Tagged: Swamp Thing

‘Hellblazer’ Reaches 250th Milestone Issue

News
December 3, 2008

December 17 marks a historic moment for Vertigo as its flagship title Hellblazer reaches issue #250 — the first ever Vertigo title to do so. Vertigo has assembled some of the most celebrated creators in the industry, to ring in this milestone issue with five unique stories set in London during the holidays. It is also being billed by Vertigo as an excellent jumping on point for lapsed or new readers.

ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS:

Dave Gibbons is best-known for the iconic look of the best-selling Watchmen— one of Time Magazine’s 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to the present. Gibbons’ story “Happy Fucking New Year” takes Constantine from a museum theft to a human sacrifice.

China Mieville has written stories for McSweeney’s and Hellboy; he is the author of 5 novels. His story “Ash” explores the real angels of Christmas.

Peter Milligan, author of Shade, the Changing Man and X-Statix will be taking over as the ongoing Hellblazer series writer with the next issue. His story in issue #250, “The Curse of Christmas”, follows a ghost trying to unravel the mystery of what killed him.

Brian Azzarello, acclaimed Chicago author of 100 Bullets, and Joker returns to the pages of Hellblazer. His story “All I Goat For Christmas” explores the myth of the Chicago Cubs curse.

Jamie Delano, the first ongoing Hellblazer writer (#1-24, 28-31, 33-40, 84) is back. His story “Christmas Cards” takes Constantine to a high stakes poker game.

Sean Phillips is best-known for his art in Sleeper, WildC.A.T.s, and earlier issues of Hellblazer.

Giuseppe Camuncoli’s work has appeared in Swamp Thing, Batgirl Secret Files, and Spider-Man.

Eddie Campbell is best-known for collaborating with Alan Moore on the acclaimed graphic novel From Hell and his work as writer/artist on Bacchus.

Rafael Grampa has provided illustration for Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon, Diesel, and ESPN-NBA Sports.

David Lloyd is best-known for illustrating the seminal work V For Vendetta; this is his third time drawing the John Constantine character.

Marvel & DC News from Retailer Summit

News
September 11, 2008

Heidi MacDonald’s The Beat has a nice breakdown of the various news nuggets that came out of the just-concluded Diamond Retailers’ Summit in Las Vegas. Here are some of the highlights from the two majors:

In addition to Dark Reign, Marvel announced that television ads will run to promote Secret Invasion and The Stand miniseries.

The company recognized the success of its Invincible Iron Man series and has planned one for next May when X-Men Origins: Wolverine opens, joining Wolverine, Wolverine: Origins and Wolverine First Class. Similarly, three new What If ?one-shots will explore fresh takes on major events.

Marvel is gearing up for its 70th anniversary and part of the plans will include a new Marvel Index, a second volume of Marvel’s Greatest Collections and the inauguration of trade paperback versions of their Masterworks, commencing in January and continuing with one title per month.

In storylines, the third Marvel Zombies miniseries will be set in the core Marvel universe and they promised the return of the mutant Psylocke. Teases included Sinister 666, a female Black Panther.

(more…)

ComicMix Radio: Hellboy II – Bring On The Monsters!

Podcasts
July 10, 2008

Hellboy director Guillermo del Toro says that his love for big burley creatures goes back to the days of Swamp Thing and the creations of Jack Kirby. How does he translate this to film and what was it like acting "with" these creatures? Hellboy stars Ron Perlman and Selma Blair relate their experiences, plus:

Girls With Slingshots in print and more on the way
A free trip to San Diego – but you have to hurry!
Exterminators moves to Showtime and Hiding In Time heads to the big screen

It all starts when you press the button!

And remember, you can always subscribe to ComicMix Radio podcasts via or RSS!

Happy Birthday: Shawn McManus

News
June 30, 2008

Born in Brookline, Massachusetts in 1958, Shawn McManus got his comic book start in the early 1980s, working for Heavy Metal. He illustrated two issues of the Alan Moore run on Swamp Thing, then went on to draw most of the "A Game of You" storyline in Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman.

