Thursday, September 09, 2010

FIRST TIME'S A CHARM
Image Comics reprints IMAGE FIRSTS: THE WALKING DEAD in time for debut of AMC series

Berkeley, CA - 9 September 2010 - The Image Firsts program has been an unparalleled success, introducing comics fans to classic Image titles for only $1.00. IMAGE FIRSTS: THE WALKING DEAD was a sellout at the distribution level, despite an extremely large overprint, and Image Comics is delighted to announce that the book is going back to press!

With Image Firsts, Image Comics is re-presenting first issues as an introduction to our most acclaimed titles, with each acting as the perfect primer to their ongoing series and collected editions! IMAGE FIRSTS: THE WALKING DEAD reprints the first issue of the hit series written by Robert Kirkman, and the second printing will feature cast photos from the AMC television series, which premiers October 31, 2010.

IMAGE FIRSTS: THE WALKING DEAD Second Printing (FEB100327), a 40-page black-and-white book reprinting the first issue of the ground-breaking series, plus a 12-page bonus section featuring full-color images from the AMC television series, will be in stores October 6, 2010, for $1.00.

Also available in October: THE WALKING DEAD: THE COVERS, VOL. 1 HC (AUG100834; October 6), THE WALKING DEAD BOOK SIX HC (AUG100383; October 13), THE WALKING DEAD "HEAD STAB" T-SHIRT (AUG100404-08; October 6), and THE WALKING DEAD "I HEART" T-SHIRT (AUG100409-13; October 6). THE WALKING DEAD 2011 CALENDAR (JUL100428), featuring 13 haunting images from the ongoing series, is available now.

Image Comics is a comic book and graphic novel publisher founded in 1992 by a collective of best-selling artists. Image has since gone on to become one of the largest comics publishers in the United States. Image currently has five partners: Robert Kirkman, Erik Larsen, Todd McFarlane, Marc Silvestri and Jim Valentino. It consists of five major houses: Todd McFarlane Productions, Top Cow Productions, Shadowline, Skybound and Image Central. Image publishes comics and graphic novels in nearly every genre, sub-genre, and style imaginable. It offers science fiction, romance, horror, crime fiction, historical fiction, humor and more by the finest artists and writers working in the medium today. For more information, visit www.imagecomics.com.

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FANTAGRAPHICS ACQUIRES LOST ‘GRAPHIC NOVEL’ BY WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS & ARTIST MALCOLM McNEILL

SEATTLE, WA, SEPT. 9, 2010 --- Fantagraphics Books is proud to announce the acquisition of the only graphic novel written by — and possibly the last unseen work of his to be published — the innovative Beat writer and Naked Lunch author, William S. Burroughs. This lost masterpiece, Ah Pook Is Here, created in collaboration with artist Malcolm McNeill in the 1970s, will be published in the summer of 2011 as a spectacularly packaged two-volume, hinged set, along with Observed While Falling, McNeill’s memoir documenting his collaboration with one of America’s most iconic authors.

Ah Pook Is Here first appeared in 1970 under the title The Unspeakable Mr. Hart as a monthly comic strip written by Burroughs and drawn by the British cartoonist and painter Malcolm McNeil in the English magazine Cyclops. When the publication folded, Burroughs and McNeill decided to develop the project into a full-length, Word/Image novel (the term ‘graphic novel’ had not yet been coined). Burroughs was 56 at the time, McNeill 23.

The book was conceived as a single painting in which text and images were combined in whatever form seemed appropriate to the narrative. It was conceived as 120 continuous pages that would ‘fold out.’ Such a book was, at the time, unprecedented, and no publisher was willing to take a chance and publish a ‘graphic novel.’ Burroughs and McNeill finally abandoned the project after collaborating on it for 7 years.

“It is singularly appropriate that after championing literate comics and the graphic novel form for over 30 years, Fantagraphics Books should bring a literary collaboration between one of America’s most distinctive writers and his exemplary hand-chosen artist to light,” says Fantagraphics Publisher and acquiring editor Gary Groth.

Ah Pook Is Here is a consideration of time with respect to the differing perceptions of the ancient Maya and that of the current Western mindset. It was Burroughs’ contention that both of these views result in systems of control in which the elite perpetuate its agendas at the expense of the people. They make time for themselves and through increasing measures of Control attempt to prolong the process indefinitely.

