Comic Book Resources

Fall of the Hulks Alpha preview

from Fall of the Hulks Alpha

Marvel sent over some pages from their upcoming Fall of the Hulks storyline, which kicks off with an "Alpha" issue in December. You can see additional pages from it here (where you can also see the ad/homage to the original Fall of the Mutants ad that ran in various Marvel comics back in the 1980s).

The book is written by Jeff Parker with pencils by Paul Pelletier. The story revolves around the Leader, Mad Thinker, Egghead, M.O.D.O.K., Red Ghost and Doctor Doom putting their heads together to create some sort of battle plan that leads into the World War Hulks event. More details on that can be found here.

Check out additional pages after the jump ...

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Talking Comics with Tim: Jeff Parker & Steve Lieber

Underground #1

Getting to talk to Jeff Parker and Steve Lieber about their upcoming  Underground project, I discovered one shocking revelation: Lieber is immensely funnier than Parker. I learned a great deal more than that in our email interview. Before starting the interview, here are the book's vitals: "UNDERGROUND is a five-issue color series beginning in September from IMAGE COMICS. Written by Jeff Parker, drawn by Steve Lieber, and colored by Ron Chan, the story follows Park Ranger Wesley Fischer as she tries to save Stillwater Cave-- and then has to save herself." My thanks to Parker and Lieber for the interview.

Tim O'Shea: At what point did you pitch this to Image, had an issue already been drawn or was it still in proposal mode?

Jeff Parker: We showed the complete black and white art for the first issue to Eric Stephenson this year at Emerald City Comicon.

Steve Lieber: They said yes and we were off and running.

O'Shea: How much did the two of you enjoy the flexibility of revision, given that you work in the same studio?

Lieber: It's a very natural collaboration. Everything's done in the same room -- script, line art, letters, and color. I love the sense of freedom that comes from being able to tweak things at any step.

Parker: And I love changing what Steve thought was right. On a whim!

Lieber: Obviously.

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Talking Comics with Tim: Fred Van Lente

Amazing Spider-Man 602

Fred Van Lente is hellbent on getting his name on the cover of every Marvel comic, or so it would seem. I could try to list all the Marvel titles he has written, is writing or will be writing, but we'd never get to the actual interview. Suffice to say that Marvel keeps him busy. And then there's Action Philosophers (Van Lente's successful independent collaboration with artist Ryan Dunlavey). Back to Marvel, this week marks the start of his Spider-Man/Chameleon storyline with the release of Amazing Spider-Man 602. Here's the official word on Van Lente--he "is the New York Times bestselling author of Incredible Hercules (with Greg Pak) and Marvel Zombies 3, as well as the American Library Association award-winning Action Philosophers. His other comics incldue Comic Book Comics, MODOK's 11, X Men Noir and Amazing Spider-Man." Van Lente was kind enough to do an email interview with me about his various projects.

Tim O'Shea: Marvel is clearly pleased with X-Men Noir, given that they have announced a follow-up with the same team, Mark Of Cain. Given that a great deal of your writing for Marvel is within the "main" Marvel U, how liberating is at as a writer to get to play around with characters in a Noir universe?

Fred Van Lente: I always like to have big, bloody Grand Guignol endings, with bodies heaped up on stage like at the end of a Shakespeare tragedy. Nothing says "dramatic climax" like "everybody dies." One of the nice things about working with the X-Men franchise in the Noirverse is that it has so many characters there are always some left over no matter how many you knock off. XMN1 we whacked Jean Grey, Magneto, Mastermind, Blob, Unus, Beast, Banshee, Rogue, Iceman, Gambit and Qucksilver, but we still had Wolverine, Puck, Cyclops, Angel, Professor X, and the Scarlet Witch to kick around.

In Mark of Cain they'll be joined by a large bulk of the "All-New, All-Different" cast, including Noir analogues of Juggernaut (obviously), Emma Frost, Nightcrawler, Storm, and Colossus, and a few surprise appearances as well.

We've already been asked about a third installment, so my co-creator Dennis Calero and I will have to be careful not to kill everybody off. Even the X-Men have their limits in terms of mortality.

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Robot Love | I ♥ learning from comics

Agents of Atlas

Editor’s Note: With Valentine’s Day right around the corner, we’ve declared this the week of Robot Love and resurrected I ♥ Comics. In one of our favorite features, various comics creators, bloggers, retailers and fans discuss the things they love about the medium.

Today we welcome our guest Jeff Parker, creator of The Interman, co-creator of Mysterius: The Unfathomable and writer of a lot of Marvel's comics -- Agents of Atlas, Age of the Sentry, X-Men First Class: Finals and Exiles.

by Jeff Parker

These comics we read can make us smart. Or at least, able to kill Seat 28D during the InFlight Trivia Challenge.

Comics have an inordinately facile ability to get information into the reader's head. A few years ago I was in Washington, D.C. running around looking at monuments and the like, and I took the once-a-week tour of the Federal Reserve building. It's surprisingly cool, do it when you're there on a Thursday sometime. At the end of the tour they gave out a COMIC BOOK that attempted to explain how the Fed works. It was badly drawn, weakly colored, and yet- it actually got across to me some understanding of the mysterious process by which the Fed sets interest rates and influences economic growth or tries to thwart inflation. I was impressed that they took the steps to make a comics giveaway, and it made me happy to retrace the steps they must have gone through. As the guide of the day had explained, one of the big hurdles the people in the Federal Reserve have is trying to explain to the public how they do what they do. The job description requires some understanding of economic theory and process to even get to the nuts and bolts. They obviously spent a lot of time trying to figure out what delivery system could get the curious up to speed, and they arrived at a flimsy newsprint comic with no coated stock cover. And I still have it. They also showed a film about the Fed, but the comic still did a better job distilling the information.

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