Newsarama Exclusive Preview: Pilot Season: 7 Days From Hell #1

And with Pilot Season: 7 Days From Hell #1 hitting stores next week, Pilot Season 2010 is a wrap!

With five heavy contenders, who will you choose? Which one is worthy of its own series? It's all up to you guys! Our fantastic readers! The polls will open up November 1st.

But in the mean time, check out this exclusive preview of Pilot Season: 7 Days From Hell #1 by Bryan Edward Hill, Rob Levin and Phil Noto.

See the full preview here.
Source: Newsarama

Newsarama: Filip Sablik in "Back the New" or "Fighting Cynicism"

It’s Autumn again. Where did 2010 go, friends? Seriously it seems like only yesterday I was playing video poker at the Hard Rock Café Casino to finish out 2009. I swear it was only minutes ago I was finalizing plans for San Diego Comic-Con and feeling the cold sweat inducing panic of hard printing deadlines rushing headlong at my deer-in-the-headlights expression.

Autumn 2010 means cooler weather (for you poor suckers who live in four seasons), mid-term elections, the return of pumpkin as the flavor-du-jour on everything from your latte to your ice cream, and a new crop of TV pilots hoping for at least one good season in the sun. For us at Top Cow it also means its time for a new crop of Pilot Season comics.

This year we have five different new concepts by five unique creative teams. A mix of season pros and wet-behind-the-ears newcomers fighting for your attention and trying to create something you haven’t seen before. So much of the comics released in recent years have been about nostalgia. I get it. Nostalgia is a warm blanket, a comforting hot cup of cocoa. It reminds us of better, bygone days in troubled times. We know what we’re going to get and what to expect. But I’m here to challenge you take a chance on the new. Stretch past your comfort zone and reach to discover a different genre or an undiscovered creator.

Read more about Pilot Season 2010 from Filip here.
Source: Newsarama

Newsarama's Best Shots Advance Review: Pilot Season: 39 Minutes #1

With movies such as Takers, The Town, and The Hurt Locker gaining praise and big box office numbers (the latter took home a Best Picture Oscar), it's no surprise that crime/military dramas would start making a comeback of sorts in comics. In this year's Pilot Season, there is such a book that incorporates that type of story, and it's not too shabby. 39 Minutes tells the story of former military commander John Clayton, who is incarcerated for bogus charges, and his former team that has currently gone rogue and in the middle of a crime spree.

For those of you looking for something without capes, I'd recommend 39 Minutes. While it's not perfect, it's still a hearty read.

Read the full review here.
Source: Newsarama

Newsarama's Writer's Workshop: Bryan Edward Hill & Rob Levin Double Header

Ready for a Writer's Workshop double-header?

Because Bryan Edward Hill and Rob Levin are living proof that two heads can be better than one, as they've been juggling mythology and international intrigue with their Top Cow book Broken Trinity: Pandora's Box, the latest issue having been released this week.

Yet how does this dynamic duo work their magic? We sat down with Hill and Levin to discuss how they navigate characterization, plotting and the sheer challenge of filling in the blank page.

Newsarama: Guys, first and foremost, can you tell us a little bit about how each of you got into the world of writing? What made you guys decide that writing was the career for you?

Bryan Edward Hill: For me, it was very personal. My father died when I was a kid and that same week I read an issue of BATMAN. Obviously, I had a profound connection with Bruce Wayne. His anger. His loss. How he as a character turned that energy into something empowering.

I was given so much from those stories. Fiction can heal in a way nothing else can. When I started thinking about a career, I realized that I wanted to be part of that tradition. There’s a beautiful democracy in writing. It’s a blank piece of paper and a pen. In Hemingway’s hands that’s THE SUN ALSO RISES. In Frank Miller's hands that’s SIN CITY. In Brian Azzarello’s hands that’s 100 BULLETS. Once you start walking into that legacy, it’s very hard to not get passionate and obsessed.

That being said, if Great Britain would have given me citizenship I probably would have just joined MI6, drank martinis and caught mega villains for Her Majesty.

Rob Levin: I think there's some old writer cliche about "you're a writer because you don't know how to be anything else." While admitting that makes me feel somewhat useless, there's some truth to it. I've always been drawn to stories. When you connect with a fictional experience and it feels like something that's made about or for you, there are few experiences that special or that resonant.

A lot of my writing, though escapist, is really about trying to create that experience for the reader. I'm trying to forge a connection, and that's the reason I write. As for what got me there... I can't trace it to any one moment or experience. But when in doubt I always blame "Ghostbusters."

