Preview Monday: THE PHANTOM STRANGER #3 and FAIREST #10

Welcome back for another installment of Preview Monday! This week we’re giving you exclusive first looks at THE PHANTOM STRANGER #3 and FAIREST #10.

 

Following the exciting events of THE PHANTOM STRANGER #2, our hero hangs on the verge of death. This week in “Family Matters,” The Phantom Stranger battles The Haunted Highwayman for the life of Terrence Thirteen. But can he save him from The Highwayman’s vendetta against the Thirteen family? Or will his curse prevail and force him to betray all those he encounters? Find out in THE PHANTOM STRANGER #3, in stores this Wednesday, written by Dan DiDio and illustrated by Brent Anderson, Philip Tan and Rob Hunter. Click here for an exclusive preview of the issue.

 

The last issue of FAIREST left us with the Rapunzel and her hairdresser, Joel, narrowly escaping from the CEG building. This week, “The Hidden Kingdom” continues … and we finally discover how Rapunzel lost her children! Meanwhile, the couple encounters a mysterious cat who offers to take them to the kids. Is it a trick or will our heroine finally be reunited with her family?  From writer Lauren Beukes and artist Inaki Miranda, FAIREST #10 hits stores this Wednesday. Click here for an exclusive preview of the issue.

On The Ledge: With Bill Willingham, writer of FABLES

 

Bill’s ramshackle schoolhouse, built precariously…

 

ON THE LEDGE

 

From time to time I’m asked to critique the work of a new comics writer, often one who entertains hopes of writing for VERTIGO, sometimes for other venues. Time and workload permitting, I’m usually happy to do so, but one does get occasionally frustrated with the same beginners’ problems cropping up time and time again.

 

If there were a good book about how to write comics, full of the elementary blunders one should avoid, we wouldn’t have this problem. But although there are (literally) tons of great primers on how to write prose, and many more not-so-great ones, there isn’t a single primer that I know of on how to write comics.

 

Maybe I should write one, what with the copious free time I don’t actually have.

 

In any case, until such a primer is available, here’s one of my chief bugaboos, an oft-repeated rookie mistake that should never crop up anymore. Now that this semi pseudo tutorial is in print, no one is allowed to make this mistake from here on.

 

(The following is taken from a recent written critique, heavily redacted so as to disguise the story in question and spare the writer some embarrassment.)

 

Page One is fine. On Page Two, here are questions I have from the very first panel: Where is this taking place? Is it Earth? Is it some future society on some faraway world? Is it the past? Are these even humans in this panel? You started with the infinity of space, so your story could be about anyone and anywhere. Therefore you owe your artist answers to these basic questions right away. Immediately. Don’t make the artist have to go hunting for clues in the rest of your script. Even if you’re writing a mystery, you don’t make the script a mystery for whoever draws it. Clarity! Clarity is the only god of the page and panel descriptions (and you shall have no other god before it).

 

Based on the dialogue in the first panel of the second page, I’m going to guess they’re Japanese, since (redacted) seems a Japanese name. Did I guess correctly? Why do I have to guess at all? You need to reveal these things to your artist. What if he decides to make these frog people, because you didn’t bother specifying, and he feels like drawing frogs today?

 

(Later, on another page): Panel Four: Okay, this isn’t bad. Interesting dialogue. I’m sufficiently intrigued as a reader to turn the page. As the artist, though, I still hate you for not being clear on what you want. Remember, in writing one script you have to write two stories. The first is to your editors, publishers and readers. The second story is more personal. It’s only to one person in the whole wide world. In writing panel descriptions, you are writing to the artist – no one else. The best way to make an enemy of him is to leave out vital stuff that he needs to know, in order to have the slightest chance of doing even a crappy job – much less the lovely job you expect and/or hope for. Just because you can picture what you want in your head, it doesn’t mean you’ve successfully communicated it to your artist. Clarity! Panel descriptions are technical writing and, in technical writing the only thing that matters is, did you tell the customer how to properly assemble his very expensive stereo system? If you left steps out, he will have a very expensive pile of useless junk and will hate you forever.

 

The critique goes on, but my point is made. On some future date, in some future venue, I’ll talk about what it takes to craft an engaging story that readers will love while reading and not feel cheated at the end. But for now, if you know nothing else as a new comics writer, know that the story you tell your artist needs to be clear and detailed enough so that he knows what you want, what you need and what you hope for. Fail him and no power on earth can save the other story, the one you and he are teaming up to tell.

 

Go and sin no more.

