Artists redraw early FF issues for comic’s 60th anniversary

Marvel’s ‘Fantastic Four Anniversary Tribute’ #1 will feature artists like Michael Allred and John Romita Jr. redrawing pages of ‘Fantastic Four’ #1 and ‘Fantastic Four Annual’ #3.

Like they did recently with Giant-Size X-Men and Captain America, Marvel is enlisting an impressive list of artists to redraw two key issues of Fantastic Four in celebration of the comic’s 60th birthday.

John Romita Jr., Walt Simonson, Sanford Greene, Daniel Warren Johnson, Paco Medina, Adam Hughes and Michael Allred are just a few of the artists who will each redraw a page of Fantastic Four #1 and Fantastic Four Annual #3, the wedding of Reed Richards and Sue Storm. Both comics were originally created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.

Continue reading “Artists redraw early FF issues for comic’s 60th anniversary”

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!”

Continue reading “Hell hath no fury like ‘The Heathens’”

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.

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

Can’t Wait for Comics | Suicide Squad takes aim at theaters — and comics

This week brings new comics from Brian Azzarello, Alex Maleev, Tim Seeley, Scott Kolins, Al Ewing, Joe Bennett, Cullen Bunn, Mark Russell, Mike Deodato Jr., Curt Pires, Jaime Hernandez and more.

Welcome to Can’t Wait for Comics, your guide to what comics are arriving in comic book stores, bookstores and on digital this week.

Check out a few highlights below, or visit Diamond’s website for this week’s almost complete list of new comics arriving in stores. You can visit Lunar Distribution’s home page to see DC’s releases, and the comiXology new releases page for what’s available digitally.

Continue reading “Can’t Wait for Comics | Suicide Squad takes aim at theaters — and comics”

What Are You Reading? | Sometimes what is lost can still be found

The Smash Pages crew shares what they’ve been reading lately, including ‘Amazing Fantasy,’ ‘Star Trek: Year Five,’ ‘The Legend of Auntie Po,’ ‘Bloom County’ and more.

Welcome to What Are You Reading?, our (cough, cough) weekly (cough, cough) look at what the Smash Pages crew has been checking off their “to read” list lately. Ok, so it’s been a little more than just a week since we last shared what we’ve been reading, but we’re back now, locked and loaded with all kinds of comic reviews just for you.

Let us know what you’ve been reading lately in the comments or on social media.

Continue reading “What Are You Reading? | Sometimes what is lost can still be found”

Smash Pages Playlist: Happy Spider-Man Day

Take a look, overhead: Smash Pages presents your 2021 Spider-Man playlist.

According to the calendar, today is Spider-Man Day, based on the cover date of Amazing Fantasy #15, which saw the debut of Peter Parker as Spider-Man. Now if you ask some folks, Spider-Man Day should technically fall in either May or June, when the comic was actually published back in 1962, but we’ll go with the socially acceptable Aug. 1 — because who wants to argue with what’s trending on Twitter?

In any event, Happy Spider-Man Day; in honor of the wall-crawler, we’ve put together a playlist of songs that pay tribute to Stan Lee and Steve Ditko’s most famous creation. Enjoy, and let us know if we missed any of your favorite Spider-tunes in the comments below.

Continue reading “Smash Pages Playlist: Happy Spider-Man Day”