Interview with Turner Lange, Creator of “The Adventures of Wally Fresh”
July 30, 2010 in Art, Interview, LA
Turner Lange is a talented dude. As an animator/writer/advertising illustrator, Turner is someone whose creativity is just a part of his DNA. I had a chance to check out his new comic book, “The Adventures of Wally Fresh,” about the Wally Fresh, a character who gets his life put in weird and interesting situations. Check out the interview!
Tell us about yourself. How did you get started as a comic book writer?
This entire project from beginning to end is a labor of Love. I was primarily trained as an animator and after school I went into advertising illustration (storyboards, style frames, concept design) I’ve been bouncing around the industry for a little over six years now Jumping back and forth from music videos to television and commercials. The writing portion kinda came about from my film directing background, I’ve written a slew of short film scripts a few spec pilots and a feature. Wanting to take up a new project I decided to try my hand at comics.
So..the title of your comic is “The Adventures of Wally Fresh.” Please do elaborate on how this story came about?
Wally Fresh is my attempt at genre mashing I lived in New York for almost ten years and really dug my time there, Plus the city itself is such a great backdrop for stories cuz anything can and will happen. So I was looking for a premise that would kinda let me go anywhere I wanted in terms of storytelling. I think at one point I kinda had it as an idiosyncratic kind of book where it was more about the everyday stuff, but when I did a first pass on it it felt kinda stale so I went back retooled it and kinda tried to build into the premise ways to take the characters to other places. And kinda of bring an extraordinary twist to mundane situations. Thats kinda where the spirit animal Barry comes in. Once I gave him to Wally then it was kinda like “well, a talking animal is kinda the tip of the iceberg”
Did you grow up reading tons of comic books? If so, which ones were your favorites?
Yeah My brother and I were comic kids growing. He was pretty instrumental in my creative development and even now he’s still the one feeding me whats hip and whats cool. but growing up I was a big image kid Wildstorm had a bunch of titles I would pick up.( until about 11th grade I thought Jim lee was the man) but Alot of Image, Marvel, DC and Valiant.
Hollywood loves comics. Especially taking them and making them into big Blockbuster films… What do you envision for “The Adventures of Wally Fresh.”
Well first and foremost is to finish this initial story arc. But There’s a lot of places these character could go, and what I’m trying to do is establish Wally Fresh as kind of the initial window into that universe. Kinda like it’s the intersection where all this stuff happens, where crazy characters meet and interact but everything kind of expands out of that initial window. As for different forms it could take (animation, live action, CG) I’m letting the idea itself kinda dictate that.
Very cool. How can we get a copy of this comic?
Well this inital print run has completely sold out I’m happy to say. But we’ll be doing a second run with a local L.A distribution. The spots we’re looking to hit are Secret head quarters, House of Secrets, Meltdown, and Golden apple.
What’s your creative process? How do you get inspired to write/create your projects?
I think of the stuff I want to see or stuff I haven’t seen that I think should be going on and kinda start from there. Alot of ” oh man it would be sweet if this would happen here or if that would happen there,” and then kinda work backwards from there, it’s kinda like “well what would happen if Wally went back in time? okay how would he go back in time, what would he need?”
Last meal on earth?
Italian dinner at La Mela in NoLita.
NYC! Top 5 songs in your ipod?
Conceptions (4hero)
Said and done (orgone)
Ruling ‘is it’s own reward’ (Supagroup)
Alright (Janet Jackson)
Bad Boys theme (Mark Mancina)
Thanks for your time, Turner! For more information about Wally Fresh, CLICK HERE.
