Day: August 3, 2021

Hell hath no fury like ‘The Heathens’

Cullen Bunn, Heath Amodio and Sami Kivelä team up for a new series from AfterShock Comics.

AfterShock Comics has announced a new project featuring souls escaping from Hell, and the powers that be sending the worst of the worst after them — The Heathens, led by pirate queen Ching Shih.

Co-writers Cullen Bunn and Heath Amodio, who together founded Hustle & Heart Films, are working with artist Sami Kivelä, colorist Jason Wordie and letterer Simon Bowland on the series. Shih’s team will include several other notorious historical figures helping her on her mission, including Wild West outlaw Billy the Kid, gangster Lucky Luciano and Russian con artist Sofia the Golden Hand.

“Anyone who is familiar with me as a creator knows I love historical figures and time periods,” Bunn said in his email newsletter. “They also know I love infusing stories featuring those characters and time periods with a healthy dose of the supernatural. Heath brought the seed of this idea to me, and I loved it from the jump. It has history, villains, even worse villains, supernatural worlds and redemption — everything that I could hope for in a book!”

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Smash Pages Q&A: Dave Roman on ‘Astronaut Academy: Splashdown’ and more

Creator and editor Dave Roman discusses the long-awaited third volume of his kids’ graphic novel series ‘Astronaut Academy,’ as well as his work editing First Second’s line of science and history comics.

Dave Roman’s Astronaut Academy has had a long history, but after the second book was published in 2013 by First Second Books, he thought he was done with the series. Neither went out of print, though, and the book kept selling and Roman kept doing school appearances where kids would ask, “When is the third book coming out?”

Well kids, the long wait is over, and the first two books have been re-released in full-color editions alongside a third volume titled Astronaut Academy: Splashdown. 

Besides his work as a cartoonist, Roman has also long been an editor, working at Nickelodeon Magazine for many years and currently working at First Second Books, where he oversees the History Comics and Science Comics series. We spoke recently about comics, editing, life and more.

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