Our Best of the Year So Far store launched earlier this week with editors’ picks across many subject categories and an overall Top 20, and the Comics and Graphic Novels selections highlight what’s made 2012 an already fantastic and diverse year for the medium.

1. Darth Vader and Son by Jeffrey Brown
2. Are You My Mother?: A Comic Drama by Alison Bechdel
3. Wonder Woman Vol. 1: Blood by Brian Azzarello and Cliff Chiang
4. King City by Brandon Graham
5. Avengers: The Children's Crusade by Allan Heinberg and Jim Cheung
6. Jim Henson's Tale of Sand by Jim Henson, Jerry Juhl, and Ramon Perez
7. The Graphic Canon, Vol. 1: From the Epic of Gilgamesh to Shakespeare to Dangerous Liaisons by Russ Kick
8. Harvey Pekar's Cleveland by Harvey Pekar and Joseph Remnant
9. The Art of Daniel Clowes: Modern Cartoonist by Alvin Buenaventura
10. Mr. Twee Deedle: Raggedy Ann's Sprightly Cousin: The Forgotten Fantasy Masterpieces of Johnny Gruelle by Johnny Gruelle and Rick Marschall

With the success of Joss Whedon’s film, The Avengers, and the impending releases of The Dark Knight Rises and The Amazing Spider-Man, superheroes are still the most public-facing comic characters. If you are looking for actual comics to supplement that blockbuster rush, then the revamped Wonder Woman and the next generation of Avengers (see also our Omni spotlight) should be at the top of your summer reading list.

If your tastes run more literary and autobiographical, Alison Bechdel’s Are you My Mother: A Comic Drama is filled with enough familial anxiety to satisfy readers until the annual holiday get-togethers begin, and Harvey Pekar’s Cleveland offers one last sardonic look at life through the eyes of the departed Pekar. On the academic front, the first volume in editor Russ Kick’s ambitious Graphic Canon series showcases historic literary moments, from The Odyssey to Shakespeare, told through the medium of comics.  

Then there are the books that defy easy classification: King City by Brandon Graham is a sci-fi comic about a boy and his pet cat (who is also a weapon), aliens, magic, gangsters, and Xombie Wars (see our interview with Graham for more); Jim Henson’s Take of Sand (Omni spotlight here), is based on a lost film script by Henson, adapted by artist Ramon Perez—and it reads like one long, gorgeous, stream-of-consciousness chase scene; and Jeffrey Brown’s Darth Vader and Son is a Lucasfilm-approved series of “What If?” moments between toddler Luke Skywalker and his helmeted father, Darth Vader.

What about the artwork? Look no further than The Art of Daniel Clowes: Modern Cartoonist, a celebratory collection of the best-of and least-seen pieces in his extensive career. It’s a must-own for Clowes’ fans, and it will soon convert those not yet in the know. Publisher Fantagraphics and editor and comics historian Rick Marschall cut no corners in the production of Mr. Twee Deedle, an epic re-presentation of a masterpiece in classic comics storytelling. It’s gigantic in scale, showcasing artist Johnny Gruelle’s never-before-reprinted strips from the early 1900s—at this size, Mr. Twee Deedle is one to behold and hold.

And we’re only halfway through the year! What did we miss on this list, Omni readers, and what are you looking forward to in the remainder of 2012?

–Alex

"And there came a day, a day unlike any other, when Earth's mightiest director and actors found themselves united against a common threat: the sagging box office. On that day, the Avengers were born–to fight the foes no single super hero could withstand! Heed the call, then–for this Friday, the Avengers Assemble!"

Today really is a day unlike any other–it’s practically a nerd holiday: The Avengers, a superhero team comprised of the biggest names in the Marvel universe (Captain America, Iron Man, Hulk, Thor), hit the silver screen as portrayed by some of the biggest names in the box office (Robert Downey, Jr., Scarlett Johannson, Chris Hemsworth, Samuel L. Jackson), directed and written by geek god Joss Whedon (creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer). I say thee yay!

What follows below is a primer for before and after the film, or a refresher for fans who’ve fallen out of the habit. It’s by no means comprehensive, so please suggest your favorite Avengers tales in the comments below.

