's just an artist's name. Sometimes, he'll use Arabic or other languages just as a design element.
        I likely made some mistakes as I tried to listen and take notes at the same time. Please don't take it too literally, but I hope you get some flavor of the event.

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