Oni Press

At the beginning of last year, editor and publisher Janelle Asselin launched Rosy Press with the specific goal of publishing romance comics, a genre that most in the industry had long since given up on. With the help of a successful Kickstarter campaign, the Rosy Press anthology title Fresh Romance had an acclaimed digital run, continuing today with the release of Issue #7. Now Asselin is running a second Kickstarter to bring a Fresh Romance collection to print, with the help of Oni Press. ComicsAlliance spoke to Asselin --- a former editor for this site --- about her recent successes and future goals for Rosy Press.

Deadpool is already the first big blockbuster of 2016, and its combination of over-the-top violence and irreverent humor has proved a hit with audiences. The film hits you hard and fast with joke after joke, and has some of the best fight scene choreography in superhero films to date. If Deadpool left you wanting more, and you’re looking for comics in a similar vein beyond the big two and the rather obvious choice of more Deadpool, there’s a wealth of choices out there. Whether it be indie, self-published or webcomics, we’re living in a golden age for comedy-action comics and we’ve selected five of the very best to scratch that particular itch.

Space Battle Lunchtime is about a reality cooking show, which is already getting me excited. From Master Chef to Chopped to the Great British Bake-Off, I'm a big fan of the genre (although not Top Chef—too heavy on reality show drama, if you ask me), and I'm also into comics that are about things I like that nobody's made a comic about before. But as the name implies, Space Battle Lunchtime isn't about just any reality cooking show, it's about one that happens in Outer Space! Even more exciting! SBL tells the story of Peony, a baker from Earth who gets a last-minute chance to compete in the universe's most popular cooking show, but might not be ready for the treacherous world of space-cooking.

The wait for the nebulous arrival of Rick and Morty's third season just got a little bit easier to manage. While Oni Press' Rick and Morty comic has taken a bit of the sting out of the not knowing, we still only get that once a month. But what if I told you there was a way you'd be able to get schwifty with Rick and Morty on the regular? Starting next week, that will be possible with the arrival of Pocket Mortys, a new mobile game that mashes Rick and Morty with Pokemon. Okay, so technically you can already play a Rick and Morty video game over on the Adult Swim website, but you can't take it with you. You just can't. Pocket Mortys is hitting up both iOS and Android, meaning you'll never be without Rick's slovenly belches or Morty's ability to cancel out Rick's brainwaves to keep him safe. Plus, you get the added benefit of it being a riff on one of the most addictive and long-running role-playing game series', Pokemon.

We asked you to vote for the best comics, creators, and more in 2015, and over the last few weeks we've been sharing the results. Now you can check out all the winners in one place!

Next year will see a new ongoing series over at Oni Press, with the creative team of Christopher Sebela, Robert Wilson IV and Nick Filardi combining for the off-kilter romance series Heartthrob. The story is about a terminally ill woman called Callie who is offered a last-chance heart transplant that saves her life --- but then turns out to have a few unexpected side-effects. After fully expecting her life to be over, Callie struggles to get used to her return to a normal working life... until she comes into contact with Mercer, an enigmatic (and handsome!) man who turns her newfound life upside down. Heartthrob is a strange, funny comic, one that forges a deep connection between the characters and readers --- and it's clearly is a personal work for Sebela in particular. To explore the story further, we spoke to him about how he first developed the concept, what motivates and drives Callie as she experiences the strangest romance imaginable, and what readers can expect from the story as it moves forward.

There is an espionage term called a "floating box," where a target of observation is tailed and watched from multiple angles, forming a box that moves as the subject moves. This term never appeared in Queen and Country, but it wouldn't be out of place, because Queen & Country always tried to keep its espionage as realistic as possible, consequences be damned. Queen & Country itself had a floating box around it, coordinated by series writer Greg Rucka and carried out by a small army of comics' finest, observing its ongoing narrative from a variety of perspectives and angles. None of the various artists that Queen & Country employed were rubber stamps of each other. No slight is intended on the other terrific artists who worked on Queen & Country, but for the purposes of brevity, this article will be focusing on three of the most distinct, and how their styles shaped the book.

Let me put my cards on the table: Sophie Campbell is my favorite comic book artist. She has been at least since the Glory series she did with Joe Keatinge, although I was a fan of her work even before that. I was thrilled when her Jem and Holograms series with Kelly Thompson was announced, and it’s one of my very favorite things on the stands right now. But my favorite comics work she’s done is Wet Moon, a series of graphic novels from Oni Press, which has been ongoing for over a decade. In Wet Moon, Campbell weaves realism with subtle fantasy and horror elements, and follows a large cast of distinct characters. There are six books currently out, and Campbell has said there are at least two more to come.

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.

San Diego Comic-Con has begun, bringing over 130,000 people to enjoy the pop culture extravaganza taking place inside and outside the convention center. There is a lot to see and do every day during SDCC. More likely than not, if you don't go in with a plan for experiencing the things that you most want to check out, you'll miss them!