Hard Case Crime – SMASH PAGES

Over the course of her career, Cynthia von Buhler has been a comics artist, illustrator, children’s book author, playwright and designer. Von Buhler has shown an affinity for and fascination with the early 20th Century, exploring the period and many real life stories in her various projects over the years. Minky Woodcock: The Girl Who Handcuffed Houdini is a new comic series out from Hard Case Comics that she’s writing and drawing. In it, von Buhler introduces a fictional young woman who works for her detective father, still haunted by the death of her mother. She winds up working as Harry Houdini’s assistant. Houdini’s wife wants to keep an eye on him and have an assistant that she can trust. Spiritualists loathe Houdini and how he’s been debunking them. Could there be more to Houdini’s unusual death?

Continue reading “Smash Pages Q&A: Cynthia von Buhler gets magical with Harry Houdini”

In the comic news frenzy leading up to Comic-Con International, Titan Comics and book publisher Hard Case Crime have announced a new line of “gritty, sexy, violent” crime comics.

For those not familiar, Hard Case Crime publishes pulp/noir crime fiction of the new and classic varieties. They’ve published books by Stephen King, Donald E. Westlake, Michael Crichton, Jason Starr, Max Allan Collins, Ed McBain and many others.

Coming out first is “Triggerman,” written by Walter Hill, director of the cult classic film “The Warriors,” as well as “The Long Riders,” “Streets of Fire,” “48 Hours” and the more recent “Bullet to the Head.” He’ll work with French comics creators and frequent collaborators Matz and Jef. Arriving in stores Oct. 5, “Triggerman” is a Prohibition-era mini-series set in Chiacgo, where a convict “is thrown headfirst into a life of bloodshed and bullets to save the girl he left behind.” Here are a few preview pages Titan provided:

The following week Peepland arrives, a “semi-autobiographical neo-noir mini-series with a punk edge set in the seedy Times Square peep booths of 1980s New York City.” It’s written by crime novelist and former peep show employee Christa Faust and crime and comic writer Gary Phillips, with art by Andrea Camerini. Here’s a preview page:

Finally, Titan and Hard Case Crime are also teaming up for a new “Quarry” comic series in 2017, based on the novels by Collins. There’s no art for that one yet, but Titan did provide all the varient covers for Triggerman and Peepland, by such folks as Fay Dalton, Mack Chater, Alex Ronald, Caitlin Yarsky, Camerini, Robert Hack, Dennis Calero and Francisco Paronzini. Admittedly I thought the covers looked pretty cool, they’re the main reason I did this post. Check’em out below: