CASANOVA, one of my very favourite comics, reaches the end of its third volume on June 20.  After the cut, please enjoy a preview of CASANOVA: AVARITIA #4 by Matt Fraction and Gabriel Ba.  And then go and buy all the books if you haven’t already and then squat by your comics store or iPad like a stoned gibbon with a sore bum until this wonderful comic is released.  Begin.

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Farel Dalrymple is producing some wonderful work in this first chapter of what you might describe as a "stream of unconsciousness" comic, IT WILL ALL HURT at Study Group.  It seems to be an exercise in capturing the shifting settings and embodiments of dream reality, and it works (for me) almost eerily well.  Even though he has a shelf of awards by now, Dalrymple still seems to me to be under-read and low-profile in the medium.  He’s one of those creators that people should be talking about every day.  I know he’s working on a book for First Second right now, and he recently changed gears to produce a fine illustration job for an issue of PROPHET.

IT WILL ALL HURT will be adding new sections every Friday, I believe.

From his Flickr.  His new graphic novel is SHARKNIFE DOUBLE Z.  There’s a preview of it here.  I dimly recall writing a quote for its back cover.

Rafael Grampa’s been producing some fine covers lately, but, for my money, none finer than this piece for Brian Wood & Kristian Donaldson’s new comics project at Dark Horse, THE MASSIVE.  Colours by Dave Stewart.

Grampa’s Flickrstream is here.

Is a clever bloody artist.  Inspect his Flickr stream here.

Francesco Francavilla has fun:

A few more at the link.

Tom Spurgeon:

I would argue that the comics shops moved past any real, collective desire to even try to sell alternative and independent comics long before the publishers of those comics by necessity switched some of their focus to the book trade.

Comics artist Francesco Francavilla’s hobby appears to be slinging gorgeous illustrations up on the web for the fun of it.  Check this recent gem from his Pulp Sunday artblog:

Go on.  Tell me you’re not just the least bit amused by that. Brian Churilla’s THE SECRET HISTORY OF D.B. COOPER plays like Mike Mignola at his most hard-boiled adapting every goofy film about dreams that you ever sat through. If you love Mignola’s HELLBOY, you’ll find a lot to like in Churilla’s comically grim, energetically cartooned tale of an oneiric sniper scowling his way through Lovecraftian mindscapes.

Also, Occult Mutilated Teddy Bear.  Money in the bank.

There’s a fuller preview of the first issue at this link here.  I think COOPER will develop into an entertaining genre mashup in the mode of THE SIXTH GUN.

It comes from Oni Press (who sent me PDFs of the first three issues, so I know whereof I mumble), and launches on March 14.  You can contact your local comics store and give them the Diamond order code JAN12 1215.

Earlier today, Eric Stephenson at Image Comics kindly flowed me along an Advance Reading Copy of the first issue of Brian K Vaughan (Y THE LAST MAN, LOST) and Fiona Staples’ new comics series, SAGA.  Below, a section of the first issue’s cover, which got some idiot cheesecake painter all aerated because it’s apparently disgusting and  “shock value” and The Reason Why Kids Don’t Like Comics No More:

Yes.  Drawn Lady is drawn nursing Drawn Baby.  Presumably the real thing reduces persons of delicate sensibilities to projectile vomiting.  (He’s since removed his post because so many people shouted at him.)

And, of course, it’s not a comic for kids.  Defining “kids” as, I dunno, under twelve.  Because there’s childbirth and swearing and alien sex in it.  None of which was new to me when I was twelve, and I didn’t even have the fucking internet, but whatever.  That’s not what we’re here for.  I’m just making the point that this is clearly a sf/f book for non-infants.  It is, I think, a very good comic, and one that will prove something of a barometer for the maturity of the current commercial comics market.

First things first: this opening issue of SAGA is the first chapter of what will clearly be a very longform sf serial about war and politics, magic and science and love and sex.  The clue is kind of in the title.  Brian, an extremely gifted author, has written a clever and charming script, and Fiona Staples, whom I’ve previously seen very little by, is demonstrably a very intelligent artist who creates warm and characterful performances for her actors while spinning out perfectly weighted storytelling that puts me in mind of experts like Steve Dillon.  It’s a little like listening to an orchestra tuning up and running through the early phrases of a big symphony, sounding the main themes and hinting at the complex beauty to come.

Romeo and Juliet up there are Marko and Alana, from either side of a war that has no good side.  And what they did – having her umbilical gnawed off there – was something that apparently never should have happened.  And it’s her story (or will be):

Because, you see, the book is shot through with panels like this, and lettering like this, as if from a children’s book.  And that’s the baby’s narrative.

You can almost guarantee that someone or other will complain about one juxtaposition of elements or other.  That the perfectly lovely children’s-book bits and the cherished violent bits should not be seen in the same place as baby-feeding and robot fucking.  Or that the robot fucking is excellent and the character writing just gets in the way.  Or that the whole thing is too slow and “decompressed,” or that the swearing distracts from the magical bits, or, I don’t know, babies disturb their wanking or something.  Either people will recognise this as the opening notes of a rich and extended piece that contains much, as a novel should, or they are going to find a panoply of bad reasons to complain about it.

