Tala’s mother had told her plainly, if you’re ever in trouble, find Eddie. He can help you. So, she did just that when she was pursued by the S’Taera -- interdimensional beings who believed Tala did not properly observe the “purity” of magic. Tala found Eddie hustling cards and embarrassing himself. Maybe mother doesn’t always know what’s best?

Tala and Eddie’s plight shakes out in a new series from Eric Powell’s Albatross Funnybooks, available for preorder on August 22. Grumble #1, arriving in stores this November, is an ongoing series chronicling Tala and Eddie’s adventures. Written by Rafer Roberts and drawn by Mike Norton -- reuniting after a popular Archer & Armstrong run at Valiant -- Grumble is a raucous adventure story featuring all of its creative team’s strengths: humor, family drama and pugs!

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Roberts and Norton discussed poor role models, creator-owned work, the actual greatest Marvel film and Baltimore being more than The Wire with CBR.

“I think magic has just been on my mind lately,” said Norton. “After I came close to drawing Hellblazer last year (I didn’t end up doing it for scheduling reasons), I was thinking to myself… ‘What if John Constantine was Howard the Duck?’ And Grumble was born.”

Rafer Roberts agreed with Norton’s take on the series origins. “For me, it was when Mike asked if I’d be interested in writing a book about an amoral, magic-using conman who gets turned into a pug by an evil wizard, and his psychic, take-no-nonsense sidekick!”

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The creative partnership between the two dates back only a few years, but the synergy in their pairing pushed them to want to collaborate again. “Since the end of our Archer & Armstrong run a few years ago, we had talked about working on something else together but nothing seemed quite right,” said Roberts. “We wanted to capture that same sense of character-driven anarchy, that chaos with heart, but it wasn’t until Mike pitched me Grumble that we found ourselves a winner.”

When readers and Tala first meet Eddie, he’s gotten himself into a pickle with a group of gamblers who don’t take kindly to chiselers. It makes a reader wonder what kind of story connects Eddie to Tala’s mom, because he’s not the type of guy most mothers suggest you hang around.

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“Eddie and Tala are definitely in a Paper Moon kind of situation with Tala’s mom out of the picture," said Roberts. "However, Eddie’s relationship with Tala’s mom isn’t as clear-cut as her simply being an old flame. As the series progresses, we’ll get more details about Eddie and Tina (Tala’s mom) and how they both loved and hated each other. Between fending off evil wizard attacks, escaping from alien bounty hunters and mob bosses, and avoiding large feline hitmen, Eddie and Tala are gonna have to settle some unfinished business."

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The duo ground their comical magic adventure book in a well-realized, real-world setting -- Baltimore. “I had originally considered setting it in Chicago to make it easier for Mike to find reference,” said Roberts, “but he smartly suggested Baltimore where I spend a lot of my time nowadays. Turns out, that was one of the best early decisions we made as the city has become a character in itself, informing both the narrative as well as the main players.”

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Norton explained that he loves Chicago, but that he has never heard of a comic taking place in Baltimore. Norton's original my first choice was his hometown, Memphis, which will factor into the story as it progresses.

“When thinking of Baltimore, a lot of people picture The Wire, and there is some truth to that,” said Roberts. “But people sometimes forget that Baltimore is also home to John Waters. This city has range! To me, setting Grumble in such a diverse city allows us to get away with some of the weirder stuff. For instance, we’ve got inter-dimensional wizards tearing apart tourists in the Inner Harbor and impish mob bosses setting up shop in abandoned rowhouses. Sometimes the setting is supercritical, like when Eddie and Tala have to travel through one of Baltimore’s more famous monuments in an attempt to find a cure for Eddie’s transformation. Also, rats. Baltimore has kind of an enormous rat problem, both in terms of the number of rats as well as their size, so it was fun incorporating that into the story."

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The creators didn’t mind spoiling one critical plot detail from the first issue, which is that it isn’t long before Eddie winds up trapped in the form of a pug, a form Norton’s very used to drawing in his popular creator-owned series Battlepug. Roberts said he chose the form of a pug for Eddie for three simple reasons: he likes them, they're funny and they're the least harmful animal on the planet.

If it sounds like Roberts and Norton are having fun with Grumble, you’re getting the right idea. “I love writing this weird comic so damn much that I could do it forever,” said Roberts, adding that he's aiming for Grumbles to run somewhere between 15 and 30 issues.

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Roberts and Norton first met when Norton came aboard A&A: The Adventures of Archer & Armstrong to draw the series' fifth issue. Roberts said their editor, Danny Khazem, convinced Norton to stick around.

“I was doing a talk at a library last year, and the organizer had the great idea to Skype Mike in so we could talk about our time working together at Valiant, as well as comics in general," said Roberts. "A few minutes after the talk ended, I get an email from Mike with the subject line 'grumble,' which my paranoid ass read as Mike being angry with me, like, maybe I had said something stupid during the talk! Luckily, that was not the case.”

Roberts explained the benefits of creator-owned work, specifically Grumble’s publisher, Eric Powell and Albatross Funnybooks.

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“Working with Albatross has been great," said Roberts. "Eric and Andrea have been super supportive and super cool to work with. I’ve actually been a fan of Eric’s since the Avatar Goon series, so writing a book on his label is really pretty cool.”

“It’s also amazing to me how ‘at home’ Grumble feels at Albatross," said Roberts. "We’ve got big, dumb, weird action pieces; bizarre creatures and some truly terrifying monsters; but at the heart of it are our heroes, their relationship, and their journey. Eddie and Tala are outcasts just looking to find their place in a world that is constantly trying to kill them both while trying not to kill each other.”

Grumble #1 is available for preorder from Diamond Previews now and arrives in comic shops this November.