John Stanley Hart is the “Ugly American” or “Instrument of Control” — a billionaire newspaper tycoon obsessed with discovering the means for achieving immortality. Based on the formulae contained in rediscovered Mayan books he attempts to create a Media Control Machine using the images of Fear and Death. By increasing Control, however, he devalues time and invokes an implacable enemy: Ah Pook, the Mayan Death God. Young mutant heroes using the same Mayan formulae travel through time bringing biologic plagues from the remote past to destroy Hart and his Judeo/Christian temporal reality.

Ah Pook Is Here was an experiment, not just in terms of the form in which the idea was expressed but the possible effects the form might produce. Burroughs was preoccupied throughout his career with the fundamental nature of words and images, particularly with regard to their ability to transcend time. In the case of Ah Pook Is Here, the rapport between artist and writer produced results that confirmed that contention. Ah Pook is the kind of extrapolative, futuristic feat of imagination that a reader would expect from the author of Nova Express and The Ticket That Exploded — a mind-boggling tour de force, dramatizing outrĂ© theories with a science fiction patina.

The second book in the set is Observed While Falling, written by Malcolm McNeill, an account of the personal and creative interaction that defined the collaboration between the writer and the artist, the events surrounding it, and the reasons for its ultimate demise. McNeill describes his growing friendship with Burroughs and how their personal relationship affected their creative partnership. The book is written with insight and humor, and liberally sprinkled with the kind of the hilarious anecdotes one would expect working with a writer as original and eccentric as William S. Burroughs. It confirms the prescience of Ah Pook Is Here with respect to the contemporary graphic novel; Burroughs' exploration of the artistic potential of combining words and images was a revelation to the artist. The book offers new insights into Burroughs’ working methods as well as how the two explored the possibilities of words and images working together to form the ambitious literary hybrid that they didn’t know, at the time, was a harbinger of the 21st century’s “graphic novel.”

“Fantagraphics is honored to bring this major work into print and to publish what is quite possibly the last great work from one of America’s most original prose stylists,” added Groth. “Burroughs once said that ‘The purpose of writing is to make it happen.’ We are proud to make Ah Pook Is Here finally happen.”

Fantagraphics Books (www.fantagraphics.com) has been the world’s leading publisher of comics and graphic novels since 1976, with titles by R. Crumb, Charles Schulz, Joe Sacco, Daniel Clowes and many others. In 2007, the company launched its prose division, which books by Alexander Theroux (Laura Warholic), Monte Shultz (This Side of Jordan), and Stephen Dixon (What Is All This?).
UTOPIA BY ANY OTHER NAME
Marc Guggenheim's new ongoing series from Image Comics now titled HALCYON

Berkeley, CA - 9 September 2010 - What happens when the never-ending battle for truth and justice ends? Marc Guggenheim (Amazing Spider-Man, Resurrection) answers this question and more in HALCYON -- titled Utopian when announced during Comic-Con International and in the September PREVIEWS -- a new series from Image Comics.

A seasoned comic book writer, Guggenheim has also worked on high-profile projects such as the upcoming Green Lantern movie and No Ordinary Family, a new ABC series that stars Michael Chiklis. Created in collaboration with Tara Butters (TV's Reaper), artist Ryan Bodenheim (RED MASS FOR MARS), and Collider Entertainment's Alisa Tager (Serenity), the revolutionary first issue of HALCYON will be in stores this November.

"We've been immensely gratified by all the buzz around, and interest in, this project after we announced it as Utopian at San Diego Comic-Con," says Guggenheim, "and I'm hopeful people will be just as excited about the new title."

From Image Comics and Collider Entertainment comes the next quantum leap forward in superheroes: HALCYON. The groundbreaking new series dares to ask: What happens when the superheroes win? What happens once there is no crime, no war? The heroes of HALCYON achieve their final victory only to face their greatest challenge ever.

HALCYON #1 (SEPT100433), a full-color 32-page comic book for $2.99, will be in stores November 10, 2010.

Image Comics is a comic book and graphic novel publisher founded in 1992 by a collective of best-selling artists. Image has since gone on to become one of the largest comics publishers in the United States. Image currently has five partners: Robert Kirkman, Erik Larsen, Todd McFarlane, Marc Silvestri and Jim Valentino. It consists of five major houses: Todd McFarlane Productions, Top Cow Productions, Shadowline, Skybound and Image Central. Image publishes comics and graphic novels in nearly every genre, sub-genre, and style imaginable. It offers science fiction, romance, horror, crime fiction, historical fiction, humor and more by the finest artists and writers working in the medium today. For more information, visit www.imagecomics.com.

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