Comics

Independent comic publishers have been with us for as long as the comics industry has been around. If you had a photocopier and a stapler, you could do your own thing and try to convince people to buy it (and some did so quite successfully).

Now with the advent of technologies like print-on-demand, not to mention the affordability of your average print shop, and the mass-marketing tools afforded by way of crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter and Indiegogo, truly anyone can try their hand at getting into the funny book business. The downside of that is that there are so many competing projects out there for your dollar that it's easy to go unnoticed if you don't raise your voice loud enough.

Creepsters is the eighth and newest campaign from writer Nasser Rabadi to be added to his ever-growing library of horror-themed novels and comics. Arguably his best work to date, Nasser assembled a creepy team of designers, artists, and toy companies (yes, that’s right, an actual toy company) to produce his idea and make it a reality.

Synopsis: While digging for buried treasure on Perdida Cove Beach, 12-year-old Max discovers a mysterious creature he names Chomper, whose friendship will lead him into a world of danger, adventure, and heroism.

When Chomper's siblings wreak havoc in Max's seaside town, only Max and his new friend can save his sister Emma (and the town!) by combining forces to fight the sinister Creepsters that wash up on the beach after an alien object splashes down into the ocean offshore.

Kevin Strange, the creator of Strangeville and director of many “classic” independent films such as COCKHAMMER and the NIXON AND HOGAN film series brings to Indiegogo the newest installment to his comic library: NIXON AND HOGAN’S HORRORWEED HALLOWEEN, just in time for the spooky holiday.

If you are not familiar with Kevin’s movies, imagine Trailer Park Boys, written by 1990’s Kevin Smith, produced by the Insane Clown Posse, then directed by Lloyd Kaufman and that will give you some idea of the madness and degeneracy you will subject yourself to.

Filled with sex, violence, gore, drug use, and home-grown comedy, Kevin and his team at Hack Movies have built a small freaky empire of movies and comics that are the kind your mother warned you about as a child.

Kevin’s fifth and most recent campaign, NIXON and HOGAN’S HORRORWEED HALLOWEEN, is a return to his most popular characters and the wacky misadventures fans of his work have come to love and expect from him.

Cordelia and Regan Moonstone, as well as the rest of the dysfunctional and oh-so-powerful magic users return in this follow-up to Mark Millar's enchantingly entertaining adventure, The Magic Order.

The world has been saved (apparently again) by The Magic Order, a cadre of wizards who live their days in mundane, work-a-day jobs while spending their nights protecting humanity from the things they don't believe in. Stage magician and master escapologist Cordelia has taken her father's seat as the leader of the Order, She's also been reclusive since the events of the first volume of the series, holed up in their magic castle hidden inside a painting in an art gallery in Chicago.

Yes, I wrote that correctly. And that's only the surface level of weirdness you're in for when you open the pages of The Magic Order 2. 

It's my job to know what's going on in comics -- mainstream, independent, and crowdfunded. So when I noted once again that people were talking about a particular redhead, I realized there were still things not on my radar. What was this RAGS comic really about? Who was Regina Ragowski? A spitfire in a battle against zombies, or a comely spacefaring adventurer? What was this mysterious thing created by Brian Ball and Trent Luther that had fans supporting it, borrowing from it, homaging it, and giving it all this attention?

To pull back the covers from RAGS, I sat down with the one guy who had all the answers: Brian Ball. For ninety minutes, we ironed out the differences between Regina and Sailor Ragowski, as well as quashed rumors about the divide -- and if there was one -- between Antarctic Press and Ball's own company, New Age Ninja Corps. 

Maybe you haven't read comics, but you certainly saw a few movies based on them. Why not try something new? Here are the five best comics to read.

I've heard the argument (heck, I've made the argument) repeatedly that crowdfunding platforms are the new go-to source to find good, entertaining comic book material.

Never have I felt more vindicated in this regard than with my recent acquisition of Impossible Team-Up "A": Impossible Jones & Holly Daze. From the first page splash to the page-turning reveal of the situation, this book is the right mix of light-hearted fun with serious action and adventure.

CRoM Con, the online convention for independent comic creators to show off their projects (and sell them) kicks off again this August, and this time the focus will be on comics created outside the United States.

This is the second CRoM Con Europe, and each day will have intermissions for art auctions for various charities. 

The live online event will be broadcast simultaneously to the following outlets:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/CRoMadness

Twitter: https://twitter.com/MadnessComic

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/ComicTalkWithPopsVanZant

Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/thepopsvanzant

Swipes. It's a slang term that can sometimes mean 'homage' and sometimes mean 'plagiarism.' In the comic book industry, it generally refers to an image, most frequently the cover image, where the artist relies on a previously published work as a reference. Most times this is done without the intention of hiding anything -- artists appreciate other artists, and they will usually sign their name to the finished piece with "after Other Artist" to pay their respect. And sometimes, and more rarely, it's just done for expediency, without attribution just so the job gets done. Comic artist Greg Land gets discussed a lot when the comic shop conversation turns to swipes, having frequently used published photos of models and even other artist's works (like this ALIENS piece discussed here).

Usually, the swipe is obvious, and often it's from another well-known (or at least mainstream) peer in the industry.

Pirate Queen, written by Mandy Summers and illustrated by Clint Hilinski, is sixty-pages of sexy interstellar satire and parody. Independently published through an Indiegogo campaign, Pirate Queen is one of the very few books I've received where I was not pulled out of the story by some niggling (or, occasionally, glaring) editing mistake. The book credits the editor as Valentino, so kudos on a job successfully done there!

