MARS ATTACKS IDW!

IDW Publishing has revealed the cover for the upcoming MARS ATTACKS POPEYE comic book along with others in the Mars Attacks... line. Mars Attacks Popeye is written by Martin (Halloween Legion) Powell with art by Terry (The Phantom) Beatty. Mars Attacks Popeye will be in stores January 2013 from IDW.

PRESS RELEASE:

IDW has released the details on their upcoming crossover event between Topps' MARS ATTACKS property and... well, pretty much every license under the IDW banner.

Spread out over five weeks in January, the full list of planned one-shots includes:

MARS ATTACKS POPEYE by Martin Powell, Terry Beatty, and Tom Ziuko
MARS ATTACKS KISS by Chris Ryall, Alan Robinson, and Tom Ziuko
MARS ATTACKS THE REAL GHOSTBUSTERS by Erik Burnham and Jose Holder
MARS ATTACKS TRANSFORMERS by Shane McCarthy and Matt Frank
and
MARS ATTACKS ZOMBIES VS. ROBOTS by Chris Ryall, Andy Kuhn, and John Rauch

IDW Editor-in-Chief and Chief Creative Officer Chris Ryall is the brains behind the event, and had this to say about it:

"The 'Mars Attacks' property is a bit more insane than most of the licenses we have. There's lots of good carnage in there, so we thought it'd be fun if we could spin that into some of our other books that are more respectful properties. Normally in 'Transformers' you don't get the level of insanity of a 'Mars Attacks' comic. We thought it'd be fun to mash that all together.

I wanted 'Mars Attacks' to fit into these universes by the rules already established in these books. So if there's a Popeye story, the Martians can only cause as much damage as you'd see in an old Popeye strip or a Fleischer cartoon. It's not going to be quite as over-the-top violent as John Layman's 'Mars Attacks' comic. It'll fit well into the Popeye universe. So every issue is a stand-alone story, and they roll out chronologically by era. Popeye comes first and takes place further back in the timeline around the 1930s."

You can learn more about IDW and their books at www.idwpublishing.com.

Can Michael Swann Fulfill The Damocles Contract?

Acclaimed comic book creator John Byrne releases his latest creation, former MI-6 agent Michael Swann on October 19, 2011 when IDW Publishing’s Cold War #1 hits stores. In Swann's opening 4-part adventure, "The Damocles Contract," the former secret agent is called on to stop a defecting British scientist from granting the Soviets complete nuclear dominion over the free world...

Cold War - The Michael Swann Dossier: "The Damocles Contract" #1
Written and drawn by John Byrne
Colored by Ronda Pattison
Lettered by Neil Uyetake
32 pages, $3.99
In Comic Book Stores October 19, 2011.

Said IDW’s Chris Ryall on his blog of the book, "This is Byrne doing a British secret service (well, former secret service, as you’ll see) agent in a period setting, which has been a blast so far, seeing him handle new characters and a time period he’s not tackled before. The vehicles alone in issue 3 are worth the price of admission."

In addition to the standard color cover there will be a black and white cover and a stylized, almost propoganda-style variant covers for each issue. The first issue is also being released as a full variant b&w version as well as the regular full-color issue, too.

In an interview with the Associated Press, Byrne explained, "He operates on a freelance basis, and occasionally his former bosses call upon him to handle something that is perhaps a bit too messy for Her Majesty’s Government to be involved with. So he knows that when he is called upon, things have reached some dire straits. His response to this is usually very straightforward and brutal."

On his website’s forum, Byrne shared a few more details. "Altho set in the early days of the Cold War, this is NOT going to be a history book. I am playing quite freely with the order in which things happened in the real world. And I will not be tying Swann’s exploits to any specific year or sequence of years. Those with an awareness of the history of this period may spot a few landmarks — one in most particular plays an important part as a sub-thread to my overall tale — but no reason to start checking the History Channel in order to be able to follow what’s going on in this series!"

Cold War - The Michael Swann Dossier: "The Damocles Contract" issue #1 is in stores on October 19.

