Up to this point we’ve been pretty tight-lipped on next month’s Victorian Undead - keeping everyone sated with a few details here, a Simon Coleby or Tony Moore cover there. Now, writer Ian Edginton sits down for an in-depth chat about his Sherlock Holmes vs. Zombies mini-series.

You can check out the interview over at Comic Book Resources!

“Hey, you like horror, right?”

“Well, I—”

“Awesome. Here you go. New book, TRICK ’r TREAT, based on the film written and directed by Michael Dougherty. Have fun!”

And that’s how I started working on the TRICK ’r TREAT original graphic novel.

Not exactly like escaping an exploding planet as a baby, or getting bitten by a radioactive spider, but hey: we can’t all be aliens or mutants. (I know, I know: he’s a mutate, not a mutant.)

I picked up the screenplay and the next thing I knew, two hours had gone by and I felt like I’d been stuffed into a burlap sack and tossed into the river, only to be pulled out at the last moment and dragged to shore…but when my rescuer ripped opened the bag, he turned out to be a homicidal clown laughing manically.

I was, to put it mildly, enthused about this project. Big time. This was gonna be fun.

Most of the team was already in place when I came on board. It can be a tricky thing to have a creative team assembled for you—different people have different tastes and views and philosophies and they don’t always click, through no fault of their own. (Not that it’s ever my fault, of course. Okay, it’s pretty much always my fault.)

But there was no such problem here. Marc Andreyko was writing the critically-acclaimed MANHUNTER at the time, so I knew the script was in good hands; Marc did a wonderful job of pulling apart the film’s interlocking vignettes and separating them into their own strands, yet keeping them delicately entwined.

MAN-BAT’s Mike Huddleston was doing the first of the film’s vignettes, aided by the super Jim Charalampidis on colors. I’d loved Mike’s stuff since MNEMOVORE, and knew Jim would be a perfect fit.

I hadn’t seen Grant Bond’s art before, but as soon as his first pages came in, I was a fan for life. Grant’s characters are tremendously believable—no small task when you’re illustrating a large number of terrified children, each of whom has their own motivations and agendas and personalities.

The third chapter didn’t have an artist yet. I immediately thought of Christopher Gugliotti, an artist whose work I’d known for years and who, I thought, had the sort of imagination for this project. Chris’s exaggerated, cartoony-meets-impressionistic style was just right for conveying the sense of his characters as classic animation heroines turned to the dark side: adorable yet deadly. (Which also describes Chris, actually.)

The final chapter was illustrated by Fiona Staples. She had worked on Done to Death with Andrew Foley, and while all the artists had stories that interlocked with the others, hers had more, but she did an amazing job of pulling them all together with beautiful pacing and mood. By the end of her chapter I was very nearly tempted to nail her feet to the floor in an effort to get her to do more WildStorm work. I didn’t actually do that, of course. But only because I wasn’t able to get a visa to go to Canada.

Add some beautiful art by Breehn Burns and Ragnar and Michael Dougherty himself, and it turned out to be a remarkably attractive package.

Which brings us to the secret weapon of the book: Michael Dougherty. Given that he’d written and directed the film, and designed the main character, it’d be natural for him to want to be more involved with the project than usual. And he was—but in all the best ways, raving about the art, giving incisive but never overbearing feedback, and generally acting as the book’s biggest fan.

He’s not, of course. That’d be me. (Or maybe Marc Andreyko.) But I’m quite confident we can all agree that it’s mighty nice to finally have it on the shelves, where everyone can see what we’ve been so passionate about for quite a while now.

Oh, and in response to the question about whether or not I like horror. There really isn’t any one genre I do or don’t care for more than others. What I like is a good story, regardless of genre. And what TRICK ’r TREAT is, above all else, is a damn good story.

Brian K. Vaughan took some time to answer some of Things from Another World’s questions about the influences and final arc of Ex Machina. Check out the full interview over here.

Who is this Ghost? Between the first two comic covers and the game trailer that’s practically been playing on repeat on my 360, I’m really itching for November to get here already.

Art by Federico Dallochio.

If you’re following The Bleed, you’ll know I’ve been talking up Aaron Williams and Fiona Staples’ new North 40 miniseries quite a bit here. I love it - I really do. But, if you don’t want to take my word for it, how about Steve Niles’, of 30 Days of Night fame? Here’s what he had to say:

“I love this book. Great story, cool art and monsters. What more can you ask for in a comic?” - Steve Niles

No faint praise at all. (And here’s a preview of issue #2, on sale today - it’s not too late to jump in to this one!) Read the rest of this entry »

A lot of fans who weren’t able to spend five days in sunny San Diego this past week have been asking when they’ll be able to get their hands on the This Is Wildstorm Universe #0 giveaway book I’ve been previewing.

Here’s the good word: TIWU #0 (which I’ve so elegantly abbreviated) will be hitting
comic shops this week, so make sure you grab it along with your copy of WildCats #13 - as well as your Cassaday Planetary #27 promo poster, if you haven’t picked one up yet!

Prototype’s finally out, and I’m sure a lot of our gaming readers are already knee-deep in the world of Alex Mercer. Ready to go even deeper? That’s where the Prototype comic can help. I couldn’t say it any better than PLAY MAGAZINE:

“The Prototype series is currently at the halfway point of its six issue run, and it’s clear that things are going to get a whole lot worse for the characters before they get any better. If you’ve already played through the game, you might have an idea where things are heading, but don’t expect to have it all worked out just yet. Thanks to a strong cast existing just on the periphery of the game’s main story, there’s plenty of room for surprises in the Prototype experience. If you’re a fan of the game, you owe it to yourself to read the rest of the story and track down the Prototype comic at your nearest shop today.”

Read their full review here.

Here’s a look behind the scenes at the issue #4, masterfully illustrated by Darick Robertson and Matt Jacobs.

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