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King and Finch's second outing keeps up the momentum of the first with some key reveals

Being a dick just got beachy.

The post ‘Beach Dick’ by Tom King appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

Join Alex Lu and Brandon Montclare as they discuss the new DC Rebirth books live on the air!

Alex Lu and Kyle Pinion provide their thoughts on a historic new BATMAN #1 which features the Dark Knight like you've never seen him before... Read the rest of this post

Alex Lu and Kyle Pinion dig into the first week of DC's Rebirth #1s to tell you which books break new ground and which stay mired in DC's troubled past.

“Black Death in America” is an Eisner nominated short story that originally appeared in the Vertigo CMYK: Black issue. Written by Tom King with art by John Paul Leon it follows the true story of Henry Louis Johnson, an African-American soldier in World War I who was held up as a war hero but died […]

“Black Death in America” is an Eisner nominated short story that originally appeared in the Vertigo CMYK: Black issue. Written by Tom King with art by John Paul Leon it follows the true story of Henry Louis Johnson, an African-American soldier in World War I who was held up as a war hero but died […]

Earlier today, The Comics Beat reported that Tom King was one of three writers to sign an exclusive contract with DC Comics to “produce their comic book work solely for the DC Comics and Vertigo imprints.”  In the wake of the announcement, many readers were left wondering what would happen to The Vision.  The series, which […]

Just ahead of their ComicsPRO presentation today, DC Comics has announced that writer Tom King and artists Clay Mann and John Timms have all signed exclusive deals with the publisher. King is best known for his work on Grayson, a super-spy take on Dick Grayson/Nightwing, that he co-writes with Tim Seeley. Recently, he began critically acclaimed runs […]

Surprise! DC announced that writers Tim Seeley (Hack/Slash) and Tom King (The Vision) have stepped off of the writing duties for Grayson. April’s issue #19 will see the debut of writer Jackson Lanzing and Collin Kelly (Hacktivist.) Joining them is artist Carmine Di Giandomenico (The Amazing Spider-Man,) King stepped onto Twitter to explain the reasoning behind […]

This weekend turned out to be a very busy one for comics news.  As our chief steward, Heidi MacDonald, takes a well deserved rest this morning following the conclusion of Small Press Expo, let’s take a look at some of the big breaking stories from the last few days. Omega Men Lives When we broke […]

Looks like bad news comes in droves.  Hot on the heels of DC’s announcement that Omega Men, Doomed, and three other series have been cancelled, DC solicited the final issues of Digital First titles Batman ’66 and Sensation Comics featuring Wonder Woman.  Both of these series will conclude in December, with Batman ’66 making it to a healthy 30 issues and Sensation […]

Here’s where I finally release what’s left of our SDCC audio content…as a follow-up to last week’s set of DC and Marvel Television interviews, here are our chats on the animated side of things including discussions with Dan Harmon, Justin Roiland, Bruce Timm, Andrea Romano, Ike Barinholtz, Seth Meyers, and more! Additionally, here are the audio […]

Grayson #9 (on sale now)

By Harper W. Harris

Among the DC books that sparked a sort of revolution for the publisher in terms of new kinds of stories is Grayson, the espionage comic by Tom King, Tim Seeley, and Mikel Janin. In a nice and surprisingly quiet corner of the convention, I was able to sit down and have a chat with King and Seeley about the former Robin that they have brought to such exciting new heights.
Harper W. Harris: Grayson kind of paved the way for a lot of the genre books…

[Tim and Tom do a fist bump]

HH: Yeah! And it kind helped start a cool revolution for DC in terms of what kind of books they were putting out. What do you feel are the challenges or advantages of telling a more genre story within a superhero universe?

Tim Seeley: Inherently superheroes are always really flexible and always have been. You’re sort of making a hero that’s bigger than an idea, bigger than one person, and you can put it into so many different things. Obviously Batman is sort of more of a  detective story, Superman is more of a science fiction story, but they all are superhero stories. So I think our approach to this was, let’s do an espionage style genre story, but let’s firmly embrace its superhero roots. You kind of get that wonderful fusion that makes superheroes the most popular genre on earth at this point, they’re so flexible and available to embrace new things while still being stories that are aspirational and colorful and fun and crazy.

Tom King: The approach was never for us to just write in the spy genre, it was let’s write the best Dick Grayson story we can. Like, growing up I didn’t realize I was reading different genres.  I didn’t realize when I was reading [Walt] Simonson’s Thor that I was reading a huge fantasy epic. It still felt like a superhero story to me.

TS: Yeah, sure.

