Tag: True Believer

Smash Pages Q&A | Joshua Viola on serving up a meta-horror finale in ‘True Believer’ #3

With the three-issue miniseries from Bit Bot Media wrapped, we caught up with the co-writer on its horror-filled Easter eggs, special guests and more.

The final issue of True Believers arrived Oct. 13, bringing the blood-soaked comic book series from Stephen Graham Jones, Joshua Viola, Ben Matsuya and Jeremiah Lambert to its chaotic conclusion.

The third issue reunites the creative team behind the meta-horror series that’s featured cameos from Jamie Lee Curtis, GWAR, R.L. Stine and more horror icons across its run. This time, Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash, Re-Animator stars Barbara Crampton and Jeffrey Combs, and Celldweller’s Klayton join the mayhem as another masked killer terrorizes convention-goers obsessed with the fictional slasher franchise Killr™.

Jones, whose novel The Buffalo Hunter Hunter appeared on President Barack Obama’s 2025 Summer Reading List, co-wrote the series with Viola. The duo has crafted a trilogy that blends outrageous kills, tongue-in-cheek humor and meta Easter eggs while questioning just how far fandom can go.

I spoke to Viola about wrapping up the final arc for Killr™, collaborating with Jones on the chaotic horror narrative and the Easter eggs horror fans should watch for in the issue. Fans can purchase all three issues of the series from Bit Bot Media.

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Smash Pages Q&A: Abraham Riesman on ‘True Believer: The Rise and Fall of Stan Lee’

The author and journalist discusses his new book on the life and career of longtime Marvel editor and publisher Stan Lee.

True Believer: The Rise and Fall of Stan Lee is, I would argue, the best book written about the longtime Marvel editor and publisher Stan Lee. It is a thoroughly researched look at Lee’s life, his family history, his business dealings at Marvel and afterwards.

Lee’s defenders have been attacking or dismissing the book since before its publication, because it dents the myth of Stan Lee that he and others built. Unfortunately much of the conversation around the book has been around whether Lee is given too little credit for Marvel’s success in the 1960s instead of seriously addressing a lot of the issues that author Abraham Riesman uncovers and writes about at length.

Abraham Riesman is a journalist best known for his work at New York Magazine’s Vulture. He’s written extensively about the comics industry over the years, but in this book, Riesman writes a story of assimilation, of the fantasy of success and the brutality reality of it, of corporate criminality. Lee was beloved by many; he is a complicated figure at best.

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