 

Bill Willingham

Vertigo Solicits for February 2013

DJANGO UNCHAINED #4

Based on the screenplay by QUENTIN TARANTINO

Art by R.M. GUERA and JASON LATOUR

Cover by FRANK QUITELY

1:25 Variant cover by IVAN REIS

On sale FEBRUARY 27 • 48 pg, FC, 4 of 5, $4.99 US • MATURE READERS

• The adaptation of the screenplay from award winning director Quentin Tarantino’s latest film continues!

• Django and Dr. Schultz take a big risk against impossible odds inside the stronghold of slave owner Calvin Candie.

• This is the only way to read the entire, uncut story, which contains scenes that may not appear in the final film!

 

FAIREST #12

Written by LAUREN BEUKES

Art and cover by INAKI MIRANDA

Cover by ADAM HUGHES

On sale FEBRUARY 6 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • MATURE READERS

Rapunzel discovers that bloody vengeance will come back to haunt you. Frau Totenkinder and Bigby get caught in a war between Tomoko’s yakuza gangsters and Katagiri’s not-so-unassuming sumo school. There’s murder, mayhem, terrible compromises and unholy hairballs deep in the heart of a dark forest and in the frenetic streets of Tokyo.

 

FABLES #126

Written by BILL WILLINGHAM

Art by MARK BUCKINGHAM and STEVE LEIALOHA

Cover by JOAO RUAS

On sale FEBRUARY 20 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • MATURE READERS

Marriage and family are the most important components of the community. It’s in the book. Go ahead and look it up yourself. The official charter of Fabletown laws hold little the government as a whole can do to interfere in family matters. Mostly this is a good thing. Once in a great while—like in this issue, for instance—it isn’t. Also, Bigby and Stinky continue their road trip, trying to catch the hint of a scent of the missing cubs.

 

HELLBLAZER #300

Written by PETER MILLIGAN

Art by GIUSEPPE CAMUNCOLI and STEFANO LANDINI

Cover by SIMON BISLEY

On sale FEBRUARY 20 • 48 pg, FC, $4.99 US • MATURE READERS • FINAL ISSUE

It’s the heart-rending conclusion of “DEATH AND CIGARETTES”—and the end of Vertigo’s longest running series. John Constantine has escaped, cheated, narrowly avoided and even reversed death on multiple occasions over the past 25 years. Now, we will test whether the old boy has one more second chance in him. Don’t miss this epic, oversized special issue celebrating everything that makes John Constantine so bloody unique.

 

100 BULLETS DELUXE EDITION BOOK FOUR HC

Written by BRIAN AZZARELLO

Art by EDUARDO RISSO

Cover by DAVE JOHNSON

On sale APRIL 10 • 512 pg, FC, 7.0625” x 10.875”, $49.99 US • MATURE READERS

In this new deluxe edition collecting 100 BULLETS #59-80, the Houses of the Trust are warily circling each other, looking for the right angle to take in their impending war, while the remaining Minutemen continue to choose sides—and set up their own battle plans. Then, following Lono’s ascension to warlord for the houses of the Trust, players on both sides ready themselves for the endgame of their private war.

 

JOE THE BARBARIAN TP

Written by GRANT MORRISON

Art and cover by SEAN MURPHY

On sale MARCH 6 • 224 pg, FC, $19.99 US • MATURE READERS

Joe is an imaginative eleven-year-old boy. He can’t fit in at school. He’s the victim of bullies. His dad died overseas in the Iraq war. He also suffers from Type 1 diabetes. One fateful day, his condition causes him to believe he has entered a vivid fantasy world in which he is the lost savior—a fantastic land based on the layout and contents of his home. His desperate attempts to make it out of his bedroom transform into an incredible, epic adventure through a bizarre landscape

of submarine pirate dwarves, evil Hell Hounds, Lightning Lords and besieged castles. But is his quest really just an insulin-deprived delirium—from which he can die if he doesn’t take his meds—or something much bigger? Collecting the 8-issue miniseries!

 

SAUCER COUNTRY #12

Written by PAUL CORNELL

Art and cover by RYAN KELLY

On sale FEBRUARY 13 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • MATURE READERS

It’s the run-up to election day, and Arcadia is racing to close the gap on her Republican rival. But meanwhile Prof Kidd’s life is falling apart, as he discovers the secret of the Pioneer Couple. Secrets are revealed, an election is won and lost, and several steps toward the truth are taken in Part One of the three-part tale “President’s Day.”

 

THE UNWRITTEN VOL. 7: THE WOUND TP

Written by MIKE CAREY

Art by PETER GROSS and RUFUS DAYGLO

Cover by YUKO SHIMIZU

On sale MARCH 20 • 144 pg, FC, $14.99 US • MATURE READERS

In this volume collecting THE UNWRITTEN #36-41, the War of Words is over, but the real world and the fictional world are both in turmoil, and the damage seems to be spreading. When a rash of mysterious disappearances catches the eye of young Australian detective Didge Patterson, it becomes apparent that the cult known as The Church of Tommy is involved. Can Tom Taylor heal “The Wound” before the real and fictional worlds crumble?

