Interview: Dabb on Atomika

Andrew Dabb is a busy man. Between writing Megacity909 and Mu for Studio Ice/Devil's Due, and Ghostbusters for 88mph Studios, you'd think his plate was full enough. But starting this March, he teams up with artist Sal Abbinanti for Atomika, "a groundbreaking story of men, supermen and the forces that shape our reality," set in an alternate future where Russia won the space race, the arms race, and eventually, the inevitable war with the USA, and where technology is God. I caught up with him online... Comic Book Commentary: Atomika - the 30-second pitch? Andrew Dabb: Atomika is an alternate…

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Interview: O’Reilly on Arcana Studio, Part II

In Part I of this two-part interview, Arcana Studio's Publisher, Sean Patrick O'Reilly talked about Arcana's successful first year, what really happened with Ant and Image, how Ezra became their most popular title, and what it takes to succeed in the comic book business. Today in Part II, we take a peek into Arcana's future, talking more about marketing, the pros and cons of Free Comic Book Day, and get an exclusive announcement about, and sneak peek at, their newest title, The Assassin. Comic Book Commentary: Looking to the future, you have six new titles listed as coming soon on…

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Interview: O’Reilly on Arcana Studio, Part I

In the midst of my ever-growing pull list, there is an elite group of comic books that rank as Must-Buys, even if it means eating Ramen for lunch all week! Two of the books currently in that group are published by Arcana Studio, the fledgling Canadian indie that is home to 100 Girls and Ezra. "Arcana Studio was formed in 2004 by Sean Patrick O'Reilly...with a vivid dream and much ambition." Coming off of a successful first year, I caught up with O'Reilly online last night, still recovering from his trip to this weekend's Emerald City ComiCon. Two hours later,…

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Interview: Kirkman on Moon Knight

T.S. Eliot said "April is the cruellest month," but he certainly wasn't referring to Marvel's solicitations for April 2005. Excepting the final issue of Paul Jenkins' Spectacular Spider-Man which, being the only Spider-Man title I cared for does rate as being somewhat cruel, there's the return of two of my childhood favorites: Power Pack and Moon Knight! MARVEL TEAM-UP #7 Written by Robert Kirkman Pencils & Cover by Scott Kolins "RING OF THE MASTER" Part 1 (of 5) The Ringmaster is sick of sitting on the sidelines. He's out to make a name for himself. Unfortunately for Spider-Man and Moon…

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Review: Worldwatch #3

With Marvel not publishing a single thing of interest to me this week, I decided to throw an extra $3 towards an indie comic I'd never read before and let me preface its review with this offer: the first person I don't know personally to leave a comment here, I'll mail it to you, bagged and boarded, postage-paid, completely free of charge. Someone involved in its creation would be ideal, actually! I told someone recently that when it came to indie comics, if I didn't have something nice to say about a particular title, I simply wouldn't review it. The…

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Review: New Avengers #1 / The Ultimates 2 #1

To say I was skeptical about Marvel go-to-guy Brian Michael Bendis' New Avengers seemingly self-serving reload would be quite the understatement. Based on the ill-conceived complete disaster that was Avengers Disassembled, and it's half-assed epilogue/retrospective in Avengers Finale, I was fully prepared to hate it on sight. Boy was I wrong! After the requisite - and, thanks to its brevity, sad in that wow, that really was lame kind of way - first page recap of the Disassembled disaster, Bendis starts things off with a shadowy meeting between a silhouetted figure and a thug who turns out to be Electro.…

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Comment: A Fanboy’s Rant #1

1. One of the sequences in Comic Book Superheros Unmasked (2003) dealt with the crash of the comic industry during the early 90s. I'd like to bring up one point made by Marvel's Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada during the interview, where he basically states that the variant cover phenomenon during that time played a big part in the industry's crash. Back then, the hottest books were selling in the several hundreds of thousands. Nowadays, a publisher would kill for 150,000! Well, more than a decade removed and it looks like the industry is back at it. This time though, rather than…

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