For the past few years, Kickstarter and Indiegogo have been more than just competing platforms for crowdfunding comic book projects. The division of choice between the two has ranged from preference of user interfaces to the different ways they collect funds from backers. For some, the choice is one of almost a religious fervor, with creators recalling how Kickstarter removed certain projects in the past with perceived capriciousness. It's a sentiment that lingers to such a degree that independent comics professional Jon Malin ruffled many feathers recently by announcing he would not be very open to hosting creators on his podcast if the creators were using Kickstarter as their platform.

Hurtling out of its successful Kickstarter campaign comes this tiny titan, this petite powerhouse of pulchritude -- The Mighty Mite!

Mite is the creation of C.B. Zane, and published through Outpost 426 Studios, and her debut issue packs three complete stories into 40 pages -- no small accomplishment in an era where any single story spans issues of double-digits.

On Wednesday August 11, 2021 Zombie Tramp creator Dan Mendoza announced his girl will be exclusive to the platform Kickstarter under his own label, Still Ill Princess, starting in October 2021.

This announcement adds yet one more formerly mainstream property to the list of creations and creators that bucked the system and chose to sell directly to the fans themselves using such platforms as Kickstarter and Indiegogo.

Brian Pulido broke all expectations and sales records with his character, Lady Death, when he took her to the Kickstarter platform, and continues to be the dominant force in crowdfunding comics there with his brand Coffin Comics.

Ethan Van Sciver in 2018 also chose to take his character, Cyberfrog, to Indiegogo and with the second issue of the series, titled Rekt Planet, became the top selling comic on the platform at the time, grossing over a million dollars.

Sister Mercy is a Kickstarter book written by Corey Hardiman and drawn by Ricardo Silva. This is the fourth issue and, while I have not read anything of the first three in this series, I was delightfully not confused at all by where the story began. No, not because there was a giant wall of text telling me the entire history of the character from the week before her origin (because there was none), but because of the context of the story and the natural flow of dialogue between the characters -- which also didn't do a data dump on the readers. You're in. You see. You know. That's what a good comic book series is supposed to do, make the reader comfortable with coming into the book whether it's the first issue or the fiftieth.

The big news in comics fandom today comes from the revelation in Batman: Urban Legends #6 that Tim Drake -- the third juvenile to assume the Robin identity as Batman's partner -- is bisexual. The coming out had been rumored for a few months, and the actual reveal wasn't done in an abrupt or shocking manner; no male-on-male kiss or anything like that. It's simply Tim struggling with how he feels about another boy, Bernard, and ending the current storyline by accepting a date with him.

St. Louis native James Gunn makes superhero movies the way you wished they would have when you were a kid.

Presumably raised on the traditional diet of St. Louis—too-thin pizza topped with cheese that tastes like it’s still wrapped in plastic (In My Opinion, see?), toasted ravioli, frozen custard, “Old Vienna Red Hot Riplets” potato chips and Vess soda—and stacks of comic books to read while hiding indoors from the miserable summer humidity, Gunn's body of work includes the very offbeat Super (2010) and the zany Guardians of the Galaxy films for Marvel. As brilliant as the Marvel Cinematic Universe is, the creators all know that they're free to make their film the way they want provided it meets with the overarching blueprint of visionary MCU maestro Kevin Feige.

Once upon a time there was a masked YouTuber who went by the moniker of That Umbrella Guy. He broadcasted engaging livestreams about the state of the comic book industry, and one of the highlights of his shows would be when his young daughter, Elizabeth (aka Little Umbrella Girl) would join the show and tell her stories. You never knew where these were going to go, and sometimes they just ended in the middle of things. Such is the mind of a child. But it gave That Umbrella Guy -- TUG to his viewers -- the idea to merge both of these loves -- comics and his daughter -- into a project they could do together.

And so was born The Case of the Littlest Umbrella, wherein TUG would be a masked detective aided by his eldritch "Little One" to investigate supernatural events. The book was crowdfunded on Indiegogo with over $100,000 raised by fans.

Horror comics have tradtionally been hosted by a personality: The Crypt Keeper, Cain, Abel, The Midnight Philosopher and Ariadne. Sometimes the host is a licensed character, like Elvira, who is the front-and-center star of this comic from Dynamite, which shows us an Elvira in a somewhat more prosaic life. And by prosaic, I mean it shows her from a real-world perspective: a horror hostess pitching her horror hosting gig to networks so she can keep her career going, while at the same time encountering supernatural phenomenon complicating her life.

Frank Miller disinvited from Thought Bubble comic book event after complaints from Zainaib Akhtar that she did not feel safe around the creator of SIN CITY and 300.

A graphic novel, correctly done, engages both sides of the reader's brain by merging the process of reading with that of absorbing and appreciating art. It's the only medium that can do this.

But the creators of AIRITH: THE KENTILAN WAR want to take that a few steps further, and deliver a more immersive experience to the reader by adding tactile, auditory, and even olfactory components. The graphic novel, currently funding its second volume on Indiegogo,  not only delivers an embossed cover but also includes a soundtrack of Fleetwood Mac covers and an air freshener. all with the goal of taking the reader deeper into the cyberpunk / multidimensional environment of the story.

We sat down and interviewed the creator of the series to go a little deeper into this world and find out just how far things might go for the series.