As the former artist of Marvel Comics, "Runaways," Adrian Alphona definitely knows how to depict tales of teenage angst and superpowers and in 2008 he'll be taking over the artistic duties on another Marvel Comics series, which still has some super power elements, but they take a backseat to the teen drama, "Spider-Man Love Mary Jane." CBR News spoke with Alphona about his new assignment.

Usually an editor recruits a comic creator for a specific assignment, but in the case of "Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane," but Alphona by asking. "I asked Joe Quesada if they had an artist for the re-launch yet," Alphona told CBR News. "I was very much interested, and the schedules seemed to line up."

Alphona was interested in "Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane" because he had recently become a fan of Marvel's cult teen soap opera. "I was always aware of the book simply because Takeshi [Miyazawa] and Christina [Strain] were doing art chores on it," Alphona explained. "When I finally got around to reading a few issues. I really got into it."

Another reason Alphona was drawn to "Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane" was that it means working with the book's new writer Terry Moore and Alphona is very excited to be collaborating with the creator behind the critically acclaimed "Strangers In Paradise." "Terry has always been known for writing great, multi-dimensional female characters without resorting to easy stereotypes," Alphona said. "Should be a lot of fun and a good learning experience for me."

Alphona has not yet had a chance to start work on any scripts for "Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane," but the artist does have a few ideas for how he might depict characters and scenes in the series. "There was some quirkiness to the characters - MJ, Liz, Gwen in particular - that I would like to hone in on, but that would depend on the script," Alphona stated. "I might like to focus attention on giving the backgrounds and settings a lot of character as well."

While the cast of characters in "Spider-Man loves Mary Jane" and "Runaways" may be of similar age, their day-to-day lives are very different and Alphona is looking forward to depicting the mundane, but dramatic lives of this new collection of characters. "I think I'll be doing a lot more dialogue scenes, but that's what I enjoy the most, so I'm looking forward to it," Alphona stated.

Whatever he ends up depicting, whether it's scenes of dialogue or action, Alphona predicts that "Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane" will be a challenging and enjoyable book to work on. "Following the first run is pretty daunting, so I'm not going to think about it," Alphona said. "I just hope to bring Terry's vision to life. I know it'll be fun for me, so I hope it'll be fun for the audience as well."

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