Magdalena

[juan678]

[juan678]

March 2017
Magdalena #1
Story: Ryan Cady Tini Howard
Art / Cover:Christian Dibari

March 22 / 32 pages / Full Color / T+ / $3.99
The Magdalena has always defended the world from demonic evil, empowered by the blood of Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene in her veins. But when a brush with death leaves her gravely wounded, Patience decides to seek out the next in the bloodline and train her replacement. The replacement, meanwhile, is having enough trouble with finding her purpose even without the whole holy- warrior gig

[sven]

Color me interested.

[mrjinjin]

Gonna pre-order it ASAP.

[juan678]

other preview

[juan678]

Maya the new Magdalena

[juan678]

MAGDALENA #2
(W) Tini Howard, Ryan Cady (A) Christian Dibari (CA) Christian DiBari
“HOUSE OF FLIES”
Training a Magdalena brings the same agony as being one, as Patience struggles with the limits of her injuries and Maya tries to correct a dangerous mistake. (STL040959)
32pgs, FC SRP: $3.99

Update
Maya, from the new MAGDALENA series- is a 19 year old Mexican

[juan678]

Maya, the new MAGDALENA series- is a 19 year old Mexican

[juan678]

http://www.comicsbeat.com/interview-...n-magdalena-1/
Tini Howard and Ryan Cady Breakdown the Power of Sisterhood and Legacy in MAGDALENA #1



Lu: What I appreciated about this take on the Magdalena is how friendly it is to new readers and old ones. I’ve never read a Magdalena story before, but I could easily hop onto the start of Maya’s journey. Meanwhile, old fans can continue to follow Patience. Why did you decide to craft a new journey for Maya rather than simply continue Patience’s?

Cady: Well, the cool thing about the Top Cow Universe is that it’s full of legacy characters. Everyone is passing down this power, this ability, or this tradition– the Magdalena especially because in it is so directly about bloodline, lineage, and a sense of sisterhood. It just makes sense that, if you’re going to relaunch Magdalena, to dig in deep and make a new character.

Companies are always into refreshes and reboots. Whenever I got the chance to talk to Top Cow I would always say “you know, there should be a teenage Magdalena.” I’m glad that we finally got the chance to do it.

Howard: One of the big ideas Ryan and I wanted to introduce is that, by design, these are legacy characters. The artifact Magdalena wields doesn’t make you immortal. It paints a target on your back. My original Magdalena story was about how someone can pick up an artifact and lose it very quickly– the time spent as a bearer of an artifact can be very short. On the other hand, Ryan and I are exploring a different idea. It’s one thing to lose something because you die, but it’s another thing to watch yourself possibly being made obsolete. It’s scary. We’ve been saying that this book is about Maya, but it’s also about Patience.

Cady: At the end of the day, Magdalena is not a person. It’s a sisterhood. We want to dig into the legacy of the role. The master and apprentice relationship is the core element of our run.

Lu: The transitional element definitely stands out to me in this first issue. Most of the time when a role or power is passed down from person to person, it only happens with the previous holder of said title dies, such as in Avatar: the Last Airbender, for example.

Howard: There are all these great master and apprentice stories. We love Avatar: the Last Airbender. Ryan and I are huge Star Wars geeks as well. The final seasons of Buffy and Batman Beyond are awesome too. The story can take all sorts of different shapes. Ours is unique because I cannot think of many master and apprentice stories in media that are about two women. You don’t see a lot of female mentorship stories. I just want to see a woman teach another woman how to do things.

Lu: On that note, where does Maya, our lead character, come from?

Howard: One of the things that Maya comes from is the idea that trying to control a bloodline is pretty stupid. People move, make babies, and the idea that any bloodline can be controlled to the degree that every aspect is known is pretty unrealistic. Maya comes from that idea—the idea that only one person can wield this magical weapon because they have this blood. It’s not that they are literally the only person who can wield the weapon, but rather that everyone who can is descended from one line.

From that conceit, we developed the character surrounding that. A lot of characters in comics are either people who are very prepared to be a superhero or people who are completely unprepared but take to it quickly. Thus, what we wanted was someone who felt would be really good for the role but maybe wasn’t or at least didn’t understand all the challenges that came with the role.

Maya is a community college student who lives with her mom. In many ways, she’s kind of shiftless. Then, the hand of God comes down and tells her she has purpose, which is something she’s been looking for. Thus, of course, she’s excited about the role. And in contrast, we gave her a teacher who was able to mitigate that excitement somewhat.

Lu: In fairness to Patience, Maya is a little weirdly into her newfound role for someone who witnesses what she does in the issue.

