Petrol Head #1 is on sale at your local comic shop on Wednesday, November 8!
Writer Rob Williams and artist Pye Parr team up for a pedal-to-the-metal, action-packed sci-fi series in the upcoming Petrol Head.
In a climate crisis-ravaged future metropolis, an old, grumpy, obsolete, smoke-belching, cigar-chomping, hotrod-racing robot is one 12-year-old girl’s only hope. Together, can they outrace the chasing Robo-Cops with an invention that might just save humanity? Readers will jump straight into the non-human race with this robo-gorgeous launch issue featuring 42 story pages.
(W) Collin Kelly, Jackson Lanzing, Ed Brisson, Rob Williams, Meghan Fitzmartin (A) Kelley Jones, Pasquale Qualano, Stefano Landini, Belén Ortega In Shops: Aug 22, 2023 SRP: $7.99
KNIGHT TERRORS TIE-IN! In a Knight Terrors tie-in, Stormwatch members Flint, Phantom-One, Core, and Shado are trapped in a nightmarish world where their deepest fears lurk around every corner…and their fear is just the beginning, because a new enemy has emergedTempest! The return of Emilia Harcourt by Rob Williams and Stefano Landini! Featuring a classic Batman tale of Gotham City Horror by Collin Kelly, Jackson Lanzing, and Kelley! And this issue’s Batman Black & White tale by Meghan Fitzmartin and Belen Ortega tells a powerful and brutal story about family, life and death!
Written by COLLIN KELLY, JACKSON LANZING, ED BRISSON, ROB WILLIAMS, and MEGHAN FITZMARTIN Art by KELLEY JONES, PASQUALE QUALANO, STEFANO LANDINI and BELÉN ORTEGA
Writer Rob Williams and superstar artist Pye Parr team up for a pedal-to-the-metal, action-packed sci-fi series in the upcoming Petrol Head. This all-new ongoing series is set to hit the pavement this November from Image Comics.
In a climate crisis-ravaged future metropolis, an old, grumpy, obsolete, smoke-belching, cigar-chomping, hotrod-racing robot is one 12-year-old girl’s only hope. Together, can they outrace the chasing Robo-Cops with an invention that might just save humanity? Readers will jump straight into the non-human race with this robo-gorgeous launch issue featuring 42 story pages.
Petrol Head #1 will be available at comic book shops on Wednesday, November 8:
Cover A by Parr – Lunar Code 0923IM323
Cover B by Parr “Green” – Lunar Code 0923IM324
Cover C by Parr “Purple” – Lunar Code 0923IM325
Cover D by Laurence Campbell – Lunar Code 0923IM326
“Dawn of DC” is kicking off in January 2023. It’s a year long storytelling initiative from DC Comics. The initiative picks up on the Dark Crisis on Infinite Earths and DC Universe: Lazarus Planet events. The world’s superheroes have emerged from the biggest, most devastating battles of their lives and are reinvigorated in their fights against evil. Readers can expect “epic new storylines,” over 20 exciting new titles, superstar creative teams, and villains that will push the heroes beyond their limits in bold adventures, this line-wide, multievent narrative initiative kicks off with January’s Action Comics#1051.
All year long, DC will be celebrating the classic characters while also embracing the next generation of new heroes, as everyone will be needed to help fight against the darkness. Dawn of DC will shine the spotlight on a number of fan-favorite superheroes and super-villains that haven’t been front and center for some time.
Dawn of DC is an easy entry point for both lifelong readers and those picking up a comic for the first time to dive into the new stories. Over 20 new comic titles will be launching throughout 2023 as part of Dawn of DC, featuring Hal Jordan, John Stewart, Shazam, the Doom Patrol, Green Arrow, Cyborg, the Penguin, and more.
Kicking off in January with the previously announced Action Comics #1051, Dawn of DC features an exciting new era for the Man of Steel. Action Comics #1051 is the start of a format change that will see three new stories included in each issue from writers Phillip Kennedy Johnson, Dan Jurgens, and Leah Williams. In Superman #1 out in February, from writer Joshua Williamsonand artist Jamal Campbell, Clark Kent is settling back into his life on Earth while iconic and new enemies erupt from the shadows to take him on. Jon Kent will also get to forge his own path and will take on the man responsible for his kidnap and torture, Ultraman, in Adventures of Superman: Jon Kent #1 by Tom Taylor and Clayton Henry available at local comic shops in March.
