Written by BECKY CLOONAN and MICHAEL W. CONRAD Art by LIAM SHARP Letters by TROY PETERI Cover A by LIAM SHARP Cover B by NIMIT MALAVIA Cover C by WILL STAEHLE Pre-order Cover by BOB LAYTON 1:250 Leather Variant by TRAVIS ESCARFULLERY On sale March 22nd | 32 pages, full color | $3.99 US | T+
Warrior. Slave. Liberator. King. Aric of Dacia has lived many lives. Now his past, present, and future collide as Valiant’s X-O MANOWAR returns in an unforgettable new series.
• Becky Cloonan, Michael W. Conrad, and Liam Sharp bring X-O Manowar to new planets, old villains, and brutal destinies.
• X-O Manowar is alone in space and stranded on a distant world, battered and defi ant, but never defeated.
• Put the king back on his throne as X-O Manowar charts an epic return on its 30th anniversary.
Writers: Scott Bryan Wilson and David Avallone Artists: Hamish Munroe-Cook, Eman Cassalos, Mariano Benitiz Chapo, and Max Fuchs Covers: Arthur Suydam (A), Liam Sharp (B), Rafael Kayanan (C) 40 pages | Action Adventure | $4.99 | Teen+
NEW TALES OF VAMPIRELLA, DRACULINA, AND MORE! FEATURING THE STAR ARTISTS OF TOMORROW FROM THE LEGENDARY KUBERT SCHOOL! Savage Tales is back with four tales of brutality, thrills and spills! This one-shot features art by two up-and-coming artists from the renowned Kubert School! • “Devil Juice” by Scott Bryan Wilson and Max Fuchs: Draculina finds that to get revenge on an enemy demon, she’s first got to go through a wall of…body builders? • “Crypt Junkies” by Scott Bryan Wilson and Kubert School Artist Mariano Benitez Chapo: Vampirella accompanies a reality TV crew to film the opening of a 1,000 year old sarcophagus…with unforeseen, bloody results! • Captain Gullivar Jones in “His War Chapter II” by David Avallone and Kubert School artist Hamish Munro-Cook: More mystery from the journals of Gullivar Jones and his strange relationship with the savage world of Mars! • John Carter and Dejah Thoris in “Honeymoon on Mars” by David Avallone and Eman Cassalos. It’s a tale of love and adventure featuring the Warlord of Mars and his beautiful mate, Dejah Thoris on the dying world of Barsoom! The Kubert School offers students a high quality and challenging education in Cartooning and Graphic Art. They are committed to investing the time in preparing their students for the rewarding and exciting careers and opportunities ahead of them. The Kubert School is located in Dover, NJ.
On FOC Monday, November 21, for December 21 on sale, Opus Comics has a new BILL & TED special and the latest installment of our flagship title DEATH DEALER. Plus, a COVER GALLERY featuring the amazing covers we’ve had for the first five issues.
Bill & Ted’s Excellent Holiday Special
Roll over Beethoven, the Wyld Stallyns have their own ode to joy to share with the world! John Barber(Back to the Future) and Butch Mapa(Marvel Action: Avengers) bring you this most triumphant message of peace, love, and misunderstanding. Plus, another bonus story featuring Rufus by Barber and Juan Samu!
$6.99 • 40 pages OCT221846 Cover A – Butch Mapa OCT221847 Cover B (1:5) – Beethoven Action Figure OCT221847 Cover C (1:10) – Wayne Nichols
Frank Frazetta’s Death Dealer #8
Critically acclaimed animation writer Mitch Iverson (Dota: Dragon’s Blood) and world-renowned artists Esau & Isaac Escorza and Luis Antonio Delgado (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Last Ronin) chronicle the next chapter in our hero’s twisted life, where in order to atone for a terrible deed, he must literally go through Hell—both of them!
$4.99 • 32 pages OCT221852 Cover A – Clara Tessier OCT221853 Cover B – Frank Frazetta OCT221854 Cover C (1:5) – Tyler Walpole OCT221855 Cover D (1:10) – Dave Dorman OCT221856 Cover E (1:20) – Dave Dorman unbranded
Frank Frazetta’s Death Dealer Cover Gallery #1
Collected in one volume are the awe-inspiring and epic covers to the Death Dealer series. Artists include Simone Bianchi, Frank Cho, Gabrielle Dell’Otto, David Finch, Joseph Michael Linsner, Dan Panosian, Paul Renaud, Bill Sienkiewicz, and many more!
Dynamite has announced Savage Tales: Winter Special featuring more thrilling tales of Dynamite’s biggest stars as well as legends of the pulps.
This December’s special will feature two up-and-coming artists and graduates of the prestigious Kubert School, Mariano Benitez Chapo and Hamish Munro-Cook. They’ll be teaming up with fan-favorite writers Scott Bryan Wilson and David Avallone for two of the four tales in this action packed new one-shot that will be debuting with covers by Arthur Suydam, Liam Sharp,and Rafael Kayanan.