The Ultimates Vol. 1 by Mark Millar and Brian Hitch: Purists, I apologize. The Stan Lee and Jack Kirby comics are the rightful classics, but Whedon’s film seems to draw heavily from the tone and costumes (and origins) of Millar’s re-imagining. Here, the heroes are presented as government operatives, each with plenty of emotional baggage and secrets. It’s an adult take on a previously kid-friendly concept, told in a very contemporary, decompressed manner, and this first volume caused plenty of ripples throughput the industry.

The Avengers Vol. 1 by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby: The book that started it all. Bright adventures, crackling energy, and plenty of exclamation points keep these early stories alive. There’s a sense of true wonder at work and new readers should be prepared for the overflow of enthusiasm.

The Korvac Saga, The Kree/Skrull War, and Under Siege by various industry legends: 1970s and 80s tales as told by Roy Thomas, George Perez, Sal Buscema, Jim Shooter, Neal Adams, and more. Travel the cosmos, the future, and a who’s who of Avengers villains in the stories that many cite as the team in its prime.

Avengers Assemble and Avengers Forever by Kurt Busiek, George Perez, and Carlos Pacheco: These late 1990s stories are the last “classic” Avengers collections, featuring pages stuffed with big costumes and bigger dialogue balloons. Perez’s artwork never ages, lending a timeless appeal to these nostalgia-steeped adventures.

The New Avengers: Breakout by Brian Michael Bendis and David Finch: And now we enter the contemporary era of Avengers stories, begun by Marvel hit-maker Brian Michael Bendis, who expanded the roster to include Wolverine and the enigmatic Sentry. In Bendis' take, the Avengers are much more of a street-level group of heroes, facing villains with cinematic flare. The run was so successful that it kickstarted a resurgence in popularity for the team, enough to support The Mighty Avengers, Dark Avengers, Secret Avengers, and a second New Avengers (also another Avengers).

Avengers: The Art of Marvel’s The Avengers: Relive the big screen spectacle in this slipcased hardcover, which contains concept art, set photographs, stills, selections from Whedon’s script, costumes, creatures, and cast interviews. Be warned that it can give away parts of the film, so reading it after the theater is recommended.

If that weren’t enough comics activity to fill your weekend, this Saturday is Free Comic Book Day! The annual event encourages new readers to pick up the habit by offering special issues for free. Celebrate good times.

–Alex

In the late 1960s, Steve Ditko and Steve Skeates created the original pairing of Hawk and Dove—two brothers, Hank and Don Hall, who were entrusted with superpowers and represented diametric ideologies (Hawk: a hot-tempered conservative; Dove: a passive liberal). Together, they fought crime and often one another. It was a fun, unique concept–plus, it had Ditko's art to support even Dove's ridiculous outfit. The two would later join a Teen Titans farm league, Titans West, and they remained in just about every hero’s shadow until Don’s death in 1985’s Crisis on Infinite Earths.

To re-establish the character balance, in stepped writers Karl and Barabara Kesel to revitalize the Hawk and Dove heroes in a five-issue miniseries in 1988. The Kesels introduced Dawn Granger, a bookish college student and the latest incarnation of Dove. Her addition would prove to be a winning one, given that Dove's costume tended to lean a bit feminine anyway. Dawn wasn't plagued by the same self-doubts that struck Don, and she didn't serve as simply a foil to Hawk; rather, she guided him and focused his aggression. 

The Kesels were joined by a very young artist named Rob Liefeld, who would later establish himself as one of the most successful and later derided comic artists of the 1990s. What’s interesting about his work in this series is that it displays very little of what would later be known as his trademarks: a disregard for anatomy, an over-reliance on cross-hatching, and splashy page layouts. Instead, his work here is very restrained and pleasantly traditional. Liefeld’s expressions are clever, his characters’ faces are full of nuance, and he shows no fear in drawing feet (which would later prove to be an infamous avoidance). Much of this restraint–and possibly the bulk of the backgrounds–must be attributed to Karl Kesel, who inked Liefeld’s pencils in this series. Kesel has a deft hand for keeping figures tight on a page, and he possesses an economical sense of action. Much like Dawn to Hank, Karl could channel Liefeld's budding talent in the right directions. The pairing proves to be a sustainable one, as the pages hold up almost 25 years later.

