In the first of what's promised to be a regular commentary series on YouTube, writer Adam Beechen posted an introductory video yesterday for his upcoming Batman Beyond digital and print series.
"My hope," said Beechen, "is just that if you're a longtime fan of Batman Beyond -- the character or the comic -- this gives you a little insight into what we're doing as we're planning and plotting out an issue, what goes into certain scenes, or what goes into certain bits of dialogue, or pointing out fun things that happened to appear in the background, maybe give you some hints about what's coming up."
Discussing what inspired him to do these videocasts, Beechen added that as a comics reader, he was left with questions after reading a particular book and wished for a chance to sit down with the writers and artists. "My hope is that these videocasts will answer some questions that readers might have. I figure if I had those questions, then probably there are some readers out there today that still have those kinds of questions."
On the subject of how often the commentaries will be posted, Beechen said that Batman Beyond will have a digital release online, which will be collected into a print version. One of these videocasts will be posted approximately one week after the print version arrives in comic shops. "Hopefully by then, everyone will have seen the most recent chapter, whether online or in print so there won't be a lot of spoiler issues, but nevertheless, we'll put together a spoiler disclaimer for this just in case anyone hasn't gotten around to reading our latest pages."
Beechen later brought up that legendary Batman artist Norm Breyfogle will be handling the artistic duties for Batman Beyond. "If you've never heard of him before," said Beechen, "you're in for a real treat because his art is truly spectacular and he's bringing a ton of creative energy to the book."
The first digital chapter of Batman Beyond arrives online on February 15, 2012, followed by the second chapter on February 22nd. Both of these chapters will be collected together for the print version that will be released in comic shops on February 29th. These chapters will be part of a larger book titled Batman Beyond Unlimited that will also feature Justice League Beyond, with new stories by writer Derek Fridolfs and artist Dustin Nguyen.
An e-mail address is set up at BatmanBeyondCommentary@gmail.com to take questions for the videocast about Batman Beyond, writing for comics or anything to do with the comics industry. The next YouTube videocast to discuss the first issue is slated for sometime during the first week in March.
If you'd like to check out the full introductory videocast, you can view it below...