Tech

EXCLUSIVE PREVIEW: Hardman and Bechko go ape one last time

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Social Links for Dan Greenfield
Published Aug. 1, 2013, 11:23 p.m. ET

Read us long enough and you’ll see we have some favorites around these parts. One that we’ve touched on before is Planet of the Apes.

There’s so much on the monkey planet I want to get to and I will. What will I find out there? My destiny.

In the meantime, Boom! Studios’ excellent Planet of the Apes: Cataclysm by the husband-and-wife team of Corinna Bechko and Gabriel Hardman and artist Damian Couceiro, is reaching its endpoint with issue 12, out next Wednesday, Aug. 7.

And we have the EXCLUSIVE PREVIEW right here, along with a quick Q&A with Bechko and Hardman. Pictures first, then words below!

Mego Zira digs it and says, “GO APE!” for Cataclysm.

And now Corinna and Gabe, Boom’s Zira and Cornelius, if you will:

Since some people are just catching up, tell us where things stand going into the finale.

Bechko: Big societal changes were happening during our third arc, the fallout, if you will, from the destruction of the moon. A new religion was introduced and Dr. Zaius’ wife, Siena, was killed during a chimpanzee uprising. The short-lived coup was ironically the end result of Cornelius’ discovery of a renegade chimpanzee community during an expedition organized by Dr. Zaius himself.

What can readers expect from this issue?

Hardman: We’re setting out to pay off the storylines from Cataclysm and also tackling a huge continuity gap in the original movies. All in 22 pages.

Bechko: For the last issue we take a big jump forward to tell the story of how brilliant chimpanzee scientist Milo was able to get himself, Zira, and Cornelius off the planet just before it was destroyed, and pilot a stolen spaceship back in time to intersect with the timeline of the third feature film, “Escape From the Planet of the Apes.” Along the way we see how the loss of Siena destabilized Dr. Zaius to the point that a personal vendetta could destroy two civilizations.

Tell us what research you did in linking your series to the POTA films.

Bechko: We had already watched all of the films countless times before ever imagining that we might have the privilege of writing a Planet of the Apes comic, but we watched them again before we got started. We continued to re-watch relevant bits to make sure we were getting our facts straight as we went along and we consulted the screenplays too. In addition, Rich Handley’s “From Aldo to Zira: Lexicon of the Planet of the Apes: The Comprehensive Encyclopedia” proved invaluable.

What else do you have coming on the Apes front?

Hardman: Cataclysm #12 is going to be the last word on Planet of the Apes for us so we decided to go bold. But it felt like it was the way to go out. Why not try to be ambitious?

Bechko: I loved having the chance to add a little corner to the Planet of the Apes universe, and I’d really like to thank everyone who read our take on it.

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Bechko and Hardman are wrapping up their highly successful time on the Planet of the Apes but they have a lot other things on the horizon:

Bechko: Gabriel and I are continuing our run on Star Wars: Legacy from Dark Horse. We also have a creator owned one-shot coming out from Dark Horse soon called Station to Station. And if you’re a fan of fairytales, look for “Once Upon a Time: Shadow of the Queen,” a graphic novel I co-wrote with Dan Thompsen that will hit in early September from Marvel.

Hardman: My digital-first series Kinski is available exclusively through Comixology. It’s a quirky black-and-white crime story that I wrote and drew about a guy who steals a dog. If you like dogs and subtly dark psychological undertones, this story is for you!

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