Bring on the Irish Spring tie-in

A lurvely promo for Ben Templesmith's coming new series, WELCOME TO HOXFORD (available for pre-order in the new issue of Previews).

Yo

Pre-Comic-Con non-teaser

Making its debut at Comic-Con this year will be a standalone 48-page, 8-1/2" x 11" (with cover flaps!) project from Ashley Wood called WORLD WAR ROBOT. Ash is doing a special con-exclusive cover, too. That one and the regular cover are displayed here for your viewing pleasure, along with a bonus flier that Ash put together.

IDW's new releases for May 29

Well, apologies in advance, East Coast shops. It seems Diamond had a problem with the shipment of our books to their East Coast distribution center, so there’s a good chance that if your shop is East Coast-based, you won’t see these books until the following week. But everyone else will be able to find these IDW titles in stores on May 29 (Thursday this week, not the usual Wednesday):

THE COMPLEAT JOHN BYRNE’S NEXT MEN, VOL. 1
THE MUMMY MOVIE PREQUEL: RISE & FALL OF XANGOS AX #2
SPEED RACER TPB, VOL. 5
MY DAD HC
GENE SIMMONS ZIPPER #6
STAR TREK YEAR FOUR ENTERPRISE EXPERIMENT #2
ROGUE ANGEL: TELLER OF TALES #4
STAR TREK TNG: INTELLIGENCE GATHERING #5

Have a great Memorial Day or else!!

Who colored this?

Since we've had a few DOCTOR WHO images this week, might as well head into the Memorial Day weekend with one more. Here's Pia Guerra's page one of DOCTOR WHO: THE FORGOTTEN, now colored by our resident WHO expert and colorist Charlie Kirchoff.

Doctor Who: Agent Provacateur finale

Let's keep the focus on DOCTOR WHO for one more day this week. The current WHO series we're doing (DOCTOR WHO: AGENT PROVACATEUR will be the name of the forthcoming TPB, to set it apart from the August-due DOCTOR WHO: THE FORGOTTEN and some other new series) is heading towards a big finale in issue six. Artist Stefano Martino, who illustrated issue three, is handling art chores on the final issue, too. And just to give a small sense of the scale of writer Gary Russell's first series finale, here's pages 2-5 composed into one image...

Doctor, Doctor

All DOCTOR WHO fans know that the current incarnation of the Doctor can't appear with past incarnations... so this cover by Nick Roche and Charlie Kirchoff, from the upcoming Tony Lee/Pia Guerra DOCTOR WHO: THE FORGOTTEN series doesn't make any sense, right? Wrong, as you'll see in August...

MIRROR, MIRROR, on the shelf...

Next month, Scott & David Tipton and artist David Messina will release the first chapter of their STAR TREK: MIRROR IMAGES series. And while they've worked together on other TREK books (Klingons: Blood Will Tell, Orions Spotlight, the latest TNG miniseries), this one's shaping up to be their best, if these pages from Messina are any indication. It's about time Mirror-Pike really got a good storyline, too, not to mention Mirror-Picard finally making his debut...

Rory Root, R.I.P.

Comics retailer organization ComicsPRO has posted a message from the organization's president Joe Field that comics retailer Rory Root has passed away:

Difficult news today---Rory Root, owner of Berkeley CA's COMIC RELIEF, has passed away.

Shown in the center of this 2007 photo with retailing friends Jim Hanley, Mike Cresser, Derrick Taylor and Ralph Mathieu, Rory was dealing with a number of health issues in recent years.

At this time, I humbly ask for your good thoughts and prayers for Rory and his family.

Joe Field
ComicsPRO President

That's really unfortunate news for the industry. Rory was a great guy and a real legend to pretty much everyone who met him. His shop in Berkeley has long been one of the most respected stores around, too. Rory was a very passionate guy about comics, and a really interesting guy to talk to. Sorry he's no longer around to help us all keep advancing comics in his inimitable way.

