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Weekly Comic Shopping List 4/7/10

If you can get iPhone (or now iPad) comics from Comixology, look for an anthology there called House of 12 Monthly #1, featuring the storytelling of  Darryl Ayo, Sam Henderson, K. Jensen and Miss Lasko-Gross.  It's an interesting anthology that's great to see taking advantage of a new distribution method.  The only cartoonist in this anthology I'm familiar with is K. Jenson but the rest of the work in this book is compelling.  I would love to see Comixology (and all of the other digital initiatives) focus on putting out this type of little-seen work rather than being dominated by Marvel.  Hopefully I'll have a full review of House of 12 up sometime this or next week.

  • Batman And Robin Deluxe Edition Vol 1 Batman Reborn HC-- I'm looking forward to finally reading Morrison's Batman and Robin, even the Phillip Tan issues.  If I could get through the Tony Daniel's issues, I think I could get through anything. 
  • Area 10 HC-- I've only gotten one of the Vertigo Crime books, Filthy Rich, and wasn't horribly impressed with that book.  It felt like a pastiche of too many things I've already seen over and over again in comics.  Area 10 is Christos Gage (a writer I don't know if I've ever read anything by) and Chris Samnee (an artist I really admire) so I think I'll be picking this one up. 
  • Sweet Tooth #8-- Sweet Tooth is one of the few books out there right now that makes a good argument for the monthly serialization of comics.  Lemire really puts a lot of emotion into each issue.
  • Godland Vol 5 Far Beyond The Bang TP-- This is one of those series that I want to take a weekend out and just read it from beginning to as close to the end as I get in the trades. 
  • Slam Dunk Vol 9 GN-- A fun basketball manga but where's Inoue's Real?  That's his basketball manga that has heart and soul.  And every time that Slam Dunk comes out, I remember I have the first BigViz volume of Inoue's Vagabond sitting on my desk, waiting to be read. 

Weekend Reading-- A Writer's Tale

the_writers_tale.jpg

The hardcover of this has been out for a while now but a few weeks ago, the expanded softcover edition of The Writer's Tale was released.  This book is a series of email correspondents between Benjamin Cook and Russell T. Davies, the lead writer and show runner on the first four seasons of BBC's Doctor Who.  It's not a how-to book, but through the emails, you see how Davies comes up with ideas and writes.  Their emails begin just as Season 3 of Doctor Who is starting to air and Davies has to begin putting Season 4 together.  Cook asks some common questions ("where do your ideas come from?") but he goes far deeper than that, pulling out of Davies his own highs, lows and anxieties of being a writer and being responsible for one of the biggest hits in British television.  And it's massive.  I think I'm about 100 pages into the book already and Davies is maybe just getting to writing the Titanic Christmas special, the first ep of Season 4.

The Writer's Tale is a good book for Doctor Who fans but an even better book for fans of writing.  It shows that there's no right or wrong way to do it; there's only the way of writing.

My stats so high-- a review of The Guild #1

As you grow up, you're supposed to figure out who you are supposed to be.  That's kind of the whole point of "growing up" but no one ever really tells you how to do it.  Sure, your parents and family may try to tell you but their advice is never any good and just does not work for you.  No one can tell you how to be the person you're supposed to be.  And that's probably because no one knows other than you.  No one knows how to be the recluse you are, or the comedian that you are or the caring person that you are.  That's the problem that Cyd has; she does not think she likes who she is but she does not know how to be anyone else.  With a rock-star-wannabe boyfriend that walks all over her, Cyd sees her future as an old maid, stuck as a violinist ("not first violinist, but I've got a seat in the back.  Er, way back,") making fun of the oboists, playing Beethhoven's Fifth twelve hundred times.  That's not really the future that she wants.  She quickly finds out what she does not want.  The question then becomes what does she want?

