Comic book fans know writer Brian Wood from critically acclaimed titles like DMZ and Northlanders, along with writing the limited series Wolverine and the X-Men: Alpha and Omega for Marvel and Conan The Barbarian for Dark Horse (starting February 8th). Along with those writing duties, on February 1st Wood introduces his latest creator-owned title, The Massive, in the pages of Dark Horse Presents #8. Working with longtime collaborator Kristian Donaldson, the story begins as a prologue before going…massive…later this year. We had a chance to talk with Brian Wood via email about The Massive, writing for the legendary anthology Dark Horse Presents and more.

Andy Burns: Congrats on appearing in Dark Horse Presents! It’s got to be exciting to be part of a title with such a great history. What can you tell us about The Massive?

Brian Wood: The Massive is my next big creator-owned project, following pretty much immediately in the footsteps of DMZ and Northlanders, and will be a multi-year ongoing monthly book.  I know we’re mostly talking about the three-part Dark Horse Presents run right now, but that’s just the opening salvo.  This is a major project, probably the biggest launch of my career.  That’ll kick off in June.

The Massive is about a near-future, post-crash world where the very fabric of society is being torn to shreds by massive (heh!) environmental upheaval.  A small group of hardcore environmentalists are stuck in the middle of the chaos, coming to grips with the fact that a) they failed to save the planet, and b) its sort of up to them to figure out what’s going on, since what’s happing to the planet is in direct opposition of any climate model ever run.  The book is political without being preachy… and its sci-fi in a very grounded way.  It’s action but not a war book like DMZ.  And it has the same sort of “man in harsh climate” vibe that Northlanders was shot through with.

Andy Burns: As a writer, how does your approach change when it comes to working on a monthly title of your own versus a case like The Massive, where you’re contributing to an anthology?

Brian Wood: Well, since these DHP stories are prequels in a sense, I had a few objectives to handle… I had to write these three stories as not only short stories that could stand alone, but also as effective representations of what is to come.  I had to appeal to two potential audiences at once, in the space of 8 pages.  It wasn’t anything I’d done before, and, like DMZ, The Massive is a huge world-building project.  It required a lot of self-editing to figure out what gets into those 8 pages.

Andy Burns: The Massive looks to be quite different from Conan or Wolverine and the X-Men: Alpha & Omega (a stellar first issue, by the way). I’m wondering if you could go into some detail as to what your writing process is when working on multiple titles and how you divvy up your time?

Brian Wood: I try to assign a week to each book, if I can, so I can organize my brain in some way that makes sense.  But these past couple months I was writing six books at once, which was a little insane.  But since DMZ ended, and Supernatural wrapped up, and Northlanders is almost done, its a little more sane now.

Andy Burns: Similar to my earlier question, does writing for an anthology setting rather than a 22 page monthly change how you work with an artist, in this case Kristian Donaldson? 

Brian Wood: Not really.  Any difference is really in the density of the script, the choices that I make as a writer.  I’m sure from the artist’s POV its no different from anything else.

Andy Burns: The Massive is your own creation, while both Conan and the X-Men come with their own mythology, or baggage depending on one’s outlook. As a writer, do you ever have a preference as to which sandbox you play in? That is, a shared universe or one you’ve created? 

Brian Wood: It’s a no-brainer.  I hope I can speak for all comic book creators when I say that working on your own creations is the way to go.  It’s not always financially possible, but from a creative standpoint?  Come on…

Andy Burns: How many issues will The Massive be a part of Dark Horse Presents? 

Brian Wood: Three issues, DHP #8-10.  And like I said, The Massive proper kicks off in June.

Dark Horse Presents #8 is in stores and on the Dark Horse Digital App February 1^st. Thanks to Brian Wood for his time and to Aub Driver at Dark Horse for making it happen. 

One of the great things about the return of the legendary anthology series Dark Horse Presents is the great tastes of various authors readers get to check out in every issue. Lately, we’ve seen the return Beasts of Burden from Evan Dorkin and Jill Thompson, along with new stuff from Brian Wood (you can read our interview with him regarding The Massive here). The latest issue of DHP presents a first look at Alabaster: Wolves, the new series from author Caitlin R. Kiernan. Caitlin was kind enough to talk to Biff Bam Pop! via email about the series, its protaganist, Dancy Flammarion, her creative process and much more.

