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SATURDAY, JULY 28, 2007

COMIC-CON INTERNATIONAL: IMAGE COMICS PANEL

By Ernie Estrella

SAN DIEGO -- On Friday afternoon at Comic-Con International, Brian Posehn (The Last Christmas), Brian Reed (The Circle), Robert Kirkman (The Walking Dead), Mike Oeming (Mice Templar), Erik Larsen (Savage Dragon), Matt Fraction (Casanova), Gerry Duggan (The Infinite Horizon), Phil Noto (The Infinite Horizon), Jay Fotos (Frank Frazetta's Death Dealer) presented a slideshow of new and upcoming projects.

Following are highlights:

* Kirkman acknowledged his closing in on the issue #50 milestone for two titles, The Walking Dead (by this fall) and Invincible (January).

"I'm going to celebrate by getting rid of as many characters as possible." Kirkman said about The Walking Dead. "I'm thinking about killing everyone, I don't know how people will feel about that."

* For Invincible #48­50 expect a major confrontation between Cecil and Mark Grayson that's been brewing since the loss of his father.

* Larsen said that he's been running a bit late but has been stockpiling a bunch of work and penciling ahead so there will be lots of Savage Dragon soon.

* Fraction attributed illness for the lack of Casanova but it's back on track. A future story called "When is Casanova Quinn?" will see Casanova disappearing and Fraction wants to see how far he can go by removing the main character from the book.

* Plans for more issues of Rocketo are in the works.

* Larsen is also working on coordinating The Next Issue Project Anthology. Golden Age public domain comics will be resurrected with modern creators putting a brief spin on these gone but not forgotten titles. Some of the creators already committed include Howard Chaykin, Kyle Baker and Mike Allred.

* Phil Noto and Gerry Duggan are teaming up for Inifinite Horizon, a dark series that Duggan describes as "re-imagining the Odyssey post-Iraq/Iran." starts in November and will go monthly for six issues. Noto sees the the new project as "a nice book to experiment on."

* Kirkman has a new project called The Astounding Wolf-Man. For those who think they've got the series figured out after two issues, think again. "We're going to be taking you in a lot of directions with lots of twists and turns." Kirkman said.

* Michael Avon Oeming will be cutting back on the writing projects at Marvel so that he can concentrate on drawing Mice Templar bi-monthly and getting more issues of Powers out. Mice Templar will be written by Bryan J.L. Glass who Oeming last collaborated with on Quixote. Oeming said that Mice Templar has been several years in the making and is influenced by Celtic and Norse mythology. The first issue will be available in September at a whopping 50 pages.

* Brian Reed (Ms. Marvel) and Ian Hosfeld are working together on The Circle which is an espionage book in the vein of Modesty Blaise and the classic Mission Impossible television show.

* Pinapl is a new series from Corey Lewis (Shark Knife) Chad Walker and will be rolled out similar to Warren Ellis' Fell. * Fire Breather was a

story that launched at the same time as Invincible but with persistence, it's back and so are its creators Phil Hester and Andy Kuhn.

* Pax Romana is Jonathan Hickman's (Nightly News) new project.

* Joseph Michael Linsner is sinking his teeth in a new creator-owned vampire story in February with Dark Ivory. Together with frequent collaborator, Eva Hopkins, they hope to take the Anne Rice out of the vampires.

* Linsner is also nearing the 20th anniversary of Dawn and is already dubbing 2009 the Year of the Goddess with a new Dawn comic scheduled to launch in two years.

* Posehn will be doing a Simpsons Treehouse of Horror for Bongo Comics that will cover parody Steven Spielberg's Jaws.

* Steve Niles and Bill Sienkiewicz are collaborating the Sinner which looks stunning. Larsen championed the book as "the coolest damn book ever!"

* Image has the license to dig through Jack Kirby's basement full of superheroes, including Captain Victory and Silver Star.

* Jay Fotos is in charge of the Frank Frazetta properties Image has been pumping out based on his iconic paintings and fan response has been extremely good. "Frazetta has been enjoying what we've been doing," Fotos said, "So we'll be doing more."

* Creatures is Indiana Jones/X-Files starring Teddy Roosevelt. Rick Remender is writing this book and will begin with a one-shot, and then will be a continuing series.

* Dark Kingdom (written by Mark Kidwell) and Swamp Demon are one-shots set in the same time period and setting as Creatures and Death Dealer

* Niles is also writing Dracula meets the Wolf-Man.

* Silver Warrior is a four issue mini-series written by Joshua Ortega and drawn by Nat Jones. Fotos said that they will be trying something different artistically than the mentioned Frazetta books by fully painting over pencils.

* Collections of the above-mentioned Jack Kirby properties will be part of the Kirby creations relaunch.

* In the spirit of Image's 24Seven anthologies, Image is releasing another monster-sized collection of indy and underground artists called Pop Gun. It will feature work from Mike Allred, Joseph Michael Linser and Jamie S. Rich. The page count is already at 500 pages and growing.

* The Luna Brothers saga Girls will be collected into one enormous volume.

* Arthur Adamd' 90's adventure series, Monkeyman & O'Brien will also be reprinted in one giant collection.

* Scud the Disposable Assassin will see the light of day again as Rob Schrab finishes his cult-favorite book about the disposable assassin who doesn't want to die. A full collection of Scud is in the works.

* Tim Sale Black and White Revised and Expanded Hardcover. Everything he's done that he owns is being printed into this massive opus.



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