 

THE UNWRITTEN #46

Written by MIKE CAREY

Art by PETER GROSS and DEAN ORMSTON

Cover by YUKO SHIMIZU

On sale FEBRUARY 27 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • MATURE READERS

Richie continues to help Didge with her inquiries, and the Corpse Harvest Killer strikes again—against himself! Enter Madame Rausch, with a surefire plan for stopping the rising body count. All that’s left to settle now is her price...

 

Click here to see a gallery of art for the above titles.

 

(The cover for DJANGO UNCHAINED #4 by Frank Quitely)

This Just Happened: Rapunzel's Mom is Revealed and You'll Never Guess Who it is!

 

WARNING: If you have not read FAIREST #8 and do not wish to know what happens, do not continue reading this post (major spoiler ahead!).

 

Well, thanks to Lauren Beukes, we now we know who was responsible for braiding all that hair before Rapunzel had her own personal hair stylist following her around: Frau Totenkinder.  Yup, you read that right!  Frau Totenkinder is Repunze’s mom! The same wicked old witch who kept Rapunzel trapped in that tower and then kicked her out when she got pregnant is also her mom.

 

This big revelation happens in FAIREST #8 which is in comic book stores now! But you can see the exchange between Rapunzel and Frau Totenkinder right here, below.

 

Do you think Totenkinder is telling truth about not stealing Rapunzel’s children?  Answer in the comments below. 


On The Ledge: With Lauren Beukes


When Bill Willingham asked me to pitch a FAIREST storyarc on FABLES’ original bad hair day girl, I knew that Rapunzel was going to break all the rules, chafing under the strictest restrictions of all the fairy tale exiles living in secret in New York City.


She has to, you see, because that dead dog know as the past has come to sniff her out. And sometimes the only way to come to terms with your dark past is to turn and face it head-on. 

 

Of course, it’s not a literal dog. It’s a snowstorm of origami cranes that crashes through her window bearing a message that will force Rapunzel to defy Snow White and Bigby, make a devil’s bargain with the wicked witch of the 13th floor, Frau Totenkinder, and go on the run to Tokyo with a terrible choice of companions.

 

I was interested in what terrible secrets Rapunzel doesn’t confide in her hairdresser, Joel Crow, why we haven’t seen any Eastern-inspired Fables, even during the war, and why hair figures so prominently in so many Japanese ghost stories.

 

I took inspiration from a range of sources from Tekkonkinkreet to The Pillow Book, Kurosawa,Miyazaki, Miike and the Murakamis-three (Haruki, Ryu and Takashi), The Tale of Genji, Tokyo Vice and The Hundred Demons Night Parade. I researched fairy tales and history and true crime and listened to Japanese punk-pop and drank Japanese whisky and let my hair grow out. Just to get into character.

 

Artist Inaki Miranda was happy because he got to draw everything from seedy pachinko parlors and karaoke clubs in neon Shibuya to the lavishly corrupt celestial palace of the HiddenKingdom, as well as Harajuku girls, weird monsters, love, sex, magic, violence, and some very cool hairstyles. His artwork made the story deeper and richer and darker. His panels are breathtakingly beautiful. Or utterly horrifying. Or perfectly, subtly nuanced. On some pages all at the same time.  

 

FAIREST: The Hidden Kingdom is about a doomed love affair (or two), the compromises we make and the price of revenge, with shape-shifting yokai, yakuza, hungry ghosts and that amazingly Japanese clash of modernity and tradition where skyscrapers and shrines to the spirits of lost children can coexist on the same street corner. It all begins with issue #8 this October. I think you’ll like it.

 

 

--Lauren Beukes

 

Preview Monday: EARTH 2 #5 and FAIREST #8

For this week’s installment of Preview Monday, we’re giving you exclusive first looks at EARTH 2 #5 and FAIREST #8.

 

The fate of Earth 2 hangs in the balance as Hawkgirl, The Flash and The Atom take on Grundy … and each other! Will they be able to cooperate long enough to stop Grundy from destroying the Earth? Meanwhile, The Green Lantern travels deep into the matrix of The Grey, leaving his physical body behind and vulnerable to attack. Once in The Grey, he is faced with a heart-wrenching choice that will affect the entire Earth! Written by James Robinson and illustrated by Nicola Scott and Trevor Scott, EARTH 2 #5 goes on sale this Wednesday. Click here to see an exclusive preview of the issue.