Those five issues were such a hit with fans that DC gave Karl and Barabara Kesel a regular Hawk & Dove series (Liefeld departed after the mini), which lasted almost 30 issues before cancellation and remains uncollected. What made the mini and regular series so special was the Kesels’ ability to tell creative, genuinely humorous done-in-one stories that featured not only Hank and Dawn as heroes but also as members of a tight-knit group of college friends. They had lives outside of their costumes. Both series feature a sense of self not unlike the "Bwah ha ha!" days of Justice League International, where dialogue balloons brim with quips and plenty of wink-winking. The focus lies in the characters, not the exceptional circumstances with which they always find themselves.  

Hawk and Dove were then dormant for over a decade until the big DC reboot, when it was announced that they would once again receive their very own series. To prep newcomers, DC released a fancy hardcover, The Steve Ditko Omnibus Volume Two, highlighting the first appearance and early adventures of Hank and Don, as well as the long out of print miniseries (re-titled Hawk & Dove: Ghosts and Demons) by Barbara and Karl Kesel and Rob Liefeld. The Ditko omnibus is a great look back at their origins and the reproduction is fantastically crisp (plus there are about 350 more pages of quality Ditko zaniness). The recent miniseries collection, unfortunately, does not fare as well. The reproduction is a mess of bleeding colors and coloring errors. Karl Kesel is credited as “Karl Kese” on inks, and DC somehow chose the worst front cover image–where Hawk and Dove appear to be impaling themselves on the Washington Monument. Nevertheless, the story is what’s most important, and it’s nice to finally have such a deserving, rewarding one back in print.

Despite the latter’s production flaws, both books are worthwhile reads for fans who don’t mind a little goofiness in their superheroism. Revisiting the Kesels’ whip-smart wit was a treat, especially when considering their bold re-imagining of the two heroes. They added depth to their origins (replacing the politics with Chaos and Order), and infused a breezy nonchalance to crime-fighting in what was an otherwise grim and gritty period for comics. Who knows if we’ll ever see an omnibus of the Kesels’ regular series that followed the mini, as the recent reboot was mercifully cancelled after eight issues (and let us never speak of it again). Far better to spend time hunting for the former’s backissues and poring over these two welcome collections.

–Alex

It's probably unnecessary at this point to introduce Robert Kirkman. As the creator of The Walking Dead, he's watched his zombie apocalypse series go from comic book success to televised event. Riding high on the second season's biggest ratings yet, Robert's future plans are not limited to the undead–or even comics. At Emerald City Comicon 2012, we spoke at length about his many other projects, including superheroes, long-form heist plots, novels, dinosaurs, and yes, those flesh-hungry zombies.

Omnivoracious.com: It can’t be easy to introduce a new superhero in today’s comics climate, yet Invincible is nearing triple digit issue numbers. How has Invincible thrived where so many new heroes have not?

Robert Kirkman: Invincible is everything I’ve ever loved about superhero comics thrown into one book. I am a superhero comics fan as much as anyone who reads Invincible. The book speaks to that kind of a fanbase. It’s just a cool little superhero universe that I get to play in every month, and it’s got amazing artwork by Ryan Ottley. It struggled early on because there is a glut of superhero comics in the industry, but it’s held on. I couldn’t be happier that it’s held on, but I don’t know exactly why [it has]. I’d like to think that it’s because it’s entertaining, but maybe it’s because the artwork’s really good.

Omni: Maybe it's the ton of characters you’ve packed into the book. Atom Eve is a character who began more on the periphery but has now become front and center. Was this always the plan for her?

Robert Kirkman: Yeah, I think she was destined to be Invincible’s true love or whatever, but I didn’t want to make it too obvious and I didn’t want to reveal too soon that that’s where things were going. So we did kind of dance around that for a good long time. But she’s always been sort of a central character to the cast. She was somebody very early on to befriend Invincible and show him the ropes, telling him what it’s like to be a teenager and a superhero at the same time. They’ve grown up together over the course of 100 issues. I feel like their romantic bond is pretty strong because it developed over the course of 60 issues, and I don’t know—I just really enjoy writing that character.