McManus also drew issues of Omega Men, Batman, Doctor Fate, and the Thessaly limited series in The Sandman Presents. He has done work for Marvel Comics (Peter Parker Spider-Man and Daredevil), Dark Horse (Cheval Noir), First Comics (GrimJack), Image (Supreme), America’s Best Comics (Tom Strong), and others.

In 1985 he was nominated for a Jack Kirby Award for Swamp Thing #32.

Free Graphic Novels: Sandman, Swamp Thing, Fell

News
May 9, 2008

I had a feeling that title would get your attention. Sure, sometimes a title like that is used just to get attention when the substance of the article doesn’t actually include anything free, but fear not, ComicMix reader, we have you covered.

Over at Daily Bits, they’ve highlighted 17 — yes, count ’em, 17 — free graphic novels available online for you to download, read and enjoy. And yes, they are all free for the taking — er, downloading.

Some of the graphic novels highlighted on the list include heavy-hitters such as Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman, Vol. 1: Preludes and Nocturnes, Warren Ellis’ Fell #1 and a personal favorite of mine, Brian K. Vaughan’s Y: The Last Man, Vol. 1.

The list also includes the popular Salamander Dream and, for ComicMix Managing Editor Rick Marshall, Swamp Thing, Vol. 1: Legend of the Swamp Thing. Go get ’em.

Of course, we’d like to also remind you that you can get free, original comics by well-known creators here on ComicMix every single day of the week — so if "free" is your thing, don’t say we never gave you anything.

Happy Birthday: Sargon the Sorcerer

Birthdays
April 9, 2008

John Sargent became fascinated with magic at an early age—and also gained fearsome powers. This was thanks to his discovery that his mother’s old ruby pendant actually contained the ancient artifact called the Ruby of Life, which let him control anything he touched.

As he grew older, Sargent focused his attention on stage magic in particular, eventually developing his own stage act as "Sargon the Sorcerer." Most of his “tricks” were real magic, however, and off-stage Sargent battled evil for real, eventually becoming an honorary member of the Justice League of America.

Unfortunately, possessing the Ruby of Life affected Sargent’s mind, and he temporarily became a villain. He later shook off that change, but died valiantly aiding Zatara, the Swamp Thing and others fending off a powerful evil.

It’s TV Time With This Week’s Hot Links!

News
February 24, 2008

After a week full of toys & more toys, it is good to expand our digital horizons in some other areas. For example:

ABC is adding to your Oscar Party tonight with increased video coverage of the Academy Awards show. Starting later tonight, there will be more behind-the-scenes interviews, interactive features and even a user-generated feature encouraging fans to upload their own acceptance speeches.

NBC is now fully underway, streaming full episodes of vintage TV shows this month for free and select NBC Cable Entertainment sites. Included among the classics, look for The Alfred Hitchcock Hour and Night Gallery on NBC.com, the original Battlestar Galactica and Buck Rogers on SciFi.com, Swamp Thing and The Crow: City of Angels on ChillerTV.com and Kojak and Miami Vice on SleuthChannel.com.

DIC Entertainment has launched its first 24/7 online video channel. we found this interesting because it offers a range of new and classic titles like Dino Squad, Inspector Gadget, The Littles, Liberty’s Kids, and the live-action series Cake among others. Later on this year, look for the launch of new property websites for DIC brands, such as Eloise, Beginner’s Bible, and Inspector Gadget.

Time is again running out to get us your e-mail answer to the trivia question we tossed out in the last ComicMix Radio broadcast. Getting it into to us at podcast [at] comicmix.com could get you an exclusive limited-edition, variant comic from Graham Crackers Comics – and again the deadline is 9am EST on Tuesday, February 26th! By popular demand – here’s another "little" hint – good luck!