Andy Burns: Talk about a tease – I really enjoyed the first taste of Alabaster: Wolves that appears in Dark Horse Presents #9. What can you tell me about the upcoming series and your inspiration for it?

Caitlin R. Kiernan: Well, I am glad you liked what you saw. As to inspiration, Dancy has always been a certain sort of character in my prose. Whether she’s sane or insane, right or horribly mistaken, she’s always believed that she’s been fighting on the side of the angels. And that nothing is too small to sacrifice in that battle. In this story, I wanted to take that certainty away from her, and see her face the monsters with her faith in shambles. And I wanted to write about werewolves. Genuinely unsettling werewolves infesting a South Carolina bayou. And that’s pretty much what you get.

Andy Burns: In terms of writing the story that appears in DHP #9, how did you decide what you wanted comic readers first experience of Alabaster to consist of?

Caitlin R. Kiernan: What readers get in DHP #9 are the eight opening pages of Alabaster: Wolves #1, which work to introduce the series’ mood. It’s meant to give readers a taste of the tension, who Dancy is, and so forth. To hint that there’s bad shit in store. It’s the calm before the storm. But, really, it’s mostly a preview. It wasn’t written for DHP #9, just excerpted. Not a self-contained story. A tease, as you said. We want to whet the appetites of readers and leave them wanting more, needing to know what happens next.

Andy Burns: For readers who may not know the name Dancy Flammarion, what can you tell them about her? 

Caitlin R. Kiernan: She first showed up as one of the most important characters in my second novel, Threshold, which was published in 1998. Then I sort of reworked her a little, and kept writing short stories about her, mostly what happened to Dancy before the novel, and these stories were collected in book called Alabaster, back in 2006. I thought I was done with her then, but over the years I’ve discovered myself wanting to return to her. Dancy Flammarion is an albino teenager raised in the backwoods of Florida, and after something terrible happened to her family, she was set on a quest by what she believes is an angel, a seraph, to slay a series of monsters haunting various nooks and corners of the Deep South. All of the short stories were set in southern Georgia. But when I looked at doing the series, I decided to give her another reboot. This is an older Dancy, more world weary and less innocent. I moved her to the South Carolina Lowcountry. And it all begins with her having a falling out with the seraph, as her faith begins to erode. In a lot of ways this is a new Dancy Flammarion, not only to readers unfamiliar with the novel and short stories, but to people who’ve been reading me for years.

Andy Burns: One of the aspects of Alabaster: Wolves I really enjoyed was a sense of desolation you managed to establish in a relatively short amount of time. As a writer, how do you go about creating a world – that is, how much is based on imagination and how much is inspired by what you see in the world we live in today?  

Caitlin R. Kiernan: I grew up in the South, and a lot of the landscape in the comic is drawn from my own experiences. There’s a lot of desolation in the out-of-the-way places. Glimpses of the Old South abutting the New South. There’s a lot of ugly and a lot of mean. It can be a harsh place. Dancy’s always managed to traverse this landscape unscathed, one way or another. So, yeah, that part of the world building is based on firsthand experience.  But then, in this story, in Wolves, I decided to ramp up that sense of desolation by placing the story in a ghost town and among the ruins of antebellum plantations. In a way that readers will see, Dancy’s wandered – or been led – into a surreal, devastated post apocalyptic countryside. And it’s here that everything she’s ever known, trusted, put her faith in, her worldview is about to be turned upside down.

Andy Burns: I’m always interested in a writer’s methodology when it comes down to their actual creative process. What’s your method of writing – is there a particular routine you follow? Do you listen to music at all? Does it change depending on if you’re working on a novel or a comic?