After three seasons, Felicia Day takes her webseriesThe Guild off the net and writes about the secret origin of Codex (Cyd,) Day's lead character who has as much trouble navigating the world of online gaming as she does the real world.  The Guild #1 is the secret origin of Codex, healer for The Knights of Good, an online gaming guild.  The Guild #1 is actually much more about Cyd than the webseries is.  Day writes about Cyd's pre-Guild life, a life where she's unsure about who she is and who she wants to be.  Cyd, like so many of us, is an outcast in a world full of outcasts.  She's searching for someplace to belong, whether it's in a relationship or in our her work or even in her therapist's office (her dad's making her go.)  Cyd is an uncomfortably familiar character because in her own needy way, she's like so many of us who just want someplace or someone to belong to.

Jim Rugg, who recently wowed the world with his Aphrodisiac, draws Day's story.  While Rugg can pull off the outrageous like he does on Aphrodisiac and Street Angel, he can also do down-to-earth, honest and charming looking stuff like The Plain Janes and now The Guild.  Here Rugg's artwork nicely walks the line between reality and cartoons.  He manages to perfectly capture Cyd, from the way she stares into her webcam for approval to the delight he finds creating Codex in her game.  The character spilling her guts out to us in the comic is the exact same as the character who spills her guts out in the webseries.  Thanks to Day, Cyd has the same voice in both but Rugg makes us believe that there's absolutely no difference between actually seeing Day as Cyd and reading a comic book featuring a slightly cartoony version of her.

The only thing lacking in The Guild #1 is the actual guild.  While we get to see cameos by three members of the guild, there's just not enough of them.  While Codex is easily the main character of the series, Zaboo, Bladezz, Vork, Clara and Tinkerballa are a huge part of the webseries and their absence in the comic is understandable but their presence is hugely missed.  Alone, without the guild, Cyd seems like a lonely, sad girl.  With the Guild, she's sad but, even when she doesn't realize it, she's not lonely.  Her guildmates in the webseries are what give her her unrealized strength.  At least the final pages of The Guild #1 provide hope that we'll see all of her fellow gamers in the next issue of this series. 

For a comic (and a webseries) about gamers and gaming, The Guild #1 isn't a gaming comic; it's a strong book about identity and individualism.  Felicia Day and Jim Rugg take the honesty of the webseries and have created a good story about the basic insecurities we all face, no matter who we are or what we like. 

The Guild #1
Written by: Felicia Day
Drawn by: Jim Rugg
Colored by: Dan Jackson
Lettered by: Nate Piekos

The Death of Comics: Funeral for a story?

Picking up some more thoughts on Brian Hibb's recent Tilting at Windmills article, he had an interesting piece about the actual writing that's taking place in mainstream comics nowadays:

Y'know, I just read an interview by a Marvel editor discussing a particular writer, working on a spin-off one-shot tied to a major crossover, and he phrased his praise as something fairly close to "He's really a good go-to guy when I need This Emotional Beat, taking place between panels X and Y of issue #Z", and I thought, "Wow, that's everything that my comics store really really doesn't need on my racks right now."

Because comics that are This Emotional Beat, Taking Place Between Panels X And Y Of Issue #Z are not rare things. TEBTPBPX&YOI#Z comics kind of fill my racks, and like any midlist cash-grabby kind of thing they usually sell pretty in mediocre numbers, all things considered. And there are more of them coming in next week, too. And the week after that. I don't actually need any more comics that are simply TEBTPBPX&YOI#Z. We'll talk more about this in a minute, though.

I would say that a lot of Geoff Johns writing right now is about those emotional beats.  The way he has Blackest Night and Green Lantern dancing around each other, not covering the same ground but providing the beats that the other story needs to be complete is a perfect example of this.  While I don't know if it's as harmful and horrible as Hibbs makes it out to be, it's hard to argue that the comic racks right now aren't full of comics whose only purpose is to provide "This Emotional Beat, Taking Place Between Panels X and Y of Issue #Z."  (As a side note, I'd love for this phrase to become as commonplace as Heidi MacDonald's "Satisfying Chunks" is.)  For better or worse, a large portion of Brian Bendis' Avengers stories for the last 6 years have been constructed around the idea that certain characters need to be in certain positions for the next big story beat.  How much of New Avengers has been maneuvering characters for Civil War, Secret Invasion and now Seige?

