New Army of Darkness! Vampirella! Red Sonja! Bettie Page! All four feature a Halloween theme plus there’s even more Vampirella and Red Sonja, a new Mars Attacks book, a new KISS book, and a James Bond hardcover. If you’re prepping for Halloween weekend, you have plenty of books to get your Halloween spirit engaged, and cosplayers could get their next year of ideas from a single new comic book day tomorrow as Dynamite Comics delivers a great selection of new books to Elite Comics and your local comic book store. We have previews for ten books below courtesy of Dynamite, and a big pile of variant cover previews.
In addition to Dynamite rolling out four one-shot stories for Halloween, James Bond: The Body is out tomorrow in its first collected edition. Bryan Hill and Rodney Buchemi begin a new series featuring your favorite costumed band with KISS: Blood and Stardust (with 12 cover variants available). A new Mars Attacks series begins, with ten variant covers. The second collected edition of Legenderry Red Sonja arrives, plus two new Vampirella issues: Vampirella: Roses for the Dead (with a Billy Tucci cover available) and the Vampirella/Dejah Thoriscrossover.
Berkeley Breathed, Mike Mignola, Lynn Johnston, Joe Jusko, Kevin Eastman, Freddie Williams III, JK Woodward, Scott and David Tipton, Marc Andreyko, Bobby Moynihan, and cast from Wynonna Earp, are among dozens of comic book and television creators to be featured at signings and panels hosted by IDW Publishing at next week’s 49th annual San Diego Comic-Con.
As you’d expect IDW will also be bringing to Booth #2743 lots of comic book exclusives and special edition hardcover format books. You’ll find Jack Kirby, Jim Starlin, and John Byrne Artist’s Editions, plus comics featuring Star Wars, Star Trek, X-Men, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, DuckTales, Danger Girl, Judge Dredd, My Little Pony, Sonic, Transformers, Ghostbusters, Sword of Ages, and more, including several exclusive variant covers only available at SDCC 2018.
Get more information on all the SDCC 2018 exclusives from IDW at the publisher’s website here.
Here are the announced exclusives from IDW, followed by IDW’s signings and panels:
Jack Kirby’s Heroes & Monsters Artist’s Edition, Heroes Convention Variant
Cover by Jack Kirby
$150, Limited to 100 units
15” x 22”
Many of Jack “King” Kirby’s most iconic heroes (Captain America, the X-Men, Ant-Man, and Sgt. Fury) join seven of his best monster stories in this collection, plus a gallery section filled with covers and pin-ups. Debuting at this year’s SDCC is the variant cover featuring Tales of Suspense #98 — Captain America versus Black Panther.
Jack Kirby’s Heroes & Monsters Artist’s Edition, Monsters Convention Variant
Cover by Jack Kirby
$150, Limited to 100 units
15” x 22”
Jim Starlin’s Marvel Cosmic Artifact Edition, Signed Convention Variant
Cover by Jim Starlin
$150, Limited to 100 units, each with a bound-in signature plate signed by Jim Starlin.
12” x 17”
This Artifact Edition focuses on Jim Starlin’s beloved Warlock, Thanos, and Captain Marvel, stories that shaped the Marvel Universe for decades. Debuting at this year’s SDCC is the variant cover featuring Marvel Two-In-One Annual #2 with Thanos fighting Spider-Man and the Thing.
John Byrne’s X-Men Artifact Edition, Signed Convention Variant
Cover by John Byrne
$150, Limited to 100 units, each with a bound-in signature plate signed by John Byrne.
12” x 17”
John Byrne’s run on the X-Men that introduced Alpha Flight and created the near-mythical storylines “The Dark Phoenix Saga” and “Days of Future Past!” Debuting at this year’s SDCC is the variant cover featuring X-Men #133, where Wolverine goes berserker-style on the Hellfire Club.
Joe Jusko’s Marvel Masterpieces Hardcover Convention Variant
Cover by Joe Jusko
$75 each, Limited to 150 units
Joe Jusko’s complete Marvel Masterpieces painted trading card art from the 2016 Upper Deck set is collected in its entirety for the first time — more than 130 never-before-seen masterpieces, including hard-to-find premium cards. Debuting at this year’s SDCC is the variant cover featuring a new painting of the Incredible Hulk.
Dynamite Comics announced a return this winter of the world introduced by Bill Willingham in his 2013 steampunk series Legenderry: A Steampunk Adventure. Legenderry: Red Sonja will follow his otherworldly twist on the character where we last saw her, living the pirate’s life on her ship The Nautilus. Marc Andreyko has been tapped to write the series. The Eisner and Harvey Award winner has worked on series including Manhunter, Batman ’66 Meets Wonder Woman ’77, and Wolverine vs Deadpool. Igor Lima (Green Lantern Corps) will serve as artist on the series.
Legenderry is the steampunk–or more accurately “steam noir”–series featuring the ultimate mash-up: Red Sonja joined with Six Thousand Dollar Man Steve Austin, Zorro, Vampirella, the Green Hornet and Kato, Captain Victory, Silver Star, and the Phantom, all to face off in a final showdown with Ming the Merciless, Queen Flor Zora, Kulan Gath, Lydia Valcallan, General Tara, and Doctor Moreau. It’s every bit as fun as it sounds, and could only happen at Dynamite Comics, which carries the licenses to so many classic titles.
The best character development in the series was that of Red Sonja, who initially had spells cast on her leaving her to think she was actually the mild and citified Magna Spadarossa, Sonja’s sister. By the end of the original series her primitive side broke through and she became the savage we’re all familiar with, with a steam noir edge. Designer Johnny Desjardins and artist Sergio Fernandez Davila created a visually stunning setting, and Willingham’s fun take on the characters made Legenderry one of the best steampunk stories to enter the comic book medium.
Here is some preview art for the new Legenderry: Red Sonja series, courtesy of Dynamite:
As reported here earlier this year at borg.com, Bill Willingham’s successful steampunk/steampulp series is spawning three new series coming in February. Starring Vampirella, Red Sonja, and the team of Green Hornet and Kato–as they all were re-envisioned for the Legenderry universe, these series follow the characters after the events in the seven-issue mini-series that wrapped this summer from Dynamite Comics.
We now have the images of the three main covers for each title, shown above and below. Rarer variants will feature original art black and white versions of some of these covers.
The first to be released is writer David Avallone and artist David Cabrera’s Legenderry: Vampirella. Coming February 4, 2015, the publisher has describes the series as:
A return to Bill Willingham’s fantastical steampulp world of LEGENDERRY! Vampirella comes home from the epic battle in The Principality to find that her Scarlet Club has been closed, and powerful forces within The Big City are conspiring to destroy her… but they quickly learn they’ve pissed off the wrong immortal vampire.
February 11, 2015, Dynamite releases writer Marc Andreyko and artist Aneke’s Legenderry: Red Sonja.
