Tag: wrestling

Marvel’s ‘Amazing Spider-Man’ #1000 line-up now includes WWE’s Triple H

The publisher reveals the creative line-up for the milestone issue and shares a preview.

Marvel has already pulled out some pretty big names for Amazing Spider-Man #1000, but the landmark issue has one more surprise in store: WWE Hall of Famer and Chief Content Officer Paul “Triple H” Levesque is among the writers contributing to the oversized anniversary issue.

I believe this will actually be his comic writing debut — although he’s certainly appeared in a number of them, as publishers like BOOM! have held the WWE license in the past. He’ll be teaming with artist Ed McGuinness on a story titled “The Big Night,” which is probably safe to guess will be a wrestling-themed story. And it all makes sense, given Peter Parker tried his luck in the squared circle before he became a superhero. In another life, he could have led Degeneration X.

Here’s the rest of the creative line-up for the issue, which will have many stories:

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Cthulhu + Mothman throw down in Wandering Planet’s Cryptid Combat figures

VELIKAN’s 5-inch sofubi-style Cthuluchador and Ultimoth Warrior bring cosmic horror and wrestling to the toy shelf.

Cthulhu and Mothman are about to settle their differences the only way two legendary monsters can: by getting in the ring and throwing down.

Wandering Planet Toys has teamed with sculptor and horror artist VELIKAN to crowdfund Cryptid Combat, a new pair of 5-inch soft-vinyl art toys that mash up classic horror, cryptid lore and good ole’ professional wrestling. The lineup pits H.P. Lovecraft’s ancient evil against the legendary creature of Point Pleasant, with Cthuluchador taking on the Ultimoth Warrior.

Inspired in part by VELIKAN’s childhood love of professional wrestling and later fascination with Lovecraft and cryptids, the figures are hand-sculpted and reproduced in Japanese sofubi-style soft vinyl. The original sculpts stand seven inches tall to accommodate the intricate details before being scanned and painstakingly reproduced by sofubi artisans.

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Smash Pages Q&A | Josh Hicks on ‘Hotelitor’

The creator of ‘Glorious Wrestling Alliance’ discusses his latest graphic novel about a hotel shaped like a giant robot.

Josh Hicks has worked many odd jobs in his life, which is relevant to the topic of this interview, but right now he is a Welsh animator, cartoonist and director. His work spans comics, animation and music videos. As a filmmaker, he directed Spectre of the Bear, and he helped create animated music videos for the Foo Fighters and Tyler Childers.

On the comics side, Hicks created Glorious Wrestling Alliance, a comic about the surreal world of professional wrestlers, and he’s followed that with a new graphic novel, Hotelitor: Luxury-Class Defense and Hospitality Unit, which comes out next Wednesday from Graphic Universe. It’s the story of a mobile hotel, shaped like a giant Shogun Warrior or other manga-inspired robot, and the denizens that work and stay in it. When a giant alien monster attacks the hotel, the surviving guests and staff find themselves stranded in deep space, leading to all sorts of chaos, and it’s up to 18-year-old intern Anna Greene and her fellow workers to find a way home.

It’s a fun story about giant robots and aliens, but also has deeper themes around the struggle between classes, how we think of thr service industry and late-stage capitalism. I spoke with Hicks about the project and the themes it touches on, as well as the UK wrestling scene and what he’s working on next. My thanks for his time.

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Massive Publishing + Masked Republic tag-team to launch Luchaverse comics featuring Rey Mysterio + Tinieblas Jr.

‘Luchaverse: Catalyst’ #1 will feature stories by Ivan Plaza, Marco Lopez, Ben Harvey, Diego Simone and more.

Wrestling fans have known for years that WWE Hall of Famer Rey Mysterio is a big superhero fan, based on the numerous times he’s dressed up as Wolverine, Captain America, Flash and more at big events. But now a new comic will imagine the world’s most famous luchador as a superhero himself.

Massive Publishing and Masked Republic, a company that represents luchadores outside of Mexico, are teaming up to launch The Luchaverse, a new line of comics starring luchadores like Mysterio and Tiniebelas Jr. By day they might be fighting in the ring, but at night “those with an ancient secret lineage serve humanity as monster hunters and world protectors.” Which I kind of already suspected Mysterio was doing in his off hours.

“Being able to bring some of today’s biggest names in lucha libre into our original story world and break the mold of what lucha libre films were, and what wrestling related comics have been, is a dream come true for me,” said Ruben Zamora, Masked Republic founder & CEO, and the co-creator of the Luchaverse.

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It’s a New Day comic (yes it is)

The popular WWE trio break out into their own solo miniseries from BOOM! Studios.

Don’t you dare be sour — WWE’s tag-team trio The New Day are bringing the power of positivity to comics, with a new miniseries arriving from BOOM! Studios this summer.

Writers Evan Narcisse and Austin Walker, along with artist Daniel Bayliss, will tell the story of the early days of the group, including how Kofi Kingston, Big E and Xavier Woods came together to become The New Day.

“Collaborating with my colleague Austin Walker so we could tap into the personalities of The New Day to tell the origin story of this history-making trio has been an incredibly enriching experience,” said Narcisse. “We tried to write a love letter to an unseen side of WWE history, and I’m so excited that WWE fans everywhere will finally be able to read how Kofi, Xavier, and Big E came together to form sports entertainment’s most electrifying tag team.”

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Inktober Spotlight: Daniel Warren Johnson

The ‘Murder Falcon’ and ‘Extremity’ creator is drawing a different wrestler each day in October.

