by Jason Vaughn
Long before the world was forced to choose between camp Edward and camp Jacob in Twilight, and well
before Sookie became the never ending damsel in distress on True Blood, the genre world got its fix of horror/romance by the queen of all things supernatural, Anne Rice. Now longtime fans of Rice have a new reason to be excited with the release of IDW’s latest limited series, Servant of the Bones. Thanks to my sister, I grew up a big fan of Rice’s Vampire Lestat series. This eventually led to me reading her other books outside of the series such as Servant of the Bones, a dark tale of the demon Azriel who’s hunting down a murderer in New York City. (A murderer in NYC, go figure.)
IDW describes the comic version of the story as a “six-part tale of murder, demonic revenge, and the
redemptive power of faith.” The series is written, of course, by Anne Rice, the multiple New York Times Bestselling author of Interview with the Vampire, The Vampire Lestat, and Queen of the Damned, with art by the New York Times Best-selling team of The Last Unicorn, Renae DeLiz and Ray Dillion. And if that isn’t enough, there’s a little extra nugget of goodiness for all the die-hard fans in the form of a new essay by Rice at the end of this first issue. For first time readers of Anne Rice’s work this issue is an excellent jumping on point, and for those of you familiar with the book the adaptation is as close to the original source material as one can possibly get. I could go on for days about how brilliant the art is or how DeLiz and Dillon go out of their way to perfectly set the tone of the story, but just go out and get a copy and see for yourself. Servant of the Bones hits the shelves this Wednesday the 17th, so don’t forget to log on to Comixology and add a copy to your pull list or you just might miss out on the first issue of what is sure to be IDW’s latest hit, and that would suck. (Get it, “suck”? Come on, we’ve been talking about vampires! Ah, never mind.)
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When I first heard Boom! Studios would be releasing a new Planet of the Apes series, I was instantly hit with wonderful nostalgic memories. Planet of the Apes holds a special place in my heart because I can vividly remember watching the old movies with my father on local television in the 70′s. I can definitely credit my father for my early love of genre since our Sundays were mostly comprised of rerun Apes and Godzilla movies. I even owned all of the Planet of the Apes dolls complete with the treehouse playset. What I wouldn’t give to still have those toys today!
Now Boom! is cashing in on the Planet of the Apes craze which has already begun with the release of the trailer for the upcoming feature “Rise of the Planet of theApes” hitting theaters on August 5. Once the trailer hit the internet, comic retailers nationwide suddenly made an unprecedented amount of late-breaking advanced re-orders leading to an early sell out of the title.
The official description of the comic series tells us the first issue begins before the original 1968 PLANET OF THE APES movie , but true to the continuity of the first five films. Although Ape society has reached a new golden age, there are ripples of dissent amongst both the ape and human ranks. Tensions will rise and soon all will be caught in chaos, and amidst all this uncertainty, the the fate of The Lawgiver remains an unknown.
Written by Daryl Gregory with art by Carlos Magno, Planet of the Apes #1 will be in stores this Wednesday, April 27. Better get one while you can!
The Devil Is In the Details
by Jason Vaughn
“Evil isn’t a force…it’s a choice…I’m weighing my options.”
- Jack Springheel
Digital comics have exploded on to the internet at such an exponential rate, it’s no surprise when top industry creators collaborate to craft passion projects online. Artist Dennis Calero, who is best known for his work in Platinum Comics’ “Cowboys and Aliens” as well as his Harvey Award-nominated run in Marvel’s “X-Factor,” has teamed up with writer/actor Todd Stashwick (“Heroes,” “Men of a Certain Age,” “The Riches”) to create one hell of a story about the Devil questioning his own role in the grand scheme of the universe. The “Devil Inside” has become such an underground cult hit that the web comic is vastly approaching eight hundred thousand hits in just its first year. The log line on Todd’s website describes the series better than I could:
“A guns blazing, white knuckled, preternatural joy ride to hell and back. Go on the road with the Devil himself, Jack Springheel. A man with a bounty on his head, Jack is running from a past, searching for a new truth and trying to keep the Devil inside.”
I had the fortunate opportunity to speak with Todd and Dennis (albeit through several interruptions due to technical difficulties, thank you very much AT&T) about the inception of their successful indie strip, “Devil Inside.”
Thanks for taking the time guys; I’m a big fan of both of your work. Todd, I still have your “Scarpulla rap” on my DVR (“Men of a Certain Age”), I think you missed your calling.
And, Dennis, your run on X-Factor is still one of the best in the series so far.
D: Thank you so much!
You guys are professionally from two different worlds, how did you end up collaborating on this web series?
T: Well, it sort of happened on Twitter actually. I was on “Heroes” and they introduced the character in a web comic before the TV show, and Dennis was the artist on that comic. I’m a comic book fan myself, so when I saw a promo of the online book, I immediately ran to check out how I was being represented, and I was being well represented. So I started using Twitter, and I made my avatar on Twitter one of his drawings. Then I contacted Dennis just to touch base and also that I dug this (the avatar pic), and he was a fan of the show I was on called “The Riches,” and so we built a friendship that way. He said that he was coming in to L.A. and wanted to meet up for coffee. We started discussing all the things we were into, our favorite video games, comic books, movies, all assorted types of geekery. I had a germ of an idea about the Devil having a crisis of conscience and he said ‘Hey, let’s do that as a web comic.’
That was actually my next question. How did you come up with the idea?
T: Well, I play villains all the time, so I’m often fascinated with the idea of the occult. Sort of getting into the psyche of a villain, and I’m always trying to find the layers on the other side. There’s just too many to deal with. So all in all, almost everything I play on TV is a lot like the guy with a bullet in his head. My objective basically was to make a protagonist by extenuating circumstances into this space. And so I thought who is the ultimate villain, and obviously the Devil, so I went “what if the Devil was having a crisis of conscience, and started questioning his own path?” Then I turned to Dennis and he and I created a whole cosmology as well a series bible for the first arc of the story. Continue reading »