Spinning directly out of Lazarus Planet, the world’s strangest superheroes are saving the world by saving its monsters! In the team’s first main line series in over a decade, the Doom Patrol returns in Unstoppable Doom Patrol by Dennis Culver and Chris Burnham, available in March.
Clark and Jon won’t be the only Kent family members with their own series. Superboy: The Man of Tomorrow by Kenny Porter and Jahnoy Lindsay will launch in April. Determined to find his place in a strange universe, Conner Kent/Superboy leaves Earth behind. But his journey of self-discovery brings him face-to-face with a group of freedom fighters who challenge not just everything Conner stands for but what it means to bear the Superman crest.
Green Lantern fans will have their pick of Green Lanterns in 2023 when both Green Lantern: Hal Jordanand Green Lantern: John Stewart fly into comic book shops! Green Lantern: Hal Jordan by Mariko Tamaki and an artist yet to be announced will be available in April. Fan favorite Hal Jordan returns to Earth and to his blockbuster superhero action storytelling roots. Spinning out of that series and launching later in the year, Green Lantern: John Stewart is by writer Phillip Kennedy Johnson and an artist to be announced at a later date. The beloved John Stewart gets back to basics as the military-trained, gritty, but heroic Green Lantern.
Oliver Queen has been lost since Dark Crisis on Infinite Earths, and his family is determined to find him—but there are dangerous forces just as determined to keep them apart at any cost. Green Arrow by writer Joshua Williamson and artist Sean Izaakse, which launches in April, is an action-packed adventure across the DC Universe that sets the stage for major stories in 2023.
A classic title returns with tales of the Dark Knight and core stories building out Dawn of DC! Coming in May, Batman: The Brave and the Boldfeatures top writers and artists, including Tom King, Mitch Gerads, Guillem March, Gabriel Hardman, Dan Mora, Rob Williamsand more.
Dark Crisis on Infinite Earths forever changed Victor Stone, and now, as Dawn of DC rises, he might just hold the secret to Earth’s future! He gets his own series, Cyborg, in May from a talent team that will be revealed at a later date.
The creative team behind the smash-hit Batman/Superman: World’s Finest, writer Mark Waid and artist Dan Mora, is reunited once again on Shazam!, available in June. Billy Batson is back as the champion in the action-comedy comic about a boy with powers that rival Superman’s and a whole lot of growing up left to do. We’ll see Shazam hanging out at the Rock of Eternity, his secret clubhouse that can travel through space and time, as well as punching dinosaurs in the face, seeing how long he can hold his breath on the moon, and getting into wild and fun adventures with his tiger, Tawky Tawny, by his side.
After escaping Gotham City and his criminal past to happily retire to Metropolis, the Penguin is forced back into organized crime by the U.S. government! The feathered felon, and Gotham City, will never be the same. Spinning out of the pages of Batman, The Penguin (working title) will be available in June from writer Tom King and artist Stefano Gaudiano.
Just in time for his 30th anniversary, John Henry Irons must bring Metropolis into the future while trusting his niece Natasha to carry the mantle of Steel. Steelworkswill be available in June from a talent team that will be revealed at a later date.
Stay tuned as more from Dawn of DC, including the titles releasing in the second half of 2023, will be announced soon!
Comics are a particularly fertile medium for different interpretations of the vampire mythos. From Vertigo’s Vamps, about a female biker vamp gang that spills the patriarchy’s blood wherever they go, to Image’s Dracula, Motherfucker!, a pulpy reinterpretation of the original vampire’s bloodsucking brides, there’s no shortage of examples about the storytelling possibilities the classic monster can still hold.
Rob Williams and Will Conrad’s Out, published by AWA Studios, is another great foray into vamp territory, but what makes it stand out is how well it tweaks the monster’s foundational myths to produce a more nuanced but infinitely more terrifying version of it. There’s enough classic horror here to satisfy veteran vampire fans with enough variation to keep those hungry for new blood well fed.
Out is essentially a prisoner of war story (P.O.W. for short) set in the final days of the Second World War, with the Allies quickly gaining on the Nazis in their home turf. Like any good POW story, the comic focuses on a small group of captured Allied soldiers that are being kept in a massive castle located deep in the mountains of Czechoslovakia. Dark priests and strange rituals are taking place inside the castle and they end with prisoners being fed to something that thirsts for blood, something ancient.
