War Rocket Ajax #105: ‘Princeless’ Writer Jeremy Whitley On Making a Better Fairy Tale

This week on the War Rocket Ajax podcast, Chris and Matt are joined by Jeremy Whitley! He's the writer of Action Lab's Princeless, a fairy tale-inspired comic about a princess who decides to save herself and her sisters and one of the most fun comics of the past year. And you can listen to the whole show, right here at ComicsAlliance!War Rocket Ajax #105: What's Up, Mermaid with Jeremy Whitley

(WARNING: Contains NSFW language)

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In this week's episode, Chris goes on a namedropping spree when he starts talking about multiplayer in Mass Effect 3, and Matt is caught up in "the leathery faced British Gordon Ramsay yelling his head off at these poor sad restaurant owners to get their act together" on Kitchen Nightmares.

When Jeremy joins us, we talk a little about why he wanted to write a new take on the classic princess story, how he made it stand out and how he got it published:

When we found out we were having a daughter, I had one of those moments where I was walking through Target like I usually do, going down the aisle looking at the Iron Man 2 action figures and the Thor paraphernalia and everything that was up there, and I was like "Damn, the girl aisle is right here." You turn the corner, and it's just bright pink tutus and ridiculous pink fluffy wands, just really over the top, solid Pepto Bismol pink end to end.

And the idea that I will have absolutely nothing that I like to share with my daughter is a little nauseating.

[...]

I also want it to be something that kids can enjoy, that parents aren't afraid or hesitant to show to their kids and share with them. I want Adrienne to be a character that kids can enjoy and relate to and want to find out more about, so I have satirical elements to it, but I put a lot of my focus in writing it into her as a character.

I've always been a real character kind of writer. I feel like if you know your characters well enough and you put them in the situations you have, the dialogue should kind of write itself and you should know where you're going almost immediately.

Plus, find out Chris and Matt's favorite and least favorite Disney Princesses. This is a real discussion that we have.

Show Notes:

For more on Princeless, check out Action Lab Entertainment, and find Jeremy Whitley on Twitter!

You can also find Jeremy at Firetower Studios.

Get Princeless digitally on Graphic.ly!

Mitchell & Webb on Gordon Ramsay.

Chris's original review of Princeless.

Chris's original review of Tintin.

Vernon Wells as Bennett in Jeph Loeb's finest work, Commando:

On closer inspection, what we thought was chain mail might be more... crocheted.

Chris's Rec: The Adventures of Tintin on DVD:

Matt's Rec: First Aid Kit's The Lion's Roar

Comics Reviewed:

Suicide Squad #7: "This issue was written by Adam Glass, and it promised the new origin of Harley Quinn, which is the old origin of Harley Quinn, except at the end, the Joker takes her to the chemical plant and throws her into the vat of chemicals. When she comes out, her hair is perfectly split in blue and red down the middle, which... that doesn't even make sense in comics... I guess when she's showing a lot more skin than she used to, they had to explain that she doesn't just slather herself in makeup every morning. It's a weird comic."

Saga #1: "It throws you into this grand sci-fi/fantasy war story without any sort of reader identification character through whom you can learn everything. There's nobody there who's like 'Wait, what's going on?' and everyone's explaining things to that character. You're really thrown into the deep end... There's so much happening in this one issue."

Journey Into Mystery #635: "This book is fun."