Christopher Cantwell + Victor Santos ‘revive’ the forgotten comic ‘Kid Maroon’

Things get surreal in the publicity for Vault Comics’ new series.

Vault Comics has announced Kid Maroon, a “revival” of a “lost” and “forgotten” controversial comic strip from the 1940s.

Yep, that’s a lot of words in quotes. Vault first announced the project with claims that they’d obtained the rights to a 75-year-old comic strip that nobody remembers by legendary cartoonist Pep Shepard, who people also don’t remember. But wait, there’s a fan website and everything, with comments! So he’s gotta be real, right?

But then they announced the creative team, and suddenly everything made sense. The series is written by Christopher Cantwell, who wrote The Blue Flame for Vault (in addition to things like She Could Fly and Iron Man and that recent Thanos miniseries that got a little “meta” at times). But The Blue Flame, in particular, told the story of a street-level repairman-turned-hero trying to make a difference in his community — or was it about an Adam Strange-like hero who was put on trial by a galactic tribunal with the fate of the entire planet Earth at stake? Sometimes it was hard to tell what was actually real across the 10 issues (which were excellent, by the way; if you haven’t read it, I recommend it), and Cantwell and Vault seem to be taking a similar approach with this new title, including how they market it.

So take the quotes and such they’re sharing for what they are — something fun that’ll probably make the book that much more interesting. What you need to know is Cantwell is good at this sort of thing, and he’s joined by the wonderful Victor Santos, who drew Polar, Ginger’s Revenge, Violent Love and other noir series.

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Victor Santos’ ‘Ginger’s Revenge’ is now available from Panel Syndicate

Pay what you’d like for a tale of teenage retribution.

It seems like new releases from Panel Syndicate, the digital comics imprint that first brought us The Private Eye, Barriers and Friday, have slowed down in recent months, so I was happy to get an email announcing a new title on their site — Ginger’s Revenge by Victor Santos.

Like all of Panel Syndicate’s release, Ginger’s Revenge is a “pay what you’d like” title, which you can then download as a PDF, CBR or CBZ file. It’s available both in English and Spanish.

And while many of the site’s titles are ongoing series, this is a complete story about one girl’s quest for retribution. It also includes a sketchbook section at the end, showcasing Santos’ process artwork.

Santos previously syndicated the story on Substack under the title Ginger Revenges, “a deliberate orthographic mistake” according to the creator, but he decided it was too strange and corrected the mistake.

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Oeming + Santos go gonzo in conspiracy-filled ‘Project Monarch’

The new graphic novel arrives from Dark Horse in September.

Michael Avon Oeming (Powers) and Victor Santos (Polar) are pulling out all the stops in their new graphic novel Project Monarch — a story that will involve fake moon landings, the Illuminati, child stars turned assassins and a film that can control minds.

It sounds bonkers and like a lot of fun.

“This story was born in a time when we needed to deal with uncertainty everyday,” said Santos. “So this is a book about embracing chaos and living nonetheless, and I can’t imagine a better partner for this crazy trip than Mike Oeming.”

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Dark Horse announces a ‘Masters of the Universe’ anthology

Tim Seeley, Eddie Nuñez, Sergio Aragonés, Kelley Jones and more will tell stories featuring He-Man from across the multiverse.

Writer Tim Seeley and a host of great artists will team up for Masters of the Universe: Masterverse, an anthology miniseries coming from Dark Horse next year.

As The Sorceress tries to show Zodac the value of He-Man, she takes him on a tour of the multiverse, where they see various versions and stories of the hero, drawn by different artists.

The first issue will include artwork by Eddie Nuñez, Sergio Aragonés, Kelley Jones, Rico Renzi and Brennan Wagner, while subsequent issues will feature E.J. Su, Victor Santos, David Rubín, Claudia Balboni, Daniel Lopez and Fico Ossio.

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Dark Horse brews an ‘Elixir’ for next year

Frank J. Barbiere, Ricky Mammone and Victor Santos bring a new graphic novel that mixes technology and magic to Dark Horse.

Frank J. Barbiere, Ricky Mammone and Victor Santos will team up on a new graphic novel, Elixir, that’s set to be published by Dark Horse Comics next March.

The dark fantasy story combines magic with modern technology, as the daughter of a druid seeks an artifact known as the “Elixir.”

“I began my career in Europe doing fantasy comics but basically I am known in the USA as a noir-crime author,” Santos said. “Thanks to this new collaboration with my partner Frank Barbiere and with the addition of the talented writer Ricky Mammone, I have had the chance to build a world with all the elements and aesthetics I loved reading as a teen but with my experience as a creator and a more modern point of view of what a good fantasy story should be.”

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Victor Santos launches ‘Ginger Revenges’ through Substack

The free webcomic will be available a page at a time through his newsletter.

