The Technodrome Forums - View Single Post - Why did Murphy disguise himself as Dean Clarrin?

funatic · 08-25-2013, 02:38 PM

I just spoke to the man himself about this at Bing Con in Springfield! His reasoning was it was his first time working on a kid oriented book and he wasn't sure he'd be any good at it - so he thought he'd try a pen name. He was also working on Puma Blues at the time, which was a more mature affair, and thought it best not to associate the two titles together. AND fun factoid: Dean Clarrian was an anagram of his girlfriend's name at the time: Clare Adriann.

Some other interesting info on why he killed off the Mutanimals: "Anger," was the first word he said. He and Ryan Brown were trying really hard to get the Mutanimals into the cartoons and toy biz. They had plans for a cartoon in development, as well as Dreadmon & Jagwar action figures on the drawing table, but then the management decided to back Space Usagi rather than Mutanimals at the 11th hour. Clearly frustrated, he and Brown decided to just kill off the characters out of spite. He said he regretted his decision now, especially since recently his daughter read those issues, held them up to his face and said "WHY??"

And lastly, when I asked about the Forever War, he said it was propsed to IDW but they currently weren't interested. Maybe if the Archie trades continue to sell to the end, they'd consider finishing it up?

08-25-2013, 02:38 PM	#11
funatic Mad Scientist Join Date: Aug 2008 Location: Northampton, MA Posts: 1,226	I just spoke to the man himself about this at Bing Con in Springfield! His reasoning was it was his first time working on a kid oriented book and he wasn't sure he'd be any good at it - so he thought he'd try a pen name. He was also working on Puma Blues at the time, which was a more mature affair, and thought it best not to associate the two titles together. AND fun factoid: Dean Clarrian was an anagram of his girlfriend's name at the time: Clare Adriann. Some other interesting info on why he killed off the Mutanimals: "Anger," was the first word he said. He and Ryan Brown were trying really hard to get the Mutanimals into the cartoons and toy biz. They had plans for a cartoon in development, as well as Dreadmon & Jagwar action figures on the drawing table, but then the management decided to back Space Usagi rather than Mutanimals at the 11th hour. Clearly frustrated, he and Brown decided to just kill off the characters out of spite. He said he regretted his decision now, especially since recently his daughter read those issues, held them up to his face and said "WHY??" And lastly, when I asked about the Forever War, he said it was propsed to IDW but they currently weren't interested. Maybe if the Archie trades continue to sell to the end, they'd consider finishing it up?