Django/Zorro

This week marked the release of Shaft: Imitation of Life, the second miniseries about the legendary private eye from Dynamite, and if you somehow missed out on the first series --- one of last year's best minis --- then here's a bit of good timing for you. This week's Humble Bundle features David F. Walker and Bilquis Eveley's Shaft: A Complicated Man. But it's not alone, either. For fifteen bucks, you can grab everything that's on offer, including Garth Ennis and Aaron Campbell's The Shadow: Fires of Creation, a collaboration between Neil Gaiman and Alice Cooper, and one of the most enjoyable crossovers in a long while, Django/Zorro.

Over the past year or so, comics publishers have jumped onto the online bundle bandwagon with both feet, offering up deals via HumbleBundle and StoryBundle, among other outlets. Now, Dynamite is trying a deal through yet another medium: BitTorrent. The publisher's "Mega Bundle" from BitTorrent Bundle includes 200-some issues of comics from 30 different series including Vampirella, Red Sonja, Bob's Burgers, Django/Zorro, The Green Hornet and Shaft, all for just $6.

Dynamite Entertainment plans to make a big splash at this year's San Diego Comic-Con to mark its 10th year in the business, and part of its plans involves a celebratory panel bringing together several of its star creators -- including one of the talents behind their new Django/Zorro comic, one Quentin Tarantino. Tarantino is what one might call an "emerging" talent in the world of comics, but he's enjoyed some success in the field of film-making with pictures like Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill, and the prequel to the Django/Zorro commic, Django Unchained. Tarantino will be joined on the panel by two of his collaborators on the project, Matt Wagner and Reginald Hudlin.

OK, here's the first weird part: Dynamite Entertainment and DC Comics are teaming up to release a comic series in which Django, the revenge-seeking slave from the movie Django Unchained, will meet Zorro, the guy who marks things with Z's. Now for the really weird and also cool part: Quentin Tarantino, the director of Django Unchained, is co-plotting the series alongside Grendel creator Matt Wagner. Reginald Hudlin, who wrote the acclaimed comic adaptation of Django Unchained for Vertigo, will serve as editor of Django/Zorro.