If it’s October, it must also be Inktober, the other great thing about the 10th month of the year.* During Inktober, artists from all over the world create a different ink drawing every day of the month (or every other day, or whatever schedule works for them). 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 once again 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 fun ones we’ve seen so far.

In our first Inktober spotlight, let’s take a look at what Extremity creator Daniel Warren Johnson has been doing. “My inktober this year is themed around wrestlers, cause why not?” he said on Twitter. Since then, he’s shared images of legendary wrestlers like Dusty Rhodes and Andre the Giant, as well as more recent stars like All-Elite Wrestling’s Private Party and Kenny Omega.

He said he has plans to collect all his drawings into a book later this year, with a cover featuring — speaking of legends — an awesome color Jushin Thunder Liger. That’ll be something to watch for, but for now, check out a few of his drawings below. You can see more on his Twitter feed.

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Solid Comix, David Walker’s new publishing company, announces first title

Walker plans to fund ‘One Fall,’ a supernatural wrestling drama, through Kickstarter this spring.

David Walker, writer of Bitter Root, Luke Cage, Naomi and many other comics, recently announced plans to start his own publishing company, Solid Comix, and revealed the first title he plans to release.

Walker will team up with artist Brett Weldele on One Fall, a wrestling comic he plans to fund through Kickstarter. He also has a graphic novel coming out later this year called The Hated, with artist Sean Damien Hill.

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DC to debut new ¡Lucha Explosiva! figures at Toy Fair

Superman, Batman, Deathstroke and more will get a Mexican luchadores-style makeover in a new action figure line from DC Collectibles.

In what I can only describe as the perfect marriage of two things I love, DC Collectibles has revealed a new action figure line that re-imagines their characters as luchadores — mask-wearing wrestlers that hail from Mexico.

DC ¡Lucha Explosiva! is “a thrilling and imaginative new universe that blends the action-packed world of Lucha Libre with iconic DC characters.” The first wave of figures includes Batman, Deathstroke, Superman, Metallo II, Wonder Woman and the Cheetah, and they come out in August.

“DC Collectibles is always striving to bring fans imaginative new ways to extend and celebrate DC’s most iconic characters,” said Jim Fletcher, executive creative director of DC Collectibles, said in a press release. “DC ¡LUCHA EXPLOSIVA! is a passion project for us. We’re all huge fans of Lucha Libre, and merging Mexican Luchadores with superheroes seemed like a perfect fit. Besides obvious similarities like masks, capes and secret identities, we also think there is a huge crossover between fan bases.” Heck yeah there is!

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Comics Lowdown: Stan Lee speaks out on elder-abuse allegations

Patti LaBoucane-Benson appointed to Canada’s Senate! Finding Olivia James at CXC! Plus: Grant Morrison, Matthew Thurber and why we love Spider-Man so dang much!

People: In an interview subtitled “Those I Trusted Betrayed Me,” Stan Lee speaks to The Daily Beast about elder-abuse allegations against his daughter and the removal of several of his associates from his life.

“There really isn’t that much drama,” Lee said. “As far as I’m concerned, we have a wonderful life. I’m pretty damn lucky. I love my daughter, I’m hoping that she loves me, and I couldn’t ask for a better life. If only my wife was still with us. I don’t know what this is all about.”

People: The Outside Circle comic writer Patti LaBoucane-Benson has been appointed to Canada’s Senate by Prime Minister Trudeau.

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Fund Me Friday: ‘A Perfect Circle,’ Elizabeth Beier and more

Plus: ‘Blocked: Stories from the World of Online Dating,’ Chris Samnee, Craig Rousseau and the Killer Bees!

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.

A Perfect Circle minicomic

Creators involved: Writer Eric Esquivel and artist Ryan Quackenbush
Deadline: July 22
Goal: $150 (Funded!)

What to know: Esquivel shared where the story idea for this eight-page minicomic came from on Tumblr. “I got dumped at the tail end of October last year. It was, as these things often are, horrible,” he wrote. “To cope with my confusion, I did what I always do: wrote a comic about it. Specifically: a comic book about a guy who–after realizing that the last three decades of his life have been essentially a repeat of the same sad story over, and over, and over again– embarks on an epic journey to find a supernatural means with which to obliterate his personality, and start fresh.”

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‘C’ is for ‘chokeslam’

Botched Spot creator James Hornsby introduces a line of illustrations on the ABCs of finishing moves.

If you’re a fan of pro wrestling, you may already be aware of James Hornsby‘s wonderful Botched Spot webcomic (and if not, go check it out!). When he isn’t commenting on the current state of professional wrestling, he’s pursuing the noble cause of teaching the ABCs of reading … by tying each letter to a signature finishing move.

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BOOM! drafts Dennis Hopeless to write WWE comic

BOOM! Studios will offer a more realistic take on the WWE superstars, starting with a comic about the Shield.

Before Comic-Con International kicked off, BOOM! Studios announced a partnership with World Wrestling Entertainment to create comics based on WWE superstars. Not many details were revealed at the time, although they did share several comic images featuring WWE superstars. At the con itself, they revealed the focus of their first comic, their overall approach and the writer who will help bring it all to life.

IGN reports that during the con, BOOM! announced Spider-Woman writer — and WWE fan — Dennis Hopeless will write WWE: Then. Now. Forever., a 40-page one-shot starring Dean Ambrose, Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins set during their Shield days. Shield, not SHIELD. So no, they won’t be cast as secret agents or space pirates or gladiators in Rome; the only Roman Empire that’ll be featured is the dwindling piece of the WWE Universe that still cheers for Reigns. The comics will be more realistic takes on the superstars, rather than putting them into a fictional universe like the last round of WWE comics did.

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