Tag: Comics

It’s Earth Day and Dark Horse Comics is marking the day by giving away free digital copies of “The Massive,” the new near-future sci-fi tale about life after global calamity from writer Brian Wood (“Northlanders,” “DMZ”) and artist Kristian Donaldson (“Supermarket”). We caught up with Wood, who said this new saga was motivated by something far more insistent than political beliefs — he says it was driven by the searing fear he feels as he sizes up the future awaiting his children. HC: Constructing the calamity scenario and finding the textures of this changed world must have been a key challenge for you — can you talk about approaching that challenge? BW: Coming up with the high concept was easy, essentially just asking myself, “What if everything went to hell all of a sudden?” It was easy to think those thoughts back in 2009 and it ...

Joe Simon, a titan in comics, died in December at 98, just months after his most famous character, Captain America, was leaping to the silver screen. Together with artist Jack Kirby, Simon made the star-spangled superhero one of the most iconic characters in comics. A new book, “Leaping Tall Buildings: The Origins of American Comics,” by writer Christopher Irving and photographer Seth Kushner, explores the life and career of Simon, Kirby and more than 50 other comics creators. “Leaping Tall Buildings” arrives in May, but in the meantime, Hero Complex readers can enjoy a sneak peek with this excerpt: “I was the sacrificial lamb,” Joe Simon says of his first job, at fly-by-night publisher Fox Comics in 1940. “I came in, and we had no staff and I had to do all the covers. I didn’t have a letterer, I ...

Yes, “The New Deadwardians” is another comic about vampires and zombies, but the new miniseries from Vertigo also throws in a generous helping of Sherlock Holmes and a dash of “Downton Abbey.” The miniseries follows Chief Inspector George Suttle, a lonely detective in post-Victorian England, where members of the lower class are zombies, and members of the upper class voluntarily become vampires to escape them. The first issue doesn’t come out until March but is previewed in the “Vertigo Preview 2012″ free sampler, which hits comic stores today. “The New Deadwardians” is illustrated by I.N.J. Culbard and written by popular comics writer Dan Abnett. Culbard has made a name for himself in the comics world, turning classic books into graphic novels — among them Oscar Wilde’s “The Picture of Dorian Gray,” Arthur Conan Doyle’s “The Hound of the Baskervilles” and most recently H.P. ...

“Star Wars: Dawn of the Jedi” takes readers back to the beginning — the creation of the mystic warrior order known as the Jedi. In February, Dark Horse will launch the series with both #0 and #1 — that zero issue, according to writer John Ostrander, will be a handbook of sorts focusing on “many of the characters, places, and tech involved” in this new tale, as well as development drawings by artist Jan Duursema. To learn the ways of the new series, Hero Complex writer Jevon Phillips talked to Ostrander and Duursema. JP: With all that is out there about the Star Wars universe and the Jedi, it would seem like a daunting task to lay the complete groundwork for this influential galaxy. What was the first task that you gave yourselves? JO: This is a time of myth and legend. An epic era. ...

GUEST ESSAY In “Mail-Order Mysteries: Real Stuff From Old Comic Book Ads!” from Insight Editions, which recently hit bookstores, author Kirk Demarais turns back the pages on vintage comic ads, revealing what actually arrived four to six weeks after kids sent in their hard-earned pocket money. Demarais gives us a glimpse of some of his favorite mail-order “treasures” in today’s guest post and gallery. (Click “Captions On” to see the details for each photo.) 1. 7-Foot Monster-Size Monsters: Comic books offered a variety of giant creeps, including ghosts, space creatures and dinosaurs, but they all turned out to be one of two things: balloons or posters. The Monster Size Monsters from Honor House were the latter, printed on two separate sheets of “durable polyethylene,” the stuff trash bags are made of. The ad built high hopes with phrases like “… ...

There are few storytellers in comics history that are more revered than Carl Barks, a titan figure who was one of the three inaugural members in the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame — the other two were Jack Kirby and Eisner himself, who once called Barks “the Hans Christian Andersen of comics.” While Kirby filled the skies of multiple universes with superheroes, gods and aliens, Barks has a legacy that is more narrowly defined: The Oregon native was the creator of Duckburg, a place he populated with Scrooge McDuck, Gladstone Gander, the Beagle Boys and others both feathered and furry. Fantagraphics recently announced a  deal with Disney that will allow them to reprint the Barks run in a truly definitive collection. Our Geoff Boucher caught up with Fantagraphics’ Gary Groth to discuss the project’s heritage and ambition. GB: It’s hard to talk about Carl ...

Next year marks the 70th anniversary of Mister Terrific, the comic book character with a truly awful fashion sense, even by mystery-men standards of the Roosevelt years (Mr. T rocked a Christmas color scheme and the words “Fair Play” emblazoned across his abdomen). Maybe it’s no coincidence he had no real traction in the public imagination. In 1997 the name was adopted by a very different character in the DC Universe and now, with The New 52 initiative, there’s another rebirth of a sort with cosmic overtones. We have an exclusive preview of issue No. 2, which hits stands in upcoming weeks and features the first appearance of a new villain, Brainstorm, who has nasty ideas about our beloved Los Angeles.  Click through the gallery above, or use the links below to see larger versions. Cover | Page 1-2 | Page 3 | Page 4 | Page 5 – Geoff Boucher RECENT ...

Scott Snyder, the creative force behind the ongoing series “American Vampire,” has been handed the keys to two revered titles under the new DC re-launch: “Batman” and “Swamp Thing.” Hero Complex contributor Travis Walecka caught up with Snyder to chat about his plans for both series. This is Part Two of the interview. Read Part One here. TW: Batman, Aquaman and Superman all appear in “Swamp Thing No. 1,” and you’re also writing “Batman.” Will there be a crossover between your two books? SS: Well, Batman and Swamp Thing, they may hold off for a little bit for a while, only because we want to give them each a chance to establish themselves in their little universes for the first year. But they are in a shared universe, so you’ll see things that will happen in “Swamp Thing” affect other characters ...