Interview with a Radio Player - Aaron Talbot part2

Interested in comic books or rock opera or fringe shows or radio plays? Well then!

Part 2 of Super Hero Live! is up on the Indyish pre-Fringe Radio Play podcasthere.
Part 1 of this interview with creator Aaron Talbot is here.

And right here we have The Interview continued…

> so Aaron…. how is Super Hero Live! both comic book-y and rock opera-y?

Well… to be technical about the whole thing, it’s
not a comic book at all. Comics are sequential
pictures that tell a story and are an entirely visual
medium; SHLive! is (currently) an entirely audio
medium, a radio-play. However, when people think
comic books, usually they think of “Superheroes”. And
that’s what the story is: the origin story
(legend/mythology) of an archetypal superhero. In
writing the series, I’ve tried to adhere to elements
that I’ve always loved about superheroes: I’ve even
tried to incorporate allusions to various origin
stories of more prominent Superheroes that maybe some
more serious comic-book fans might pick up on. No
spandex though, I’ve avoided spandex.

It’s a rock opera because the play is entirely set to
an original rock score… it’s just that there’s no
singing. I’ve tried to keep the same elements of
spectacle and grandiose-themes just as in any opera –
I wanted the “bigness” of the production to be the
same. And I wanted the music to be an integral
story-telling element; I wanted the music to be as
important as the text in the overall fabric of the
story.

Why no singing? I didn’t want the play to be lumped in
to the “musical” category. There’s a certain image
that comes to mind when you think of musicals; a
collective groan when you hear that Lord of the Rings
or Spiderman is going to be made into a musical. I
think spectacle and (especially) music can be
incorporated into a piece without having to lump it
into that category. And, as campy as some might view
SHLive!, I didn’t want to go so far down that road
that I could not return…

> where was it produced?

The series was recorded over two days at Wolf Willow
Sound in Edmonton AB (check out:
www.wolfwillowsound.com)

Michael Cowie is editing and polishing the series at
his home office in Edmonton on his Mac. I’ve been
based in Toronto since March, so it’s been difficult
to collaborate with him on the more recent episodes.
But he’s been doing a tremendous job, especially
considering that we have almost no budget to produce
this sucker. He’s a multi-talented guy (check out:
www.michaelcowie.ca)