Read the full interview here.
Source: Newsarama

Newsarama: Top Cow Pits The Darkness Against the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

Described by Top Cow as “the darkest tale of the Darkness yet”, the recently debuted miniseries The Darkness: Four Horsemen takes supernatural mob boss Jackie Estacado on a dark path where he meets up with four bikers who have an even bleaker outlook than he does. These four bikers come out of the Pacific coast desert after years MIA, and have returned with dark powers making them a modern-day reincarnation of the biblical Horsemen of Revelations. Forget the TV show Sons of Anarchy, these guys live up to that title literally.

The Darkness: Four Horsemen comes from the mind of storyteller David Hine. Hine is well-known for his penchant for horror with works on Spawn and Batman: Arkham Asylum, and his take on the Darkness and his new quartet of adversaries is quite eye-opening; each of the horsemen have a particular attribute, such as War or Pestilence, one that they bring out as soon as they put their kickstands down in a small western town. And out of nowhere just like the Demon Riders comes the series’ artist, Jeff Wamester. Wamester is a relatively new face on the comics scene, having just completed the Oni series Frenemy of the State... but his work on The Darkness: Four Horsemen, complimented by colorist Felix Serrano, shows a new face that’ll be one to reckon with in years to come.

We spoke with the team about the mini-series and the appeal of these biblically-based villains.

Newsarama: This miniseries boils down to a showdown between Jackie and four bikers – I've seen the Darkness take down whole groups of men, so what makes these bikers so fearsome, David?

David Hine: These are not ordinary bikers. The Demon Riders were last seen back in the sixties when they ripped off Lucio Franchetti in a drug deal gone bad. They disappeared into the desert and weren’t seen again until they turn up almost forty years later on the road to Ginsberg, California. They’re riding the same bikes, wearing the same clothes and they haven’t aged a day. Once they start mixing with the citizens, serious weirdness starts to happen. Anyone who has the slightest physical contact with one of the Riders, is doomed to a rapid and horrifying death. A normally placid teenager goes apeshit crazy and stabs a storeowner to death. A guy eating out in his local Tex Mex takes the invitation ‘All you can eat!’ a little too seriously. Hookers instantly develop terminal symptoms of every venereal disease known to man. You get the idea.

I don’t think it’s giving too much away to tell you that it turns out these four bikers have somehow become the human hosts for Famine, Pestilence, War and Death, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

See the full interview here.
Source: Newsarama

Newsarama Exclusive Preview: Pilot Season: 39 Minutes #1

Pilot Season: 39 Minutes #1
(w) William Harms (a) Jerry Lando (cov) Rafael Albuquerque

Pilot Season Begins Anew as a 5-Week Event in 2010!

Robbing a bank is easy — it’s the getaway that’s hard. The bank’s surrounded by police officers, alarms are blaring, customers and employees are screaming, and the streets are blocked off. So what’s the solution?

Kill everyone in town.

Created and written by William Harms (Impaler) and debuting up-and-coming artist Jerry Lando along with a cover by Rafael Albuquerque (American Vampire), 39 Minutes turns the heist story on its head.

32 Pages Full Color Pilot Issue $3.99

See the full preview here.
Source: Newsarama

Newsarama's Best Shots Review: Angelus #5

This mini-series has excelled in showcasing Dani as a stand-alone kind of character and out of Sara Pezzini's shadow. The action is terrific, the dialog is clever and crisp and the art is beyond superb. Anyway we can get this into an ongoing, Top Cow?

Read the full review here.
Source: Newsarama

Newsarama's Best Shots Advance Review: Magdalena #3

Nelson Blake II's use of sharp angles keeps the story at a nice pace as well as engages the reader. Showing how Magdalena moved around the building a la Batman, was a change of pace and I just wonder how easy it was to creep around with that armor on. Blake's action shots are drawn beautifully with a high impact feel. When somebody is shot, stabbed, or punched, you can sense the impact he was going for. His demonic designs are creative and feel they impose an actual threat, without them being over done. Sal Regla's inking style compliments Blake's pencils exceedingly well. The first six pages of Mags prowling around is evident of that. Dave McCaig's colors are brilliant as always. The use of reds and yellows is still dominant, but he has a chance to work with blues and purples.

Read the full review here.
Source: Newsarama

Newsarama: Artist Urosov Explores the Process of Witchblade One-Shot

To what lengths would you go to protect them if you found out your family was in danger? What if you were locked away – behind bars – and unable to get involved? What if you could make a deal for someone else to protect them?