Omni: That bond has been a central theme of at least the previous two volumes, the last being a particularly gruesome arc. Where do you go after you literally tear your heroes apart?

Robert Kirkman: [Laughs.] Well, I put them back together again and I tear them apart again. No, one of the most fun things about Invincible is to sit down and think, “These are guys who can break battleships over their knees. How would you actually portray this story realistically?” Realistically, every time they fight I think they would tear each other apart. Invincible does get to become somewhat of a violent comic as we introduce more and more powerful villains for him to deal with. That kind of stuff happens.

Omni: After the bloody events of The Viltrumite War, is the latest volume, Get Smart, a pause for the characters and readers to catch their breaths?

Robert Kirkman: Yeah, The Viltrumite War was something we’d been building towards since the beginning, and it’s the longest volume of Invincible. The Get Smart volume is about Invincible changing his methods again. One of the things I play with in Invincible is that he’s very young. He started being a superhero when he was 17 and now he’s in his early 20s. So, he’s maturing and he’s changing his methods, and in Get Smart, he’s deciding, “I have these powers. What would actually be productive for society for me to do with them?” It is kind of a breather story arc, but it also sets up the next ten volumes of Invincible [laughs], so it’s a very integral story.

Omni: You’re targeting a different demographic with Super Dinosaur. What can you tell your regular readers about this book?

Robert Kirkman: It’s about a young genius by the name of Derek Dynamo who is ten years old. He lives in a secret complex built atop Mt. Rainier with his father Dr. Dynamo. His best friend is a nine-foot tall, genetically altered Tyrannosaurus Rex that has robotic arms it controls with its little T. Rex arms. They go on adventures at the center of the earth, where there’s a special mineral called DynOre that is an incredible source of power—so, there are all these villains who are trying to get to Inner Earth, while Derek and his dinosaur are trying to safeguard the planet.

It’s an All Ages comic, and I think it would appeal to a seven-year-old, a 15-year-old, and I’m 33, and if I weren’t writing the book I think I’d enjoy it. It’s really my desire to have a comic out there that is a true All Ages comic. It’s not necessarily “dumbed down” for a younger audience, but there’s no profanity, there’s no graphic violence, and there stories are kept in a contained way so a younger reader can understand them. There are a lot of dramatic undertones and dark subplots that are appropriate for kids but are intriguing enough for an older audience. Also, every now and then a Tyrannosaurus Rex shoots missiles out of its back and punches a “dinosaur-guy,” so it’s a pretty fun book.

Omni: Is this part of your Skybound imprint?

Robert Kirkman: Yes.

Omni: With all the creative freedom and success that you’ve had, why form this imprint for yourself?

Robert Kirkman: Well, Images Comics is really a grouping of talented individuals. There are five partners now; I’m the newest one to be added, and we all have our own little houses within Image Comics that offer different books. So, there’s Image Top Cow, Image TMP, which is Todd McFarlane’s company, Image Shadowline, which is Jim Valentino’s company, and then there’s Image Skybound, which is what I operate under.

It’s really just a marking of “These are the books that Robert Kirkman is overseeing.” The Skybound imprint is a way for me to brand all of my books so that people know they are from me, but one of the things I’m also trying to do is find new talent; to do the type of comics that you don’t necessarily see in the comic book industry. I think The Walking Dead is a very good example of something that honestly doesn’t have a right to be a comic. It’s a dark, dramatic survival horror story, and when people think of comics they think of superheroes. So Skybound’s mission is to find the new talent with the new ideas that aren’t necessarily superhero ideas—things like Thief of Thieves, which is a crime noir comic about people pulling heists.

Then, we do a thing called Witch Doctor, which is an occult comic about a guy who treats supernatural threats in a medical way. He knows the supernatural is real and has to be treated in a tangible way. [Skybound] is about bringing new ideas and having a lot of fun doing it.

