Juan Jose Ryp

Last year, Britannia --- the prestige murder mystery miniseries set in Ancient Rome, from Peter Milligan and Juan Jose Ryp --- took a lot of people by surprise, but showed that Valiant remains a publisher that'll keep you guessing with the genres and conventions it'll pull out of its hat. Next month, Rome's first and only detective, Antonius Axia, returns for a new mystery and Valiant have provided us a preview of the first issue.

In an age of the direct market and solicitation copy available three months ahead of time, it's hard to truly pull a swerve on comic readers like publishers used to, but Valiant Entertainment may have pulled it off. While fans have been waiting for Rafer Roberts and Darick Robertson's new team title Harbinger Renegades, due next month, today Valiant announced the series' true title as Harbinger Renegade, and revealed that it introduces a dangerous new villain to the Valiant Universe ahead of 2018's major crossover event.

I'm a pretty big fan of learning about history, but one thing that I've learned from reading up on ancient Rome is that most of those stories suffer from a truly alarming lack of monsters with sixteen eyes and a dozen clawed tentacles showing up to make things interesting. But fortunately, as always, comic books are here to improve upon reality, and when Britannia #2 hits shelves in October, it's bringing horrifying monsters with it. As writer Peter Milligan teased in his interview about the series here at CA, he and artist Juan Jose Ryp are ramping up the supernatural horror as the series continues, and you can get a first look right here. Check out the preview below!

In Britannia, Peter Milligan, Juan José Ryp and Jordie Bellaire tell the story of the world's first detective, a Roman centurion with an unusual understanding of psychology. When something that defies his knack for logic causes a murderous kind of trouble in the far reaches of the Empire, he's sent away from his home in the city to a colony far to the north --- and given the title of the series, you can probably guess which one. To find out more about the series, which launches in September from Valiant, ComicsAlliance spoke to Milligan about his approach to introducing a "detectioner" into the ancient world, the challenges of creating a character who combines modern sensibilities with Roman society, and the historical facts that informed his story. We also got an exclusive look at pages from the upcoming issue.

The second annual Valiant Summit just wrapped at the UCB Theatre in New York City, the Belle of the East Coast. Broadcast on livestream, the summit saw several writers and artists take to the stage to talk about a string of new books from the publisher that will fall under the banner “The Future of Valiant”, including Rafer Roberts, Jody Houser, and Matt Kindt. The event was Valiant's answer to Image Expo, with five new titles announced, including the long-rumbled Britannia, plus the previously announced Faith ongoing. Here's the full rundown.

Just earlier today, we speculated that we’d be seeing more announcements of exclusive contracts beyond those coming from DC Comics, and it seems that is the case, as Valiant Entertainment has announced a whopping fifteen exclusive deals in one fell swoop ahead of this weekend’s Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo.

This TV season is already overflowing with new TV shows based on comics, with Gotham, iZombie, Powers, The Flash, and more on the way, but SyFy announced this week that it's adding even more to the list. Keeping in line with its return to science fiction and fantasy programming (though it's keeping its oddly spelled name, it seems), the network is launching a huge slate of new shows, including fou

One of the relatively few DC Comics writers to be well into the second year of his original New 52 gig, Kyle Higgins has big plans for Nightwing, the original Robin who many fans think of as the first born son of the DC Universe; the younger readers' original counterpart in Batman's world of mystery, danger and adventure...

I want to start of my review on a positive note: Taskmaster #4 by Fred Van Lente and Jefte Palo was an amazing finale to the best book Marvel's put out all year. I've talked about it at length here already, so this is just another suggestion to go read it now before I move on to this week's full review...

Peter Milligan has been bouncing in and out of superhero comics for years, whether in long runs like the fan-favorite "X-Statix" or brief one-shots like "Moon Knight: Silent Night." in this week's "Punisher MAX: Happy Ending" one-shot, he's bringing his particular brand of identity-focused writing to bear on Frank Castle, featuring art by Avatar Press staple and relat