Razor (1992)

Everette Hartsoe first published Razor after founding London Night Studios with $1200 that he received in an income tax refund. With the book’s violent content and “pin-up friendly” artistic style, Razor is often considered part of the “bad girl” genre that rose in popularity during the early-mid-1990s. Razor Annual #1, published in 1993, contained the first appearance of Shi. Writer-artist Eric Powell‘s first paid job in comics was drawing three issues of Razor. The series also featured early artwork by Georges Jeanty. She had a Swimsuit Special in 1995 (a pin-up edition with various artists including Mike Wolfer).

The Rocketeer – Special Edition (1984)

The Rocketeer’s first adventure appeared in 1982 as a backup feature in issues #2 and #3 of Mike Grell‘s Starslayer series from Pacific Comics. Two more installments appeared in Pacific’s showcase comic Pacific Presents #1 and 2. The fourth chapter ended in a cliffhanger that was later concluded in a special Rocketeer issue released by Eclipse Comics. The complete story was then collected by Eclipse in a single volume titled The Rocketeer.

Dune: House Atreides (2020)

Welcome to the far future on the desert planet Arrakis where Pardot Kynes seeks its secrets. Meanwhile, a violent coup is planned by the son of Emperor Elrood; an eight-year-old slave Duncan Idaho seeks to escape his cruel masters; and a young man named Leto Atreides begins a fateful journey. These unlikely souls will come together as renegades and soon discover that fate has decreed they will change the very shape of history.

Shaolin Cowboy (2004)

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.

Shi (1994)

Shi (Ana Ishikawa) is a comic book character created by writer/illustrator William Tucci. She first appeared in Razor Annual #1 (December 1993) and has appeared in numerous books by various publishers ever since, most notably Tucci’s own Crusade Comics and the Image Universe. Shi is a young woman of Japanese and American descent trained as a sohei warrior monk, who struggles to reconcile her Japanese grandfather’s martial training with her American mother’s Christian teachings. Japanese culture and spiritual themes are prominent, recurring motifs in storylines featuring her, especially as they pertain to this conflict.

The word shi literally translates to death (死) in Japanese, and Shi’s signature weapon is the naginata.

Interview with the Vampire (1992)

Innovation Comics published a twelve-issue comic book adaptation of Interview with the Vampire in 1992, following up on adaptations of The Vampire Lestat and The Queen of the Damned.

Steed, Peel and John Drake – Silver Age

In 1968 Gold Key reprinted a couple of TV Comic Avengers strips as a one-shot comic for the US market. For trademark reasons, since Marvel had the Avengers comic trademark in the USA, the comic was titled after the featured characters, John Steed and Emma Peel.

The Avengers is a spy-fi British television series created in the 1960s. The Avengers initially focused on Dr. David Keel (Ian Hendry) and his assistant John Steed (Patrick Macnee). Hendry left after the first series and Steed became the main character, partnered with a succession of assistants. Steed’s most famous assistants were intelligent, stylish and assertive women: Cathy Gale (Honor Blackman), Emma Peel (Diana Rigg), and later Tara King (Linda Thorson). Later episodes increasingly incorporated elements of science fiction and fantasy, parody and British eccentricity. The Avengers ran from 1961 until 1969, screening as one-hour episodes its entire run.

In 1966, Gold Key Comics published two issues of a Secret Agent comic book based upon the series Danger Man (titled Secret Agent in the United States), a British television series which was broadcast between 1960 and 1962, and again between 1964 and 1968. The series featured Patrick McGoohan as secret agent John Drake.

Prisoner fans frequently debate whether John Drake of Danger Man and Number Six in The Prisoner are the same person. Like John Drake, Number Six is evidently a secret agent, but one who has resigned from his job. Moreover, in the surreal Prisoner episode “The Girl Who Was Death“, Number Six meets “Potter”, John Drake’s Danger Man contact. Christopher Benjamin portrayed the character in both series.

 

BRZRKR (2021)

BRZRKR is a comic book series created and written by Keanu Reeves and Matt Kindt and drawn by Ron Garney. The comic follows an immortal warrior, known as Berzerker, as he fights his way through the ages. The first issue of the 12-issue limited series was published on March 3, 2021, by Boom! Studios. It raised more than $1.4 million USD in its funding campaign on Kickstarter.

Jughead: The Hunger (2017)

Jughead: The Hunger launched on March 29, 2017 as a one-shot comic alongside the New Riverdale “pilot” lineup. It was written by Frank Tieri with art by Michael Walsh. Due to positive critical and fan reception, the book was picked up as an ongoing series.

It is the first title to debut under the Archie Horror imprint and is its third title overall behind Afterlife with Archie and Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, which released issues before the imprint was created. The series returned with its first official issue on October 25, 2017, with Pat & Tim Kennedy taking over as artists.

 

American Flagg! (1983)

American Flagg, which ran 50 issues (Oct. 1983 – March 1988), was one of the first titles to be published by First Comics, an early alternative press comics company founded in Evanston, Illinois in 1983. Unusually for the time, the company offered its freelance writers and artists creator rights, including ownership of their creations.Regardless, writer-artist Howard Chaykin, then living in New York City, felt trepidation when First Comics approached him to do a project. He recalled in 2010,

        “My concern had all and everything to do with the fact that this was a brand new company, located in [a suburb of] Chicago. I’d always worked for companies I’d visited and had day-to-day-dealings with. [But they talked about a financial plan that would make it possible for me to get out from under the debt I had accrued working for [publisher] Byron Preiss[illustrating early graphic novels]. It was encouraging, so I went home and concocted a scenario, a pitch document, and that was it.”

Chaykin devised a series set in 2031, a high-tech but spiritually empty, consumerist world in which the American government has relocated to Mars, leaving what remains of the U.S. to be governed by the all-encompassing corporation the Plex. The series star is Reuben Flagg, a former TV star drafted into the Plexus Rangers and posted as a deputy in Chicago, Illinois.

The first 12 issues, running through cover-date September 1984, consisted of four interlocking, three-issue story arcs. Chaykin recalled his difficulty in producing 28 pages of art and script monthly. “I was still a smoker and a drinker at the time. And [the output was such that] I’d never done anything like that before, and it was insane. It just devoured my life I had no assistants. I didn’t how to work with an assistant at that point, and it was a very difficult process. … I was trying to do a fairly high-quality product and I didn’t want to slough it off.”