TK: Or like I didn’t read the noir detective stuff of [Batman] Year One, like I didn’t get that he was using all those tricks. I think we’re taking the spy genre and using that to tell the best superhero stories. We’re stealing some tropes to inject some energy. We’re superhero writers, we want to write frickin’ awesome superhero stories. Am I allowed to say that? I’m saying it.

HH: I think you’re entitled to that! One of the other cool things about the book getting started is that we know Grant Morrison always gives us tons of great characters and ideas with his books, and most of those never get used again. How did you decide to follow up on some of those threads from Batman, Inc.?

Grayson #10 (on sale 7/22)

TK: My main approach to that was to throw away my part of the pitch and take Tim’s.

TS: [Laughs] That’s exactly how I’ve always thought of Grant’s stuff, he blows in with a bunch of crazy ideas and then just drops the mic and walks out, and a lot of people don’t pick up on that stuff because it’s too weird or so Grant Morrison. I feel like I’ve been reading his stuff for so long and recognize how great these ideas are, and it’s frustrating that nobody picks them up, so I was going to rectify that wrong. I’m going to use this amazing thing he left behind called Spyral, it has to be used because it’s so weird and so fun. When DC said make Dick a spy, I couldn’t think of anything for my first pitch, and Chris Burnham sat in my studio and he was drawing the Batman, Inc. stuff and he had left a Spyral symbol on the table and I was like, “That’s it! I’ll use Spyral.”

TK: I’ve never heard that story! That’s an exclusive story, I’ve been on every interview with him and I’ve never heard that before.

TS: Chris designed that symbol. It helps to be around comics dudes all the time so you can steal their ideas. It seemed so appropriate for the character, because Dick is such a black and white guy, there’s good and bad and he’s always going to do the right thing, but he’s going to work for somebody that’s completely gray. Therein lay the conflict of our issues.

HH: Seems like Kathy Kane showed up at the end of issue eight…do you have plans to further her story?

TK: In this series, nothing is what it seems. We keep saying this and we’re going to keep saying it: our goal is 100% to surprise you. We never want you to be relaxed and to be like, okay I know where this is going, I’m going to sit down and read another villain of the month–I don’t like those kinds of comics. I want the stakes to be high, I want you to be blown away by what you’re reading. So I can’t spoil what’s going to happen, but it’s not what you think is going to happen.

TS: Keep in mind that Spyral’s whole thing is spreading disinformation and mind control, and sometimes we may be playing the Spyral game on the readers. That’s how we keep ourselves entertained: by being the villains that we portray in the comic book.

TK: You need to put lipstick on then.

TS: It looks very nice. [Laughs]

HH: When you first started out, did you always plan to move Helena to where she is now? Was that a longform plan?

TS: I think one of our ideas was to always change it up, that their relationship is always changing: she’s his partner, she’s his boss, he’s her boss, they’re romantically involved, they’re not. What makes it fun is as a reader you’re constantly second guessing what the plan is, you know? That was definitely part of the deal.

TK: We’d introduced this character, The Tiger, Agent One, as sort of the best spy in the DCU. He’s this Afghani, the Tiger king of Kandahar, he’s such a frickin’ great character. As soon as I put him on the page I wanted him to be Dick’s partner, I loved the chemistry between them and I loved where they could go together and I wanted to elevate him. The idea of having them as partners and Helena above him is just too appealing. As soon as I said it, I was like, “Alright.”

TS: It changes up Dick’s relationships with the other characters too, because Helena was a very understanding but firm partner, Tiger’s just always telling him he’s an idiot. Their relationship changes, and it keeps allowing us to keep making a book about all kinds of different things.

HH: So there have been some hints here and there that Dick Grayson might be bisexual, is that something that you guys plan on expanding?

“Am I Straight?”

TK: Who said that?

TS: No, I mean…

TK: He was talking about his bow tie.

TS: He was talking about his bow tie, for sure. I mean for us there’s some fun in the sexy aspect of the spy genre, but I think to us the character is a very flexible guy. I don’t know if its our job in this particular story to do anything that changes his sexuality, but I think it’s fun to play around with it because part of his job is to be the seducer. It also involves playing parts that are not necessarily who he is, and part of it is him sometimes discovering things about himself as he plays parts. It’s just another of our ways of keeping you guessing, that’s the fun, right? And he was talking about his tie! I don’t know what you guys are talking about.

HH: You guys have a unique collaboration in how you co-write, alternating scripts. What do you think makes your partnership and method a good one for this book?

