CHRONICLES OF ALOS: THE TOWER Greek Publisher, Nikos Kampouropoulos On the Origins of Alos, Comics in Greece Today, and More

In the first of a continuing series of feature posts on granddesignonline.net, GDC’s David Bernstein talked with Webcomics.gr publisher Nikos Kampouropoulos.  CHRONICLES OF ALOS: THE TOWER is available in English from comiXology and English and Greek from ComicsPlus. David Bernstein: CHRONICLES OF ALOS: THE TOWER is one of the few graphic novels of Greek origin to be published in the USA.  Tell us about the world of Alos, and what kind of readers would enjoy THE TOWER?  Nikos Kampouropoulos: The world of Alos is an epic fantasy setting, composed of humans, elves, dwarves and other humanoid races, in which the dominant element is neutrality. The line between good and evil and light and dark is very large, so anyone can fit in it. There are no distinctive lines and no “greater good” or “most evil” gods to intervene and make everything right. The world “Alos” when pronounced in Greek is “Halo”, so the original idea when naming the world was that even though everything looks nice and bright on the surface, the inside is usually rotten and corrupted. This is a strange concept in epic fantasy to deal with, because usually the readers expect a beautiful prince to save the day and the princess to be a loyal virgin and the evil mage to do evil things and so on; this is not the world and the population of Alos. The readers of the Tower should be prepared for a darker, more cruel world.DB: Did Christos Stavropoulos create the concept? NK: Yes, Christos has created a whole world, its timeline, its history and major events, its traditions and habits, its people and their religion, even the tidal waves and the sea currents and the timezones. He has been working on it for almost 25 years. It is a very detailed world, ready to be explored in more graphic novels and books.  He has already published an award winning short story based on the world of Alos and is now writing his first book, focusing on an ancient race of the world. DB: How did Othon Nikolaidis get involved? NK: Othon and Christos have been friends for many years. So, when Othon started studying the Fine Arts and heard of the world and its stories, he was fascinated. As his passion for comics grew, he drew a mini-comic called “The Tower” in black and white, but it was never published. DB: When did Webcomics.gr become the publisher, and what has been the reaction of your Greek fans?  [ezcol_1third]NK: I had known Othon for a few years and the idea of publishing something Greek started to grow on me. When I saw the draft, having seen some of the most recent works of Othon, I saw how beautiful this could turn out.[/ezcol_1third] [ezcol_2third_end][/ezcol_2third_end]He introduced me to the creator of the world, Christos, and told me they would work together to “expand” the story of the draft and make a graphic novel out of it. The reaction of the fans was instant and breathtaking. People stormed in the comics convention where CHRONICLES OF ALOS: THE TOWER made its debut, and bought every last copy we had. It was great. DB: What was the comics scene like in Greece in the past? NK: Well, for a long time there were only three or four publishing houses in Greece, and they published some of the most popular comics from the USA, like major Marvel, Disney and DC characters and Conan, Peanuts, some French-Belgian BD and rarely, alternative and underground comics. Greek readers were not very used to comics, and they called it “mikimaou”, from Mickey Mouse, because they thought all comics were the same. This started to change in the ‘80s, and especially in the nineties, when more publishing houses decided to publish comics in Greece. DB: How is the comics scene in Greece today? NK: In the mid ‘00s there was a major boost to the comics scene by some newly created publishing houses which introduced many more aspects of the comic books to the Greek readers. There were also two major comics conventions in Athens, and everyone was happy. But this lasted for 4-5 years, when the economical crisis hit Greece, and everything changed. One of the major Greek publishing houses was forced to shut down, and others followed. In 2014 some more will probably go out of business. We hope this will change in a few years and things will go back to normal. [ezcol_1half]DB: What else is Webcomics.gr up to?   NK: We are planning a number of publications on the world of Alos (a new graphic novel soon and a book in the near future), a Greek version of Scott McCloud’s “Understanding Comics” and an English version of our latest graphic novel, “Like A Dream”, by a very talented Greek artist, Kostas Sklavenitis. Last but not least, in the beginning of 2014 we will launch a new webcomics site in www.webcomics.eu, where we hope to publish online many webcomics and online comic strips[/ezcol_1half] [ezcol_1half_end][/ezcol_1half_end]