New miniseries Hellboy: The Island debuts in June.
Award-winning Hellboy creator Mike Mignola makes his long-awaited return to Hellboy with his first new Hellboy miniseries in over two years! Written and drawn by Mignola, Hellboy: The Island will please long-time admirers of Mignola’s unique storytelling and art style as well as introduce fans of the smash film to Hellboy’s life on the comics page. With The Island Mignola broadens not only his approach to his art style but also to key elements of Hellboy’s character.
The Island follows events last seen in Hellboy: The Third Wish where Hellboy was left at the bottom of the sea. He washes up two years later on an island full of sunken ships where he is tempted by singing dead men and stupidly ignores good advice from an ancient enemy. This tale of gods and monsters offers the first revelations about one (or more) of the great secrets of Hellboy’s world!
“Once on the island, Hellboy has a couple drinks and learns a whole lot of stuff he never wanted to know…about himself,” commented writer/artist Mike Mignola. “In this miniseries I decided to tell a lot of stuff I never thought I was going to tell.”
Hellboy editor Scott Allie remarked, “The Island not only reveals things about Hellboy and his world that readers have been asking about for years, but it shows Mike at his most inventive. He’s still experimenting with the art form, still finding new ways to tell a story. The Island’s unlike anything he’s ever done.”
Hellboy: The Island is a two-issue miniseries written and drawn by Mike Mignola. Issue #1 arrives on sale June 22, with a retail price of $2.99.
Different war…
Different world…
Where Scarlet Traces was a small scale, steampunk Victorian murder mystery, the creators have upped the ante considerably for the sequel. The backdrop now is the second war of the worlds. It’s 1939, close to forty years after the events in the first book and Great Britain has been hurling men and armaments at Mars for four decades. Gusto and patriotism have only worked so far and now the sons of empire endure a bloody and brutal slog in the red dust of Mars. The British Government is hemorrhaging men, money, and resources on a vast scale trying to fight a war a world away. To this end, it is stripping the empire of its resources, causing countries at home and aboard to rise up and rebel. Free speech is now a dangerous thing and order is maintained by the truncheon and the boot-heel.
Our heroine is Lady Charlotte Hemming, a radical, freethinker and photojournalist. Part Lee Miller. Part Margaret Bourke-White. Born into a world of privilege, her photos from the ghettos and the frontline show all too painfully how the other half live…and die. Her most dangerous assignment yet is when she’s sent by her editor undercover to Mars. She thinks it’s to cover the war but finds that there are worse things on Mars than anyone ever imagined!
“Imagine David Cronenberg’s Forbidden Planet and George Orwell’s Thunderbirds loaded, in four-color cages, onto a gleaming 1950’s rocket ship and fired, boosters full thrust, on a collision course with the reade’s eyeball,” commented artist D’israeli.
” That’s what I’m aiming for with Scarlet Traces: The Great Game.”
Scarlet Traces: The Great Game is a four-issue miniseries featuring the writing talents of Ian Edginton with art by D’israeli. Issue #1 arrives on sale June 29 with a retail price of $2.99.
collected in Concrete Volume 1: Depths
Part man, part…rock? Over seven feet tall and weighing over a thousand pounds, he is known as Concrete but is in reality the mind of one Ronald Lithgow. Lithgow is trapped inside a shell of stone, a body that allows him to walk unaided on the ocean’s floor or survive the crush of a thousand tons of rubble in a collapsed mineshaft…but prevents him from feeling the touch of a human hand.
These stories of Concrete are as rich and satisfying as any in comics: funny, heartbreaking, and singularly human. Depths, the first in a series of new collections reprinting the classic early Concrete stories along with never-before-collected short stories, includes the Eisner-nominated “Orange Glow” and “Vagabond,” Paul Chadwick’s autobiographical account of a cross-country hitchhiking trip.
“I know one of my great pleasures is discovering an author then tracking down his or her earlier works,” commented creator Paul Chadwick. ” I hope these reprints, on the heels of Concrete: The Human Dilemma, provide that sort of treasure hunt for readers new to the character.”
Concrete Volume1: Depths by Paul Chadwick arrives on sale July 13, with a retail price of $14.95.