Victor Santos, known for projects like Polar, Moon Eaters, Paranoia Killer and more, will syndicate a new comic through his Substack newsletter, the creator revealed.

Ginger Revenges is about a teenager who seeks vengeance against her gangster dad after her mom dies. Santos says he plans to post one page per month, but that each page will have “a lot of panels, like a digital modern version of the Sunday Pages from the old American newspapers.”

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Victor Santos’ ‘Paranoia Killer’ launches at Panel Syndicate

Pay what you’d like for the new sci-fi thriller by the creator of ‘Polar.’

In celebration of its 8th anniversary, the digital comics site Panel Syndicate has launched a new comic by Polar creator Victor Santos. Paranoia Killer is described as “a thriller with elements of sci-fi about identity, divinity and the privatization of violence.”

“She is the reckless FBI Agent Nathalie Laertes. Her twin brother is the international hitman known as Delon Sombre. And now one must become the other. Princess Knight meets Philip K. Dick in this sci-fi crime thriller,” Santos posted on Twitter.

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Victor Santos has drawn a spy comic for Porsche Club of America

The creator of ‘Polar’ teams with author Alma Katsu for a comic about Cold War spies and vintage cars.

Polar creator Victor Santos has teamed up with author Alma Katsu for an unusual project — a comic for Porsche Panorama, the official publication of the Porsche Club of America.

Called “The Spy Collector,” the comic is “a globe-skirting, Porsche-centric fictional spy tale involving a recently deceased vintage Porsche collector who took to the grave a Cold War-era secret that remains dangerous enough in the present to kill for.”

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Dark Horse to publish final volume of Victor Santos’ ‘Polar’ next year

Fourth volume of the story of a retired spy is one of three ‘Polar’ projects planned by Dark Horse as the release of the movie approaches.

The fourth and final volume of Victor SantosPolar series will arrive from Dark Horse next March, along with a “volume zero” and new edition of the first volume, Polar: Came from the Cold.

All of which makes a lot of sense, given that the Polar film is set to debut from Netflix next year.

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Smash Pages Q&A: Victor Santos

The creator of Polar discusses ‘Rashomon: A Commissioner Heigo Kobayashi Case,’ which was recently released by Dark Horse, as well as his webcomic ‘Guts,’ Jack Kirby, the Spain comics scene and more.

Victor Santos’ work might be more familiar to American comics readers than his name, though that is quickly changing. The man has put out a wide and varied body of work. He’s drawn comics and graphic novels, masterfully going from Filthy Rich to Mice Templar, Furious to Black Market, Godzilla to Sleepy Hollow. He’s currently drawing Violent Love, which is published by Image Comics. Santos is also the man behind Polar, the webcomic that he wrote and drew, which was collected in three volumes by Dark Horse.

In addition to Violent Love, Santos has two projects, one new and one old, that are out this fall. He’s launched a new webcomic, Guts, that’s available on polarcomic.com which he’s making monthly as a complete short story. The second story was released in early November. Dark Horse has just published Rashomon: A Commissioner Heigo Kobayashi Case, which collects two books that Santos made for the Spanish market. There are two more graphic novels that Santos is drawing and coloring coming out next year, as well as a film adaptation of Polar in production. Despite this busy schedule, he was kind enough to talk about his work.

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Inktober spotlight: Victor Santos honors Jack Kirby

The ‘Violent Love’ artist dedicates Inktober to the King of Comics.

In addition to being the spookiest month, October is also Inktober, an art challenge where artists from all over the world create a different ink drawing every day of the month. While the official Inktober site provides a list of “prompts” to help inspire artists, many of them choose their own themes.

With many comic artists are participating this year — you can find a lot of them on Twitter or Tumblr using the #inktober hashtag, and we’ve been posting a bunch on our own Tumblr — we thought we’d spotlight a few of the “can’t miss” ones we’ve seen so far.

Victor Santos is the creator of Polar and the recently launched Guts webcomic, as well as the artist for the recent Violent Love miniseries. For Inktober, Santos chose to honor Jack Kirby, who would have been 100 this year.

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Barbiere and Santos aim for the heart with “Violent Love”

The creators of “Five Ghosts” and “Polar” team up for the tale of two notorious bank robbers who fall in love.

I named an island in my D&D campaign after Frank J. Barbiere. I was creating it around the time that his Five Ghosts series, with artist Chris Mooneyham, hit the high seas for a storyline, and since the island had pirates on it, “Barbiere” made a fun name and actually fit really well. Now I’m thinking I need to add a town on it called “Santos” run by two thieves who fell for each other.

Why, you ask? (Or even if you didn’t, because you aren’t one of the three other people in the universe who cares about my D&D adventures …) Because Frank J. Barbiere and Victor Santos (Polar) are teaming up for a brand-new comic, Violent Love. The main characters, Daisy Jane and Rock Bradley, are two of the most notorious bank robbers in the American Southwest — and then they fell in love.

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