Ryall - ProfilesArchive

About Me

I'm the Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of IDW Publishing, a San Diego-based publisher of comics and graphic novels. We publish horror comics and lots of licensed books based on properties like CSI, Joss Whedon's Angel, and Transformers. Other stuff, too, but IDW's site is a much better source of everything we publish than this space is.
As a writer for the company, here's what I've done so far:
Shaun of the Dead #1-4 and a TPB/HC, with artist Zach Howard
George A. Romero's Land of the Dead #1-5 and TPB with artist Gabriel Rodriguez
Masters of Horror #1-2, with artist Jeremy Haun. TPB will be out in August '06
Doomed #1, adaptations of Richard Matheson's "Blood Son," with Ashley Wood (for which we were nominated for an Eisner Award for Best Short Story. We'll know in mid-July if we win or not); also, David J. Schow's "Blood Rape of the Lust Ghouls," with artist Eduardo Barreto, and Robert Bloch's "Final Performance," with Kristian Donaldson
Doomed #2, an adaptation of David J. Schow's "Bagged!" with artist Ashley Wood
CSI: Dying in the Gutters 1-5. I appear in this storyline as a character, but I didn't write or draw the book
Clive Barker's The Great and Secret Show 1-12 with artist Gabriel Rodriguez (issues 1-9 are available now, with the final three finishing by May 2007)
Zombies vs Robots 1-2 with my fellow Eisner-loser, Ashley Wood
D'Airain Aventure 1- . This is Ashley Wood's book but I write two of the stories in each issue, "Black Magick" and more "Zombies vs Robots" serials
Transformers: The Movie Prequel 1-4 with co-writer Simon Furman and artist Don Figueroa
Transformers: The Movie Prequel in-theater giveaway with co-writer Simon Furman and artist Andrew Wildman
Gene Simmons' House of Horrors #1: "Sector Seven" with artist Steph Stamb.
Coming up:
Clive Barker's The Great and Secret Show TPB, Vol. 2 (Volume 1, collecting issues 1-6, is available now)
The Zombies vs Robots HC collection, collecting our previous issues and some new tales, too. Oversize, beautiful, and in stores on August 8.
Zombies vs Robots vs Amazons #1-3 with artist Ashley Wood. Coming in September '07
Beowulf with artist Gabriel Rodriguez. Four weekly issues coming in October '07
Transformers Movie Prequel Special DVD Comic: Target release only with artists Don Figueroa and Andrew Wildman. Coming in November '07
Clive Barker's The Great and Secret Show Deluxe HC. Coming in December '07
Prior to all of this, I ran Kevin Smith's MoviePoopShoot.com for almost four years (he's since changed the site to QuickStopEntertainment.com and I've taken my ramblings to www.Comics101.com), served as an advertising copywriter, a corporate speechwriter for Honda, a project director for Dick Clark Communications, and a paperboy (in reverse order).

My Interests

Same interests I've had since I was a pre-teen: music, girls and comics, but not always in that order. Oh, and Guinness beer, an interest I didn't have as a pre-teen but should have. Also, ninjas.

I'd like to meet:

Rod Serling in 1955.Stan Lee in 1965.Vin Scully in 1975.Bo Derek in 1980.Kurt Cobain in 1990.Also, Little Chris Ryall in 1980, to tell him not to worry, that he not only wouldn't have to outgrow reading comics, but that he'd eventually go on to making a living working on them. And yes, Little Chris, you would meet, work with and talk to Stan Lee on multiple occasions. It's all going to work out just fine, so you can stop being such a nervous, skittish little guy.

Music:

It's the rare band that falls into the Top 40 that I can actually tolerate, but most anything else will work for me. Of interest all the time are Motorhead, Foo Fighters, Wilco, Tito & Tarantula, Afghan Whigs, Ryan Adams, Mike Peters, Giant Sand, Anthrax, The Mars Volta, B.R.M.C, Tesla, Flaming Lips, Beck, Bad Religion, Brian Setzer, Spoon, Sublime, Toy Dolls, Johnny Cash, Madness, Rush, Queens of the Stone Age (and Kyuss and Mondo Generator and Eagles of Death Metal, of course), Queensryche, Nick Cave, Morphine, System of a Down, Pearl Jam, Madness and The Specials, Keb Mo, Grandaddy (damn you for breaking up), Mark Lanegan, the Jayhawks, Drive-By Truckers, old Metallica, Queensryche, Dream Theater, A Perfect Circle, Monster Magnet, Fiona Apple, Iron & Wine, My Morning Jacket, Sammy Hagar, Stephen Lynch, Arctic Monkeys, Calexico, my current crush Jenny Lewis and Rilo Kiley, old Kiss, Bad Religion, Dropkick Murphys, Stephen Lynch, Tiger Army, Common Sense, Portishead... I could go on and on but you've long since stopped reading, haven't you?