Cady: Here’s the thing though. It always bothers me in fiction where someone gets fantastic power and they’re like “aw man, I hate this.” I get that it ruins your life sometimes and there are plenty of other decent reasons why you don’t want to be the chosen one. But I know that if a warrior nun walked through the door and I got a magic holy spear, I would be a little terrified but I would be really into it. This is the literal. Spear. Of. Destiny.

Howard: Plus, even though something terrible happened around her that was totally out of her control, the universe’s immediate response to that is to say “well, here is some control you have over it.” So, her reaction is to say “oh, well, things felt completely out of control, but you’re saying I have the power to fix it? Great, I’m going to do that.” I’m a total handraiser and a total fixer so I know that the lesson that people like Maya have to learn is that just because you think you have the power to make something right doesn’t mean you have the knowledge to do so correctly.

Maya is like a lot of young people who feel a little out of control right now. That’s kind of like…I hate to use the m-word, but it’s like the “millennial” problem. The universe throws you a problem and the means to fix it. What does it mean to take on the challenge of repair—or what does it mean to shirk that opportunity instead?

Lu: In many ways, this portrayal of the Magdalena universe is very progressive. However, in the past, many Top Cow series have been, to a greater or lesser extent, informed by an element of cheesecake or objectification. What would you say to people who are worried about trying your take on Magdalena based on that history?

Howard: Christian was an active and considered choice for us. Ryan, Christian, and I are making a Magdalena book that’s a horror book. We’re all huge horror fans and for me, one of the most important things about the genre is that, whenever I was looking strong female leads and there was nowhere else I could go to find really good female leads, I could always find them in horror—Halloween, Alien, Texas Chainsaw Massacre—all of these feature women who are not sexualized but instead take charge, save the day, and kick ass. And on the other hand, I don’t think there’s anything necessarily wrong with cheesecake. As a woman who likes women I like looking at cheesecake—you just can’t eat it for every meal or else you get a stomachache.

Part of our book is also looking into and challenging this cheesecake idea. Patience is a little bit older—she’s thirty-two, and Patience is definitely still sexy, but not necessarily a pin-up. There’s a line where one of the demons calls her a hag, and her response is “I’m thirty-two!” I’m not a hag!

We want our characters to look good and look cool. Confidence is sexy. Ellen Ripley is sexy because she’s confident as hell. Being a horror book, our focus was on making competent heroine that held up to the women we love in horror rather than sexy visuals, but hey…if you want to make sexy Magdalena fan-art, go nuts. We’d love to retweet it!

Cady: In the second issue, we make a joke where someone calls Patience’s outfit a “dominuntrix” outfit. She responds “what are you talking about?” This leather armor is what she goes into battle in—it’s what she feels confident in. It’s not meant to be ogled. We’ll retweet the sexy fanart, but that’s not what this is to that character, and Maya might also choose to be armored differently.

Howard: It was exciting to me as a female writer to be able to develop our characters’ styles. I have Pinterest boards devoted to what these characters would wear. It’s very important to me for characters’ personalities to be reflected in what they wear. I wouldn’t want to make any of our characters sexy for the sake of being sexy any more than I’d want to make them look Gothic for the sake of looking Gothic unless it reflected who they are.

[juan678]

Maya 19 years old
Magdalena 32 in the interwiew
in Witchblade 185 35 years old (2015); now 36

[Paulie Blade]

This interview got me pretty hyped, I admit that.

[juan678]

http://www.newsarama.com/32955-magda...al-horror.html

[juan678]

Newsarama: Tini, Ryan, what's going on in this new Magdalena title?
Tini Howard: We begin with Patience as we know her - or, if you don't, getting a bit of who she was before, and we see something happen to her that changes everything. When that happens, Patience has to make a hard decision: either accept that she can't do the job herself and find help, or resist her own replacement, putting the world in danger from demons. She picks the first one, and that's what the book's about – Patience training the next Magdalena, Maya Dos Santos.

The Magdalena is, if you're not aware, a descendent of Mary Magdalene and Jesus Christ. She can wield the spear that pierced his side at the crucifixion and stop evil stuff with it.

Ryan Cady: Tini's answer is pretty solid, but I'd be remiss if I didn't plug the horror aesthetic we're injecting into things. Magdalena has always featured these horror elements, but we're really upping the ante with all the demons and occult imagery - all thanks to our fantastic art team. The action and character development fans enjoyed is all still there, but it's all a little spookier.

Nrama: How would you describe Patience in this series?

Howard: Hurt - in more ways than one. She's having a crisis of faith, a crisis of identity. She's in her early thirties and feeling like she's training her replacement - not a great feeling!

Cady: And to add, a lot of fans are really worried that we're sidelining Patience, or that this is, in effect, no longer her story - to that, I say: The Magdalena is a sisterhood, not a person. This isn't a story just about Patience, but it isn't just a story about Maya, either.

