An interview with Guy Dorian, Sr.: The coming of COR!

This is part two of a two-part interview with Guy Dorian, Sr. the First half  can be found here:

CCN would like to direct readers to New York Comic Con 2016  for the premier of COR! which is launching at NYCC (10/6-9/16). We urge that everyone stop in to see Guy Dorian, Sr., Ian Dorian, and Matthew Pallotta and the rest of PKMM Entertainment at booth 2309. They will have the Zero issues of both Law of Resistance and C.O.R. and will be signing their books. Also present will be Janine Fackque creator of Quandary who will also be hanging out with them.

Guy Dorian, Sr. is something of a Renaissance-level artist, he can draw, paint, watercolor, sculpt, build, write, and dance (he can’t sing). His his first comicbook work published at Marvel in New Warriors #48 (1994). Some of his other comic work has included UltraForce, Hari Kari, Bad Girls, Hakkiro Soul Quest, and many others. Not just making an impression on the comics themselves, Guy has worked on many trading card sets for both Marvel and DC Comics.

In addition to all of his comicbook work, Guy has built up his portfolio in a variety of different art fields, such as toy designs (for WWF/WWE), trading cards, coloring books, magazines, stickers, billboards, newspaper comic strip ads, and more, the list goes on and on. Beyond his artwork, Guy is also a sought-after lecturer, focusing on fine art as well on professional comicbook art. Currently he is working with the Jack Kirby Museum and Research Center on big projects, as well as character development for Marvel Comics Avengers Assemble, and a self-published comic entitled COR (discussed here), that he is working on with his son (Guy Dorian, Jr.) and others.

RJS: Tell me about your new project, COR.

GD, Sr: Well, COR is a project by myself and a company called PKMM Entertainment. I can tell you this character COR is something I’ve always wanted to do. He has the intelligence of the entire internet and intelligence of all those who are connected to the internet at his beck and call. He has translucent skin on parts of his body, that shows the red glow of his veins system. He’s a character who is flawed by his own birth, and by his own species to which he is the sole heir. This all occurs with the help of a woman he meets by the name of Anat.

He goes on a journey to ultimately discover where he came from, who he is, and why he is here. The book is written by the very capable and talented independent screen-writer, Guy Dorian Jr. (my son), illustrated by myself and inked by the phenomenal Bob Wiacek. Some of my good friends and fantastically talented icons of the comic industry are on board for collaboration on stories, pages, and covers of this great series. Some of those artists that I have the pleasure of working with are Sal Buscema (who took over as Guy’s inker for the rest of the entire series as well as on the other books on which Guy is working), Herb Trimpe (the zero issue has an article about Herb Trimpe and features one of the last illustrations Trimpe ever did), Paul Gulacy, Michael Golden, Rich Buckler, Larry Hama, Louise Simonson, Joe Sinnott, Neal Adams, as well as Janice Chiang on letters. And I can’t forget my son’s writing partner, Cody Ciezlekowski.

All of this is brought to you by the visionary named Matthew Pallotta. He is the executive vice-president of PKMM, and the executive editor and vice-president of PKMM Entertainment. Matthew is a visionary, and an incredible talent in the industry of electronics and soon to be of entertainment.

RJS: What prompted you to create this story?

GD, Sr: Nothing necessarily prompted me. My brain is always running at a thousand miles per second, I am always thinking of new intellectual properties, stories, characters, worlds, products and series. You name it, my brain never stops running, never stops creating, never stops thinking, never stops taking me somewhere to creation.

RJS: From what I already know about it, it seems to be a far cry from superhero stuff for which you are perhaps best known. 

Art & Colors by Guy Dorian, Sr.

GD, Sr: It’s a collaboration originally with my son. We are both into fantasy and science fiction as well as some superhero ideals, ideas and characters. We started collaborating on projects and our thoughts came together to create something totally original. It can be considered a sci-fi fantasy, based around a hero. But make no mistake he is a superhero, just not in the same sense that we see men in tights. He’s a hero and anti-hero, but in the course of the story he’d be classified as a hero. I guess you’ll have to read the story to find out. As far as if it is more difficult, I guess I have to say everything is both easy and difficult because I never look at anything or any project or any story without trying to put my all into it. At various times, it is just both simple and extremely difficult.

RJS: Will this be a limited run series or do you intend for it to be an ongoing series?

GD, Sr: The story will be debut as a six-book miniseries, and then turn into its own full ongoing series.

RJS: Besides COR, do you have anything else that you have in the works you want to discuss?

