Episode 1254 Talkback: A Conversation with Colleen Doran

Pants

Most comic fans would probably know Colleen Doran from her work on 'A Distant Soil', but she's done work for DC, Marvel and many other publishers also. In this episode we discuss her career in comics, her quest to digitally restore 'A Distant Soil' and much more including her strange connection to Fabio. (1:20:11)

Listen here.

dubbat138

Ahh now something Mike said the other day on FB makes way more sense.

ChrisBeckett

This is awesome! Can't wait to get home and load this onto the iPod. Doran was one of those creators whose work I latched onto back in the late 80s with the b/w boom (along with James Owen, Jeff Smith, and Teri S. Wood). Her artwork is always gorgeous and her writing in A Distant Soil is really top-notch. Looking forward to this.

Nice job guys,
chris

ChrisMurrin

I'm very excited to listen to this episode.

electric_mayhem

this ep was hilarious! Great guest guys, I love the honest and open talk from Ms. Doran

random73

i have discovered some new material to keep an eye out for. fun!

MikeGallagher

Personally I would love to know what Doran stuff you have read!!!

ChrisMurrin

I've read Sandman and volumes 1 & 2 of A Distant Soil. I'm sure I've read more, but I don't recall. I also have a piece of her original ADS art. Actually since I sent it back to her last week and just got it back, now I have two ADS pages. No scan of the new one yet, though.

I met Colleen once, at perhaps the worst convention in the history of the world. It was a Creaton convention, held in Pasadena. No one showed up. I got two George Perez sketches that weekend, with no line and no waiting. That's how unattended the show was. I could have had George fill my sketchbook, if I had the funds. (How great a sketchbook would that be?)

As I stood at Colleen's table, one of the few attendees came by and noted, "You're one o' them chick artists, huh?" True to her interview, we exchanged a glance and an eye-roll, but she made no comment to the guy and just let him drift away.

What a terrible weekend that must have been for her. It was great for me, though. I got to meet George Perez and Colleen Doran!

poisonelf1

what a terrific interview.
she is a very entertaining and funny lady.
she had some great stories.

matchkitJOHN

Never heard of her before this episode but I'm glad I do now. Will her next appearance be called "Storytime with Auntie Colleen"?

warpangel

Such a great episode guys. Colleen was hysterical to listen to, her migraine story was very funny.

LibraryBoy

How the hell did I miss this one? I don't know a lot of her work, but I've loved what I have seen, and every interview I've ever read with her was always really good.

John_Steed

MikeGallagher said:

Personally I would love to know what Doran stuff you have read!!!

Loved very much her work in Gone to Amerikay (got that book due to the CGS episode...) and I've enjoyed what has been printed in the (Absolute) Sandman

alienal

Oh, she does seem to be really interesting. And I like her art. It was interesting too that I think early on Pants mentioned Elfquest and she kina ignored the question. Well she didn't actually work on Elfquest but for the company that published Elfquest (Warp?) but I guess she later had a falling out with Richard Pini. I haven't read much of her stuff, but I respect her for all that she's done. Perhaps when she is done restoring A Distant Soil and finishing the story, I'll pick that up.

MikeGallagher

Alienal- the warp graphics debacle is what she refers to as the earlier ADS. She loathes them and doesn't like talking about them. Pants did not know this. I failed to mention it to him, but it resulted in an interesting story nonetheless.

Johnsteed- you may want to try Orbiter next. It's another GN one and done that's easy to find. If you can snag ADS, I highly recommend it.
Her marvel and dc work is hit or miss depending on the character or inker. Her dc stuff is usually better. I think she is biased towards them.
It's a shame she doesn't get to do superhero stuff more. She would be great on legion or swamp thing or guardians of the galaxy.

dubbat138

Finally listened to this episode the other night. I first discovered Ms Doran back in the mid 90s. Find about 4 issues of "A Distant Soil" in the 10 cent bins. Then read an interview with her from either Hero or Overstreet Fan in which she went into detail about how Richard Pini tried to steal the copyrights to ADS away from her.

Her migraine stories were great. I have them sometimes and she is right once they hit the only thing that seems to work for me is very very strong meds.

LibraryBoy

A few years ago I found the first couple of magazine sized issues of ADS at a comic store, and not only were they signed and numbered by Colleen, but the WaRP Graphics copyright info in the indicia was crossed out by hand in the same ink. That's when I decided to go and see if there was any reason for this and read about the situation for the first time. It's impressive how hard she fought to retain her material (a lot of young creators wouldn't have had that much fight in them), and even more so that she won.