ISBN: 1-59307-343-7
Star Wars: The Comics Companion
Dark Horse presents the definitive guide to Star Wars comics, complete with in-depth coverage all the way through Episode III! Written by Star Wars experts Ryder Windham and Daniel Wallace, and densely illustrated with both brand-new art and classic images from the comics, this chronological compendium contains everything you need to be the ultimate Star Wars reader in the know. Follow Anakin Skywalke’s descent into darkness, from his early days as a padawan, to his harrowing Clone Wars battles, up through his transformation and eventual death as Darth Vader. Get complete details on the exploits of Luke and Leia, Han and Chewie, and all the rest of the gang, with thorough rundowns of classic Star Wars tales originally printed decades ago! Spanning over 25,000 years of Star Wars history, from the very beginnings of the Jedi order, no character goes unmentioned and no quadrant goes unmapped.
“Long before I worked on Star Wars comics as an editor and writer, I was a card-carrying member of the Star Wars Fan Club, with the back-issues of Bantha Tracks to prove it,” commented co-writer Ryder Windham. “It was a total kick to work on The Star Wars Comics Companion with my good pal Dan Wallace, who knows the chronology and characters inside out. Trust me, even if you’ve already read all the comics, this guidebook has information you won’t find anywhere else.”
Co-writer Daniel Wallace continued, “It’s incredibly fitting to release a volume dedicated to the universe of Star Wars comics, George Lucas was a comic-book fan since childhood and infused his Star Wars movies with four-color splashes of classic comic-book spirit  heroes, villains, action, and bold visuals. The process has now come full circle.”
The Star Wars: The Comics Companion is written by Ryder Windham and Daniel Wallace with art by Tsuneo Sanda. It arrives on sale July 6 with a retail price of $19.95.
ISBN: 1-59307-312-7
Powerful is the dark side of the Force; its corrupting, seductive pull has produced some of the most memorable villains in the Star Wars galaxy. Exploring the moral and emotional fallout that comes with giving oneself over to the ways of the Sith, this issue features four stories steeped in darkness and danger, spanning nearly every Star Wars era, including the final act of our serialized tale, “Nomad.” The truth about wandering Jedi Darca Nyl is at last revealed, but will the end of his journey bring him peace “¦ or even more trouble? The premier Star Wars comics anthology rolls onward.
Star Wars Tales #24 features the talents of Rob Williams, Lucas Marangon, Brandon Badeaux, and more! It arrives on sale June 8 with a retail price of $5.99.
Finally, those of you wishing to distract yourself from the emotional wreckage that is undoubtedly your daily life may do so with a brand new fantasy world of myopic, self-righteous people who wear tight, revealing clothing and settle their disputes through violence. That’s right, a new Truth Serum tale, The City of Village Charm as brought to you by famed author Jonathan Adams (Superhim and the Amerikan Fun-Starters) will be appearing on darkhorse.com.
After the success of his most recent online tale Truth Serum: A Love Story which has run for the past two years at darkhorse.com (and won the 1998 Rockville Middle School Comic Show award for “Most Imaginative”), Mr. Adams was able to sit down with us for a candid one-on-one interview. “I don’t pick up a comic because I want to read,” says Adams. “If I wanted that I’d pick up a magazine or watch a foreign movie. I pick up a comic for fun and excitement, and last I checked, reading wasn’t fun or exciting.”
Mr. Adams purports The City of Village Charm to be a tale unlike any other seen in the comics industry. “It’s clear that the industry’s in trouble and has been for a while. It’s also clear that superhero comics are what will save it. That’s why I’ve taken my latest Truth Serum tale to the next level. It’s got 200% more action, 150% more fun, and about 30-40% more hot women than the average comic.”
So for fans of such top-notch, in-your-face entertainment as Brigade, Death Cleavage, or X-Fist it seems Truth Serum: The City of Village Charm is likely to be the next “big thing.” In other words: Explosions! Fists! Women! Truth Serum! Yeah!
For more information and lots of free Truth Serum comics visit the Dark Horse site (http://darkhorse.com/boards/) and the Truth Serum site (http://theuniversityofmyopia.com), or do something more fulfilling like going outside and talking to people.