Caitlin R. Kiernan: I always write to music. I’ve said in a lot of interviews over the years, I can’t write without music. It’s a lot harder to write about technique. When I’m writing prose I do what a lot of authors call “sentence-level writing.” I work on one sentence until it’s probably as perfect as I can make it, then move to the next one. I don’t write in drafts. What’s printed is usually the “first draft.” But, doing comics, most of the rules have to change. There are drafts. There’s a level of editing, as the artists work, that takes a lot of getting used to, you know? I’ve always imagined it’s more like making a film than writing prose fiction. And I have to use a painstaking economy of words that is entirely alien to the way I usually work. I don’t have the luxury of taking a thousand words to let a scene play out. I can’t load pages down with exposition. I have to trust the artist as a storytelling partner. I can’t overwhelm the reader or the artist, and I have to keep in mind that the comic, the graphic novel, is a visual medium.

Andy Burns:  You’re working with artist Steve Lieber on Alabaster – how has the collaboration been so far?

Caitlin R. Kiernan: Very good. Very, very good. There were some rough patches at the very beginning, but I think that was both of us learning the strengths and weaknesses of the other. Now, we’ve settled into this odd artistic marriage, as it were. Steve is amazing. He’s doing wonderful things with my scripts, bring them to life panel by panel. Same thing with our colorist, Rachelle Rosenberg, and the covers the Greg Ruth is doing, every one is more beautiful that the one before it.

Andy Burns: The series starts proper in April – can you give a hint as to what we’ll see in the first few issues?

Caitlin R. Kiernan: I don’t want to drop a lot of spoilers, so this is tricky. You’ll see a lot of wolves, obviously, and worse things than wolves. we’ve put a good deal of effort into the creature design. It’s a very Lovecraftian tale of black magic and warped universes. Action! Loads of fight scenes that I’m loving. And we see Dancy evolving into someone – something – jaded and dark, which I never thought I’d do.

Andy Burns: Other than Alabaster, is there anything else you’re working on at the moment?

Caitlin R. Kiernan:  My latest novel, The Drowning Girl: A Memoir will be out from Penguin on March 6^th, and I’m about to start promotion for it. We’ve done a truly beautiful book trailer, which we filmed back in October in Rhode Island and Massachusetts, and that’s still being edited. But there’s a “teaser” version of the trailer up at my website. I have my next short-story collection due out in May, Confessions of a Five-Chambered Heart. In August, I’ll be writing the second novel in a series that’s very, very different from my usual novels. I thought, what if Robert Rodriquez made a move about a heroin-addicted demon slayer whose a vampire, but also a werewolf, and it was based on a screenplay by Joss Whedon and Quentin Tarantino. Very over the top, sort of me setting out to subvert the paranormal-romance genre. Which I hate with a passion. Anyway, a series of books that’s fun to write. The first in the series is called Blood Oranges, and will be out in 2013. It’s really my first attempt at straight-up comedy. Plus, I also have a lot of short-story deadlines for various anthologies. Too much work, business as usual.

Andy Burns: Finally, is there anything you’re reading, comics or otherwise, that Biff Bam Pop! readers should be checking out?

Caitlin R. Kiernan:  I go through long spells where I read nothing much but nonfiction. I’m in one of those at the moment, mostly reading science books and journals, mostly paleontology and geology. In 2011, though, there were several novels I read and greatly enjoyed. The Hunger Games, which my agent was insistent I read. Novels by Holly Black, short fiction by Kelly Link. Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief, which Neil Gaiman was emphatic I read. Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. Grace Krilanovich’s The Orange Eats Creeps and Kit Whitfield’s In Greater Waters. My annual November re-reading of Danielewski’s House of Leaves, probably my favorite novel of the last decade or so. Yeah, that sums up my most recent fiction binge. As for comics, my favorite just now is David Petersen’s brilliant Mouse Guard. And Hellboy. And I’ve been reading Jacques Tardi’s Les Aventures extraordinaires d’Adèle Blanc-Sec. I highly recommend all these.

I’m a die-hard digital comics convert, for many reasons. I’m not going to get into them all now, but I will let you in on one particular reason. You get to discover series’ that you might miss otherwise. Such is the case with Beasts of Burden, which I came across one day while going through the Dark Horse Comics App Store. I took a chance on the first issue about the town of Burden and its supernatural investigators, consisting of dogs and cats, and completely fell in love with it. Written by Evan Dorkin and illustrated by Jill Thompson, the series is a fantastic horror tale, one of the best I’ve read in forever. With talking animals as your stars, you might think Beasts of Burden would be all cutesy. How wrong you would be.