Yes, I realize that I've just named two of the biggest writers in comics right now as directing Hibbs TEBTPBPX&YOI#Z.  These are the creators who have been in command of DC and Marvel for a while now, setting the storytelling agenda of both companies for the last couple of years.  Other writers have to either step in line with the larger stories or step off the ride.  That's what JMS did, stepping down from Thor rather than letting his writing become TEBTPBPX&YOI#Z on that title.  Of course, now that he's taking over a Superman title, I wonder how long until he's taking part in some big Superman crossover and having the writers of Supergirl bend to his will? 

Another interesting piece of writing that surfaced on the 'net last week is David Mamet's Master Class to the writer's of his TV show "The Unit."  In this letter to his staff writers, Mamet sets out his views of serialized TV storytelling.  It's quite a fascinating read that everyone should take the time to peruse through but, near the end, it gets quite fascinating when you think about how this could be applied at Marvel or DC:

START, EVERY TIME, WITH THIS INVIOLABLE RULE: THE SCENE MUST BE DRAMATIC. it must start because the hero HAS A PROBLEM, AND IT MUST CULMINATE WITH THE HERO FINDING HIM OR HERSELF EITHER THWARTED OR EDUCATED THAT ANOTHER WAY EXISTS.

LOOK AT YOUR LOG LINES. ANY LOGLINE READING “BOB AND SUE DISCUSS…” IS NOT DESCRIBING A DRAMATIC SCENE.

PLEASE NOTE THAT OUR OUTLINES ARE, GENERALLY, SPECTACULAR. THE DRAMA FLOWS OUT BETWEEN THE OUTLINE AND THE FIRST DRAFT.

THINK LIKE A FILMMAKER RATHER THAN A FUNCTIONARY, BECAUSE, IN TRUTH, YOU ARE MAKING THE FILM. WHAT YOU WRITE, THEY WILL SHOOT.

HERE ARE THE DANGER SIGNALS. ANY TIME TWO CHARACTERS ARE TALKING ABOUT A THIRD, THE SCENE IS A CROCK OF SHIT.

ANY TIME ANY CHARACTER IS SAYING TO ANOTHER “AS YOU KNOW”, THAT IS, TELLING ANOTHER CHARACTER WHAT YOU, THE WRITER, NEED THE AUDIENCE TO KNOW, THE SCENE IS A CROCK OF SHIT.

DO NOT WRITE A CROCK OF SHIT. WRITE A RIPPING THREE, FOUR, SEVEN MINUTE SCENE WHICH MOVES THE STORY ALONG, AND YOU CAN, VERY SOON, BUY A HOUSE IN BEL AIR AND HIRE SOMEONE TO LIVE THERE FOR YOU.

REMEMBER YOU ARE WRITING FOR A VISUAL MEDIUM. MOST TELEVISION WRITING, OURS INCLUDED, SOUNDS LIKE RADIO. THE CAMERA CAN DO THE EXPLAINING FOR YOU. LET IT. WHAT ARE THE CHARACTERS DOING -*LITERALLY*. WHAT ARE THEY HANDLING, WHAT ARE THEY READING. WHAT ARE THEY WATCHING ON TELEVISION, WHAT ARE THEY SEEING.


What's one of the common knocks against Bendis?  He has too many scenes of the Avengers sitting around a table discussing what they should be doing?  I hope Mamet doesn't get his hands on one of Bendis' scripts.  Or Johns' for that matter.

Part of me wants to think that if these "rules" are good enough for David Mamet, they should be good enough for anyone writing comics.  But the only rule to comics (and writing in general) is that there should be no rules.  Each piece of art is different.  Mamet is setting down the rules for HIS television show but this wouldn't work for Aaron Sorkin.  Mamet's "crock of shit" is Sorkin's bread & butter on shows like The West Wing, Sports Night and Studio 60. 

The problem with comic's writing, mostly Marvel and DC, is that there's not enough variation in it, not enough different voices trying different things.  And that's because Marvel and DC have shown time and time again that they don't want to try different things.  They've fallen into the comfort zone of having huge, line wide story beats that almost everything else has to fall into.  Maybe that's part of the success of Amazing Spider-Man; for the most part, it's avoided the need to serve the general direction of the Marvel U while it concentrates on it's own story. 

