>>82485651
Here, let me post some of the Spotlight interview that Andrews did.

>IMAGE COMICS: The solicit gives us an idea of what RENATO JONES: THE ONE% #1 is about, but what's it ABOUT? What kind of themes and ideas are you exploring in this series?

>KAARE ANDREWS: Going straight for the guts, huh? Like, "What's it all about? What's the reason? What's the point of it all?"

>Let me start by saying what RENATO JONES is not.

>RENATO JONES is NOT a 76-part event style, company-wide cross-over, created on some company retreat by a boardroom think tank and executed by half a dozen writers and three dozen artists and overseen by a group of editors all answering to corporate integration.

>How do you make art like that?

>You don't.

>You make product.

>And making product can be fun...and
consuming that kind of product can be enjoyable, too. I liked the new Star Wars as much as anyone. But there is another way to make something.

>RENATO JONES is the kind of thing that comes out of one person's head and onto paper by way of that same person's hand. I don't answer to a movie being developed and set for release three years from now. I don't answer to anyone. This is my comic. This world. This is my creation.

>On the surface level, RENATO JONES is about wealth-fueled crime and restitution. About a man who hides amongst the super-rich to judge them for their super-rich crimes. But there is more to RENATO JONES than just luxury revenge. How boring would that be? That's simply the proscenium. So, what's it all about?

>Picasso said he knows what to draw by drawing. And I feel the same way. I'm exploring what I'm exploring by exploring. Every page becomes a Rorschach test. Every word an admission. Every line a statement.

>As a creator, I'm not interested in WHY or WHAT. I'm interested in NOW. HERE.

>>82485719
Okay, so already this guy sounds like a tool.

>>82485651
>possibly the worst thing Image has ever published

Worse than Saga? Wow.

>>82485746

>I simply knew Renato needed a kill mask, a suit, and a very large gun. These were the first images that came to mind and the kind of imagery I'm constantly trying to utilize.

>I've always been interested in this idea that we put on masks to do a job or achieve a task, maybe win a sports game. We become the warrior within by putting on the face of a warrior. We become the jokester by painting our faces like clowns. We become sultry by the color of lipstick we wear. We become smarter by wearing glasses, more creative if they're thick plastic frames. Masks are transformative and powerful. And they're everywhere.

>What makes Renato Jones unique is that he wears a mask all the time. And I'm not just talking about the "kill mask" he dons to hunt the ONEs. He wears the mask of privilege and decadence twenty-four hours a day. He lives his life as another person to pay off a debt. Because there is a cost to everything and at the end of the day, everyone has to pay—even himself.

>But what's under this mask of Renato's? A mask of wealth and luxury? And has he become the mask? Has he lost the truth of himself?

That greentext? The FIRST fucking question. It took me three posts to fit all that bullshit.

Here, continue to suffer with me.

>C: What kind of journey is Renato Jones on? Is he a moody vigilante, a psychopath, a guy doing the right thing?

>ANDREWS: He's not any of those things. Renato is a person set on a path and given the tools to do a job. Every day he wakes up and looks into the mirror at the face of a stranger. Then he puts on a kill mask and hunts down the sort of evil that only he has the power to hunt. Those that hide behind wealth.

>Because in today's world that's where evil can hide. The saying is, "Give a man a gun and he can rob a bank, but give a man a bank and he can rob the world."

>A guy in leather and spandex chasing down some impoverished criminals trying to steal diamonds from an upper middle class jewelry store just doesn't interest me. Like, not in the slightest. When you boil that situation down, it's just a mess.

>If you've read my run on Iron Fist, you can see the themes of Renato Jones start to emerge. In today's world, wealth is power. You can be Elon Musk and create new technologies or you can be the Affluenza teenager and kill people drunk driving and escape any kind of repercussions.

>We celebrate wealth. We want it. It changes us when we get it. And if you have enough of it—you can do anything. No matter how evil.

>Not anymore.

>Renato Jones hides amongst the wealth, but he wasn't created in it. He's a one-man sleeper cell that targets people that do horrible, fucked up things. He's not the apex predator—he HUNTS the apex predators.

>>82485780

>DC wouldn't accept my Batman pitch so I'm making a story about a fake rich guy killing rich people. TAKE THAT SOCIETY! *sips pumpkin spice*

Again, he is being serious here.

>IC: "The Super-Rich Are Super-Fucked." Is this a political story, with a message about kindness and charity at its heart, or more of a rocking action comic?

>ANDREWS: This book isn't a political story but it's not simply a rocking action comic either. It's fun. Violent. Emotional. And action-packed. But it's not fluff. It's more than that. At least to me. To me—this comic is dangerous. It's dangerous to create it, it's a dangerous time to do it, and I'm saying some dangerous things. And that's the best kind of fun.

>>82485764
nice bait

I can't keep doing this. It's killing me. I'm coughing up blood.

>IC: How long has the story of Renato Jones been percolating in your head?

>ANDREWS: The stuff that Renato Jones is made of has been boiling away forever. There is this ocean of material that I generate, write down, and develop. And when I decided to do this book, I just started brainstorming all of the different images and ideas that I wanted to create. Again, Picasso has said, that he knows what to draw by drawing it, and I approach creating the same way. Like, get out of you head and just start doing.

>In practice, what I do is to start filling a sketchbook of these random images and ideas—things I've thought about, written down, or remembered. And the process of both sketching and writing starts digging tunnels through the mountain. The more I dig, the further I find myself, until one day I've filled up that sketchbook and find myself through the mountain.

>When I've reached that tipping point, built up that amount of bedrock, I just start plotting the book and racing to get it all out as fast as possible.

>So it's both the catalog of ideas I keep with me as well as the flash of inspiration in that very moment I'm creating that catalyzes into the bedrock of my stories.

>>82485849
God dammit. I was fine up until he started talking about how "dangerous" writing this book is... Self-fellating fuck.

>>82485881
Thanks, I tried.

However, this guy's art is objectively is better than Saga's.

For reference, this is the guy who did "Iron Fist: The Living Weapon" and that Spider Man story that was a rip off of Frank Miller's entire early career and where Mary Jane dies because of Peter's radioactive sperm.

>>82486016

I mean, if you're going to bite from anyone might as well bite from Miller in his prime.

>>82486016

Also, no, Staples draws way better than a Miller copycat.

You can stop samefagging so much OP, we get it. You don't like the dude and his stuff, so don't give him attention even on /co/.

Also his Iron Fist stuff was decent.

>>82486866

Oh, but I want to mock him. It's so much fun. Same as mocking Kot.

And nobody likes a PraiseThread, do they?

>>82486043
The thing is, those were two very well made comics. sure, some dumb shit went down in both of them, but the FUCKING AWESOME easily outweighed the stupidity.

>>82486866
Iron Fist: The Living Weapon is fucking trash. I've never read anything else by KKC and I don't want to.

>>82487513
Yeah Iron Fist was great until the very end where the writing and the art felt more rushed.