Gail Simone

What if all of your worst nightmares were real? What if your most paranoid fantasies were more optimistic than the real world would ever be? What if those who seem to lead us to damnation are our only hope? Welcome to the Clean Room.

There's always been a seamless crossover between video games and comic books, and odds are if you're a fan of one, you're a fan of the other. Comics have been adapted into video games and vice-versa for almost as long as video games have been "a thing," and as both mediums have evolved, so too has the quality of those crossovers. With the holidays around the corner, we've put together a selection of some of the best video game related comics and art books for the gamer in your life.

It's Fantasy Week here at Comics Alliance, and many of my fellow CA contributors are writing about their favorite monsters. And I can respect that, but why would I choose one monster when I could highlight a book with lots of monsters instead? Especially when these monsters are all really, really sexy. Published by Iron Circus Comics and edited by C. Spike Trotman, Smut Peddler Presents: My Monster Boyfriend has ten short comics about monsters and the humans who love them. Its highly successful Kickstarter earlier this year (paired with the femdom erotica comic Yes, Roya) raised over $160,000. There is clearly a market for comics full of sexy monster boys, is what I'm saying.

A while back DC announced plans to revive Jack Kirby's Kamandi: The Last Boy On Earth in January in a form that, to say the least, is a little unique. It's called The Kamandi Challenge, and the idea --- loosely inspired by 1985's DC Challenge and its game of storytelling hot potato --- is that the twelve-issue series will feature a new creative team, randomly paired together from a list of twelve writers and twelve artists for each issue, each picking up the story where the previous team leaves off. It's an interesting way to mark the 100th anniversary of Kirby's birth in 2017. In advance of New York Comic-Con, DC has revealed a first look at some of the artwork from the series, plus new details of how the creative teams will approach the story.

If you don't already follow Clean Room, this exclusive five-page preview may not answer many questions, but there are plenty of hints at the threads that tie this sprawling story together, courtesy of writer Gail Simone, and the art by Jon Davis-Hunt is a particular standout!

The Question is the feature where we ask our contributors for their personal responses to some of the big questions weighing on our minds! This week is Bisexual Awareness Week, a campaign that seeks to accelerate acceptance of the bisexual community. Bi visibility in fiction is an important part of that effort, as bisexual people are often marginalized or ignored in fictional worlds. Thankfully there are a growing number of bisexual characters in comics today, so to celebrate #BiWeek, we asked our writers; Which bisexual characters do you think deserve a bigger spotlight?

Mental illness is an issue that affects one in four people, yet there is still a stigma around talking about it or seeking help from friends, family and employers. In an effort to get more people talking, and to shine a light on the effects of mental illness, Tee Franklin, aka MizCaramelVixen, has assembled an all-star team of creators for #EndTheStigma: A Mental Health Anthology, which launches an open call for submissions at the end of September.

San Diego Comic Con is without a doubt the biggest event on the industry’s calendar, and people will be flying from around the world to attend panels, watch trailers, meet creators, and make friends. This year’s event is bigger than ever, with so much going on every single day that it can be difficult to sift through all that information and decide how to spend your time. Yesterday we gave a rundown on what to expect on Thursday and Friday, but things heat up as the weekend kicks in and the major studios make their presence known. Expect big reveals from Marvel Studios, DC's TV offerings and more, plus great panels featuring your favorite creators in comics.

With so many great comics series to read, it can be difficult remembering what happened in a previous issue as we head into the current one. The Recap Page is here to help readers remember what they need to know as a new issue looms. This week, Clean Room #7 by writer Gail Simone and Jon Davis-Hunt delves into the backstory of its pseudo-antagonist, Astrid Mueller --- a New Age self-help guru and the leader of a cult that might save the world, destroy it, or do both at the same time.

Imagine you had the perfect life with everything you ever wanted and a partner to share it with. Now imagine that your partner read a self-help book that drove them insane to the point of suicide. Wouldn't you want answers? That's the kick-off to Gail Simone and Jon Davis-Hunt's Vertigo series Clean Room. Within six issues, we've followed Chloe Pierce as she tries to understand the inner-workings of a Scientolgy-like cult headed by the enigmatic Astrid Mueller, and things keep getting stranger and more unsettling the further down the rabbit hole we go. ComicsAlliance chatted to Gail Simone about building the world of Clean Room, plus Vertigo provided us with pages from this week's Clean Room #7!