GD, Sr: At the moment this book is everything, but I do have another major project I’m working on. That project is a sculpture of none other than Jack “King” Kirby, the greatest comicbook artist who ever lived. It will be a life-size sculpture and monument dedicated to his memory for his fans from all around the world. I have been involved with the Kirby Museum for quite some time now. In discussing, and going over this project a development that has come out of it is that I will be a guest speaker, doing a lecture and physically drawing about Jack Kirby’s art…why he drew what he drew…and that was true from the time he was an early professional all the way through to his greatest successes.

Art by Sal Buscema. Colors by Alex Sollazzo.

RJS: I noticed that Ian is also working on a new project and both of your projects are being pitched on the same website. Are you guys going to be self-publishing them together?

GD, Sr: My brother’s project is called Law of Resistance or Resistance. It is a story that was created by my brother, Ian and Jim Krueger. Our development of COR, was an influence on the creation of Ian and Jim’s character. Matthew Pallotta played his part, which was then developed by Ian and Jimmy and ultimately scripted by Jimmy. My project is called COR – Controlled Organic Robotics. I created the initial character from my son’s descriptions and writer became co-creator with me working and developing the story. He also has a partner who was involved in the writing and his name is Cody Ciezlekowski. The energy of creating this project is my favorite part of character creation, and I am very happy to be now working on the issues.

Art & Colors by Guy Dorian, Sr.

RJS: What other kinds of things do you think you’d like to do going forward?

GD, Sr: I’m pretty much doing them. My main thing right now is continuing to work with a great group of amazing iconic professionals as well as continuing work with my son on COR. The character of COR is just a blast to work on! The story, the characters, the energy out of the book… it’s just all me and just really who I am! He’s a science fiction, retro-dial…and yet a new creation that has gotten so much praise over the last few months. We haven’t even released the issues yet. The character that I have created, COR, has a mixture of Black Panther meets the Alien meets Machine Man meets Terminator…it’s just one of those types of characters that you know when you make it that clicks. A character that will stick, a character that will stay, the response by fans and by professionals alike has been overwhelming. It’s an honor to be able to be a creator, an illustrator, an artist, a sculptor,  a painter, and especially a comicbook artist! To just be involved in all these things in the industry in an artistic sense it’s really just the greatest thing. I absolutely love what I do and everything that is being done right now on these issues!

These novels which are first going to be a six-book series, and then a graphic novel and it will be continued as series of novels is all being brought together by the amazingly intelligent and charismatic mind of Matthew Pallotta. Matthew and PKMM put together this group of phenomenal talents in the comics industry to create PKMM Entertainment. Much like Steve Jobs, he has been involved in working with advanced technology solutions, and computers for many years. In his job, he has worked for the federal government for his entire life, creating and developing software solutions and his intellect has been so broad-based. He’s created so many things in that space, that he just could not be contained. He loves the comic industry, he loves the movie and game industries, he loves science fiction, fantasy, superheroes… you name it! He’s putting everything out there to make sure that this new company, PKMM entertainment is a viable working entertainment company that does things right, by using all the greatest talent that he can find on the planet.

I almost forgot to mention my brother is working on his project with anchors such as Bill Sienkiewicz, Mark Texiera, Joe Weems, Matt “Batt” Banning, and many other extremely talented big wigs in the business. On my book, COR I have been working on the title in some capacity as anchors and pencil is collaborating with me are John Livesay, Bob Wiacek, Rich Buckler, Joseph Rubenstien, Herb Trimpe, Michael Golden, and the great Sal Buscema, as well as possibly Michael Kaluta, and a few more. And let’s not forget the great Janice Chiang on letters for both books.

Art by Guy Dorian, Sr.

COR, and all artwork associated with the character, including COR logo is copyright © & TM 2015 PKMM Entertainment/Guy Dorian, Sr. COR published by PKMM Entertainment. All rights reserved. All material relating to COR may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed in any form
without the written consent of Guy Dorian & PKMM. All trademarks and logos are © copyrighted by their respective parties.

The text to Funnybook City is © 2015 Robert J. Sodaro, D.B.A. Freelance Ink. All rights reserved.

Robert J. Sodaro is a noted comicbook historian and journalist who began reading comics during the early ‘60s while sitting on the newsstand in his Uncle’s “Mom & Pop” grocery store. He has been writing about them in the early ‘80s, and wrote for virtually every print comicbook publication published during the ‘80s & ‘90s. These days, much of his writing can be found on Examiner.com.