Evan Dorkin was kind enough to answer some questions via email about Beasts of Burden – where it came from, his collaboration with Jill Thompson, and much more, including his other work appearing in the legendary anthology series, Dark Horse Presents.

Andy Burns: I was a late comer to Beasts of Burden, having first discovered it on the Dark Horse Digital App. For Biff Bam Pop readers who might also just be discovering the series, could you give me the background on how Beasts of Burden was developed?

Evan Dorkin: In 2003 Scott Allie asked me to contribute to a horror anthology called The Dark Horse Book of Hauntings, and I came up with an idea for an 8-page story about a haunted dog house and how the neighborhood animals help solve the mystery behind it. I had Jill Thompson in mind for the art, specifically her watercolor work, which I knew from her Scary Godmother books. Jill agreed to illustrate the story, which was called Stray, and which got a nice reaction. Stray was done as a standalone story but when Scott was putting together a second anthology, The Dark Horse Book of Witchcraft, we ended up doing a follow-up with the characters dealing with an invasion of black cat witches familiars in their neighborhood. Then we did two more stories for the Book of the Dead and the Book of Monsters, by which time we realized we were developing a series with a continuity about these dogs and cats dealing with the supernatural. That led to a mini-series, which is when we actually started calling it Beasts of Burden. The series developed in fits and starts into an ongoing concern, and Jill and I work on it whenever schedules permit. We’ve done twelve stories so far, the first four anthology appearances, a four-issue mini-series, a one-shot crossover with Mike Mignola’s Hellboy and three short stories in Dark Horse Presents. The first eight stories were collected in a hardcover book called Beasts of Burden: Animal Rites which is currently in a second printing. That’s probably more than any of your readers wanted to know, but there it is.

Andy Burns: For some, the idea of cats and dogs investigating the paranormal might imply some sort of cuteness to the story, but Beasts of Burden is far from cute. There’s some sad and shocking moments throughout all the stories you’ve written. Were you ever met with any preconceived notions as to what the stories might be as opposed to what they actually are?

Evan Dorkin: If you’re dealing with dogs and cats there’s no way you’re not dealing with cute. Especially if Jill’s painting the dogs and cats. That cute factor was built into the first story – which was supposed to be the only story – it ends with a cat and a dog curled up asleep in a doghouse, which is just disgustingly cute. That being said, these are horror comics. There’s humor, and fantasy, and even some romantic stuff, but at it’s core it’s a horror series. The characters may be cute but a lot of not-so-cute stuff happens to them. I don’t show the comics to my young daughter, there’s zombie roadkill and animal torture and characters get eaten. We know there are  readers who approach the book with trepidation if not outright hostility because they think it’s a kiddie book with cute animals doing cute things. If we can get them to actually check the book out we tend to get a good reaction. I understand that talking animals is a deal breaker for a lot of people. I never planned on writing a comic about talking animals, that’s for sure. But dismissing the book as talking animals misses the point. Plus, you have to read something to know you actually don’t like it.

Andy Burns: The characters returned most recently in a few issues of Dark Horse Presents. Does your approach to writing Beasts of Burden change at all when writing longer stories (ie the mini-series) vs the shorter pieces?

Evan Dorkin: The only real difference is in working towards the shorter page length. Obviously you can’t write as much business, especially since Jill’s watercolors means I have to try and keep the pages down to five panels at the most as much as possible. I chopped down the cast for the stories, or gave most of the cast a more passive role than they would have had in a longer story. But whether I have 8 pages or 22 I try to get as much story in as possible. I want every page to count for something. I wanted the three DHP stories to be complete on their own while also layering in texture and details that pick up on stuff from previous stories or set up stuff that we’ll come back to in the future. They’re not super-ambitious stories, but I think we get a lot more done in 8 pages than most modern genre comics do in 22. My general writing approach is different on all my Beasts scripts, because my own work tends to be very dense and cluttered with many panels on a page and a lot of dialogue and characters and details. So every Beasts script is different for me because I have to rein in all my OCD tendencies. We work hard to give the readers their money’s worth every time we put something out there.