TK: I come from this school of superhero comics where I sort of worship Frank Miller and Alan Moore, if you read my other stuff like Omega Men you’ll see that. I want to tell dark dirges and philosophical stories, and that is not who Dick Grayson is. There is a Dick Grayson story out there, that it’s always tempting to be like, he was raised by Batman and he hates it, and Batman sort of abused him and put him in this situation and he’s sad and thinks about it while he looks into his belly button. I would probably write that story–I wrote a whole novel for Simon & Schuster that was about that concept. Tim’s here to say, “Tom, no, this is fun and exciting and amazing, let’s do a supercool adventure comic!”

TS: I mean yeah, I’m the lighter of the two as far as our approach to superheroes goes. But what Tom brings is his interesting perspective in that he’s been in the field and he’s done that sort of thing and knows the emotional weight of it. And I think the way the book works is that you feel this sort of back and forth that is kind of like what Dick’s life is probably like, where it could be very complex and dark, and you get an issue like #3 that’s very much a Tom story with Agent Eight, but we can also do an issue like #4 that’s somewhat lighter and sort of about the youthful aspect of Dick Grayson. I think when Tom and I first started talking about this book, we would just have this long conversation about what it means to be Dick and what his place in the DCU is. In the end we batted around a lot of stuff and some of it was the same and some of it wasn’t, but when we got down to it we totally agreed on what he is. So what kind of book he’s in can change, but who he is I think we agree 100%. I think that’s why we get a book that people respond to; I wouldn’t have wrote the book the way it is without Tom, and Tom wouldn’t have wrote the book the way it is without me. And neither of us could’ve written it the way it is without Mikel Janin or Jeromy Cox. It’s all about that collaboration, and that’s why the book is what it is. It’s a lot of voices melding into one solid voice.

Grayson, Vol. 1: Agents of Spyral (on sale now)

HH: What real or fictional spies are your inspirations for Dick Grayson?

TS: Go ahead, real life spy.

TK: My buddy Fred, my buddy Jane…

TS: All the sudden the sniper light is on your head…

TK: Can I give like the stupid avoiding answer? Dick Grayson of Spyral, that character, he doesn’t need another character to be laid over him. He’s got 75 years of history, he’s older than James Bond. James Bond was inspired by him!

TS: Suck it Ian Fleming!

TK: I’m not trying to write a book that’s James Bond in the DCU, I’m trying to write a book that is Dick Grayson in the DCU.

TS: I think that’s the answer, yeah. The job of the book is to play with the tropes that you’re familiar with in the spy genre, to play with the kind of story that you’re used to, but to do it differently and to add this character who is the heart of the story. Dick, being who he is, and his history–that’s really the core of the book. We know as people who have seen a lot of movies and read a lot of books and read a lot of comics what a spy story is and what those characters are, but to us it’s about playing against them or playing with the tropes. It’s about Dick Grayson, first. That was a good answer Tom, that wasn’t a cheesy answer that was a good answer!

TK: The trade just came out, it’s the hardcover, and we’re so proud of it. It’s the first volume and it has my Future’s End issue in it, which was the weird backwards one which I can’t believe how proud I am of that issue. Please check it out!

Grayson #9 is on shelves now, with #10 coming out on 7/22, and the hardcover first volume is also out as well!

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Publishers seem increasingly willing to roll the dice on anthology formats recently. Maybe it’s the success of things like Dark Horse Presents, and the model they’ve followed of introducing new works and then successfully spinning them off into new story titles like BLACK BEETLE. There’s an inherently approachable aspect to anthologies—new readers can pick them up and take a tour of many ideas and art styles without feeling out of the loop, and creators themselves aren’t subjected to the high-wire act of telling fresh tales while balancing the necessities of continuity. It’s also a chance to bring on new talent and give readers a chance to play a role in selecting what appeals to them. Vertigo, however, has a long history of valuing the anthology format to engage with new readers, from its FIRST CUT to FIRST OFFENSES, which readers still pick up when trying to get a handle on what the line has to offer in terms of genre and content.

TIME WARP, a revival of a late 1970’s anthology format, presents nine stories by a variety of well known and new creators following a loose theme that may not be as loose as it appears at first glance. The key word “time” stands out as a recurring (literally) factor in these stories. On the whole, because the anthology contains so many varied story-telling techniques and art styles, its appealing and gives the reader a sense of time and money well spent based on its “something for everyone” approach. As a one-shot, it also reads like a graphic novel in disparate parts that comments on the potential of science fiction in the comics medium with capacity to challenge our concepts of humanity, technology, and their often troubled relationship.