None of which feels right to talk about, in a way.  I’ve talked about all these poisonous suppositions I have, instead of focussing on the work itself, which is bad form.  But I want to be true to the feeling I had on closing the issue, which was, simply: god, what if the commercial comics market in 2012 might not support a novelistic longform serial written by Brian fucking Vaughan?  As with much to do with comics lately, I would like to be wrong.  Because I would like to read a lot more of SAGA.

It’s a terrific book, and another sign of the new resurgence at Image Comics.  It is a wonderful thing to welcome Brian back to the medium, and a wonderful thing to discover the art of Fiona Staples.

SAGA #1 is released on 14 March 2012 from Image Comics.  It will cost USD $2.99.  You can contact your local comics shop and give them the order code JAN120485, if you want to arrange your copy in advance.  Which I would recommend.

Related articles

• Brandon Graham & Simon Roy’s PROPHET (warrenellis.com)
• Brubaker & Phillips’ FATALE: A Preview (warrenellis.com)
• The First Comic I Ever Loved (warrenellis.com)

A century ago, a disaster known only as the Big Wet destroyed society as we know it. Half the world is now covered by poisonous, rising oceans. What dry land remains is a broken, infertile world of hard ground and harder living.

Into this world steps Michael, a scavenger who roams the wasteland, trading what he can salvage from the ruins. But Michael’s latest find will change his life for ever — a machine that talks in a forgotten language, supposedly giving directions to the fabled land of A-Ree-Yass-I, where mankind’s downfall began…

I wrote a foreword for a previous collection of Antony Johnston’s sf comics series WASTELAND, then illustrated by Christopher Mitten, and a bit of it went like this:

I like to think of WASTELAND as having not so much a structure as a pulse.

I remember Eddie Campbell once saying that his favourite stories weren’t all structure: they were found shapes, if you like, that, if visualised, would look more like a branch than an organised and orderly procession of lines. Something more like a branch, or a river. This ties in with an interview I saw with a German musician, maybe someone from NEU!, looking out at a German river and suggesting that that might have been the place when the motorik came to him, the endless pulsing heart of the new German music of the Seventies and beyond that is perhaps best captured in NEU!’s “Fur Immer” — “Forever.”

WASTELAND pulses and rolls on, and the destination isn’t so important when the journey is this fascinating. We discover a whole new world, a world old and broken but new to us, in stages. That’s the way to roll out a world. A river of revelations. Oh, we can pause and take in the sights. Linger at a settlement, sneak into the walls of a town and tour its streets and catacombs and perhaps even prise out a few of its secrets. But the pulse rolls on, and we’re moving ever forward into novelty and invention.

A lot of you know Antony, because a lot of you played the DEAD SPACE games, for which Antony has been the chief writer.

WASTELAND has a new artist, Justin Greenwood, and the next issue, #33, due out on January 18, is a new start for the series.  There’s no better point to discover WASTELAND.  A preview of issue 33, selected and provided by Antony, can be found by clicking for more.

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I should have titled this “non-predictions about comics in 2012.” 

Predictions are, by and large, a mug’s game, and some if not all of what’s below falls under the rubric of The Bleedin’ Obvious, but I wanted to get it out of my head and down on a screen in any case.

This year should be the year where a wide swathe of established comics creators go “digital-first” with a broad variety of projects.  However, that should also have been last year.  Which leads me to wonder whether or not there’s really a taste for it among the creative community.  (Aside from me: but I’m not certain I’d have the time or access to the artists that’d really make it work for me.)  So I’m going to go ahead and say this isn’t going to happen this year, and won’t until it’s really too late – and just hope I’m completely wrong about this one.

This year, at least three groups will offer indie comics creators a “roll-your-own” digital service allowing them to ready and upload their own comics into storefront apps.  It will be absolute chaos, and will create the sort of curational crisis you see when you browse for Kindle books by genre.

A corollary to the above, though: I expect to see more new comics creators bypassing the standard model of comics publishing entirely this year, and going straight to book publishing houses and crowdfunded self-publication and direct-to-digital using one of the services mentioned above.

For those who care about the big commercial comics companies: DC will continue to cede market share to Marvel during 2012, until they launch another round of issue 1s in September.  But the bounce from that won’t last as long as the New 52.  At which point, sadly, I think we’ll see the first signs of exits and exit strategies from DC staff.

More of this: Oni, Viz, Avatar, Boom, Archaia, Fantagraphics and a few actual publishing houses having less share in the direct market than Eaglemoss, a company that packages partwork magazines with little Marvel and DC character figurines.  A less perfect illustration of what comics stores are actually interested in selling, I cannot find today.