Andy Burns: Jill Thompson’s art is as much a part of the beauty of the series as your writing. Could you talk about how the two of you collaborate? Is there much interaction between the both of you in developing the stories?

Evan Dorkin:For the most part, I write the stories and Jill tells them. We talk about upcoming plots so she can get ideas going on visuals and designs and stuff and make suggestions. Jill’s contributed plot points and business to the scripts and she’s played around with the layouts and panels, extending sequences and cutting stuff. She’s the one who suggested putting a Pug in the cast, she worked out a stronger ending for the Hellboy crossover, the last section of the werewolf story works as well as it does because of her re-staging it and extending it. The scripts aren’t written in stone as far as the layouts or storytelling goes. I have complete trust in Jill’s talent, we don’t see layouts from her except for covers. What she paints is what we print. We have plans for a holiday special we’d like to do that we’d co-plot, Jill had some ideas and I worked up some notes for it and hopefully someday we’ll get that going. It would be a more lighthearted story, I think it would be a lot of fun to do.

Andy Burns: All of us at Biff Bam Pop are always interested in the creative process of a writer. What was the process like for you writing The View From The Hill? How long did it take to craft? Do you listen to music at all when writing? 

Evan Dorkin: I almost always listen to music while writing, what I listen to depends on my mood and what the project is like and whether I have a headache or not. Sometimes I pick specific music for what I’m working on, when I was working on a Metal Men series (which was canceled) I listened to nothing but electronic music, Goldfrapp, Gary Numan,  Ladytron, Kraftwerk and whatever. I listen to classical fairly often when writing Beasts of Burden. I’ll often switch from punk and power pop to big bands and standards to classical all in the same work shift. Sometimes I’ll just put on favorite shows on WFMU.org or listen to archives of my favorite deejays and run them all night. When I draw I listen to a lot of old radio programs,  mysteries, horror, crime and comedies, mostly. It helps keep my company while I’m making all those marks on paper.

Andy Burns: Is there more Beasts of Burden in the future?

Evan Dorkin: The series has a definite ending and, fingers crossed, we’ll get to that point before too long. So, yeah, there will be more Beasts of Burden, but it takes a while for us to get the material out there, as our readers have learned. Hopefully we’ll be able to announce some new stuff  soon.

Andy Burns: What are you currently working on?

Evan Dorkin: I just finished up 24 pages of comics and gag pages for Dark Horse Presents #10 – 12, five pages of Milk and Cheese, a Murder Family story, an Eltingville Club story and six pages of four-panel gags, all colored by Sarah Dyer. I also just turned in a short script for Bongo’s Bart Simpson comic, I might be doing some more stuff for them this year if all works out. Sarah and I just did some work for Mad Magazine. The next thing I’m doing is a bunch of scripts for an an unannounced project, after that I guess I’m going to be looking for work.

Andy Burns: And finally, are you reading anything, comics or otherwise, that Biff Bam Pop readers should check out?

Evan Dorkin: I’ve been reading old Spider pulp reprints and Phil Dick books and a lot of manga lately, mostly Tezuka stuff, Blackjack, Princess Knight, Book of Human Insects. I was borrowing Naoki Urasawa’s Pluto from the library and finally finished that up, I really enjoyed it. I started reading 20th Century Boys, which I really like so far, but I’m stuck waiting for volume 8 or 9 and forgot half of what I read already. A Drifting Life was really good. I’m mostly reading escapist stuff before passing out after work, nothing too heavy. These days I can barely remember the Donald Duck comics I read five minutes after I put the book down.

Thanks for Evan Dorkin for taking the time to talk to Biff Bam Pop! And, as always, thanks to Aub Driver at Dark Horse Comics for helping make it happen. To check out Beasts of Burden and Dark Horse Presents, head on over to Dark Horse Digital. 

