Chantler and Torres Reteam For Oni’s “Scandalous”

Oni Press is pleased to announce the August release of the second original graphic novel by the DAYS LIKE THIS team of J. Torres and Scott Chantler. SCANDALOUS is an all-new, 96-page story, once more delving into a specific timeframe within the entertainment industry.

Hollywood in the 1950s is a place of big glamour, small talk, and medium cool. The studios control everything, managing their actors’ careers and massaging the image they present to the public. To do this, they need the press onboard, and the one aspect they can’t control–gossip! This means the most powerful woman in Hollywood is Paige Turner, the celebrity columnist for one of America’s most-read papers. Known for her outrageous headgear, Paige is often called “The Mad Hatter”–a nickname with a double meaning, since everyone wants to be invited to her publicity party. When a spicier tabloid mentality creeps into the newsstands, though, Paige sees some of her ground being threatened. And the studios see a roguish new element that might not want to play ball. At the top of this salacious new art form is Harry Richards, “The Tabloid Dick,” the guy with the snooping peepers who keeps getting the scoop. What begins as a war of words ends up being a knock-down, drag-out fight for the number one slot as the biggst rumor monger in entertainment!

“Scott and J. are practically setting up their own cottage industry,” Oni publisher Joe Nozemack said, “digging into significant time periods much like a comic book version of the Merchant Ivory team. J.’s scripts capture the feel and dialogue of the subject, while Scott’s classic illustration style brings everything to life in a way that looks authentic.”

“The fun part of SCANDALOUS was the research into the colorful characters,” Torres said. “The real-life players at the time were far more outlandish than most heroes in the films they wrote about. By creating my own versions, rather than dealing with historical figures, I can smoosh a lot of the different anecdotes together, create an amalgamation. It gives me freedom to move through the many stories that took place in that era.”

“I like to match J.’s research line by line, and then raise the ante,” Chantler added. “It’s not enough to just get the clothes and hair right. In one scene, we feature a lot of books, and I wanted to make sure I got the cover to the Howard Pyle version of ROBIN HOOD just right. I’m a history buff, so while the story is fiction, it’s important to me that the settings and situations seem as accurate as possible. It’s not just window dressing–all of those background details eventually come together into a bigger picture that rings true.”

“Anyone that read DAYS LIKE THIS knows what this pair is capable of,” Nozemack concluded. “By the end of the book, a reader feels like he or she was there, like they were a witness to it all. While that graphic novel saw three nice, teenage girls work their way to stardom, SCANDALOUS shows us what it was like when the niceties are over and what lengths people would go to in order to maintain their fame. It’s like L.A. CONFIDENTIAL, but with better haberdashery.”

SCANDALOUS is a 96-page trade paperback, featuring black-and-white story and art, printed at digest size. It ships to comic book stores on August 25, 2004, and retails for $9.95. The ISBN for the graphic novel is 1-929998-98-8.

Scandalous is ? & © 2004 J. Torres & Scott Chantler. Oni Press logo and icon are ? & © 2004 Oni Press, Inc. All rights reserved. Oni Press logo and icon artwork created by Dave Gibbons.