By now, you’ve heard the news out of San Diego: Indie star Matt Kindt (Pistolwhip, Super Spy, 3 Story) will make his Vertigo debut with the graphic novel REVOLVER in August 2010. It’s a surreal thriller about an ordinary guy living in two wildly different realities, gradually realizing he alone has the power to avert the series of apocalypses that’s destroyed one world, yet finding himself freer and more alive there than he ever was in the other. (Check out this design sheet, which I think says it all.)

My first introduction to Matt’s work was Mephisto and the Empty Box, his one-shot comic with Pistolwhip collaborator Jason Hall about a magic trick gone heartbreakingly wrong. I fell completely for his loose, gorgeous art and cinematic storytelling in just 24 pages. Now I’ve had the pleasure of working with him on 192 of ‘em.

I’m not just in it for the art, though. Matt’s the dean of what I call the St. Louis School of Speedsters. Like his fellow Missourans Chris Samnee and Brian Hurtt, he’s insanely fast and prolific. I believe Matt squeezed in three 8-pagers, the last bits of another 200-page graphic novel, and one 32-page minicomic for other publishers, all while wrapping up REVOLVER. And REVOLVER is wrapped up — I’m staring at it right now as I type this. All 192 pages of beautiful, creepy, thrilling, deeply moving blue-and-brown-toned magnificence. Done. Finished. In your hands in 2010. Heartbreakingly cool. Like magic, really.