 

Meanwhile, FAIREST #8 kicks off the all-new story arc, “The Hidden Kingdom.” While getting her hair cut, Rapunzel is attacked by a flock of origami cranes with one simple message scrawled in Japanese on them: “Your Children.” Defying the orders of Snow White and Sheriff Bigby, Rapunzel sets off to Tokyo with her hairdresser and Jack of Fables to find her children. But someone is waiting for them there and it’s not going to be pretty when they meet! FAIREST #8 comes to you from 2011 Arthur C. Clarke Award-winning writer Lauren Beukes and artist Inaki Miranda. Click here to see an exclusive preview of the issue, which hits stores this week.

Preview Monday: ANIMAL MAN #0 and FAIREST #7

Happy Labor Day!

 

For this week’s installment of Preview Mondays, we’re giving you exclusive first looks at ANIMAL MAN #0 and FAIREST #7!

 

In ANIMAL MAN #0, witness the origin story you’ve been waiting for! Find out how Buddy Baker became Animal Man. The twist? What actually was the catalyst for Buddy’s superhero persona versus what he perceived happened are two very different stories. Planting seeds that will be fully explored in the “Rotworld” crossover event with SWAMP THING this fall, ANIMAL MAN #0 is written by Jeff Lemire and illustrated by Steve Pugh. Click here to see an exclusive preview of the issue, which goes on sale this Wednesday.

 

Set in 1940’s Los Angeles, FAIREST #7 is a stand-alone issue from the guest creative team of Matthew Sturges and Shawn McManus. In this Fable Noir, both Beast and St. George are scouring dive bars and smoky clubs looking for a ruthless femme fatale. But who will find her first?  And how many innocent men will be lured in by her and killed before they catch her? Click here to see an exclusive preview of FAIREST #7, in stores this week.

Preview Mondays: BATGIRL #12, BATMAN #12, BATMAN AND ROBIN #12 and FAIREST #6

For this week's installment of Preview Mondays, we're giving you exclusive first looks at BATGIRL #12, BATMAN #12, BATMAN AND ROBIN #12 and FAIREST #6, all in stores this Wednesday.

 

Featuring a special guest appearance by Batwoman, BATGIRL #12 is written by Gail Simone and is illustrated by Ardian Syaf and Vicente Cifuentes. Click here to see an exclusive preview of the issue.

 

A stand-alone issue starring the esoteric Harper Row, BATMAN #12 is written by Scott Snyder and features stunning guest art by Becky Cloonan, the first woman to ever illustrate the series. Click here to see an exclusive preview of the issue.

 

Concluding the “Terminus” storyline with one epic showdown, BATMAN AND ROBIN #12 is written by Peter J. Tomasi and is illustrated by Patrick Gleason and Mick Gray. Click here to see an exclusive preview of the issue.

And wrapping up the premiere story arc of this new FABLES spin-off, FAIREST #6 comes to you from the acclaimed creative team of Bill Willingham, Phil Jimenez and Andy Lanning. Click here to see an exclusive preview of the issue.

 

 

Tuesday Tonic with editor Shelly Bond

Never mind the rank smell of perm solution, welcome to a special edition of Tuesday (Hair) Tonic!  Featuring lovely tresses and old school transformations that will trump your $300.00 triple-process and force you into a state of manic panic!

There’s neon green hair. 

IZOMBIE #25

In stores now




There’s hair down to there.
FAIREST #4

In stores June 6




There’s a deadly stuffed hare.
FABLES #117

In stores May 23




And then there’s hirsute.
HELLBLAZER #292 – House of Wolves

In stores June 20



Preview Mondays: BATGIRL #9 and FAIREST #3

For this week’s installment of Preview Mondays, we’re giving you exclusive first looks at BATGIRL #9 and FAIREST #3.

 

You may have noticed that all of the titles in the Bat family this month have one dark and sinister thing in common: the Night of the Owls. Continuing this epic crossover event, BATGIRL #9 pits Barbara against an assassin of the Court of Owls whose target just happens to be her father, Commissioner Gordon. But who is this Talon and can Barbara put a stop to the Court’s diabolical plan before it’s too late for her dad and Gotham City? BATGIRL #9 is written by Gail Simone and is illustrated by Ardian Syaf and Vicente Cifuentes. Click here to see an exclusive preview of the issue.

 

In March, you were introduced to FAIREST. Spinning out of the acclaimed world of FABLES, this new ongoing series centers around the secret histories of Sleeping Beauty, Rapunzel, Cinderella, the Snow Queen, Thumbelina, Snow White, Rose Red and many more. Out this week, issue #3 finds Briar Rose and Ali Baba captured by the Snow Queen. But what does the Snow Queen want with them? And where do the loyalties of Ali Baba’s truly lie? FAIREST #3 is written by Bill Willingham and illustrated by Phil Jimenez, Andy Lanning and Mark Farmer. Click here to see an exclusive preview of the issue.

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