Savage Tales is back with four tales of brutality, thrills and spills. The party starts with “Devil Juice” by Wilson and artist Max Fuchs as Vampirella’s sister Draculina wants revenge on an enemy demon but has to go through a wall of body builders first. Wilson then teams with Benitez Chapo for “Crypt Junkies” as Vampirella accompanies a TV crew when they open a 1,000-year-old sarcophagus… with bloody results. Avallone and Munro-Cook bring us a new story of Captain Gulliver Jones and the savage world of Mars in “His War Chapter II.” Then Avallone and artist Eman Casallos take us to the dying world of Barsoom for more adventures with John Carter, Warlord of Mars and his mate Dejah Thoris.
Savage Tales: Winter Special warms up shelves this December 2022.
A recent press release from Valiant hyping the upcoming Bloodshot Unleashed wasn’t exciting for what it said, it raised eyebrows for what it didn’t and what it hinted at.
The publisher is currently going through some rocky times though specifics seem scarce and it looks like those issues are impacting the publisher’s release schedule. In recent months releases have been scarce, far less than the usual release schedule pre-pandemic and during some of it. The publisher will now move putting out one release per month according to CBR. Reading in between the lines of Valiant’s press release, this lines up with much of what’s danced around.
Writer Steve Foxe announced on Twitter that Archer & Armstrong Forever #4would be the last issue of the series. Not the original plan, the series was solicited through #6. According to Foxe, “plans changed” leading to the unfinished series.
With that series no longer being released, Valiant’s next release will be Blooshot Unleahsed, an adults-only series from writer Deniz Camp and artist Jon Davis-Hunt. It’ll come to shops on September 21st with issues coming out monthly. It’s planned for four issues.
That means the recently released Book of Shadows will be pushed back. The first issue from writer Cullen Bunn and artist Vicente Cifuentes was released in July. The next issue won’t see print until January 2023, a six month gap. X-O Manowar Unconquered by Becky Cloonan, Michael W. Conrad and Liam Sharp will then launch in March 2023. That comic was originally scheduled for December 2022.
Also awaiting release is Eternal Warrior: Scorched Earth, an original graphic novel Kickstarted in December and expected to be released in November 2022. That project raised a little over $55,000 from 531 individuals and the latest update said the graphic novel was on schedule. This was before the recent issues which has caused individuals to go to the comments of the project voicing their concerns.
The publisher seems to be having a rough time of late finding its footing. Staff has left and the company itself has dipped its toes into the digital world with NFTs and other “get rich quick” pivots. Licensing has increased with shoes and an upcoming toy line but from the outside it looks to be a company attempting to find its way throwing darts and seeing what lands.
Writers: Scott Bryan Wilson and David Avallone Artists: Will Rios, Al Barrionuevo, Mario Benitez Chapo, Hamish Munro-Cook Covers: Arthur Suydam, (A), Liam Sharp (B), Rafael Kayanan (C) 40 pages | Action / Adventure | $4.99 | Teen+
FEATURING THE STAR ARTISTS OF TOMORROW FROM THE LEGENDARY KUBERT SCHOOL! NEW TALES OF RED SONJA, VAMPIRELLA, AND MORE! Savage Tales is back! This all-new one-shot features four tales of brutality, thrills and spills and includes the Dynamite debut of two up-and-coming artists from the renowned Kubert School! • Red Sonja in “The Executioner’s Sword,” by writer Scott Brian Wilson and artist Al Barrionuevo: Magic mixed with swordcraft makes for horrific unintended consequences as Red Sonja must defeat an insatiable hunger! • Vampirella in “Horrible People Doing Horrible Things To Horrible People,” by writer Scott Brian Wilson and Kubert School artist Mariano Benitez Chapo: Harkening back to the spirit of the Warren Magazine era, Vampirella serves out a lesson in morality as only she can! • Allan Quatermain in “Missionaries of Madness,” by David Avallone and Will Rio: The legendary hunter stalks the Cthulhu Cult! Can one man with a rifle stand against the coming of the Great Old Ones? • Captain Gullivar Jones in “His War,” by David Avallone and Kubert School artist Hamish Cook: Years after his adventure on Mars, the fabled swashbuckler finds a new and darker war to fight…one that might just lead him back to his own redemption.
The Kubert School offers students a high quality and challenging education in Cartooning and Graphic Art. They are committed to investing the time in preparing their students for the rewarding and exciting careers and opportunities ahead of them.
Liam Sharp strikes out on his own with Starhenge #1 kicking off an intriguing series that’s a bit Terminator mixed with magic and a fantasy setting. The end result is an interesting start that’s more visuals than story when it comes to what sucks you in.
