Saturday, October 9 – 2:30pm
Speakers: Bruce Timm, Jim Kring, Giancarlo Volpe, moderated by Geoff Johns
by Michael Nixon
Anyone who knows Batman or comics or animation knows about the great 90's Batman: The Animated Series. Bruce Timm led a group of animators in creating one of those indelible childhood memories in the form of a Saturday morning cartoon. Now, Timm and the studio that created that legendary series and its 90s-00s follow-ups is bringing forth a new animation project for a new generation of children and grown-up fans alike.
Green Lantern is clearly in the very early stages, to the point where all the creators had to show were the first proof-of-concept test footage they ever created and the new (and in some cases incomplete) CGI models of the characters for use in the show.
While GL is going all CGI with the characters, I'm not sure if the backgrounds we saw (painted to look like "vintage sci-fi book covers") will be similarly rendered in CG. The clash of styles may be a downside, but I have no way of telling if that's going to be a fact or merely a fear going in. The CGI models of the characters invoke the Batman: Animated look beautifully and the test footage we saw was great.
There was also some great news for fans in that the reviled Embargo on DC characters has been lifted across the board, so everyone from the comics is fair game for all future projects, which is quite a watershed moment for tie-in material.
What is more interesting for long-time fans is that, even with the embargo lifted, the creators of the series have chosen the Red Lanterns as the central enemy of their first season. The Red Lanterns are a more recent addition to the GL stable of villains and were chosen over classic enemy Sinestro and his recently founded Sinestro Corps because of that character's inclusion in the upcoming Green Lantern film starring Ryan Reynolds. According to Geoff Johns (current writer of Green Lantern and DC Entertainment's Chief Creative Officer), there will be a "mystery set up" about the whereabouts of Sinestro that will lead to potential future stories.
The series seeks to be accessible to new fans just coming in from the Ryan Reynolds-led, Martin Campbell-directed feature as well, striving for open stories in a massive sandbox, but allowing connections with a small group of strong characters like Hal Jordan, Kilowog, and Aya (a new creation for the series "strongly tied into Green Lantern mythology"). It all sounds very in-progress, but also very exciting.
Green Lantern: The Animated Series will premiere with a Fall 2011 special and then continue in a series on Cartoon Network beginning Spring 2012.
Michael Nixon is a guest writer from NYU where he is a senior in the Tisch School of the Arts.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.