Movies:

Long lists are boring, eh? I like cheesy horror flicks, funny comedies that aren't all pie-fucking and farting, and other such movies. If I list them, I'm only going to list the ones that make me seem cooler than I am, like Marty or 8-1/2, and I'll leave off things like They Call Me Bruce and Humanoids From the Deep, so let's save that and just say that I've never liked a Martin Lawrence movie (outside of Boomerang, if that counts) and never disliked a Quentin Tarantino movie. And I most want a box set of Coen brothers flicks. I see much fewer movies in theaters now that I have a daughter at home (named after a Peanuts character, not a '50s sitcom star)...

Television:

Unlike Fox, I loved Arrested Development; I tend to get into shows after it's too late--hence my posthumous love for shows like Freaks & Geeks, Undeclared and now Veronica Mars. Recently, I dug Dexter on Showtime, I catch most of HBO's shows, and The Colbert Report, The Office, The 4400. Oh, and dumb Discovery channel shows about UFOs, or Giant Squids, and Sportscenter.Also, I remember liking The Man From Atlantis and BJ and the Bear as a kid, but can't quite remember why.

Books:

I like books. I also edit and write them, the ones with pictures in them. Books are good. People should read more. I think my favorite book is Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles, which I've tried hard to adapt at IDW, but I think we'll land on Mars for real before that happens, unfortunately. When not writing or editing or taking the occasional "Guitar Hero II" break, I'm usually reading one of 5 or 6 books at a time.

Heroes:

Hiro and Sylar both.Also, the guy who invented the iPod Video. He'd make my lifetime list if he'd invent a 300 GB model.Also, the guy who cured all those old diseases I no longer have to worry about was pretty cool, whatever his name is. Hope he got paid well.And the Thing, from the Fantastic Four.

My Blog

A Beauty? A Geek? Both?

This Tuesday, October 23, I'm appearing on BEAUTY & THE GEEK (8 PM, The CW). Which will at least please my friends who I've been bothering with this news since July. Yes, it'll soon be over and I'll s...
Posted by Ryall on Fri, 19 Oct 2007 09:04:00 PST

Chris Ryall, Super Genius

Really, it's true. Clive Barker said as much in an interview at IGN.com today:"...what Chris Ryall did was absolutely not something that you could do with half your brain. He took a very complicated n...
Posted by Ryall on Fri, 12 Oct 2007 07:57:00 PST

Jai oublier tout ma francais a luniversite!

That means, approximately, that "I have forgotten all my college French." Which I hope isn't actually true, even after years of non-use, because I just got invited to be a guest at "Salon Internationa...
Posted by Ryall on Sat, 15 Sep 2007 09:51:00 PST

Detox

I spent the last three days without Internet access on anything but my phone and it nearly killed me. We went to Oregon to visit the wife's dad, so he could see his grandkid now that she's fun and liv...
Posted by Ryall on Mon, 03 Sep 2007 10:48:00 PST

Wait, theres more!

I forgot to mention some other cool IDW stuff. Planning to buy the TRANSFORMERS movie DVD in October? If Yes, See below. If no, well, that's probably because it won't be released on Blue-Ray...if you ...
Posted by Ryall on Thu, 23 Aug 2007 12:00:00 PST

They still make blogs?

Damn you, Facebook, and your confusing cousin Linkedin, and J-Date, and whatever else I keep signing up for, you've all made me neglect my MySpace page. I'll admit that I sign up for just about everyt...
Posted by Ryall on Thu, 23 Aug 2007 11:24:00 PST

Off to the UK. Bonus! Signing Info change!

I'm just about to board a plane to England and Wales, but I was just informed of a change to the store signing I'm doing on Saturday, June 9. It's still at Orbital Comics in London, but at their manga...
Posted by Ryall on Tue, 05 Jun 2007 06:30:00 PST

Signing in Blighty!

Did I use "Blighty" properly...?It's amazing how much English I speak and yet how un-English I feel... but maybe that will soon change. See, in early June, I'm headed to the U.K. (England and Wales), ...
Posted by Ryall on Sat, 26 May 2007 12:53:00 PST

The Penultimates

It's almost time...!My year-plus-long attempt to properly adapt Clive Barker's novel, The Great and Secret Show, to comics is nearing its public conclusion. I swear, the efforts of people like (in no ...
Posted by Ryall on Wed, 11 Apr 2007 10:02:00 PST

Deal with the Demon

Anyone can promote something before it happens, right? It takes an especially lazy person to promote something after it's too late for anyone to act on what they read... So the WizardWorld Los Angeles...
Posted by Ryall on Wed, 21 Mar 2007 10:04:00 PST