Ed Brubaker was kind enough to shoot me an ARC (Advance Reading Copy) of his new comics series with illustrator Sean Phillips, FATALE, the other week.  Ed was kind of freaked out when I said “this is a lot of fun.”

“You never call anything ‘fun,’” Ed said.  ”Never!  You hate it, right?”

Nope.  It’s fun.  It’s Ed and Sean mixing up crime and horror in a big tub with a bloody great bit of wood, which would be entertaining enough in its own right: but there’s deep barbs sunk in the big stick, with a sharp steel shine that promises more than you see on the surface.

I must have convinced him, because he’s given me a five-page preview of the first issue of FATALE to show you.  It’s out in comics stores from this Wednesday, I believe.  (Probably a day later in Britain.)  Please click through to see them, and the alternative cover to issue one that for some reason cracks me up every time I see it.

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Produced on an iPad, of all things.  (WhatNot)

Annie sometimes has work for sale at this link here.  She posts new stuff at this link here when she remembers.

I am presuming this woman is making many thousands of dollars somewhere, and keeps a dA profile just for fun.

From the WhatNot group sketchblog, a wonderful piece by Bill Sienkiewicz, one of my first favourite comics artists.  In fact, I’ve loved his work for so long that I can spell his name without having to check it.  Loads of other great stuff at WhatNot, from people like Mark Chiarello and Becky Cloonan and Mike Oeming and Duncan Fegredo and and and…

PROPHET was a comics series by Rob Liefeld in the 1990s, from Image Comics.  I’ve never read it.  It ended at issue 20.

Recently, Rob Liefeld licensed a bunch of his old properties, including PROPHET, back to Image, where Eric Stephenson began matching them to creative teams with carte blanche to reimagine them.

I was, shall we say, skeptical.  And possibly slightly scathing.  Then Eric emailed me and told me exactly who he’d convinced to reinvent these properties.  Which did actually shut me up a bit. 

(these images are screenshot off a PDF advance reading copy, so don’t mistake them for print quality)

Brandon Graham is the writer/artist of acclaimed comics like KING CITY and MULTIPLE WARHEADS.  Simon Roy is the writer/artist of the justly applauded JAN’S ATOMIC HEART.  Both of these are off-kilter, very modern urban science fictions.  In PROPHET, Brandon writes for Simon, and what is produced is something as close to classic French science-fiction comics as I’ve seen in a long time, with a hard edge of contemporary strangeness ground into it.

And it’s very, very good comics.

They recommence the series with issue 21, as if it had simply paused for years.  I’ve never, as I said, read a copy of PROPHET before, and had no idea what the character or the central idea was.  I wasn’t lost.  It sweeps you right in, as if it were the start of a brand new series.  Very densely populated with ideas, very readable, very accessible.  Very clever.  And very beautiful.

John Prophet is a cryogenically-stored agent, periodically disgorged from the bowels of the Earth to be dispatched on a mission.  This time, he’s been underground for a very long time.  Possibly too long.

So begins a journey of deep weirdness – and I’m trying not to spoil it, so I’m not showing you the bit that made me laugh and sort of twitch and retch all at the same time, or even the most wonderful pieces of invention.  I’m hoping this little taste will be enough for you to at least look for it on the week of January 18, 2012, which is when it’s released to comics stores.

What PROPHET by Brandon and Simon is, for me, is the best new science fiction comic since CASANOVA.  It’s more linear than that book, and not as highly compressed, but it is rich, highly inventive, lustrous and a completely entertaining reading experience.  I really hope it finds an audience, because I want more of this book, and I recommend it to you without reservation.

Comics stores can still order more copies of PROPHET #21, using the Diamond order code NOV110358 – if you want to make sure your local store gets a copy for you, quote them that code, as it’ll make it easier for them to do it.  Or, hell, just tell them you want one, if need be.

I hope that when you find it, you enjoy it as much as I did.  Thanks to Eric Stephenson for sending the ARC over.

…more than one in every two comics sold by Diamond in October was a DC comic.

Okay, that’s more like a fight.  I wish that many of the New 52 DC comics were more creatively compelling and less editorially pissed-in, and I wish DC had dealt Marvel a nutpunch right out of the gate, but I do really like this performance by DC. 

It’ll make Marvel work harder.  And then, maybe, just for a short while, commercial comics will be less ugly and stupid.

This on the same day that Marvel are letting a bunch of TPBs go out of print just-because.

Dear Tor.com, you seem to have forgotten that you do comics for about a year, and have walked away from the powerful web-to-print model you were presumably exploring with Dan Goldman’s RED LIGHT PROPERTIES.  Given that you are clearly funded for comics work, since I can’t imagine the likes of Mike Mignola and Craig Thompson work for free, and have begun commissioning anew… can I expect to see another, more sustained stab at a disruptive presence in the comics medium by a noted sf prose publisher (publisher, in fact, of my daughter’s current favourite author, Cherie Priest)?  Or are you just farting about?

Answers on a postcard to the usual address.