Dark Horse

Last year, Adam P. Knave, DJ Kirkbride and Nick Brokenshire said farewell to their thirty-issue run with Amelia Cole, but didn't say farewell to each other; they've reunited for The Once And Future Queen from Dark Horse. A modern day retelling of Arthurian legend, it follows Rani Arturus as she goes from chess prodigy to the wielder of Excalibur, all while trying to juggle parental pressure and her crush on the cute English girl who recently moved to town. Ahead of the release of The Once And Future Queen #1 this week, ComicsAlliance caught up with the trio to talk about Arthurian re-interpretations, transatlantic collaborations and tiddly-winks.

The first time anyone reads a Geof Darrow comic, I can only imagine them having the exact same experience of their head exploding in some over-the-top, ridiculous way that only Darrow could illustrate. His brand of hyper-detailed hyper-violence is hard to replicate, and even just seeing a single panel of his work is enough to know that Darrow is unlike any other. So it's definitely a Good Thing that Darrow is heading back to comics this year with a new mini-series of Shaolin Cowboy.

The weekend is here! Take a look back at what’s happened in the past seven days. New comics, new stories, new podcasts, new art being made — it’s all part of the ComicsAlliance Weekender!

In our modern era and its social climate, one writer stands out, and that writer’s name is Margaret Atwood. Of her many works, one stands out tallest of all as the work we need in our modern times, relevant to the debates we find ourselves locked in daily and the future we wish to avoid. That work, of course, is Angel Catbird Volume 2: To Castle Catula.

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.

You can always count on a number of surprises from NECA at Toy Fair, but this year, I don't think very many collectors could have expected the announcements the company unveiled. While new Predator and Alien toys are as expected, you never know what the mad geniuses at NECA might have in store for the likes of Evil Dead, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and the other dozens of gaming and movie licenses it holds. All you can be sure about is that you will come away from the NECA booth ready to find a new source of income to pay for all the things you're going to need. Like the new Batman vs Aliens and Predator sets.

It is usually to humankind‘s advantage that the flame of hope is not easily extinguished. When the pursuit of a lofty ideal grows difficult, the unshakable bedrock of hope has provided the righteous with strength and fortitude. But hope can also be a heartbreaker, constantly teasing us with the faint chance of achieving an impossible dream. Up until today, fans were able to cling to the possibility of a third installment of Guillermo Del Toro‘s Hellboy franchise, however remote. But the director took to Twitter earlier today to deliver the sad news that we may now finally abandon hope — it ain’t happening.

Karen Berger, the founder of DC's acclaimed imprint Vertigo, has kept her post-Vertigo plans pretty close to her chest since stepping down in 2013. Outside of her work on Image Comics' Surgeon X, she has been out of the spotlight for the past few years but is set to come back in a huge way. Today at the annual ComicsPRO meeting where Berger was awarded the Industry Appreciation Award, it was announced that the legendary editor will head-up a new imprint at Dark Horse known as Berger Books, which will produce creator owned original graphic novels as well as serial periodicals curated and edited by Berger herself.

This week, since we're focusing on Love and Sex across the site, I thought it would be fun to cast Adam Warren's Empowered, a highly sexualized manga-influenced superhero comedy. The book's title character is a young superhero who gets her powers from an unbelievably skintight costume that has a tendency to get ripped up in battle, which often leads to her getting tied up, since she's powerless until the suit regenerates. Alongside her boyfriend, a former henchman known as Thug Boy, and her best friend Ninjette, she looks for her place in an absurd superhero world.

It's Love & Sex Week here on ComicsAlliance and, while a quick glance at the internet will tell you there's a whole lot of anime that fit this subject, I decided to go with one that a) won't get me fired and b) is visually daring, funny, and occasionally just plain disgusting. Today, we're talking about Panty & Stocking With Garterbelt!!!