IDW's new releases for May 21, 2008

Angel: After the Fall #1 [Director's Cut]
CSI: Demon House digest
CSI: Dominos digest
Dead, She Said #1
Finding Peace
Igor: Movie Prequel #1
Locke & Key #4 - 2nd Printing
Prisoner of the Stars
Star Trek: Assignment Earth #1
Tank Girl: Visions of Booga #1
Zombies: Hunters #1

It's a nice week of releases this week, if I do say so m'self. The ANGEL issue is a squarebound book with nice foil-stamping on the cover (not visible in the all-new cover image above) and Brian's fully annotated script inside, the Niles/Wrightson DEAD, SHE SAID launches, and so does the IGOR movie prequel (funny in a good, all-ages Tim Burton-esque way), John Byrne's "Gary Seven" STAR TREK miniseries, a new Tank Girl series (Ash on covers, Rufus Dayglo on interiors--one interior page is posted above, too), Don Figueroa doing ZOMBIES, and two graphic novels, too. Newsarama.com should have 5-page previews of all the new books up in the next day or so, too.

Pre-Comic-Con teaser image #2

Granted, this one's not exactly as big a mystery as the last one. Coming from the inimitable John Byrne.

4-in-1 TF: Revelations covers by E.J. Su

Viva Guerra!

The great Pia Guerra, in her first series since Y THE LAST MAN wrapped, is even inking her own work on our upcoming DOCTOR WHO: THE FORGOTTEN series (written by Tony Lee, covers by Nick Roche). Here's a first look at her stuff.

IDW's new releases for May 14, 2008

In stores this week (also, scroll down under the LOCKE & KEY art to see a truly amazing photo that L&K artist Gabriel Rodriguez sent along showing the Chilean volcano eruption. He's far enough away to be safe but not too far to miss the amazing spectacle the volcano and the subsequent lightning storms is providing.

Doctor Who Classics #6




Everybody's Dead #3



FX #3





Locke & Key #4




Transformers: Best of UK Space Pirates #3

Transformers: Devastation TPB

Smile

Scroll down for the backstory on this cover, but here's the final, logo'd cover art. Came out nice, I think--hopefully if Brian Bolland ever sees it, he'll be proud of what Casey Coller and Josh Perez did here.

Very early Comic-Con teaser #1

Periodically between now and Comic-Con in July, I'll throw up images here that I'll be talking about more at the show, but not explaining anything about until that time. This is the first of those things.

Before AFTER THE FALL

Time to start building toward the July release of SPIKE: AFTER THE FALL #1. Brian Lynch posted Franco Urru's amazing third cover over at his blog this week, but now it's time to show a first colored page from the issue. Franco's joined by Art Lyon on colors here (Art is also coloring Nick Runge on ANGEL: AFTER THE FALL). I've been a huge fan of Art's color work since he paired up with Gene Ha on TOP TEN, so it's great to have him along here.

GHOST in the machine

Just turned in today, Elena Casagrande's GHOST WHISPERER #4 pages.

Of Tic-Tacs and Transformers

Sometimes what starts out as a basic project can take on unexpected weight.

In the case of the cover I posted yesterday, the ALL HAIL MEGATRON #1 retailer-exclusive variant cover image, it started out simply enough. Mario from the U.K. comics shop Apocalypse Comics contacted me about doing this cover, and he wanted an homage to the classic Brian Bolland BATMAN: THE KILLING JOKE image. (He also assured me that US fans could track the cover down through his eBay store and not pay exorbitant prices for it. With the exchange rate, they'll be available for around $6)

So I got a new artist, Casey Coller, to do it. Casey turned it around very quickly, and did a great job on it (and reading all the feedback below and at our message board, people seem to agree with me on that). Off it went to Josh Perez for colors. When I got it back, I sent it off to Casey, who loved it (as did I, and Mario, too).

And then Casey sent me this e-mail last night (reprinted with Casey's permission):

This looks amazing! Josh really did an awesome job on this, and inadvertently did something very special for me. I have to share something a little personal with you...

The day that we were e-mailing in the morning, the day I said I would have "limited access to e-mail," it was because I was going to be spending the day at a hospital with my family. My sister was in the ICU, and we were told the outlook was not good. She passed away later that day. She had battled cancer since 2001, beating it on 3 occasions. Her most recent remission was over 2 years, but the damage that had been done had taken a heavy toll on her. She recently won an essay contest for Glamour magazine. She died the day it hit newsstands. You can read the article here: http://www.glamour.com/news/articles/2008/05/essay_winner


Anyway, I did this cover for her, as much as myself. In the midst of the absolute hardest thing I've ever gone through, this cover helped serve as a distraction for me, taking away some of the grief for just a while. Today was her funeral, the same day I come home to see Josh's colors. The "AMC" that I added on the camera lens, right by the lens flare Josh added, is her initials. I figured nobody would know what it meant except for me and my family, so it would be safe to put there.

