Bryan Hitch
What does America smell like?
Kinda like this:
Captain America joins Iron Man in the Diesel line of cologne, just in time for his big blockbuster movie, Captain America: The First Avenger.
The limited edition fragrance is made of lemon, mandarin and coriander leaf; essential oils of landanum, violet leaves and rosemary; plus amber, leather and cedar — all essential ingredients of the Super Solider serum.
Cap is currently framing the Diesel site, which has various blog posts featuring the hero. Check out another look at the box art, drawn by Bryan Hitch, after the jump.
- July 15, 2011 @ 05:00 AM by JK Parkin
Grumpy Old Fan | Surprise me: DC Comics Solicitations for August 2011
Featuring the classic Blizzard vs. Polar Bear battle!
One tagline for the big alien-invasion movie Independence Day cautioned, “Don’t make plans for August.” Well, perhaps the biggest news coming out of DC’s August solicitations is the pervasive sense of foreboding they have about September. Rich Johnston maintains that a whole crop of new No. 1 issues is on tap for the fall, but there are no “FINAL ISSUE!” blurbs to be found on any of the current ongoing series.
While that doesn’t rule out a line-wide relaunch, the solicits also seem to say that readers won’t have to worry about a line-wide reboot. As noted in this space a couple of weeks back, the degree of change will probably be different for different titles. Nevertheless, now that we have a better idea of how August will look, let’s see what it says about September….
- May 19, 2011 @ 03:00 PM by Tom Bondurant
Six by 6 | Six awesome WildStorm titles
Sleeper #1
After 18 years, former Image studio and current DC Comics imprint WildStorm is shutting down this December. And as many have noted already, the house that Jim built has produced many awesome, memorable and even game-changing (to steal a phrase from Rob Liefeld) works in the last two decades.
Here are six of them that we found to be particularly awesome; let us know what we missed in the comments section.
1. Sleeper: There have been many comics that mash up superheroes with down-and-dirty genres like crime and espionage over the past decade; this may just be the best. The high concept is a gripping one: Super-spy Holden Carver is so deep undercover in an international super-criminal organization that when his one contact is placed in a coma, literally no one knows he’s secretly on the side of the angels. Carver’s predicament, the way he plays and gets played by both sides, his growing unwillingness or inability to draw the ethical lines needed to save his soul, if not his life–such is the stuff of a great crime drama. Superstar in the making Ed Brubaker brings all his talents and obsessions to the table here: his knack for crafting morally compromised characters while neither romanticizing their misdeeds nor softening them up, his recurring theme of how the secrets and sins of our pasts never truly leave us, his belief that damaged people seek out other damaged people to repair that damage, his eye for and ability to work with strong visual stylists. In this case that meant Sean Phillips, never better in his ability to believably root spectacular action and super-powers in a naturalist-noir milieu. All of this in a WildC.A.T.s spinoff, proving just how wild WildStorm was once willing to go.
Even its relatively short run redounds to its benefit: The complete story of Holden Carver is yours to own inexpensively, read easily, and ponder at your leisure. (Sean T. Collins)
- September 25, 2010 @ 12:00 PM by JK Parkin
Hitch, Rivera provide variant covers for Amazing Spider-Man #645, 646
Amazing Spider-Man #645 variant
Marvel sent over two variant covers for upcoming issues of Amazing Spider-Man; above is Bryan Hitch’s cover for issue #645, which is part of the “Origin Of The Species” storyline. And you can find Paolo Rivera’s cover for Amazing Spider-Man #646 after the jump ….
- September 14, 2010 @ 11:30 AM by JK Parkin
Marvel’s Avengers franchise to end in the wake of Siege
New Avengers: Finale!
April will see both the conclusion of Marvel’s Siege four-issue miniseries and the apparent end — certainly only temporarily — of the Avengers franchise.
That’s right, the publisher’s solicitations preview lists the series finales of The New Avengers, Dark Avengers, The Mighty Avengers and Avengers: The Initiative. It also solves the mystery of what comic writer Brian Michael Bendis and artist Bryan Hitch have been collaborating on: It’s a 64-page one-shot called New Avengers: Finale.
“Siege ends the Avengers … and this is how I find out?” Bendis joked late this afternoon on Twitter.
References to “the Age of Heroes” and “the Heroic Age” are sprinkled throughout the solicitation text, making it a safe bet that at least some of those titles will quickly return as part of a new status quo teased back in November: “Witness the Marvel Universe triumph over its greatest challenges ever as the Heroic Age ignites! Still lurking in the shadows are forces of evil and cosmic-level threats, but a new spirit of hope, courage, and the selflessness at the heart of heroism will rise up. The most extraordinary tales ever will be told in this Heroic Age of the Marvel Universe. The Age of Heroes is upon us!”
The New Avengers debuted in late 2004 in the aftermath of the “Avengers Disassembled,” followed in 2007 by The Mighty Avengers and Avengers: The Initiative, and in early 2009 by Dark Avengers.
- January 15, 2010 @ 05:10 PM by Kevin Melrose
Blackest Night vs. Siege: Place your bets!
Blackest Night #7
Siege #2
They say nice guys finish last, but when event comics will finish is anybody’s guess. The demands of a high-profile series around which entire shared universes revolve can play havoc with scheduling. Naturally, editors and publishers love to maintain the artistic quality and consistency (and sales levels) provided by the big-name writer-artist teams that tend to lend such books a sense of “this is a big deal.” On the other hand, they need to get books out on time so that other series whose storylines depend upon what happens in the event can proceed as planned — and so that they don’t end up alienating retailers and readers. But these same readers and retailers can end up just as irritated if they get the sense that the creators are being rushed, or if fill-in artists aren’t up to snuff. It’s a tough row to hoe.
With his front-row seat for a variety of events this decade, including Avengers Disassembled, House of M, Civil War, and Secret Invasion, Marvel Executive Editor Tom Brevoort knows this better than anyone. So it was with an obvious mix of boldness and trepidation that he made the following prediction on his Twitter account:
It’s height of hubris time: I’m willing to bet that SIEGE will wrap up before BLACKEST NIGHT does.
- November 20, 2009 @ 10:20 AM by Sean T. Collins