Omni: I’m glad you mentioned Thief of Thieves. I read the first two issues and they are very cinematic. What heist films influenced you?

Robert Kirkman: There’s the Thomas Crowne Affair, the Ocean’s movies, Out of Sight—mostly anything with George Clooney in it [laughs]. To Catch a Thief. It’s really just telling a long-form story that you would find in movies and television. It’s about this thief named Redmond and finding out what his family background is and what his goals are and what his mission is—and exploring this in a long-term situation where you see him going from heist to heist and how it takes a toll on him.

Over the course of the first story arc, he’s going to realize that he’s absolutely, completely and utterly addicted to the thrill of being a thief. But he’s still very much in love with his wife and has to reconcile his lifestyle when thinking about the point in his life when she said, “It’s me or this life as a criminal.” He regrets his decision and has these two sides of himself that are diametrically opposed, and his only recourse is to essentially become the “thief of thieves.” He’s going to steal for good, steal from other thieves and return those items so he can feed that addiction but also still be a good guy and hopefully reconcile with his wife, with whom he’s still very much in love. And his son, who is now an adult, is trying to follow in his father’s footsteps, but Redmond is the greatest thief who has ever lived and his son is not.

Omni: Amidst all this, you are still writing The Walking Dead—and not just in comics form. I think a lot of fans were surprised that Rise of the Governor released in an entirely prose format. Why not tell this story in a comic?

Robert Kirkman: I’ve always liked the idea of doing stand-alone Walking Dead novels. I think that it’s a fun medium to work in, and it’s something I’ve always wanted to do. I have a strict rule that I don’t like to do a lot of backstory in The Walking Dead. It was kind of an easy out for me to do a backstory in a different format. The Governor is a very interesting character in the comic series; he’s very beloved as a vile villain. I always had a lot of backstory for him that I never intended to get to, but being able to do it as a novel seemed like a good idea. You know, I’m very busy and never had the time to actually make it work.

My manager introduced me to Jay Bonansinga, who is a brilliant novelist, and I started talking to him about the possibility of co-writing the novel and it all came together. I’m very proud of the work Jay and I did, and I think we’ll be doing it again very soon.

Omni: That was my next question, and it sounds like you have more novels in you.

Robert Kirkman: I do, I do. You know what, I’m just going say that the second novel will be out in October, I believe, and it’s going to be called The Walking Dead: The Road to Woodbury, and it’s going to be a direct sequel to Rise of the Governor. We’re going to meet new characters as they come to Woodbury and see how Woodbury is founded, and how the Governor continues to grow as a character. It all takes place before we met the Governor in the comic book series, and there’s a lot more story to tell with that guy. We’ll also look at others—Lilly is going to be another focus. It’s going to be fun to explore those characters again.

Omni: But back to the comics. The latest volume, We Find Ourselves, is a more contemplative look at the survivors. In such a long-form series, how do you plan for the pacing? Is it deliberate?

Robert Kirkman: It’s definitely a see-saw effect. I try not to make it too predictable. I feel like there has to be those moments of calm where do get to know the characters, and you get a sense that they can actually survive in the world. We Find Ourselves is one of those volumes, and the volume after that, A Larger World, is going to get more intense and the volume after that, Something to Fear, is going to extremely intense. I have long plans. You have to have those quiet moments to make the intense ones all the more intense. There’s always an ebb and flow.

–Alex

P.S. That wraps our ECCC 2012 coverage for the week. See also our interviews with Greg Capullo, Rick Remender, and Brandon Graham. I'll be on vacation next week, folks!

Artist Greg Capullo may be most well-known for his work on the horror title Spawn, where he took over art duties for Todd McFarlane, a task not many artists would be willing to do, let alone capable of accomplishing. There, the title became a showcase for Capullo's recognizable, frenetic style. He's been  involved with big titles before, including the 1990s juggernaut X-Force, but his career reached a new level last year when DC named him as the artist for their flagship re-launch title: Batman with writer Scott Snyder. At Emerald City Comicon 2012, the animated and candid Capullo sat down to discuss the spotlight with refreshing honesty.