Last week I told you to stay at home and not make the Wednesday run to your local comic book shop – crazy head games, huh?!? Instead, I said that all you had to do was hit the internet superhighway and make your way to Dark Horse Digital and pick up the free online prequel comic book, MIND MGMT: Secret Files #’s 1-3.

Well today, get on your horse and visit your bricks and mortar comic book shop because the highly anticipated first hardcopy issue of the new MIND MGMT monthly series is waiting for eager hands to thumb through. You know, old school style!

There are actually a number of interesting comics out this week. Marvel Comics has Astonishing X-Men #50 wherein Canadian Alpha Flight hero, Northstar, proposes to his beau, Kyle. DC Comics publishes the first issue return of Grant Morrison’s Batman Incorporated #1 as well as the Absolute version of Batman: Dark Victory. Speaking of dark, Dark Horse Comics has the return of Dean Motter’s beloved Mister X in the pages of Dark Horse Presents #12. But it’s MIND MGMT, also published by Dark Horse that’s got hold of my <a-hem> mind.

MIND MGMT #1
By: Matt Kindt
Published by: Dark Horse Comics

I was lucky enough to meet Matt Kindt at the Toronto Comics Arts Festival a few years ago where I picked up his 3 Story: The Secret History of the Giant Man and loved it so much that I read it all in one sitting. Since then, I’ve been on the lookout for his work, enjoying his Vertigo graphic novel, Revolver, his watercolour art work on guest issues of Sweet Tooth, and I look forward to his writing chores on DC’s Frankenstein: Agent of S.H.A.D.E.

With MIND MGMT, however, Kindt is all in, writing and drawing the series in its entirety – and that’s exactly what I want to see from him.

In the world of MIND MGMT, memories can be erased, advertising is hypnotic, dolphins can talk, psychics are used as weapons and reality itself can be rewritten! I’ve already said it before, but if you’re a fan of Lost, Philip K. Dick, 100 Bullets, Heart of Darkness, Akira or character-driven stories with fantastic hand-painted art, you’re sure to enjoy this series. It’s right in Kindt’s wheelhouse. And mine.

So make a fleet-footed Wednesday run today and set your mind towards MIND MGMT. You’ll be sure to enjoy it. And that’s no alternate reality promise, either.     

Every Wednesday, JP makes the after-work run to his local downtown comic book shop. Comics arrive on Wednesdays you see and JP, fearful that the latest issue will sell out, rushes out to purchase his copy. This regular, weekly column will highlight a particularly interesting release, written in short order, of course, because JP has to get his – before someone else does!

I’ve been waiting for some new Paul Pope work.

Sure, there have been covers, short stories and the other whatnots in the comic book industry, but what I would really like to see is something a bit longer-form. I’m curious to see what comes next from the writer/illustrator and acclaimed Eisner Award winner of Batman: Year 100, the sci-fi Heavy Liquid, 100% and the absolutely amazing Adam Strange weekly serial that ran within the pages of Wednesday Comics, published a few years ago.

All of these works (available in smart hardcover compilations, too) point to new directions from a beloved creator of sequential art. But even with today’s release of The One Trick Rip-Off + Deep Cuts, we’ll all still be waiting for that new material (his Battling Boy is on the way, we’re promised). You see, today’s release compiles work from the 1990’s – early stuff in Pope’s career.

But to see where an artist is going, you need to see where an artist come from.

The One Trick Rip-Off + Deep Cuts HC
Written and Illustrated by: Paul Pope
Published by: Image Comics

Paul Pope’s visually style will evoke the remembrance of beloved artists such as Alex Toth, Jack Kirby and maybe even a little Joe Kubert. That’s high praise indeed. But his flowing and evocative line work has got a bit of a grungy appeal to it too. It’s a bit punk rock – and maybe that feeling stems from his subject matter: down and out protagonists, scratching for a living.

Originally serialized in Dark Horse Presents in 1995-1996, The One Trick Rip-Off tells the Romeo and Juliet-esque story of Tubby and Vim, attempting to shed their lot in life by ripping off the toughest street hang in Los Angeles, all pals of Tubby. It’s West Side Story meets Trainspotting. Boiled down, it’s a classic heist tale, but completely removed from your normal tropes and interjected with rock ‘n’ roll styling.

