Alex Segura + Nickolej Villiger launch ‘Mara Llave – Keeper of Time’

The pulpy sci-fi comic strip is available on Comics Kingdom.

Secret Identity and The Black Ghost writer Alex Segura has teamed up with artist Nickolej Villiger for a new comic strip on Comics Kingdom called Mara Llave – Keeper of Time.

Described as a “sci-fi/time travel romp,” the new strip has only had three installments thus far, but already has introduced a world overseen by a group called the Time Keepers.

“In the wake of what many call ‘The Great Schism,’ (though the remaining Keepers themselves refer to it as ‘The Giant Eff-Up’) the Keepers are all but gone, leaving the time stream vulnerable to an assault that could destroy the universe as we know it,” the description reads. “But one keeper survives – an aging human man named Kent Gordin, stranded in the 21st century. As the life he’s known falls apart, Gordin holds on to one sliver of hope – a child, an alien from a distant world, shunted to Earth to escape a militaristic, fascist regime that threatened to destroy her family.”

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Smash Pages Q&A: Tea Fougner

The editorial director of comics at King Features talks about their website Comics Kingdom, legacy comic strips, finding new creators and more.

Tea Fougner is a writer, editor, cosplayer and currently the editorial director of comics at King Features. In this job she oversees a wide variety of strips ranging from Beetle Bailey to Zippy the Pinhead, Prince Valiant to Macanudo, Mark Trail to Rhymes with Orange.

Fougner loves comics and comics history, and in recent years has been introducing new artists, new voices and new ways to pay tribute to characters and strips like Flash Forward, which celebrated the 40th anniversary of the Flash Gordon movie.

Fougner and I attended college together many years ago, and we spoke recently about Comics Kingdom, newspapers and getting at the heart of legacy comic strips.

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