Omnivoracious.com: The first arc of the Batman re-launch, The Court of Owls, releases next month, and it's such a high-profile project for you. When did you get the call that you’d be moving to Gotham City?

Greg Capullo: At the time I was still over at Image, working with Robert Kirkman of Walking Dead fame. We were doing a title called Haunt, and I was going, “Maybe this isn’t the best place for my career at the moment.” I felt like it needed a shot in the arm, so I started talking with Marvel and DC Comics about what kinds of projects I might attach myself to. I was talking with Marvel about some sort of Avengers, X-Men-type thing [while] at the same time I was talking to DC about Batman. So, for two months I spent many sleepless nights going, “Which way do I go?” I’ve always been a Marvel-guy, but [DC] is going, “Batman!” And just like a mom who is carrying a baby in her belly, there was this small kid in me going, “Batman! Batman! Do Batman!” You know, with all those pangs I just wanted him to stop, so I went with Batman and it’s been awesome.

Omni: [Laughs.] When you move from company to company like that, does it affect your approach to the characters?

Greg Capullo: Every single book is different, right? I like to give the most diverse comparison: so, yeah, I came from Spawn, but if somebody put me on a title like Barbie, I can’t illustrate that in the same fashion. Part of that is changing your approach based on the title itself. There are certain similarities between Batman and Spawn, so you might see similar nuances. When you take over a book—at least for me—it takes you a while to get into the environment, and I always say that the characters will tell you how to draw them. So as I’m progressing on Batman, he’s saying, “Draw me this way,” you know? The only thing I had in mind was that I’m going to draw a scary Batman—one that would scare the crap out of me.

[He’s] a big slab of a man, and if he bumped into me he’d fracture my shoulder. He’d cut me to ribbons with his gauntlets and cape. I’m doing something that feels natural. The only thing that I didn’t give him is a 40-foot cape; not like the Spawn cape that has a life of its own.

Omni: When you re-launch a character like Batman, was there any particular nuance you wanted to add or remove from previous iterations to make him your own?

Greg Capullo: I think one of the advantages I have is that I haven’t been looking at Batman for many years, so I haven’t seen what other guys have been doing—like Jock and [Francisco] Francavilla and many others guys who came before. Where I left it was with Frank Miller when he did The Dark Knight Returns.

The only thing I can say I did intentionally was: there’s this great fight scene in Dark Knight Returns, where Batman suits up in some armor and plugs himself into a street lamp to do battle with Superman. And that mask! It’s like a flat mask with no nose, and that was such a bad-ass look that I go, “If I do Batman, I want to smooth it out as much as I can.” I can’t do away with the nose and all the expressions, but I can make [his mask] be more helmet-like. I got to get him in that bullet-head! That’s the only intentional thing; everything else is happening organically.

Omni: Scott Snyder said that your collaboration has been great but that your working relationship had an interesting start. Can you elaborate?

Greg Capullo: Yeah, yeah [laughs]. It certainly didn’t start out in the best possible way. It’s all great now, but I came from an old-school, Marvel-style where the story came to [the artist] in plot form, and the artist had to shape the story to be scripted afterward. When I worked for Todd McFarlane at Image, it was even looser than that. It was a phone call where he’d say, “Give me two pages of Terry talking to Wanda about this. And give me four to five pages of Sam and Twitch over here talking about this.” He didn’t care about the setting so long as you gave him the tone. So Scott comes at me with, like, 30 pages, you know? [Laughs.] And I’m like, “I’ll get narcolepsy if I have to wade through all this!”

[Scott] had been getting a lot of press, so, you know, his chest has been puffing up and he’s feeling like he’s quite the man—he’s got the Popeye guns. I’m an old war veteran, right? I’m like, “I call the shots in the field. A young dog can’t tell me what to do!” [Laughs.] So we kind of butted heads like that, but once he saw that I’m not out to hurt his story–I’m not here to drown your baby. I’m here to raise him right: wipe his bottom, put the powder on, put the oil on, you know—make him a happy baby. Once he saw that I’m going to make his baby a happy baby, now it’s all cool. He gives me all kinds of freedom.

