Comic Book Resources posted a Batwoman #0 Preview with several pages of art and an interview that Jim, Amy, and I did earlier this week. You’ll see from the preview pages that Jim and Amy did an amazing job collaborating on this issue. As a writer, it was a very cool process to participate in. Jim and I started writing the outline for the Zero Issue several months after we submitted our outlines for both Arc 1 and Arc 2 and a series overview that covers a little over two years of issues. We then completed the script about four weeks after the script for Issue #1, and while we were working on the script for Issue #6, the first issue in Amy’s arc. Although this meant shifting gears a lot, it actually worked out really well because we had a good idea of where the series is headed and could start dropping some clues about future storylines. From an art standpoint, the basic concept was for Jim and Amy to share art chores – but in a rather challenging fashion. Rather than just have Jim do one set of pages and Amy another, we proposed that they would actually both do panels across two-page spreads. As a result, the script for the Zero Issue is fairly detailed, escpecially in terms of the ways in which the action in one set of panels mirrors action in the next.
Batwoman #0 is out today, and the series starts up in February with Issue #1, the first in the “Hydrology” arc.
Batwoman #0 will be on shelves next week (11/24)! Give copies to all of your relatives at Thanksgiving — it’s guaranteed to stave off the effects of tryptophan, watching the Cowboys and/or Lions play, and talking politics.
Top: JH Williams III; Bottom: Amy Reeder Hadley
To celebrate the series launch, Jim and I are doing a NorCal signing in mid-December.
Saturday, December 11th: Blue Moon Comics in Novato: 1-4 PM.
We’re both very excited to be able to support local comic shops, and hope folks show up to get their books signed, buy art and comics, and chat about what we have planned for the series. If you’re a Star Wars fan, I’ll have some of my Dark Horse work on hand as well.
It’s a cover bonaza this week! Solicitations for DC’s February lineup have been posted at Newsarama, so I thought I’d post the cover and solicitation text here too…
We’re fusing horror, vigilante action, mystery, and romance together with this first arc, which is called “Hydrology,” and I think Jim did an absolutely brilliant job capturing the tone of the story with this image. Amy will also be doing a variant cover!
And the solicit text:
The multiple award-winning creative team of J.H. Williams III (DETECTIVE COMICS) and W. Haden Blackman (Star Wars, Force Unleashed) launch the first, chilling arc of the ongoing series fans have been clamoring for! In the 5-part “Hydrology,” Batwoman faces bizarre new challenges in her war against the dark underworld of Gotham and new trials in her personal life as Kate Kane. She quickly finds herself in the deep end facing truths about her past and her future. Who – or what – is stealing children from Gotham’s barrio, and for what twisted purpose? Can she train her cousin Bette Kane (a.k.a. Flamebird) as her new sidekick? How will she handle dark revelations about her father, Colonel Jacob Kane? How is she dealing with the supposed drowning of her sister, the villain known as Alice? And why is a certain government agency suddenly taking an interest in her? The road to the answers begins here!
Batwoman #1 will be on shelves February 23rd, 2011!
Dark Horse has released Tsuneo Sanda’s cover to Darth Vader and the Lost Command #2, which hits shelves February 23rd. Here it is!
With each issue, I’m trying to show Vader in all of his various “roles” – not just as the Jedi Hunter. Wiith all the emphasis on his lightsaber abilities, I think it’s easy to forget that Vader is also a fearsome commander, a skilled mechanic, and (as shown in this issue) a relentless and deadly fighter pilot (among other things…).
Here’s the solicitation text:
Vader in command! Darth Vader steps up his attacks when his invasion of the Ghost Nebula meets with stiff resistance. But when a courageous beauty offers her help in conquering the system, visions of what his life might have been if he had not betrayed the Jedi and if Padmé was still alive affect the dark lord’s decisions. Vader in turmoil!
* Darth Vader, the darkest lord of the Sith, at his best—and worst!
* Written by The Force Unleashed‘s Haden Blackman!
* Art by Aliens vs. Predator‘s Rick Leonardi!
* Darth Vader and the Lost Command launched Dark Horse into its 20th anniversary of publishing Star Wars.
Issue #1 will be out in January!
Comic Book Resources posted a Batwoman #0 Preview with several pages of art and an interview that Jim, Amy, and I did earlier this week. You’ll see from the preview pages that Jim and Amy did an amazing job collaborating on this issue. As a writer, it was a very cool process to participate in. Jim and I started writing the outline for the Zero Issue several months after we submitted our outlines for both Arc 1 and Arc 2 and a series overview that covers a little over two years of issues. We then completed the script about four weeks after the script for Issue #1, and while we were working on the script for Issue #6, the first issue in Amy’s arc. Although this meant shifting gears a lot, it actually worked out really well because we had a good idea of where the series is headed and could start dropping some clues about future storylines. From an art standpoint, the basic concept was for Jim and Amy to share art chores – but in a rather challenging fashion. Rather than just have Jim do one set of pages and Amy another, we proposed that they would actually both do panels across two-page spreads. As a result, the script for the Zero Issue is fairly detailed, escpecially in terms of the ways in which the action in one set of panels mirrors action in the next.