That’s just what William Hicks does in August’s Witchblade: Due Process one-shot from Top Cow. After being wrongly put away, he makes a deal with someone on the inside to protect his defenseless family on the outside. But as it turns out, the man he made a deal with is no man at all but a demon. Sara Pezzini, the bearer of the mystical artifact Witchblade, is brought into this as one of the arresting officers who put this innocent man behind bars years ago. A rookie at the time with deep suspicions that he was innocent, Sara has carried around the guilt and now she sees an opportunity to somehow make things right.

With Witchblade: Due Process now on shelves, we talked with the enterprising Canadian artist about the book and she gave us several behind-the-scenes sketches for the book.

Newsarama: For this book you had to design up essentially all of the characters except for Sara Pezzini. How was it establishing the characters of William and the others?

Alina Urusov: I did have a description of William, and I was given free reign with virtually everyone else save for Sara, so I just designed them according to what made sense to me, like William's shirt was plain because there would be no time to draw plaid, and his daughter had a big fuzzy ponytail because that is similar to the research photos I found of mixed race girls. So research did help, because I like to incorporate as much real details as I can.

Read the full interview here.
Source: Newsarama

Newsarama Exclusive Preview: Angelus #5

Angelus #5 (of 6)
(W) Ron Marz (A) Stjepan Sejic (Cov) Stjepan Sejic

Just as Dani and Finch's relationship reaches a turning point, Dani must embrace the role of the Angelus once again, finally facing down an enemy who has lurked in the shadows and plotted her doom. Forced to make a choice between her humanity and her life as the Angelus, what will Dani choose?

Full Color 32 pages $2.99 limited series

See the preview pages here.
Source: Newsarama

Newsarama's Best Shots Advance Reviews: The Darkness: Four Horsemen #1

There's no other way to say it -- The Darkness: Four Horsemen is just plain fun. There's a real exuberance here, a no-nonsense thrill of violence, not to mention some refreshing visuals... even if you don't know much about the mobster-gone-demonic-weapon Jackie Estacado, this is the kind of book that'll make you root for the bad guy.

But let's focus on the book's true strength here -- Jeff Wamester and Felix Serrano bring the goods, with some artwork that's like a cross between David Lafuente and Rafael Albuquerque. It's particularly interesting coming from Top Cow, who you associate with the ultra-detailed linework of Nelson Blake II or the computer effects of Stjepan Sejic -- I don't think I've ever seen art like this on their books. And it looks great -- in a lot of ways, Wamester excells with people in their civilian clothes even more than the demonic armor, giving the acting and expressiveness some real weight. His composition is also really well set, particularly with a two-page sequence where the Darkness runs wild -- you combine that with some lush colorwork from Felix Serrano, and this book is worth it for the visuals alone.


Read the full review here.
Source: Newsarama

Newsarama: Image & Top Cow November 2010 Solicitations

Some long-awaited collections, new number 1s, and of course continuing tales from Image and Top Cow are the highlights of this month’s solicitations. Scroll through to see what they have to offer for November 2010!



THE DARKNESS #89
story PHIL HESTER
art SHELDON MITCHELL
cover BANE
NOVEMBER 3
32 PAGES / FC / ONGOING SERIES
$2.99
Outer Darkness, Part 1 of 6!
With the threat of the Sovereign finally removed from his life, Jackie believes he can get some well-deserved rest. Beaten and worn down, Jackie simply wants some brief peace. But just as he believes he has a grasp on the true nature of The Darkness, Jackie’s world is opened up to another dimension all together. And with it, the Darkness War begins...


To see the rest, go here.
Source: Newsarama

Newsarama's Best Shots Reviews Witchblade: Due Process

Phil Smith is not Ron Marz, and he doesn't have to be. He's given Sara a different voice here, but nothing that deviates from what Marz has set up these five years or so. She is more "cop" here than Artifact Bearer here and it's interesting to note that there is none of her supporting cast. No Julie, no Gleason, no Hope. Just Sara. Which is fine considering the nature of the story: it's Sara on a personal mission. It feels more direct that way.


Read the full review here.
Source: Newsarama

Newsarama: It's Samurais vs. Vampire in Image's SHINKU

Image Comics is being taken over by samurai and vampires.

That’s the story coming out of Comic-Con International: San Diego and the Image Comics Show panel Friday, as a new ongoing series pitting vampire versus samurai was announced. Shinku, by writer Ron Marz (Witchblade, Green Lantern) and Lee Moder (Painkiller Jane, Dragon Prince), tells the store of an epic confrontation between two feuding Japanese clans – one vampire, one human – and the modern day high-noon showdown with the last surviving human and an underground army of vampires.

