Three Count spotlights, as the title suggests, three things from comics today. It’ll be three things with links, no more, no less. No. 5 is alive.
1. To support: The Book of Gogor by Ken Garing
Gogor was a five-issue miniseries written and drawn by Ken Garing and released by Image Comics back in 2019. I was looking through our archives to see if I ever wrote about it beyond the initial release announcement from Image, and it doesn’t look like I did — which is a shame, because I remember enjoying it a whole bunch. So did my son.
Garing created a really interesting fantasy world ruled by a bunch of jerks called the Domus. A student named Armano awakens this mythical champion called Gogor to fight them, and together they go on an adventure across the many islands that make up their world, which float in the sky vs. the water. I remember what I really liked about it was the world-building, as you could tell Garing put a lot of detail and thought into it, even the parts that didn’t make it onto the page.
Image collected the first five issues but the story never continued beyond that — until now. Garing is crowdfunding a follow-up story, The Book of Gogor, which will offer a definitive conclusion to the one he started.
Garing is offering both digital and print copies of the 64-page story, along with a sketchbook and original artwork, through Kickstarter. Visit the project page for more info, and you can also check out the complete first issue of the Image miniseries for free if you’ve never read Gogor before.
2. To buy: Steeple 2022 Summer Special
John Allison, known for Bad Machinery, Giant Days and many other comics available digitally and in print, has a brand new comic out that he’s giving out to his Patreon supporters and selling via Gumroad. Steeple 2022 Summer Special is a new 22-page story he did with Max Sarin and Sammy Borras, and it’s all about summer lovin’. You can buy it here.
3. To know: Mary Marvel has blue eyes, and don’t let anyone tell you different.
Finally for today, Joshua Middleton has drawn a lot of covers, particularly for DC, over the years, and this post on his blog shows the level of detail
Mary Marvel’s eyes are blue, but they changed to brown in recent years, perhaps arbitrarily by a lazy colorist. In fairness, eye color can be tough to discern in the (wonderful) art of vintage comics, but just a little investigation on my part turned up irrefutable blue-eyed evidence (below), which, as a purist, I proudly submitted when I argued the case with editorial.
Unfortunately he didn’t win the argument, but hey — I’m impressed with the amount of research he put into it. Here’s a look at his original cover for the upcoming The New Champion of Shazam series, which stars Mary Marvel. You’ll note the blue eyes:
