Jimmy Palmiotti

Ever since it was first announced last April as the brainchild of Mike Marts and Joe Pruett, AfterShock Comics has been talking a pretty big game. They've signed an impressive roster of talent, but there hasn't been much news about the actual projects --- until today, when AfterShock announced the titles, teams, and release dates for its first four titles. All four are set to hit shelves in December, with new titles from Paul Jenkins and Andy Clarke, and Marguerite Bennett and Ariela Kristantina, leading the way.

Not everyone can make it to San Diego Comic-Con to see what's happening in person, but ComicsAlliance has you covered! We know that it's not just about the news that comes out of the biggest con of the year --- it's also about seeing the booths, checking out new collectibles, and putting faces to names of your favorite creators. Thankfully talented photographer Pat Loika is on hand to document as much as he can for your enjoyment.

AfterShock Comics, the new publisher formed earlier this year by Joe Pruett, has announced a huge slate of writers who'll be penning creator-owned stories for their eventual launch line - including Justin Jordan, Garth Ennis, Marguerite Bennett and Amanda Conner.

A few days ago DC casually outed two characters that everybody had always thought were a couple, even if it had never been actually stated on-panel anywhere. Responding to the question, "Are Harley and Ivy girlfriends?" the official DC Twitter account confirmed: "Yes, they are Girlfriends without the jealousy of monogamy." That's a breakthrough of sorts, but it’s not as though DC could do anything but confirm the relationship, at this point! The best creative team in comics could tell a decade-long story in which Harley falls in love and marries a man, has kids, and settles down into monogamy, and fans would still stoke the fires driving the Harley/Ivy ship onwards.

We make a regular practice at ComicsAlliance of spotlighting particular artists or specific bodies of work, as well as the special qualities of comic book storytelling, but because cartoonists, illustrators and their fans share countless numbers of great pinups, fan art and other illustrations on sites like Flickr, Tumblr, DeviantArt and seemingly infinite art blogs that we’ve created Best Art Ever (This Week), a weekly depository for just some of the pieces of especially compelling artwork that we come across in our regular travels across the Web. Some of it’s new, some of it’s old, some of it’s created by working professionals, some of it’s created by future stars, some of it’s created by talented fans, awnd some of it’s endearingly silly. All of it is awesome.

The success of Harley Quinn seems to have taken everybody by surprise – including DC Comics, who suddenly finds itself with one of the most successful female-led ongoing series on the stands. Written by Amanda Conner and Jimmy Palmiotti, with art (mostly) from Chad Hardin and colorist Alex Sinclair, letters by John J. Hill, Harley Quinn has proven to be a huge success with readers and retailers. And with volume one collected and out now in hardcover, it seemed like a good time to look back across the first nine issues and get a look at what all the fuss has been about.

From its lenticular covers to its weekly events to its wanton hiring of Rob Liefeld, DC Comics has brought back a lot of comic gimmicks since starting up The New 52 in 2011. The newest one will involve Harley Quinn and your nose. That's right. Harley Quinn Annual #1 will be a scratch-'n'-sniff issue, with the smells of leather, suntan lotion, and pizza included. There's also a smell that's purported to be cannabis. That one will be replaced in international issues with "fresh-cut grass."

When the New 52 launched back in 2011, one of the interesting things about the lineup of titles was the presence of a lot of books that attempted to break out of the standard superhero genre, at least a little. There were horror, fantasy and war comics, but the most creatively and commercially successful by far was DC Comics' All Star Western, featuring Jonah Hex. Now, however, All Star Western is coming to an end after three years with a story where Jonah Hex is faced with what may be his toughest foe yet: Jonah Hex. This issue marks a pretty notable conclusion for a few reasons, most notably being that, if you count the Jonah Hex series that launched back in 2006 before rebooting as All Star Western, writers Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray are two of DC's longest tenured creators, having written over a hundred issues about Jonah Hex, the disfigured old west era bounty hunter originally created by John Albano and Tony DeZuniga in the early 1970s. The second is that the issue marks the auspicious return of award-winning artist Darwyn Cooke to the character for his final adventure.

  We make a regular practice at ComicsAlliance of spotlighting particular artists or specific bodies of work, as well as the special qualities of comic book storytelling, but because cartoonists, illustrators and their fans share countless numbers of great pinups, fan art and other illustrations on sites like Flickr, Tumblr, DeviantArt and seemingly infinite art blogs that we’ve created Best Art E

A controversial panel depicting a nude Harley Quinn in a bathtub surrounded by plugged-in electronics is not in the final version of Harley Quinn #0. Fans found out about the panel when DC Comics announced a contest seeking an artist to draw one page of the issue. DC Co-Publishers Dan DiDio and Jim Lee said they would personally select the artist based on submissions of a single page, and included