Although it’s first full issue isn’t set to debut until Spring 2011, Shinku was first glimpsed with an “ashcan” Marz & Moder released last year during the convention season, which is still available via Westfield Comics. Newsarama covered Shinku back then during its early days, and we return to the title upon the news that its been greenlit as an ongoing series at Image Comics. For more, we talked with Ron Marz by phone about the project

Read the full article here.
Source: Newsarama

Newsarama: FIREBREATHER & DRAGON PRINCE Team-Up @ Top Cow

Yes, they're both half-dragon/half teenage boy, the offspring of human mothers and mythical dragon fathers. And yes they're both new to the comics' scene over the last few years. But according to their respective creators, that's where the similarities between Phil Hester and Andy Kuhn's Firebreather and Ron Marz, Jeff Johnson and Lee Moder's Dragon Prince end. 



And they're putting their money where their mouth's are this fall inviting the comparison confident readers will see the contrasts in Firebreather vs. Dragon Prince, a Top Cow one-shot announced Saturday afternoon at the Top Cow panel at Comic-Con International: San Diego.

In the four-issue Dragon Prince miniseries released just two years ago, a teenager named Aaron Chiang is revealed to be the son of a dragon and the last heir to the dragon kingdom.

Read the full interview here.
Source: Newsarama

Blog@Newsarama: Top Cow Hires New Direct Market Liaison

Top Cow has announced that Brave New World Comics’ Atom! Freeman, seen on the right, has been hired as the company’s new Direct Market Liaison.

Freeman will be working with retailers to promote Top Cow’s publishing lineup through comic shops and the Direct Market.

Brave New World won the Eisner Spirit of Retail Award in 2008. “He’s been one of the retailers I go to regularly for insight and advice on the direct market and Brave New World is one of my favorite stores in the country,” Top Cow Publisher Filip Sablik said in a statement. “When the opportunity presented itself to hire Atom! to help us in our efforts in the direct market, I leapt at the chance.”

But fans of Brave New World, don’t fret just yet — Freeman’s wife and partner Portlyn will continue to run the Santa Clarita-based store.

Source: Newsarama

Newsarama Best Shots Advanced Reviews: Witchblade #137

Review by Vanessa Gabriel

I like it when I am surprised. I had not pulled Witchblade previously, and this was a good read. I suppose I lucked out with this being a stand-alone story. The issue stars Abigail van Alstene; her back story and current circumstance. Abby crosses paths with Sara, thus inserting the character Necromancer back into Top Cow continuity.

Ron Marz introduces Abby seamlessly as she narrates the issue with her account of the recent events in her life. She has just relocated to Los Angeles from Colorado, is in her senior year of high school, has taken a liking to art classes, is under the tutelage of a 300 year old sorcerer to hone her magic, and can talk to the dead. Naturally, she takes a trip to New York with fellow art students to visit the museums, and ends up finding an ally in Sara Pezzini.

In just one issue, I heart Abigail van Alstene. I care about what is going to happen to her, and I want to know more, please.

Read the full review here.
Source: Newsarama

Newsarama Exclusive Preview: Witchblade #137 [Out Tomorrow!]

WITCHBLADE #137
(w) Ron Marz (a) Stjepan Sejic (cov) Stejpan Sejic

“Raise the Dead”, Guest-starring The Necromancer!
Sara Pezzini can gain an important ally in Abby van Alstine, the Necromancer ... but only if Sara can keep her alive! Abby's visit to New York City is interrupted by a demonic attack, and her only chance for surival is entering the world of the Witchblade.

Full Color 32 Pages $2.99

See the preview here.
Source: Newsarama

Newsarama's Best Shots Reviews Pilot Season: Stellar #1

The opening pages of Stellar are as deceptive as they are pretty. Just when it looks like Robert Kirkman's Pilot Season comic is going to be your standard butt-kicking-heroine-in-space romp, things take an unexpected turn when the title character's spilled blood burns the ground beneath her. That's because Stellar is not only super-powered, but also highly radioactive. Like futuristic lepers, she and a handful of other unlucky metahumans have been exiled because of their toxicity — a side effect of unexplained experiments that gave them their powers.

Read the full review here.
Source: Newsarama

Newsarama Reviews Artifacts #1

Review by Amanda McDonald

I'm pretty open minded, so there are a lot of kinds of books I love for a variety of reasons. What's so lovable about this one? This is the kind of book you read, and immediately want everyone around you to read it too so you can all talk about how awesome it was.

The concept is simple enough -- thirteen artifacts are placed with bearers around the world. These artifacts represent primal powers and are all balanced by the witchblade, however the thirteenth artifact is hidden. The thirteen book series will assumedly focus on a different artifact and bearer each issue. In addition to the main story, the issue also includes a short origin story explaining the witchblade.

The key here is Ron Marz's storytelling.

Read the full review here.
Source: Newsarama