AfterShock

AfterShock is teaming with Comixology to offer digital exclusive interlocking covers across seven of their titles, featuring art by Mike Zagari and colors by Gabe Eltaeb. The covers will only be available via Comixology until April 11.

I don't think I'm going to blow anyone's mind if I say that Jimmy Regent, the main character of Garth Ennis and Russ Braun's Jimmy Bastards, bears a striking resemblance to a well-known numerical super-spy with a tendency for brief but passionate trysts. Unlike that guy, however, Ennis and Braun's version is going to be facing some consequences of years --- possibly even decades --- of romantic encounters while saving the world. Check out Braun's cover and the official synopsis!

Insexts, the AfterShock comic by Marguerite Bennett and Ariela Kristantina, mixes gothic and body horror to tell a feminist story about women monsters in love. Lady Lalita Bertram (she just goes by Lady) is a rich widow, and Mariah is her maid. Except that they're actually lovers and devoted partners, and even have a child together. They're also insectoid monsters, especially Lady, who has a tendency to sprout deadly bug-parts when she's stressed out. And thanks to the expectations Victorian society places on women, she gets stressed out a lot. And yes, some men die along the way. These songs were chosen because they reflect some combination of the monstrous feminine, the gothic violence, and the unapologetically queer themes of the comic.

One day, all of the animals started talking. Started thinking. And they rose up. And made humanity bleed. That's the high concept that drives Animosity, an AfterShock Comic by Marguerite Bennett, Rafael de Latorre, and Rob Schwager.

This week we're casting an imagined movie version of Animosity, a really fun apocalyptic comic written by Marguerite Bennett with art by Rafael de Latorre. It takes place in a world where, one year ago, every animal on Earth gained human-level intelligence and the ability to speak. Obviously this has sent society into complete disarray. The book follows a young girl named Jesse and her dog Sandor. Sandor's a bloodhound who now speaks with a Southern accent, but remains loyal to Jesse. He's attempting to protect her after the death of her parents, as they travel across a chaotic North America in search of her older brother.

Veteran comics writer Frank Tieri is teaming with artist Oleg Okunev for Pestilence at AfterShock Comics, an alternate history horror story set during the Black Death. Except in this world, the Black Death isn't the bubonic plague --- it's a zombie virus!

If comics has taught us anything, it’s that anything can be illustrated, and if the internet has taught us anything, it’s that anything can be someone’s turn-on. Comics and furries go hand in hand, dating back farther than living memory, with modern furry fandom a direct multigenerational outgrowth of funny animal comics and cartoons. It’s Love and Sex Week here at ComicsAlliance, so we've decided to do our part to destigmatize furries, because we believe that everyone has at least one furry crush, whether it's the stars of Disney's Robin Hood, a Thundercat, or the stars of Disney's Zootopia. (We see you, Disney.) To that end, here are nine of our most animalistic passions from the world of comics.

Blood Blister, the new horror comic from writer Phil Hester and artist Tony Harris debuting this week from AfterShock, tells the story of Brandon Hull, a man whose soul becomes so corrupted by the banal evil of the superficial choices he makes that it begins to manifest on his previously flawless physical form, launching him into a hellish world of monstrous evil. Hester is also currently drawing Shipwreck, an AfterShock comic by writer Warren Ellis about a man who finds himself in a surreal wasteland after (possibly) surviving a crash. ComicsAlliance sat down with Phil Hester to talk about horror, collaborating on comics as both a writer and an artist, and the nature of evil in the world today.

The question most often asked of the ComicsAlliance staff is a variation of, “Which comic books should I be reading?” or, “I’m new to comics, what’s a good place to start?” The Wednesday deluge of new comic books, graphic novels and collected editions can be daunting even for the longtime reader, much less for those totally unfamiliar with creators, characters and publishers, and the dark mysteries of comic book shopping like variants, pre-ordering, and formats. It’s with these challenges in mind that we’ve created Best Comic Books Ever (This Week), an ongoing guide curated by the ComicsAlliance staff. This is where new comics readers and seasoned Wednesday shoppers alike can find our picks of the best books the medium has to offer.

The Universe is a lonely place. Especially for an astronaut traveling to dead worlds and investigating what killed their populations. That's the mission facing Sarah, the protagonist of World Reader, a new sci-fi series written by Jeff Loveness with art by Juan Doe. And it's more than just that. Sarah's trying to discover the cause of death of all these planets in the hope of keeping Earth from being the next to die, and it looks like Death itself may be on her heels.