In all his scripts, which are still pretty lengthy, there are always notes: “But do whatever you want!” with an exclamation point. Always with the exclamation points and sometimes even with a smiley face. It’s all good now.

Omni: There’s a great chapter in The Court of Owls where Batman stumbles through a maze, hallucinating via exhaustion and torture. The point of view distorts and the reader is soon in the same predicament, unsure of where to go next. Can you talk about your approach to this unique chapter?

Greg Capullo: Chapter Five, where the book rotates? Whenever I get any story, I try to think of flourishes that I can add to elevate it. As I’m drawing this crazy tale of Batman lost in a labyrinth, it just popped into my head: start rotating the book. I mentioned it to Scott and he thought it was an exciting idea. The way I pitched it to DC was, “You guys launched 52 new titles, which was a pretty brave thing to do. I don’t think anyone has ever [flipped the page] all the way around before, so we can be the first guys to do that.” It complements the story; it wasn’t about a gimmick. You can’t do it with just any book. This story—with the labyrinth, it will really help the reader to experience the same madness that Batman’s going through.

The funny thing was that they approved it, and then they saw the printed version and they got scared: “We’re worried that people will think it’s a printing error.” And I got mad, you know. “No, no! You can’t stop now [makes growling noises]!” Anyway, I talked them into it. Then I got a printed copy. I’m flipping through and I get to the page where it’s flipped all the way around, and the pages appear on the wrong side to me, the guy who planned this. “There’s a printing error!” [Laughs.] And I shoot an email to my editor and I go, “How could this happen? I was so careful!” Then I stop, and I look at the page and see that it has to turn the opposite way. I hadn’t counted on that little bit, but I go, “That’s even better!” It even confused the guy who invented it. Now it works on all levels, and almost every single person who comes up [to the booth table] loves that issue. The way you turn the book, it’s fantastic.

I've got to credit Steve Jobs, too, because when I ended that first big email to DC, I said, “Like Steve Jobs said, ‘Stay foolish!’” That remark worked. So thank you, Steve Jobs, wherever you may be.

–Alex

At Omnivoracious, we're no strangers to writer Rick Remender's work. We covered his creator-owned series Fear Agent all the way back in 2008 and followed his ascent to Marvel hit-maker on The Punisher. Now, he's writing arguably the best X-Men comic around, Uncanny X-Force, and he was recently named writer for another flagship title: Secret Avengers. A lot has changed since we last spoke with Remender at Emerald City Comicon 2009, and it was great to catch up with him on all of the aforementioned books, how his fandom influences his characters, and more at this year's ECCC 2012. 

Omnivoracious.com: Let’s start with the finale of Fear Agent. When we spoke in 2009, you were just beginning the penultimate arc, I Against I, and now the last volume, Out of Step, will release this month. What’s it like to say goodbye to Heath Huston?

Rick Remender: It was nice to get to the end we wanted to. It’s sad not to write Heath anymore. He’s obviously a character that I love writing, and since Tony [Moore] and I created him, it’s been my favorite book to write (at least it was while it was still running). It’s bittersweet: I’m very happy with the ending, but when I see it on the bookshelf there are moments of wishing I were still writing the book.

Omni: How did you arrive at that last scene?

Rick Remender: That’s been the plan since the beginning. I had a couple of potential chapters that could have extended it, but I realized that the end result was still the end result. We hit all the important beats—I don’t think there was any fat on it—and the end result was what I put in that initial document when I cooked the thing up.

Omni: And now you’re onto Uncanny X-Force. You’re writing characters that immediately connect with fans because you’re writing them as characters, with dimension and real motivations. Psylocke’s backstory is so convoluted that it’s made her bland, yet here she’s someone who readers can finally understand. What about her appealed to you?

Rick Remender: It probably has a lot to do with my history with the character. I was a big X-Men fan in the 1980s/early 1990s, and when she started appearing was at the peak of my interest in the series: the Mutant Massacre. That led me to Excalibur, which led me to seeking out the UK stuff—which had her origin and told me more about who she was. It was clear that that stuff was very near to [Chris] Claremont’s heart, and that he was going to continue to draw from it, which he did. We saw the Siege Perilous, Roma, and Captain Britain. He clearly loved it. When I read it as a kid, it was very hard to find. It was printed in that magazine-sized format, and because of the hunt—that made it mine.