A Native American soldier called Nocona emerges as the main character in all this, a code-talker that speaks several languages and that represents a whole group of First Nations servicemen that the American military enlisted to transmit coded messages during the war (codes the Germans didn’t know how to crack). His knowledge of languages figure greatly into the story and it’s one of the things that help make the vampire a deeper and more frightening character.
Without giving too much away, Nocona’s interactions with the vampire (who’s trapped by the Nazis in an effort to turn a losing war in their favor) are fascinatingly terrifying because of the character’s ability to speak in the same tongue as the creature. This allows Williams and Conrad to flesh out the monster beyond snarls, growls, and hisses.
Conrad creates a horrifying vamp here, bat-like in parts and almost alien-like in others, but William’s scripting choice to allow him to attempt communication means there’s more room afforded to its development as a multidimensional character. The comic shines in this regard.
Usually, vampire characters that are in a permanent bat monster mode rarely get the chance to speak or to add nuance to their personality. Williams and Conrad challenge this by doing the opposite, and it works well enough to set their vamp apart from the ones already out there in the field.
Nocona’s presence, though, isn’t just relegated to vampire whisperer. He’s also trying to help other POWs in the castle escape. It’s here that he meets a soldier that represents a level of attraction beyond any call of duty. His and Nocona’s interactions are among Out’s strongest and they help further differentiate this horror tale from the rest, especially in terms of how naturally it unfolds. Nothing is ever forced or propped up for shock value. It’s an organic type of development and it adds layers of emotion that pay off in the end.
In a sense, it’s not unfair to describe Out as a cross between Dracula and The Great Escape. The elements of a POW escape yarn are firmly present and a lot of the tension Williams and Conrad produce comes from the same sense of urgency war movies of this iteration are known for. In turn, the horror elements turn the narrative two-tiered, a ‘busting out of captivity’ scenario paired with a creature feature that makes the need for escape all the greater. It’s smart and it makes for compulsive reading.
Out is a great example of how to take tradition and twist it into something that can appeal to more current sensibilities. It’s a classic horror story that reads like a POW war narrative with key adages and permutations that elevate it into more compelling forms of storytelling. Williams and Conrad came up with a clever and violently emotional exploration of war, death, and everything in between. In the process, they might also suggest learning other languages can be the deciding factor in some life and death situations. You never know when you might need to talk down a blood-sucking creature from using your head as a wine glass in its native tongue.
Story: Rob Williams Art: Will Conrad Color: Marco Lesko Letterer: Sal Cipriano Story: 9.0 Art: 9.0 Overall: 9.0 Recommendation: Buy and learn an ancient language or two.
(W) Mike Mignola, Rob Williams (A/CA) Laurence Campbell In Shops: Apr 13, 2022 SRP: $3.99
The Sword of Hyperborea appears in the unlikely possession of an up-and-coming blues musician in Chicago, 1952. Even for a talented musician, Elijah Bone is a little different, and the strange voice that whispers to him has its own plans for him to fulfill. Delta blues, supernatural creatures, and secret societies collide in the conclusion of this Mignolaverse saga!
New Mignolaverse lore, written by Hellboy creator Mike Mignola with collaborator Rob Williams, and featuring the art of Laurence Campbell with colors by Quinton Winter.
(W) Mike Mignola, Rob Williams (CA) Mike Mignola (A/CA) Laurence Campbell In Shops: Mar 16, 2022 SRP: $3.99
An expert diver is faced with the extreme dangers of the supernatural and the real when he’s forced to retrieve a mysterious artifact from a crashed zeppelin in the English Channel. How many second chances is one man allowed to have, even when wielding the sword of Hyperborea? Hellboy creator Mike Mignola gives us a new tale from the world of Hellboy, cowritten by Rob Williams and featuring the art of Mignolaverse veteran Lawrence Campbell in an all-new series of Hellboy lore!
(W) Mike Mignola, Rob Williams (A) Laurence Campbell (CA) Mike Mignola, Christopher Mitten In Shops: Feb 16, 2022 SRP: $3.99
The Sword of Hyperborea continues its trek through history, blessing the chosen ones who wield it with incredible power. When it appears at a pivotal moment during WWI, will the blade be used for good or for evil? Spies, supernatural creatures, and secret societies collide in this fast-paced continuation of the sword’s saga!