Taking place over three time periods, Starhenge #1 has to do with a future where humanity had discovered magic but then forgot about it as they go up against a robotic race determined to wipe them out. It’s straight up an intergalactic Terminator with the magic spin of it all. The story riffs so much on that concept it also involves time travel to help figure out what has happened to magic and the legendary Knights that will save humanity.
None of the story is necessarily bad. Sharp has put together an intriguing world and concept that is familiar but adds just enough to make it different. Where things fails is in how the story is laid out. The narrative is a bit choppy as it attempts to pack in a lot of what’s going on and explain things in a way that makes sense. That includes a storyline in the present involving a girl into witchcraft who will obviously play a role in saving the future and is the story’s narrator.
The art by Sharp is disturbingly beautiful. There’s an H.R. Geiger quality about it without the phallic bits. The page layouts and some panels are jaw dropping at times with a crazy amount of detail and painted like dreamscape. But, like the narrative itself, the images at times feel a bit choppy as we get explanations about the world and what’s going on. There’s an odd flow that’s missing at times like separate images are mashed together on a page and then the text is the last thing to be thought of.
I wanted to really like Starhenge #1 and as a concept I do. But, the flow of the narrative and art aren’t quite polished creating a slightly jarring experience. You can piece together what’s going on but it takes a bit to really connect the dots as things are laid out and a lot of questions remain. It’s a sci-fi story that you just go with the flow, even if that flow is going to turn into a time traveling loop of a time.
Baltimore Comic-Con is October 28-30, 2022 at the Inner Harbor’s Baltimore Convention Center. The Baltimore Comic-Con has announced that artists John Cassaday, Sedat Oezgen, Liam Sharp, Charles P. Wilson III are coming to the 2022 event. Tickets are available online now.
John Cassaday is the Eisner Award-winning artist best known for co-creating the acclaimed DC/Wildstorm series Planetary, Marvel’s best-selling Astonishing X-Men, and the launch of the Star Wars on-going series from Marvel. Cassaday’s work has been exhibited in Hong Kong, Paris, New York City, and the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, DC.
Sedat Oezgen is a German comic book artist who was born in Batman, Turkey. In 1985, Sedat migrated to Germany where he discovered his love for comic books and art. He graduated from the University of Applied Science in Munster, Germany in 2008. Sedat’s first professional work was published in 2009 for Moonstone Books USA. Sedat’s work has been published by IDW, Valiant, Image, Zenescope Entertainment, Moonstone Boos, PKMM Entertainment, Planet Me Productions, Devil’s Due Publishing, and others. His portfolio of work includes covers, sequential, and pin-up art. Currently, he is working on the 2nd arc of Quandary for American indy publisher PKMM Entertainment. Sedat works as an illustrator and commercial artist in the medical field, where he creates medical illustrations, illustrated presentation, and helps to visualize solutions for new ideas in the medical field.
Liam Sharp is an award-winning British writer and artist living in California with his family and the cat that adopted them. Liam has worked for all the major comic companies, but is primarily known for his work at DC, where he drew the best-selling Wonder Woman: Rebirth series arcs, “The Lies” and “The Truth” written by Greg Rucka, an issue of Justice League – a Dark Knights Metal tie-in written by Rob Venditti, and the acclaimed Brave and the Bold: Batman and Wonder Woman series, which he also wrote. He recently finished an epic 24-issue run drawing Green Lantern, scripted by the legendary Grant Morrison, and Batman: Reptilian for DC’s Black Label imprint, scripted by the great Garth “The Boys” Ennis. He is currently working on his own creator-owned series for Image Comics, Starhenge, an epic sci-fantasy saga based on the legend of Merlin.
Charles P. Wilson III is the illustrator and co-creator of the New York Times Best-Selling Graphic Novel The Stuff of Legend (published by Th3rd World Studios), and illustrator for Wraith (with Joe Hill, IDW Publishing). His drawings can also be found in the pages and on the covers for X-Files, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Tales from the Darkside, Goosebumps, Superman, Captain America, The Shadow, and others.