To learn more about Cold War and IDW, visit http://www.idwpublishing.com/

Below is a preview of issue #1.
Click images for a larger view.

IDW Unleashes Zombies Vs. Robots Prose Program

HIT GRAPHIC NOVELS GET LITERARY TREATMENT

ZVR artwork © Ashley Wood. All Rights Reserved.

OFFICIAL PRESS RELEASE:

IDW Unleashes Prose Program for Breakout Comic Series: ZOMBIES VS ROBOTS
35 Writers Explore, Expand and Remix ZvR World

San Diego, CA (September 6, 2011)—IDW’s gleefully subversive ZOMBIES VS ROBOTS comic book series from creators Chris Ryall and Ashley Wood will soon be eating readers’ brains from the inside via a series of short stories, novellas and more. As announced at the 2011 San Diego Comic-Con in July, the company plans for an ambitious slate of original prose stories set at different points in this epic adventure of a zombie apocalypse. In ZOMBIES VS ROBOTS, the clanking robots are built to fight the shambling braineaters, in a desperate attempt to save Earth’s dwindling population.

"It’s gratifying to see that ZvR has taken on an unlife of its own," asserts Ryall, series co-creator and Chief Creative Officer/Editor-in-Chief for IDW. "Expanding from comics into prose is a logical progression, though as the heretofore sole writer of the series I must admit that letting other writers into our subversive little world was at first troubling. But now I’m fine with it. Really. Mostly. Especially since editor Jeff Conner has corralled such a talented array of writers to tackle some really bizarre and creative prose stories. As long as no one expects me to let them write ZvR comics, too..."



ZVR artwork © Ashley Wood.

 A lurching cohort of writers—including such notable talents as John Shirley, Nancy A. Collins, Rio Youers, Brea Grant, Steve Rasnic Tem, Amber Benson, James A. Moore, Rachel Swirsky, Norman Prentiss, and John Skipp & Cody Goodfellow, led by Ryall himself—has been assembled to pen original stories of life during wartime in the ZVR world. "It’s our biggest project so far," states Conner, the IDW contributing editor helming the ZVR prose program. "In a way it’s a follow-up to our Classics Mutilated release, at least in terms of its anything goes spirit. The results so far have been—um, riveting."
The rest of the ZVR writer roster includes: Dale Bailey, Amelia Beamer, Jesse Bullington, Simon Clark, Lincoln Crisler, Stephen Dedman, Rain Graves, Rhodi Hawk, Robert Hood, Stephen Graham Jones, Nicholas Kaufmann, Steven Lockley, Nick Mamatas, Jonathan McGoran, Joe McKinney, Gary McMahon, Mark Morris, Bobby Nash, Yvonne Navarro, Hank Schwaeble, Ekaterina Sedia, Sean Taylor, Simon Kurt Unsworth, Kaaron Warren, and Don Webb.

A film version of ZVR is currently in development through Sony Pictures, with Michael Bay’s Platinum Dunes as producer.

Visit IDWPublishing.com to learn more about the company and its top-selling books.

About IDW Publishing:

http://www.idwpublishing.com/

IDW is an award-winning publisher of comic books, graphic novels and trade paperbacks, based in San Diego, California. Renowned for its diverse catalog of licensed and independent titles, IDW publishes some of the most successful and popular titles in the industry, including: Hasbro's The TRANSFORMERS and G.I. JOE, Paramount's Star Trek; HBO’s True Blood; the BBC's Doctor Who; Toho’s Godzilla and comics and trade collections based on novels by worldwide bestselling author, James Patterson. IDW is also home to the Library of American Comics imprint, which publishes classic comic reprints; Yoe! Books, a partnership with Yoe! Studio. IDW's original horror series, 30 Days of Night, was launched as a major motion picture in October 2007 by Sony Pictures and was the #1 film in its first week of release. More information about the company can be found at IDWPublishing.com.
 ###

Read more about Zombies Vs. Robots at http://www.idwpublishing.com/news/article/1951/

This edition features "The Wall!" a story by one of All Pulp's Spectacled Seven, Bobby Nash. Learn more about him at http://www.bobbynash.com/.