"Scenes must be dramatic" vs "He's really a good go-to guy when I need This Emotional Beat, taking place between panels X and Y of issue #Z."  It seems like an easy choice to make and it's probably is too easy.  One creates a story while one ties an issue into a larger picture.  Look at the stories we're getting right now:  Nation X, Seige, The Heroic Age, Cry For Justice, Blackest Night and War of Krypton.  How much of those stories are emotional beats to get from point A to point B?  That's exactly what Blackest Night and everything tied to it has been.  Blackest Night may be one of the biggest successes in comics right now but it's also one of the most disappointing attempts at storytelling, even after the promising start of it. 

In the end, isn't Blackest Night turning out to be an "emotional beat" to get us to Brightest Day?

Weekly Comic Shopping List 3/31/10


  • Blackest Night #8 --  It's over.  It's finally over.  I was really excited about the first couple of issues of this series but then Johns just skipped over anything resembling a 2nd act and moved right into the third act.  I'm glad to see it completed but did it really need to be 8 issues long?
  • Detective Comics #863--  This series really lost the magic when J.H. Williams III went away, didn't it?  I don't know why but  Jock's art hasn't been clicking for the last two issues.  The Question co-feature (don't call it a backup) has been much more exciting than this.
  • Rasl #7-- This is one of those books that, even though I'll get the collected editions, I won't drop the single issues.  It's been exciting to watch Jeff Smith tell this story even if the whole thing hasn't quite gelled yet. 
  • It Was The War Of The Trenches HC-- Tardi is a fantastic cartoonist and storyteller.  This is supposed to be one of his big books. 
  • Penny Century TP-- I think I have a few issues of Jaime Hernandez's Penny Century mini.  All I really remember of it is women wrestlers.  I still need to finish the original Locas stories one of these days. 
  • Tezukas Ode To Kirihito Part 1 TP-- I'm reading Tezuka's MW right now and it's... disturbing is probably the best word for it.  I think Kirihito is more work from the same period, where Tezuka was really pushing his storytelling subjects.  This has been out in a single volume for a while but now Vertical is publishing it as 2 softcovers.
  • Pluto Urasawa x Tezuka Vol 8 TP-- And it's over after this.  The story about humanity in robots is done.  I can't wait to see how Urasawa wraps up this whole thing.

Horton hears a Mysterius-- a review of Mysterius the Unfathomable (tpb)

They don't make comics like Mysterius the Unfathomable anymore.  That may not seem like much of a statement when you consider that it was only last year that Jeff Patker and Tom Fowler published Mysterius the Unfathomable as a five issue miniseries through DC's Wildstorm imprint but even then, Mysterius must have still felt like a old-time comic, recalling the days that Joe Orlando and Jack Davis art sat side-by-side on the newsstand rack.  That's the reason the cover to the new collection of Mysterius works perfect; it looks worn, with frayed edges and a water stain, where someone absent-mindedly put down a glass on it.  The book may already be worn but it's also well read and belongs on every book shelf, waiting to be read over and over again.

An unaging magician who "performs" for the rich and bored, Parker and Fowler's Mysterius is a lout, not quite washed up but far from the hero he used to be.  He was once a magical detective.  Along with Delfi, the name/title of his assistant/companion at any given time, he hunts magical charlatans and ne'er-do-wells like Vinton Dulac, a 60's Satanic cult leader whose followers seemed much more interested in groovy orgies than in any dreams of ascension that Dulac may have.  But that was back in the 60s; today Mysterius conducts seances for those willing to pay his high fees.  When a seance accidentally sends one of those idle rich to a familiar looking hell and intersects another case involving a witch's coven that will go to any lengths to get a mystical idol, Mysterius once again has to save the world from an old foe.