[Caution: Mild spoilers on content, but no plot-twist revelations ahead]

“R.I.P” , written by Damon Lindelof, with evocative art by Jeff Lemire and fluid colors by Jose Villarubia, is a strong start to the collection. What could be more basic, pulpy, and attractive than a time-travel tale with dinosaurs and multiple attempts to escape death? The story’s variations on a theme, however, get complex quickly, with satisfying results. All the kinds of questions about the implications of time travel that kids grew up with watching Star Trek: The Next Generation take a bite out of the story and lead the reader in logical loops. Lemire’s energetic, chaos-controlling line-work, combined with Travis Lanham’s quirky lettering, suggest an undercurrent of the haphazard about all human endeavors. The message seems to be, despite all our planning, when we deal with factors essentially bigger than us, we might get by, but only by the skin of our teeth. The suspension of belief necessary for the story isn’t overbearing since it points out all the problems and difficulties of handling big themes in its plot structure.

“It’s Full of Demons” is a particularly challenging story, one might almost call a mystery despite its early introduction of a possibly alien time traveller in turn of the century Austria.  After reading the complete story, you might have a Memento-like experience of reconstructing the details of the story backward along the lines provided by a full revelation of their significance. This is engaging for the reader. Tom King’s writing is clever in providing just enough detail to make this backward reading possible while not revealing too much about why the increasing madness of a little girl growing up after her brother’s death might be important to readers. The themes of the story are, in fact, heavier the more you examine them, commenting on how fear and the “demonizing” of figures and groups may be an even greater threat than the shocking intrusion of the vastly unknown into daily life. Tom Fowler’s artwork suggests history well without rendering it ponderous, and in particular conveys emotional states in its main character with great empathy.

Gail Simone writes “I Have What You Need”, with upbeat and somewhat eerie art by Gael Bertrand, and vibrant colors by Jordie Bellaire. Simone isn’t afraid to get complicated, either, about the implications of time travel, even within one’s own mind, and delves pretty deeply into human nature by exploring the idea that a drug could enable you to revisit the best ten minutes of your life. Her kindly shopkeeper holds this god-like key to a “product” that everyone wants, and also provides commentary on what humans deserve, and what they get out of life. Twist endings are a common feature of many of the stories in TIME WARP, and though the stories might have been intriguing without them, it’s a pattern that gives the reader a sense of the value of each particular story as a unit of entertainment and harks back to the genre features of early pulp sci-fi.

“The Grudge” is an intelligent and very human tale of rivalry between two scientists, the kind of rivalry we’ve seen in techno pop culture between Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. Written by Simon Spurrier, with art and color by Michael Dowling, its compressed storytelling gives you a sense of having read a whole comic or perhaps a graphic novel, again presenting an entirely different, detailed world within the anthology. It spans the life of these scientists, their tragedies, and the tension between public demand for spectacle in scientific discoveries and the real needs of scientific advancement to look toward greater future building. Dowling’s near photo-realistic art style easily conveys the sense that this could be our twenty-first century future, still governed by the baser, and higher impulses of the human beings involved in advancement. But the story infuses even tragedy with humor, and most importantly, believing in the reality of the characters helps convey the messages of the narrative.

One of the most surprising additions to TIME WARP is a Dead Boy Detectives story. Originally created by Neil Gaiman as a spin-off from SANDMAN, the Dead Boy Detectives seem to veer pretty far from science fiction in their investigation of the occult. However, Gaiman was never one to draw a firm line between the occult and the scientific, and neither has pulp tradition, a borderland other comics in TIME WARP also explore. This episode, “Run Ragged”, written by Toby Litt, with layouts by Mark Buckingham, finishing work by Victor Santos, and letters by the great Todd Klein, reads like a sudden glimpse of a return to a favorite world, and indeed it’s described as a lead-up to a continuing storyline in THE WITCHING HOUR ANTHOLOGY. The artwork, and also the colors by Lee Loughridge are accomplished and appealing, particularly successful at conveying motion and action while creating a sense of the haunted atmosphere of the material.

“She’s Not There” may remind readers of the more psychological aspects of good science fiction, with more than a dash of the noir emphasis on intense relationships. The premise, that a company in the future can charge vast amounts of money to resurrect ghosts as “information” gleaned from loved ones, hits one of the many common themes in TIME WARP, the general neediness of human beings and the lengths they’ll go to in order to seek comfort from their pasts. Another “mystery” aspect of the story, written by Peter Milligan, with art and colors by M.K. Perker, is the reason for the resurrected wife Angel’s death, and the lingering problems that might have comprised her relationship with her husband in the first place. The story poses a unique question, “Can you own a ghost?”. In a technological world where everything’s a commodity, it seems like a singularly dark possibility. The artwork suggests a blend of the familiar and the unknown in equal proportions, keeping readers guessing, just like the plot.