Feel free to pass any of this along to Josh if you'd like. I'm sorry to burden you with this news, but I thought it was an appropriate time. This is just another reason I have to thank you for this opportunity.

I encourage everyone to read her amazing, sad, and funny piece at the GLAMOUR link above (you'll understand why I had Tic-Tacs on my mind in this post's title), but in the meantime, enjoy Casey's tribute to his sister (final version with the logo and "Smile" balloon to come soon):



And the original Brian Bolland piece:

IDW's new releases for May 7

Okay, the first issue of our TRANSFORMERS movie sequel is out this week. No, really. No more delays, shipping errors, hold-ups, acts of God, none of that. It'll be in stores this week, really, along with these other titles (5-page previews of each of these will be up at Newsarama.com on Wednesday morning, too):

Angel: After the Fall #7
Doctor Who #4
Don Pendelton's The Executioner: #2
The Mummy: The Rise & Fall of Xango's Ax #1
Rogue Angel #3
Silent Hill #3
Transformers Movie Sequel: The Reign of Starscream #1
Transformers: Best of UK Dinobots TPB
Tiny-Rannosaurus (a children's picture book)

Swipe file

Let's start the week off with this retailer-exclusive variant cover for the July-bound TRANSFORMERS: ALL HAIL MEGATRON. I'm sure it's pretty obvious what this is based on but I'll run the original side-by-side with the finished, color version of the cover later this week.



Note: Reflector isn't necessarily a character in ALL HAIL, this is just a fun cover design that the retailer, U.K. comics shop Apocalypse Comics, wanted. So if you want a copy of this cover, you'll have to order it directly from that shop, since they'll be the only one to have it.

Note 2: The art on this cover comes courtesy of an artist new to our TF books: Casey Coller. Casey came to my attention through a fan-run Transformers new-artist contest that ran on our message board recently.

Free Comic Book Day 2008

Today is Free Comic Book Day, so anyone wanting free comics from over a dozen different publishers, hit your comic shop today. Our offering is a comic version of the TRANSFORMERS ANIMATED series, as seen here.

If anyone has any good stories to tell about crowds of people at your local shop, or see a nice influx of new readers to your shop, I'd love to hear 'em.

To Be Continued...

I know Howard Stern says terrestrial radio is a dying medium, but hell, people say that about comics, too. Put the two together and what do you get? You get me, evidently. The hosts of a radio show in Philadelphia, To Be Continued... with Sohaib and Stuart, asked me to come on their show recently and talk comics. We talked a bit last week, and then I recorded a 20-minute segment for their show today. It airs on Sundays, and is aired in a few markets on the East Coast (right now, but we're gonna change that!) and online, too, at WNJC online.

It went well, and both guys are really well-versed in comics and in IDW's output. I'm actually going to be a monthly correspondent for the show, and we'll do a live call-in segment on Sunday the 18th. They'll be broadcasting live from WizardWorld Philly in a few weeks, too, and I might be making an announcement or two live on their show during that con.

So feel free to check out the show at the above link, or the general radio station Web site link here: To Be Continued... web site. Either place can get you to audio for the show after it airs. And if you're in the Philly area and hear the show live, call in and hang out with us, too.

Update 5/4/08: I got an e-mail from Sohaib, one of the co-hosts on the show, informing me that my interview had some technical difficulties, so it didn't air tonight. But I'll beyond live in a couple weeks so we can rectify that, anyway.

Springtime, when a young vampire's thoughts turn to...

Brian Lynch and Franco Urru are doing their part to bring back sweet, innocent romance comics, as you can see by Franco's art for the cover of SPIKE: AFTER THE FALL #3.

Double the zombies, double the robots

Ash Wood's rough cover for an August-bound trade paperback-sized collection of our two ZOMBIES VS ROBOTS hardcovers combined into one volume.