Mysterius the Unfathomable is filled with many characters and a number of different plots that, at first, may seem unnecessary and confusing but writer Jeff Parker has a clear purpose for each and every one of them.  There's barely a line of dialogue or a walk-on character in this book that doesn't serve some higher purpose.  Parker makes sure that nothing and no one are wasted in his story.  It's that level of detail which Parker fuses into his story that makes Mysterius fun.  It's like watching a puzzle being put together without ever really realizing that you're watching someone working on a puzzle.  It's not until the end, when you see the final pieces being put in that you realize there was even a puzzle to be put together.  By the time you get to the third and fourth chapter, you realize that almost everything in the book has had its part to play as Parker continues to build and reinforce his story.  Parker's own slight-of-hand storytelling is just as effective, illusive and captivating as any magic Mysterius uses in the story.

Tom Fowler's artwork creates an amazing balance of horror, suspense and comedy.  Fowler has just the right touch blending the mood and tone without ever losing it.  Too many artists would take Parker's story and either make it too funny looking or too dark, each at the expense of the other, but Fowler perfectly keeps a light hand to his work while still making the world of Mysterius look appropriately dark and foreboding.  Considering that Hell in this book is supposed to look like something out of a Dr. Seuss book, Fowler and colorist Dave Stewart capture the sinister amusement that existed just under the surface of most of Seuss's writing to their version of Hell and bring that same feel to the rest of the book.  While darkness and danger exist in each and every panel, Fowler and Stewart never lose those little touches that make you want to giggle just a bit.

Mysterius the Unfathomable is a throwback comic, going back to the days when writers and artists tried to create a dark and suspenseful mood without going overboard and making it grim and gritty.  If this book was published back in the 60s or 70s, instead of being serialized as a miniseries, the adventures of Mysterius would have been published monthly in a Warren magazine or in one of DC's horror anthologies like House of Mystery.  Parker and Fowler's stories would be perfectly at home sitting beside Joe Orlando, Archie Goodwin, Alex Toth, Sergio Aragones and Angelo Torres on the magazine stands. 


Mysterius the Unfathomable

Written by: Jeff Parker
Drawn by: Tom Fowler
Colored by:  Dave Stewart
Lettered by: Saida Temofonte

Mysterius the Unfathomable is available on Amazon.com.

Weekend Reading-- All Vertical all the time

Somehow, a bunch of Vertical manga showed up on my doorstep this week and I'm looking forward to diving into all of these.

First up is Twin Spica, a new manga series about a girl entering Japan's space school.  It may turn out to be more than that but I'm only a few pages into the book and it's fantastic.  I can't wait to get into more of this book.  If it's as good as the first chapter, this may be the book to really keep an eye on this year.

After that are two offerings from Osamu Tezuka-- MW and Blackjack V10.  I don't know why I've kind of avoided MW before but it's out now in a paperback edition so I broke down and bought it.  I'm looking forward to diving into this book.  And  to fill in some time between books, Tezuka's Blackjack is perfect for that.  There's about 10 or so short stories in this book.  I find I like to read one at a time and then let it sit in a bit before diving into the next story.  The only problem with that is that I've read the front half of most of the Blackjack volumes but by the time I get around to the next story, there's already a new volume out that I start reading. 

(download)

Savage animals-- a review of Elephantmen #24

Have you ever wondered what a fight between and elephant and a hippopotamus would look like? 

Richard Starking won't' let us forget that the Elephantmen were created to be soldiers and to fight wars.  They may act human and dress like Humphrey Bogart from an old detective film (including fedoras and overcoats) but they were never made to be cops, bartenders, businessmen of mankind's friends.  They were created to fight and win the battles that no human troops could ever win.  Starkings brutally reminds us of that as Hip Flask's, the hippo elephantman, "humanity" is over-ridden and he becomes Mappo soldier again and sees his colleague and friend Ebony as the enemy.

I have to be honest and say that Elephantmen #24 is the first issue in a while that's made a strong impact on me.  It's not because they're not good; actually far from it.  It's more because of Starking's deliberate and patient storytelling, telling the small stories and character moments that he wants to amid his much larger tapestry.  It's that patience that gave us three issues of Marian Churchland's wonderful soft art, focusing on key secondary characters.  Issues like those provide color and depth to his world and moved the story forward in their own way even as they filled in puzzle pieces in Starkings' story.  You just have to give Starkings the time he wants and eventually he'll get back to his main story.