The unusually titled story “00:00:03” places human beings under another kind of microscope under the pressure of extreme situations. During vast interstellar wars, we follow the decisions of Helene as she attempts to perform her military duties under the influence of a unique “molasses” protocol that extends perception of time. Written by Ray Fawkes and drawn by Andy MacDonald, this is the kind of story that sci-fi readers will be particularly attracted to. It offers sweeping conflicts on a large stage, space battles, and remarkably deep characterization of a central figure in action. The age old question posed by sci-fi, “Are we still human inside our technology?”, is both addressed and answered in a poignant way.

If you’re all about the art of sci-fi comics, then you’ll have quite a few surprises to look forward to in TIME WARP, but it’s likely that Matt Kindt’s “Warning: Danger” will be top of the list. With Kindt’s sketchy outlines, and splashy use of watercolor tones, the story breaks from many of the common assumptions of what traditional sci-fi art should look like. How do you convey the crisp lines of spectacular technology in such an idiosyncratic style? Kindt’s answer is to render technology, and its premises in the story, organic, and therefore a little more alarming. By breaking with what readers may recognize, Kindt presents an unrecognizable, and very compelling vision of the future. His diagrams of the armor and accoutrements of two civilization-representing soldiers locked in single combat schematize the ingenuity and determination of one-upmanship in technological advancement. There’s a downbeat sense of recurring time that’s featured in a number of TIME WARP stories, providing the opportunity for humans to relive their obsessions and failures, or get it right when given another chance.

The final piece in TIME WARP gathers together the thematic threads of recurring time, human decision-making, and the bizarre responsibilities that power over technology entails. When technology becomes somewhat monstrous, who’s really in control? Is the humanity inside the machine enough to guide progress away from disaster? “The Principle” is written with a key focus on two main characters by Dan Abnett, and presented rather beautifully with colors and art by I.N.J. Culbard. The trope of presenting a guy new to his job as an identifying character for the readers is here completely necessary to add tension to the gradual revelation of plot. The attempt to prevent an assassination of the “principle” figure through staging the same moment in time over and over again gives characters repeated chances to get things right, and also humorously comments on some historical mysteries as time-travel screw ups. Culbard’s inks, particularly, have a certain noir sensibility, too, though infused with a sci-fi eye toward motion, and seem appropriate when grounding the future in the past. Abnett doesn’t hold off on the sci-fi theme of responsibility, either, and closes the collection with a final message about the tendencies of humanity to abuse power in banal ways, and the responsibilities, often dire, we face in trying to keep that kind of potential chaos under control.

In fact, looking back through TIME WARP, the overarching implication of these stories seems to be Time=Responsibility. The further we push technological advancement, and the more we tinker with our humanity, the more work we generate for ourselves monitoring our trajectory. But with concepts and artwork like the kind contained in TIME WARP, the spectacle of those sci-fi heights never ceases to be attractive, even when it’s pointing out the potential pitfalls that almost certainly lie ahead. TIME WARP contains a miscellany of energetic science fiction, and its hard not to find the sheer breadth of material and the talent behind it a selling point. Nine worlds, and compact story-telling that often spans lifetimes in one volume? It’s both entertaining and consistently thought-provoking, marking a worthy return of the TIME WARP title.

Title: TIME WARP #1/Publisher: Vertigo, DC Comics/Creative Teams:

“R.I.P”: Damon Lindelof, writer, Jeff Lemire, artist/“It’s Full of Demons”: Tom King, writer, Tom Fowler, artist/“I Have What You Need”: Gail Simone, writer, Gael Bertrand, artist/“The Grudge”: Simon Spurrier, writer, Michael Dowling, artists/“Dead Boy Detectives”: Toby Litt, writer, Mark Buckingham, layouts, Victor Santos, finishing/“She’s Not There”: Peter Milligan, writer, M.K. Perker, artist/“00:00:03”: Ray Fawkes, writer, Andy MacDonald, artist/“Warning: Danger”: Matt Kindt, story and art/“The Principle”: Dan Abnett, writer, I.N.J. Culbard, colors and art

Hannah Means-Shannon writes and blogs about comics for TRIP CITY and Sequart.org and is currently working on books about Neil Gaiman and Alan Moore for Sequart. She is @hannahmenzies on Twitter and hannahmenziesblog on WordPress.