Nrama: And her new prodigy, Maya Dos Santos – who is she?

Cady: Most Magdalenas we've met so far have been raised in convents, or trained since birth - but a bloodline isn't really something that's that easily tracked. Maya's what happens when you meet a Magdalena in the wild.

Howard: Maya is a goth little slacker from SoCal who is bored with existence and wants like, some sort of sign, you know, of like, what she should do? And then she gets a big one.
Nrama: And what are they up against, in the initial arc at least?

Howard: A pop sorcerer with more aesthetic than good sense, but deep, deep ties to the Above and Below. We love him very much. Oh, and tons of demons. That's Christian DiBari and Mike Spicer's forte - Christian draws the best demons in the biz, and Spicer knows the colors of Hell like nobody else.

Cady: We're looking at serious demonic threats in a world that is increasingly secular - Patience has always had friction with the Vatican, but now she's on her own, with this new apprentice, and they're facing some literal Princes of Hell. Not to mention Patience has a serious injury, and Maya is very, very new at this.

Nrama: Patience had a tough time with her own training as Magdalena, under the Inquisiton and Kristof. How does that experience affect how she's training this new, would-be next Magdalena?

Howard: Oooh, this is a Ryan question for sure.

Cady: [Laughs] It's funny - if you read all the older volumes, the Vatican and the Knights of Malta effectively always screwed things up for the Magdalena. All the infighting and scheming and betrayals; they don't last very long. So Patience is really trying to break away from that, and train Maya from experience. In a lot of ways, that's good - she's actually held the Spear and fought with it, so she has practical experience to pass on that her trainers didn't.

On the other hand, "doers" can be really harsh teachers, and it’s hard not to have high expectations - especially when there's demons trying to kill the both of you.

Nrama: How does this fit in with the previous Magdalena stories at Top Cow?

Howard: It's a new volume, which is the best way to describe it. As Volume 4, you absolutely don't have to come in having read volumes one through three. If you do, there will be cool Easter eggs and places of discovery for you. If you don't, you'll hopefully get a peek into a part of comics' past that we've tuned up, plugged in, and turned up to 11. Heavy metal. Hail Satan.

Cady: Tini covered that pretty well. Patience is an active mentor figure here - you can appreciate hers and Maya's relationship and story just fine without having ever picked up the series before. But just cause it's a fresh start, doesn't mean old school fans won't find tidbits and callbacks aplenty.

Nrama: Tini, you won the Top Cow Talent Hunt, and, Ryan you've been working in Top Cow's editorial offices. How did you connect with each other to do a new Magdalena series?

Howard: Ryan and I were fast friends. I don't even know why. He's such a nice boy and I'm such a witch. But we've been talking constantly about all the cool things we'd like to do with Top Cow characters since we met, after I won the Talent Hunt. So we literally became friends because of comics, because we loved each other’s works, and because we wanted to share ideas. So getting to do this together feels inevitable, and it's exactly as great as I wanted it to be.

Cady: Tini's Talent Hunt class was magic - they were all so talented, and a lot of us have become friends. I jokingly call Tini my “comics big sister,” and when I was doing more editorial at Top Cow, I tried to put her on as many projects as possible.

When I got approval from Matt Hawkins to do a new Magdalena book, I knew that I had to have her on board. And I'm so glad! Our story is different in so many ways from what I would've written on my own, and honestly, so much better for it.
Nrama: Next year will be 20 years that Magdalena has been around. What makes this new series fresh, relatable, and modern?

Howard: Christian's art is a huge factor here. We're fans and friends of the previous art teams, but we wanted Christian because this is a horror book. It's about outwardly scary stuff, like demons, and inwardly scary stuff, like failure, aging, being replaced, being in over your head. What I call the real horror. J

We're also really into our main team - this isn't about Patience, or about Maya. It's about a mentor and a student, and that relationship. And it's two women, which doesn't happen often enough, you know?

Cady: Tini covered this one, too. I could harp about how incredible the art team is, and the horror factor that we both alluded to, but I think the only thing worth adding is that Magdalena is a legacy character, and so of course the stories would evolve with the times, while keeping the same spirit. And that's what we're excited to bring to the table.

[juan678]

[juan678]

MAGDALENA VOL 4 #3
IMAGE COMICS
(W) Tini Howard, Ryan Cady (A) Christian Dibari (CA) Christian DiBari
HELL YES: Who is Weyer Blackwood? How can a wannabe sorcerer sling around the kind of power that makes Patience and the Magdalena nervous? And how many absences is Maya allowed to have in Abnormal Psych?
$3.99