2022 GUESTS
Confirmed guests for this year’s show include: Jeremy Bastian (Cursed Pirate Girl), Marty Baumann (Pixar artist), John Beatty (Marvel Super Heroes: Secret Wars), Brian Michael Bendis (Action Comics), Brett Breeding (Superman), Dan Brereton (Nocturnals), Mark Buckingham (Fables), Jeffrey Burandt (Killer Bad), Jim Calafiore (NED, Lord of the Pit), Richard Case (Edgar Allan Poe’s Snifter of Terror), John Cassaday (Astonishing X-Men), Howard Chaykin (Time Squared), Steve Conley (The Middle Age), Katie Cook (Nothing Special), Kevin Cuffe (Metalshark Bro), Kristina Deak-Linsner (Roses for the Dead), Todd Dezago (The Perhapanauts), Garth Ennis (The Boys, Friday and Saturday only), Bob Frantz (Metalshark Bro), Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez (DC Nation), Steven Grant (X), Gene Ha (Mae, courtesy of Hero Initiative), Bob Hall (West Coast Avengers), Dean Haspiel (The Fox), Mike Hawthorne (Happiness Will Follow), Greg Hildebrandt (Star Wars), Jamal Igle (Molly Danger), Klaus Janson (Daredevil, Friday and Saturday only), Chris Kemple (Artist Alley Comics), Phillip Kennedy Johnson (Alien), Barry Kitson (Amazing Spider-Man), Joseph Michael Linsner (Red Sonja), Howard Mackie (Ghost Rider), Whitney Matheson (Pandemix: Quarantine Comics in the Age of ‘Rona), Bob McLeod (New Mutants), Mike McKone (Genis-Vell: Captain Marvel), Carla Speed McNeil (Finder), Adriana Melo (Action Comics), Pop Mhan (Gears of War 3), Frank Miller (Sin City, Saturday only), Mark Morales (Thor), Bill Morrison (The Simpsons), Trevor Mueller (Albert the Alien), Sedat Oezgen (Judge Dredd), Jerry Ordway (Superman), Rachel Ordway (Chainmail Bikini), Richard Pace (Second Coming, courtesy of Hero Initiative), Andrew Pepoy (Simone & Ajax), David Petersen (Mouse Guard), Khoi Pham (Teen Titans), Ed Piskor (Red Room: Trigger Warnings), Afua Richardson (Omni), John Romita, Jr. (Amazing Spider-Man), Don Rosa (Uncle Scrooge), Craig Rousseau (The Perhapanauts), Jim Rugg (Hulk Grand Design), Stuart Sayger (The Joker), Pat Shand (Destiny, NY), Liam Sharp (Green Lantern), Louise Simonson (X-Men Legends), Walter Simonson (Ragnarok), Don Simpson (Megaton Man), Matt Slay (Equilibrium), John K. Snyder III (Suicide Squad), Jim Starlin (Infinity Gauntlet), Joe Staton (Dick Tracy), Jill Thompson (Scary Godmother), Billy Tucci (Shi), Dexter Vines (Civil War, courtesy of Hero Initiative), Sean Von Gorman (Return of Toe Tag Riot), Mark Waid (Superman: Red and Blue), Emily S. Whitten (The Underfoot), Matt Wieringo (Stargate Atlantis: Gateways), Keith Williams (Thor the Worthy), Charles P. Wilson III (Wraith), Rich Woodall (Electric Black), Gene Luen Yang (Superman Smashes the Klan), and Thom Zahler (Love and Capes).
The Year of Valiant, continues as the publisher has announced three brand-new titles!
Shadowman. Punk Mambo. Eternal Warrior. Doctor Mirage. And [CLASSIFIED]. The supernatural protectors of the Valiant Universe unite for the very first time to stand against a terrifying ancient threat. No one is safe as Exarch Fane has his cold hands on the Book of Shadows. From the master of horror Cullen Bunn and rising star artist Riccardo Latina, Book of Sadows is a supernatural event that forms a brand-new team in the Valiant Universe… but will they be enough to stop Exarch Fane’s wrath? The all-new team arrives this July.
Promo Art by Riccardo Latina & Nick Filardi
When living weapons break out of a top-secret facility, the nanite-infused supersoldier Bloodshot must journey across the United States to stop these twisted and lethal creations from unleashing more bloodshed and devastation on the neglected small towns and forgotten corners of the country. Will Bloodshot need to kill all of them… or can some of them be redeemed just like he was? From Ringo Award-nominated writer Deniz Camp and acclaimed artist Jon Davis-Hunt comes Bloodshot Unleashed, the popular character’s first mature readers story that truly lives up to its name. The mayhem begins this September.
Promo Art by Jon-Davis Hunt
Aric of Dacia is X-O Manowar, a relentless and brave warrior torn from the past who wields the most powerful sentient armor in the universe. When X-O’s latest battle brings him into uncharted cosmic territory, he encounters a powerful enemy that will rip open old wounds and force Aric into treacherous, uncertain waters. Fan-favorite co-writers Becky Cloonan and Michael W. Conrad are joined by blockbuster artist Liam Sharp to present X-O Manowar Unconquered, a gripping sci-fi epic that embraces the beloved character’s history while challenging him in a whole new way. X-O’s next battle begins this November.
Batman and Catwoman may have just gotten back together, but Joker is ready to complicate things by asking Selina for a favor that could lead to Batman’s demise! That’s not the only trick he has up his sleeve…he’s also hiding a secret that will drive Phantasm mad. Plus, Batwoman hunts down her own mother!