NBC Universal Will Stream ‘Classic’ Shows Online

News
February 20, 2008

Recently, NBC Universal announced it will offer full episodes of “classic, fan-favorite series” as streaming videos on four of its network websites beginning later this month. Some of the "classic" TV shows that you’ll be able to get at the various sites include: Swamp Thing, The Crow, the ’70s version of Battlestar Galactica, Buck Rogers, featuring Gil Gerard as Buck and Twiki the robot, Rod Serling’s Night Gallery, William Shatner’s Tek War and Tremors.

According to NBC Universal, you can find the various shows at the following sites:

NBC.com: The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, A-Team, Battlestar Galactica, Buck Rogers, Emergency, Miami Vice and Night Gallery

SciFi.com: Battlestar Galactica, Buck Rogers, Night Gallery and Tek War

ChillerTV.com: The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, The Crow, Night Gallery, Swamp Thing and Tremors

SleuthChannel.com: A-Team, Kojak, Miami Vice, Night Gallery and Simon & Simon

What, no Man From U.N.C.L.E or orignal Star Trek? Where’s the love, NBC?

The Swamp Thing’s Saga Continues With New DVD

News
January 18, 2008

Since his debut in 1971, Swamp Thing has remained the king of the hill when it comes to comics’ heroic muck-monsters. Granted, there hasn’t been too much competition in that category, but there’s something to be said for the fact that DC’s sad story of a scientist-turned-swamp creature has spawned not one, but two feature films, as well as a relatively successful television series. On January 22, Shout! Factory will release Swamp Thing: the Series on DVD, collecting all three seasons of the Swamp Thing television series that aired on USA Network from 1990-1993, with the episodes organized in the order they were intended to be viewed.

Comics2Film has a discussion with Dick Durock, the actor who donned the Swamp Thing costume for all three live-action iterations of the character, providing some explanation of how he got roped into wearing the monster suit and why he stuck around for more… much more, in fact.

"The costume of course was zip-on and zip-off, but all the appliances and the makeup had to stay on. In the first feature it took close to four hours. In the second feature it took close to two hours. By the time we did the series, which ironically was by far the best makeup and costume, we had it down to about 45 minutes," the actor said.

"But it was still tough. At the end of the day you’re wearing eighty pounds of wet latex, plus all the chemicals on your face. It sure isn’t sunglasses and autographs, I’ll tell ya."

Also of note is the late-paragraph mention of a new Swamp Thing film in the works, with a script by the character’s creator, Len Wein.

Heck, it can’t be any worse than Man-Thing, Marvel’s 2005 quest to bring their swamp monster to the big screen, right?

GRAPHIC NOVEL REVIEW: Del Rey Manga Round-Up, Part Two

Reviews
October 26, 2007

Welcome to the second week of Manga Round-Up! This time, we have four more books from [[[Del Rey Manga]]] – all first volumes in series, as new-reader-friendly as it’s possible to be – which are aimed at a slightly older audience (sixteen and up) than the books I looked at last week.

And you know what “older audience means,” don’t you? That’s right – gore! (Did you think I was going to say “sex?” That’s the 18+ manga, which none of the publishers have sent me yet.)

Leading off the parade of blood-spattered stories is Hitohi Iwaaki’s Parasyte, in which alien spores drift down to Earth and creep into people’s ears to eat their brains. The parasites, who have no name for themselves – no culture or language of any kind, actually – then eat other humans, in very violent ways. It’s hinted that this is possibly a reaction by someone or something to save the Earth from us horrible humans. (But only hinted, at the beginning, and not brought up again.)

Our viewpoint character is a teenage boy named Shin, saved from having his brain eaten because he had his earbuds in while he was sleeping. (Possible life lesson #1: never, ever stop listening to music. Possible life lesson #2: don’t sleep on the floor, as the Japanese do.) Unfortunately, the parasite still got into his body – it just took over his hand instead. Shin names the parasite Migi (since it is his right hand, and that’s the Japanese word for “right”), and tries to live with it. But the parasites are utterly amoral and protective of their secrecy, so the mere fact that Shin knows they exist means that other parasites (the ones that ate brains, and so control whole bodies) want to kill him as soon as they learn about him. And getting along with an amoral, alien right hand that can transform instantly into whirring engines of death is not easy.