This particular compilation also includes over 150 pages of new, rare and never before seen work by Pope – a section that makes up the “Deep Cuts” portion of the hardcover. The work is diverse and experimental. Hell, there are illustrations here of Rimbaud’s poetry, nods to Greek tragedy and tips of the hat to Japanese manga aesthetic! It’s a collection of where the young visual storyteller was at the beginning of his career and it would point to those works that would come later.

So make the run today and pick up Paul Pope’s The One Trick Rip-Off + Deep Cuts hardcover compilation. Sequential art has never rocked so hard.

Every Wednesday, JP makes the after-work run to his local downtown comic book shop. Comics arrive on Wednesdays you see and JP, fearful that the latest issue will sell out, rushes out to purchase his copy. This regular, weekly column will highlight a particularly interesting release, written in short order, of course, because JP has to get his – before someone else does!

Every Wednesday, JP makes the after-work run to his local downtown comic book shop. Comics arrive on Wednesdays you see and JP, fearful that the latest issue will sell out, rushes out to purchase his copy. This regular, weekly column will highlight a particularly interesting release, written in short order, of course, because JP has to get his – before someone else does!

It’s been ten years since the 2007-2008 global financial crisis that devastated longstanding, too-big-to-fail, banking institutions and shattered the life savings of hundreds of thousands of hard working people.

Entire countries were enveloped in the quicksand of collapse. Jobs were eliminated overnight. Lives were lost.

And hatred, abhorrence and distrust for the affluent deepened and spread.

The phrase “1 per cent” became mainstream, and pop culture followed down that rabbit hole in many ways, be it film or music, continuously shining the light of justice and social equity on money, power…and, in the case of comic books, the rich superheroes that protected the city and its citizens!

Ladies and gentlemen, purveyors of social justice, fandom of a certain age, if you haven’t already had the pleasure, let me introduce to today’s release of The Black Sinister!

The Black Sinister – Hardcover Graphic Novel

Written By: Kaare Andrews

Illustrated By: Troy Nixey

Published By: Dark Horse Comics

Canadian writer, illustrator, and director, Kaare Andrews (Renato Jones: The One%, Iron Fist: The Living Weapon, Spider-Man: Reign), has been crafting stories about aspects of the “1 per cent” and, reciprocally, the “99 per cent”, for some time now. Calling it his “Wealth” trilogy, the most popular of his creations is probably the monthly Renato Jones: The One%, published by Image Comics.

With The Black Sinister, Andrews has partnered with visionary illustrator, director and, it so happens, fellow Canadian, Troy Nixey (Lobster Johnson: A Chain Forged In Life, Only The End Of The World Again), to create a world that has justice spinning entirely out of control.

Originally published in serialized format within the pages of the monthly Dark Horse Presents anthology (issue s#26-#31), The Black Sinister tells the story of billionaire Emerson Black who offers his own brand of unhinged justice on gangs, villains and all sorts of dastardly criminals. All in equal measure with the common city jaywalker!

The Black Sinister is billionaire Bruce Wayne with a psychotic mind! It’s Batman gone bad. Way bad.

Does money allow for justice to be above the law? Are laws equal and equitable for all?

The citizens of Coal City don’t think so. And now the “99 per cent” need to protect themselves against their completely unhinged antihero! As if they didn’t have enough problems with the affluent!

The Black Sinister is a 72-page hardcover graphic novel that collects the original serialized story full of striking visuals and salient observations of the times and the society we live in today.

Best of all? It won’t cost you a fortune! You can pick up a hardcover copy of The Black Sinister for around $10.

Mete out justice for your senses…and your pocket book! Make the run to your local comic book shop or favourite bookstore and pick up The Black Sinister today!

You can catch a sneak preview of The Black Sinister right here.

Every Wednesday, JP makes the after-work run to his local downtown comic book shop. Comics arrive on Wednesdays you see and JP, fearful that the latest issue will sell out, rushes out to purchase his copy. This regular, weekly column will highlight a particularly interesting release, written in short order, of course, because JP has to get his – before someone else does!

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