The Rook is a fictional, time-traveling comic book adventure hero. He first appeared in March 1977 in American company Warren Publishing‘s Eerie, Vampirella & Warren Presents magazines. In the 1980s, the Rook became popular and gained his own comic magazine title of the same name, The Rook Magazine.
Wizard often featured mail-away offers for exclusive merchandise. Wizard began a practice of producing specially offered Wizard #½ issues. These were special issues of ongoing major comic book series which featured in-continuity stories that supplemented the regular series’ published issues. The issues were numbered #½ so as not to disrupt the series’ ongoing numbering system. Often Wizard would also include free pack-in issues with their magazines, usually numbered as Wizard #0.
Created by album and book cover designer Dean Motter, Mister X was developed for a year in close collaboration with comic artist and illustrator Paul Rivoche, whose series of poster illustrations stirred up great interest in the project. The series published early work by comic artists who would later emerge as important alternative cartoonists, including Jaime Hernandez, Gilbert Hernandez, Mario Hernandez, Seth, Shane Oakley and D’Israeli.
A highly successful promotional campaign with posters and ads followed for the next year, while Motter and Rivoche struggled to produce an actual issue of Mister X. When Rivoche quit, Vortex Comics president Bill Marks became more skeptical than ever that Motter would be able to produce the series on time, and decided to turn the work over to the Hernandez brothers. The first four issues were written and illustrated by Jaime and Gilbert Hernandez, with additional writing by Mario Hernandez. The Hernandez brothers quit over payment delays from Vortex. Issues 5 through 14 of the series were then written by Motter, with issues 6 through 13 illustrated by Seth.
Mister X’s influence can be seen and was acknowledged in films like Terry Gilliam‘s Brazil, Tim Burton‘s Batman, and Alex Proyas‘ Dark City.
In August 1985, Eclipse began reprinting the Marvelman stories from Warrior, colored, and re-sized. They were renamed and re-lettered throughout as Miracleman to avoid further problems with Marvel Comics. Issues 1-6 reprinted all the Warrior content, after which Eclipse began publishing new Miracleman stories from Alan Moore and new artist Chuck Beckum (now better known as Chuck Austen), soon replaced by Rick Veitch and then John Totleben. Eclipse split the rights to the character, with 2/3 going to Eclipse and 1/3 split between the current writer and artist of the series. Moore wrote the series until issue 16.
Writer Neil Gaiman picked up the series at #17 and developed it further in the 1990s, working with artist Mark Buckingham. He planned three books, consisting of six issues each; they would be titled “The Golden Age”, “The Silver Age” and “The Dark Age”.
Stray Bullets is an independent American comic book series published in black and white (with color covers) by El Capitan Books. It is written and drawn by David Lapham.
The story deals with the often criminal and sometimes tragic misadventures of a large cast of characters and takes place from the mid-1970s through the mid-1990s.
In March 2014, Image Comics ended the hiatus of Stray Bullets with the publication of the final issue of the HiJinks and Derring-Do arc, and the simultaneous launch of a new arc entitled Killers. A giant-sized softcover trade paperback edition (The Uber Alles Edition) collecting all forty-one issues of the original series was also released by Image Comics. Killers ran for 8 issues throughout 2014, then after a brief hiatus, Lapham returned in early 2015 with Stray Bullets: Sunshines & Roses. Lapham plans to continue publishing Stray Bullets in this fashion at Image, with each arc treated as a discrete miniseries.
The series has been nominated for numerous awards. Stray Bullets won the 1996 Eisner Award for Best Writer/Artist, Drama, and the trade paperback collection Stray Bullets: Innocence of Nihilism won the 1997 Eisner Award for “Best Graphic Album-Reprint” the Comic Book Awards Almanac and was a top votegetter for the Comics Buyer’s Guide Fan Award for Favorite Reprint Graphic Novel/Album for the same year.
The book is about an unnamed former Shaolin monk who wanders the land with a talking mule named Lord Evelyn Dunkirk Winniferd Esq. the Third. Having been “asked” to leave the Shaolin temple, he has since had a bounty placed on his head, which many are eager to collect. Given the Shaolin Cowboy’s prowess in martial arts, however, this will be very difficult.
Taking place in an unspecified time setting (as the first issue notes, “the day after yesterday and a week before tomorrow”), the book features extremely detailed artwork and equally violent and absurd action scenes; in one, the main character battles a giant shark with a human head in its mouth using two chainsaws tied on the ends of a long stick – which all takes place in the canalization in the stomach of a lizard, on whose back a city is located.
Color anthology reprint series of Wally Wood stories that included the following and more:
The Curse: Originally published in Vampirella Magazine #9 (Harris, 1971)
Overworked: Originally published in Eerie Magazine #131 (Warren, 1966)
The Misfits: Originally published in Heroes, Inc. Presents Cannon #1 (self published, 1969)
ME – 262!: Originally published in Blazing Combat #4 (Warren, 1966)
Prelude To Armageddon: Originally presented in Creepy #41 (Warren, 1971)
The Battle Of Britain!: Originally presented in Blazing Combat #3 (Warren, 1966)
The Manhunters: Originally presented in Eerie #60 (Warren, 1974)
In a future NYC far different than the one we know today, a lone surviving Turtle goes on a seemingly hopeless mission to obtain justice for his fallen family and friends. Kinetic layouts from Eastman, moody inks from Andy Kuhn and a thrilling script full of surprises from longtime TMNT scribe Tom Waltz all combine to make this one of the most memorable TMNT stories you will ever read! This is a perennial TMNT tale that can’t be missed!
Zot! is a comic book created by Scott McCloud in 1984 and published by Eclipse Comics until 1990 as a lighthearted alternative to the darker and more violent comics that dominated the industry during that period. There were a total of 36 issues, with the first ten in color and the remainder in black and white. McCloud credited Astro Boy creator Osamu Tezuka as a major influence on the book, making it one of the first manga-inspired American comic books.
Concurrently, Milligan, Ewins and Brendan McCarthy worked on the anthology title, Strange Days for Eclipse Comics. Strange Days featured three strips, “Paradax“, “Freakwave“, and “Johnny Nemo“. Milligan, McCarthy and Ewins produced three issues of this psychedelic comic, it was not a great seller but it picked up a small, loyal readership. The most conventional strip, “Johnny Nemo”, had its own series, while the more quirky “Paradax” had a two-issue series published by Vortex Comics in 1987.
