The Comics Super Blog!
Ford died from COVID related pneumonia earlier this week.
Drew Ford, who published comics and graphic novels under the It’s Alive banner, passed away from COVID-related pneumonia, according to his wife, Aki Uesugi.
Uesugi has started a GoFundMe page to help pay for the funeral and other expenses, where she shares more details on what led to Ford’s death. While Ford has been declared brain dead, he is still on life support as his organs will be donated.
Continue reading “It’s Alive publisher Drew Ford passes away”The nine-issue series originally published by It’s Alive! lives again next year.
Dark Horse Comics will collect Tin Man creator Justin Madson‘s nine-issue series Breathers into a trade paperback next year. The series is currently published by Drew Ford’s It’s Alive! Press, which is crowdfunding the seventh issue now.
“Long before the word ‘pandemic’ became a part of our daily conversation, I started work on Breathers, a story set in a world where the air was deadly to breathe, so everyone had to wear gas masks when they went outside,” Madson said. “Wearing these ‘breathers’ was an accepted part of life since, really, there was no other option. It seemed like a bit of a far-fetched idea at the time, but, as recent years have shown, I was not too far off. I am thrilled to be working with It’S Alive! and Dark Horse to bring my dystopian tale, Breathers, to a wider audience.”
Continue reading “Dark Horse will collect Justin Madson’s ‘Breathers’”Here are three things in comics to support, to see and to watch today.
1. To support: Roachmill returns from It’s Alive!
The 1980s saw a huge explosion in the number of comics coming from independent comics publishers. It was mainly driven by a couple of factors, one being the creation and growth of the direct market, and also by what’s known as the black-and-white comics boom (and subsequent bust) that was sparked by the creation of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and fueled by a speculator’s market of low print run, and often low quality, B&W comics. But there were certainly some gems amongst the garbage.
One of the companies in the mix back then was Blackthorne Publishing, a company born when Pacific Comics closed down, who would go on to be quite successful for a number of years publishing 3-D comics, comic strip reprints, licensed comics and original stuff. One of those originals was Roachmill, by Rich Hedden and Tom McWeeney, which was definitely a gem.
Continue reading “Three Count | Roachmill, George Pratt, Kevin Conroy”Find out about crowdfunding projects by Nick Cagnetti, Ominous Press, Doug Gray and … The Intergalactic Postal Service?
As crowdfunding continues to be a viable method for creators to fund their creative endeavors and connect directly with fans, comic-related projects flourish on sites like Kickstarter, Patreon and IndieGoGo. Here’s a look at a few recent campaigns that caught our eyes.
Who is involved? Nick Cagnetti and It’s Alive! Press
Deadline: July 27
Goal: $2,000
The former IDW imprint will help distribute ‘Tales of the Night Watchman.’
A former IDW imprint now has an imprint of its own. Drew Ford’s It’s Alive!, which publishes reprints of out-of-print graphic novels, translations of foreign material, classic comics and other projects, will now distribute Tales of the Night Watchman from So What? Press.
This effectively gets the critically acclaimed indie comic into comic shops via Diamond, which is good news for comic fans and creators Dave Kelly and Lara Antal. The partnership kicks off with a new two-issue miniseries called “The Final Kill,” which will be followed by a crossover with Dean Haspiel’s The Red Hook.
Continue reading “So What? Press becomes an imprint of It’s Alive!”The creators of ‘Red Range:Pirates of Fireworld’ discuss the sequel to a 1999 graphic novel by Joe R. Lansdale and Sam Glanzman.
The miniseries Red Range: Pirates of Fireworld, currently being kickstarted for a summer release, is a sequel to the graphic novel Red Range. Originally published in 1999, the book by Joe R. Lansdale and Sam Glanzman was reprinted with new colors recently. The first volume was a dark western tale, which ended with the hero and the boy he rescued falling into the hollow earth, a place filled with dinosaurs and other creatures.
The final page of the book teased a sequel, but nothing ever came of it – until now. Written by Keith Lansdale and drawn by Jok, who colored the reprinted edition, they’re picking up where the original left off in this miniseries. Lansdale has written comics including Crawling Sky, Vampirella: Feary Tales, The X-Files: Case Files and Creepy. Jok has drawn many comics over the years including Strangeways, The Hill, Freud’s Covenant, Mixtape and many others.
I reached out to ask the two a few questions about the book.
Continue reading “Smash Pages Q&A: Keith Lansdale and Jok”It’s Alive! launches a new Kickstarter to reprint another World War II story from ‘Combat.’
It’s Alive! has launched a Kickstarter to bring another of Sam Glanzman’s classic World War II tales back into print.
Battle for Britain tells the story of the Royal Air Force defense of the United Kingdom against large-scale attacks by Nazi Germany’s air force, the Luftwaffe — one of the first major campaigns fought by air forces. The original story was published in 1961 in an issue of Combat.
Along with a fully restored main story, this new edition will feature a four-page back-up story titled The Puny, Little Yank, along with black and white photos from WWII, a new essay about Glanzman, an essay about the Doolittle Raiders, vintage ads that were in the original issues, the original cover art by Glanzman, a new standard cover by Glanzman and a new variant cover by John McCrea.
Check out the two new covers below, and visit the Kickstarter page for more information.
Continue reading “Help bring Sam Glanzman’s ‘Battle for Britain’ back into print”