Elephantmen #24 shows us just how the world hates the elephantmen and doesn't want them to be anything more than its tools and its weapons.  The hate is violent, shocking and destructive.  This isn't one of Starkings' world-building issues; this is a world defining issue as we see an ugliness that we probably knew was there but wanted to forget and ignore.  That's why this issue stands out; among a slow and deliberately built series, Starkings builds in these moments that bring the reality of the elephantmen's situation back to the forefront.

Elephantmen #24
"Walking Wounded"
Written by: Richard Starkings
Drawn by: Moritat & Chris Burnham
Colored by: Gregory Wright

Old man, take a look at my life...-- a review of Daytripper #4

Old man, take a look at my life...-- a review of Daytripper #4
Message from scott.cederlund@gmail.com:

"After years spent pursuing the wrong love and the not-quite-right job, Brás de Oliva Domingos had finally gotten it together."

At age 41, this is the life that Brás was meant to live.  No longer working as an obituary writer in a local paper or following his friends or lovers on some youth-necessitated trip of discovery, Brás is going to be a father.  Rushing his wife to the hospital as her contractions begin, Brás misses a very important call from his mother, a call telling him that something had happened to his father.

Gabriel Bá and Fábio Moon's Daytripper #4 takes Brás to a point where we haven't seen him yet, to the point where Brás is a family man.  We've caught glimpses of Brás' family in his younger days, in the days were he didn't know how to deal with or accept his father, in the days where he was possibly looking for a love to make a home with.  Issue #4 takes us beyond those days to an older, more mature Brás as he himself is about to become a father.  With an older Brás, the tone of this issue becomes something different than the previous issues have been even as by now we've figured out the structure of a Daytripper issue; it's the events of Brás' life at different points, as he learns about life and love only to have something tragic happen just as he's about to accept and embrace his world and the people around him.  This has been a young man's story so far, as a man searches for a perfect love.  But in this issue, he's finally found it with a wife and a son.  He's finally moved beyond the self-involved stage he was at in the first couple of issues and is ready to become a family man, just like his own father.  He had gotten it together.  And, as in each issue before it, Brás' happiness comes too late.

In four issues, Bá and Moon have shown us moments of Brás' life, moments that can't have possibly happened after the first issue and the tragic ending there; moments that couldn't have happened after the second, the third or now the fourth issue.  With each issue, they close Brás' story but, sure enough, they're Báck one month later with a new moment to show us, a new event in Brás life that reveals to us the man he is and the man he can be.  Here in issue #4, we see Brás as almost a father and as a son, experiencing all the emotions, joys and losses of life and death simultaneously; even as his son is being born, he has to bury his father.

Moon's artwork is near perfect as he reveals so much of story just through simple body language.  Brás spends so much of this issue looking to his right or his left that when Moon draws him looking straight ahead, it's startling.  Flipping through Daytripper #4 and watching where Brás is looking, it's like his life is happening to the side of him, in the corners or even behind him.  His life is rarely in front of him or he's rarely looking at his own life head on.  It's a moment like the birth of his son that finally makes him look at what is in front of him.  It's then when he finally faces up to his life and responsibilities.  But it doesn't last long.  Even on the last page of the story, Brás is looking off to the side again, trying to catch a glimpse of some hidden object or person and ignoring what's right in front of him.

Where does Brás' life go from here?  Another event, another life and another tragic ending most likely. 

Daytripper #4
"Chapter Four:  41"
Written and Drawn by: Gabriel Bá & Fábio Moon
Colored by: Dave Stewart
Lettered by: Sean Konot


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This blog post is being shipped 3 weeks early. Do you care?

I don't usually post press releases but I've got a major problem with this one:

GREEN HORNET: YEAR ONE #1 TO SHIP 3 WEEKS EARLY!

Legendary Writer Matt Wagner's Green Hornet: Year One follows the astounding success of Kevin Smith's Green Hornet #1!

Following the successful launch of Kevin Smith's Green Hornet, Dynamite Entertainment is releasing Green Hornet: Year One #1 a full 3 weeks early!  The very first days of the original Green Hornet and his faithful sidekick Kato begin under the masterful hand of writer Matt Wagner and artist Aaron Campbell! Follow Green Hornet and Kato as they move into the pages of history and form the ultimate crime-fighting duo!

With a renewed interest in Green Hornet due to Kevin Smith's comic book and the upcoming major motion picture starring Seth Rogen, now is the time to read our Green Hornet comic books!  Green Hornet: Year One features the writing of Matt Wagner, bringing the characters to their basic roots a la All-Star Superman!  Rooted in the pulp tradition, the original tales of Britt Reid and Kato begin here! Joining Wagner is artist Aaron Campbell (Sherlock Holmes), whose stunning recreation of the industrial world of 1930's Chicago is sure to wow fans across the globe!  Witness the origin of the original Green Hornet in Green Hornet: Year One #1!

"THE GREEN HORNET stands as one of the prototypes of the modern super-hero...and yet, surprisingly, the original version of the character featured no distinct origin tale," says writer Matt Wagner.  "In GREEN HORNET; YEAR ONE, we're filling in the holes so that new and old readers alike can finally see and understand what makes this character such a long-lasting and vital part of American pop culture!"

"At long last the Green Hornet and Kato return, not only to their gritty roots, but in a way that has been lacking since their debut over 70 years ago," adds artist Aaron Campbell.  "Matt Wagner's take on this iconic duo is sure to set the gold standard for years to come."

"Matt is the perfect writer to pen this tale.  And after seeing Aaron's art on Sherlock Holmes, he stood out as the artist that would bring the right feel to this series.  Dynamite is proud to have Matt and Aaron be the team behind this special series.  They are integral to it!"  stated Dynamite President and Publisher Nick Barrucci.

THE GREEN HORNET: YEAR ONE #1
Written by MATT WAGNER
Art by AARON CAMPBELL

32 pages $3.99

To find a comic shop near you, call 1-888-comicbook


For art and more information, please visit: www.dynamiteentertainment.com

ABOUT DYNAMITE ENTERTAINMENT:

DYNAMITE ENTERTAINMENT, the publishing division of DYNAMIC FORCES, INC., was founded in 2004 and is home to several best-selling comic book titles and properties, including Red Sonja, Project Superpowers, The Boys, Army of Darkness, Battlestar Galactica, The Lone Ranger, Zorro and more!

In addition to their critically-acclaimed titles and best selling comics, Dynamite works with some of the most high profile creators in comics and entertainment, including Alex Ross, John Cassaday, Garth Ennis, Michael Turner, Jim Lee, Michael Avon Oeming, Brian Reed, Mel Rubi, Marc Guggenheim, Stephen Sadowski, Mike Carey, Jim Krueger, Greg Pak, Brett Matthews, Matt Wagner and a host of up and coming new talent and fan favorite creators!

DYNAMITE is consistently ranked in the upper tiers of comic book publishers and several of their more recent launches - including Alex Ross and Jim Krueger's PROJECT SUPERPOWERS - have debuted in the Top Ten lists produced by Diamond Comics Distributors. In 2005 Diamond awarded the company a GEM award for Best New Publisher and another GEM in 2006 for Comics Publisher of the Year (under 5%). The company has also been nominated for several industry awards, including the prestigious Eisner Award.

Aside from their monthly periodical comic book series, DYNAMITE also produces new and classic material, including Tim Truman's SCOUT, Carlos Trillo and Eduardo Risso's BORDERLINE and TALES OF TERROR, Jim Starlin's DREADSTAR, as well as well as reprint editions of classic RED SONJA material.


I'm glad that the comic is shipping three weeks early but does it actually say anywhere in this release when the actual release date was or when the new release date is?  Other than the opening line, this press release is just a general release about the book and has nothing to actually do with the proposed subject of the release.  I guess I could actually try to be a journalist or something (perish the thought) and email Dynamite asking for clarification but I hate to say that I don't even really care.  I'll be getting the trade anyway.

Oh, and if you're Dynamite and if you're going to call out that you're publishing classic material like Jim Starlin's Dreadstar, please ship the book that I ordered back in October sometime in 2010.  I'm not being too picky there, am I?