(W) Mike Mignola, Rob Williams (A) Laurence Campbell (CA) Mike Mignola, Christopher Mitten In Shops: Feb 16, 2022 SRP: $3.99
The Sword of Hyperborea continues its trek through history, blessing the chosen ones who wield it with incredible power. When it appears at a pivotal moment during WWI, will the blade be used for good or for evil? Spies, supernatural creatures, and secret societies collide in this fast-paced continuation of the sword’s saga!
The Sword of Hyperborea #1 is the first installment of a four issue miniseries centered around a titular sword that has had an impact on the Mignolaverse from the dawn of time (From its name, I can deduce it’s connected to Robert E. Howard/Conan stuff.) to the apocalypse aka Ragna Rok. On paper, this sounds pretty fucking cool like Hellboy meets Highlander, or like Michael Walsh’s Silver Coin, but sword and sorcery. However, in execution, this new comic from Mike Mignola, Rob Williams, Laurence Campbell, and Quinton Winter is far from it. With the exception of the opening sequence which establishes BPRD Agent Howards’ relationship with Liz Sherman as well as his duty as wielder of the Sword of Hyperborea, this book is a confusing mess that will only resonate with hardcore Mignolaverse fans. There are bits and pieces that are coherent like one of Gall Dennar’s fellow tribe members saying that his strength only comes from the sword and paying the price, but it doesn’t come together into any kind of satisfying whole, or even slice of a story.
And this is a shame because Campbell and Winter’s visuals are damn good. Laurence Campbell’s style is a hybrid between Mignola and Andrea Sorrentino while Quinton Winter’s palette is suitably apocalyptic with clashing pitch blacks and lights. Winter brings an elemental approach to the coloring of the book with lots of green, reds, and whites fitting for a story that is set, for better and worse, around the dawn of humanity. (The one line in Mike Mignola and Williams’ script that I actually smiled at was Liz calling Howards, “Captain Caveman” before he jumps into action.) This works well with Campbell’s thick, sketchy lines that show the struggle to survive in prehistoric times, and how something like the Sword of Hyperborea can turn the tide. On the other hand, Laurence Campbell takes a simpler approach to his monster: all tentacles and straight lines like a kind of end point to humanity.
The Sword of Hyperborea #1 is centered around a simple idea: one day humanity will be destroyed by monsters. It’s hard not to connect to what Mignola and Rob Williams have put in their script with a deadly pandemic raging, income inequality soaring, and the climate rapidly changing. I definitely get that foreboding from Campbell and Quinton Winter’s art, but it doesn’t come through in the story, which is structured like some vignettes (Howards fighting monsters, Gall Dennar’s tribe succession, Howards/Dennar going into a deep dark cave) combined with trailer type images that will either be fleshed out down the road, or are already familiar to Mignolaverse fans. There’s repeated mentions of Chicago and modern imagery juxtaposed with the cave/apocalyptic stuff, and without context, it reads like generic foreshadowing.
Also, I don’t get a feel for either Howards or Dennar as characters beyond they have a magic sword and are going up against monsters that end the world. It looks cool, but I don’t care about these guys at all, sorry. Also, the apocalypse doesn’t have much build up beyond tentacles and lightning. It’s all very vague and reads like a Xerox of a Xerox of Robert E. Howard’s ouevre: all keywords and bad things happening and not even fun purple prose. Honestly, if this wasn’t connected to Hellboy and BPRD in some way, I wouldn’t even tell the hardcore fans to check it out.
Laurence Campbell and Quinton Winter bring some compelling prehistoric and high fantasy settings to life in The Sword of Hyperborea #1, but Mike Mignola and Rob Williams’ script is too bogged down in lore to make Agent Howards or Gall Dennar compelling leads. By the end of the issue, I just know that Dennar is a strong guy with a sword who doesn’t have much of a personality beyond beating his rivals and monsters with the aforementioned sword. If I predict correctly from the ending, subsequent issues are going to jump into different time periods and introduce additional characters, who are hopefully fleshed out more, but that’s a path I would only recommend for the Mignolaverse completionists.
Script: Mike Mignola and Rob WilliamsArt: Laurence Campbell Colors: Quinton Winter Letters: Clem Robins Story: 5.0 Art: 8.0 Overall: 6.0 Recommendation: Pass
Dark Horse Comics provided Graphic Policy with a FREE copy for review