Coming on October 28 from Vertigo Comics is the new series ART OPS from Shaun Simon, Michael Allred, and Laura Allred. The series takes famous figures from art and pulls them into the real world, in order to protect them from being destroyed. Shaun Simon and Michael Allred talked to us over the phone about this new series.
COMIC VINE: What's ART OPS all about?
SHAUN SIMON: ART OPS is about a group of secret art operatives who police and patrol art.
CV: So the Art Ops only deal with crime that involves art.
SIMON: Primarily, it's all art and there's a lot of it that a lot of regular people don't see and that's their job, to control and seize it, whatever it may be.
MICHAEL ALLRED: And when you're talking about art, there is so many interpretations of what art is. Anything that can be interpreted as art, anything that is creative. That can be integrated into our series.
CV: Part of the opening of the book deals with the Art Ops pulling characters from their art. What inspired this idea for the book?
SIMON: The whole book came from a title I had, years ago, called "The Assassination of the Mona Lisa." Figuring out why she got out of her frame and who is after her. The whole idea for this grew from that.
CV: Shaun, how much of you is in the character main character Reggie Riot?
SIMON: I think everyone has a bit of Reggie in them. I think he has a chip on his shoulder. There's something big that happens in the past that leads him to be this way. I think he's very relatable to a lot of people of my generation. I grew up being chased by cops on my skateboard and running around the city. All that kind of stuff. For me, I was in bands, playing punk rock shows, going to CBGBs. A lot of it comes from my background, how I grew up and how I got to where I am today.
CV: Michael, what led you to working on this book?
ALLRED: Shelly Bond, the queen of Vertigo, was the first editor I ever had. She worked with a company called Comico which was the first paying gig I ever got. It was a book called JAGUAR STORIES co-creating with Steven Seagle of Big Hero 6 and Man of Action, Ben 10 Fame. The company filed for chapter 11 the book came out, but Steve, Shelly, and I remained very close friends every since. Shelly is a kindred spirit. We love the same movies and musics and we get excited talking about that kind of stuff. Whenever she has an idea, I get real excited to hear what it might be. In this case, she told me this real cool idea that Shaun had. In New York, we just spent all this great time wandering around New York City and sharing ideas and I just fell in love with it.
CV: If you could pull anything or anyone from a piece of art, who or what would it be and why?
SIMON: Interesting question...
ALLRED: It would be Brian Jones phantom teardrop guitars. [laughs]
SIMON: That's a good question. I have a print of Norman Rockwell's The Connoiseur hanging in my hallway and I want to pull him out and turn him around because I like to think he's looking at a mirror and not a piece of abstract art.
Thanks to Shaun and Michael for taking the time to talk to us and make sure to check out ART OPS from Vertigo when it hits stores on October 28.