BY JENNIFER M. CONTINOJust what is a "transgalactic towel?" How does a little boy become the companion of this magical sentient being? What makes them a good pair? That's some of what creator Mike Bullock's examining in the upcoming Silverline Books/Image Comics hardcover. Bullock's teamed with artist Michael Metcalf, to craft a tale for those young and young at heart. Bullock said working on this story "was like being eight again and make-believing myself into some wondrous place where every day life didn’t matter and couldn’t intrude on my adventures."
THE PULSE: Just who is Timmy and what is a "transgalactic towel"? Is it anything like my hometown's Terrible Towel?
MIKE BULLOCK: Timothy is a fairly normal boy with an abnormally overactive imagination. He spends a great deal of time by himself, which leads to escapism being his only form of social interaction. I.e. his main relationships are with imaginary friends, fictional characters and comic book heroes. Towel is an alien from another world. I don’t want to spill too much on him, as it might spoil the story.
THE PULSE: So Towel is like a being not just a towel he ties around his neck and pretends to fly with?
BULLOCK: He’s not “like a being”, he is a sentient life form. A rather absorbent sentient life form at that.
THE PULSE: How does Timmy meet this Towel?
BULLOCK: Timothy’s dad goes away on frequent business trips. Every time he returns, he has a new present for Timothy. The latest trip was to Hawaii, where dad picked up Towel and brought him home. Since Timothy was hoping for a laser sword or battle robot, a beach towel is a little bit of a letdown. However, Timothy soon learns not to judge things on sight…
THE PULSE: What happens?
BULLOCK: I don’t want to give away too much of the story, but let’s just say Timothy discovers that something he dismissed at first, turns out to be far more valuable than he ever could have imagined.
THE PULSE: OK, got it. So what kind of adventures does he go on with Towel? Do they go to space or something?
BULLOCK: One of Timothy’s fictional heroes is Dash Lightrider of the Intergalactic Zoom Patrol (IZP). When Timothy discovers Towel has transgalactic skills, flying to planet Zoom is a must. But, even though we often wish to transport ourselves to far away worlds, they’re not always the safest places to be… especially when it’s just you and your friend, who happens to be a beach towel.
THE PULSE: Are there more superpowered beach towels around?
BULLOCK: It’s a pretty big universe, so I’m sure there must be, although I’ve not met any myself. I do recall a rather fantastic dishcloth I met in Pittsburgh once at a place called the Electric Banana, but I’m not sure that qualifies. However, since the Steelers seem to be Super Bowl gods, they might have one or two hiding out at Heinz Field.
THE PULSE: Hah! What drew you to doing something like this? Did you have an imaginary towel pal as a tot?
BULLOCK: I do have at least one story about a little boy in my family diving from a porch with a red towel around his neck yelling “UP! UP! And AWAY!” as he gracefully plowed head first into the gravel in the driveway. (Thankfully, that was my older brother and not me.) But I’d actually sat down and tried to concoct some new properties to work on after LIONS, TIGERS AND BEARS and this was one of them. I always wanted something that could take me to outer space or back in time or to crazy fantasy worlds as a kid and the seed of an idea grew out of that desire. At the time, I’d just come back from a vacation in Hawaii and was all awash in the mystic vibe of the islands and my wife and I have a thing where we buy one souvenir beach towel where ever we vacation so it sort of came together from there and evolved into what it is now.
THE PULSE: You've worked on a lot of kids stories, how difficult is it for you to find unique voices and not have all your young protagonists sounding alike?
BULLOCK: I do make a conscious effort to make them all as different as possibly, both visually and personality wise but I wouldn’t say it’s difficult. The protagonist is usually the first character I develop, so I spend the most time on them and at times I have found myself saying “Ryan might seem too much like Joey here” or “I don’t want him having blond hair and blue eyes as people might mistake him for Joey there…” Overall, it’s not very hard, just something I need to remain aware of in the process.
THE PULSE: Do you find yourself quoting your own kids at all? You have a little boy, right?
BULLOCK: Not yet. My son is only nine months old, but he seems headed towards a world of inspiration for my stories. I’ve actually created a few properties just for him in order to tell him stories.
THE PULSE: Ah, I guess he's too little for fodder yet, but do you look to any nieces or nephews for inspiration or material? Like hearing them say something and think that's just too good!
BULLOCK: Not really. I do have some friends with little ones that are fun to interact with and I do a lot of school programs where I teach K-6th graders how to make comics. Quite often, I get some responses to questions that are absolutely golden. Mainly, however, I just draw off my own childhood.
THE PULSE: How did Shadowline get involved with publishing this?
BULLOCK: Jim [Valentino], Kris [Simon] and I have talked on and off about me doing something with Shadowline since the first batch of books came out a few years back, but the time never seemed right. Once they announced Silverline and talked again, it seemed like this was the perfect opportunity to turn all that talk into reality.
THE PULSE: You do work on a lot of child friendly books, but with not so many kids going into comic shops, how do you make them aware the books are out there?
BULLOCK: A lot of it comes by word of mouth through libraries and schools as well as all the wonderful comic readers who are excited to pass along their love of comics to younger people in their lives. I’ve received dozens of emails over the years from random people who bought a LIONS, TIGERS AND BEARS or GIMOLES comic and loved it so much they bought extra copies for their niece/nephew/co-workers kid etc. We’re currently working on a strategy to reach out on a more far reaching scale, but I can’t really talk about that yet.
THE PULSE: What do you enjoy the most about telling this story?
BULLOCK: The pure escapism it gave me while crafting it. 2008 and 2009 (with the exception of being blessed with our son) have been the toughest years my wife and I have endured together, so having the escape of TIMOTHY was wonderful. It was like being eight again and make-believing myself into some wondrous place where every day life didn’t matter and couldn’t intrude on my adventures.
THE PULSE: What other projects are you working on?
BULLOCK: More than I can remember at once. LOL! I always have at least one PHANTOM thing going on, and I just finished the first of many stories with another character from Moonstone that I don’t think I can talk about yet. As for creator-owned stuff, we’re putting the last touch of icing on LIONS, TIGERS AND BEARS v3 and then I can concentrate on finishing the story for my next CO book, MY MACHINE. I also have about five or six other things in various stages, but those are the most prominent on my schedule.
You can learn more about this project at these links:
http://community.runemasterstudios.com/showthread.php?tid=541http://www.timothyandthetransgalactictowel.com/
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