She was always a character I had a connection with and knew a lot about. When I finally had a chance to write her, I had a wealth of background to draw from because, you know, I was a fan. When you’re not creating the character, it helps to have a love for something that other people did create. And for Betsy, I did.

Omni: It’s also clear you have a love for the character Fantomex.

Rick Remender: I re-read all of Grant [Morrison]’s work with Fantomex a number of times to try to get the voice down. I think it’s one of those things where it’s so difficult to sell a new character to the mainstream audience, and when somebody like Grant comes in and makes so many new ones—and so many great ones—we should all endeavor to try to continue them. It was important to me to pay respect to what Grant had done and upon investigating the character and reading him, there was just so much there. He’s such a rich character and he’s so much fun. It wasn’t work, and that’s the best kind of character, I think.

Omni: It makes sense that you’re a fan of the 80/early 90s X-Men, because in The Dark Angel Saga we finally see the full evolution of Archangel. Is this a story that you’ve been dying to tell since those days?

Rick Remender: It’s not—OK, well, it is. When I first got the book and Archangel was already on the team, I started to try to connect dots. [Louise and Walt] Simonson started this thing with Archangel that was never really resolved. It was done away with and brought back and done away with and brought back. It was never defined or investigated, and it was never exploited to its full potential. I knew that when I was going to [write] Apocalypse, there was this obvious connection and the whole thing started to tell me its story. I worked really closely with series editors Axel Alonso and Jody LeHeup to make sure we were dancing between the raindrops, so that all the new stuff I added fit with what had come before and hopefully answered some questions that had never been answered before—and added new wrinkles to it all. Archangel and Apocalypse’s mythology essentially just told me 18 issues’ worth of story.

I wanted to show what would happen if Archangel succeeded as opposed to just saying “he’s going to take over the world!” I wanted to show that in one world, Apocalypse and his successors had taken over the world—and what that result was. So, we went to the [parallel universe] Age of Apocalypse to show what would happen if our team failed. As I started writing the beats, I realized that this was a great rifle over the mantleplace, because we’ve got all these X-Men who are indebted to our team, X-Force, and vice versa. Because our team couldn’t possibly deal with what I put them up against, in the third act—at the climax—Fantomex bails and goes to get the alternate X-Men, and that’s supposed to be the power-chord moment, where the AoA characters are coming here to help X-Force. It’s fun comics.

Omni: Next, all that hunting around for UK comics when you were a kid comes into play with the Otherworld arc.

Rick Remender: Otherworld is such a tremendous thing. It’s this world created by Herb Trippe, Chris Claremont, Alan Moore, and Alan Davis—all of the best guys fall in love with this place, and it’s something that isn’t used to its full potential at all. I wanted to go there and tell a story that not only showed Betsy Braddock’s family but to define her as someone making a choice to be who she is . So much of her life has been things happening to her and she just lives with it. I wanted her to choose to be become not who she used to be. I wanted her to choose her current family over her old family, and she then becomes a character who lives with her decisions, as opposed to somebody who has that thrust upon her and reacts.

As for the backdrop, there’s a scene in one of the old Alan Moore Captain Britain [issues] where Captain Britain is put on trial, and I wanted to emulate that with Fantomex. I re-read that a few times, and [artist] Greg Tocchini and I worked very hard to get the courtroom right and the whole thing. Occasionally, you have to scratch a certain fan-itch, and that was one of them.

Omni: Is another fan-itch a quasi-reunion of Excalibur? You’ve got Captain Britain, Nightcrawler—

Rick Remender: And Meggan and Widget, yeah. At one point, we considered that the arc might be six issues, and I had a natural way to get [former teammates] Kitty and Rachel Summers in there. But it felt like I was going a step too far to fan-service myself [laughs].

Omni: What about Venom? A former evil alien turned rogue agent for good?

Rick Remender: The initial concept came from [Marvel editors] Steve Wacker and Dan Slott, to put Flash Thompson in the symbiote. When I got the assignment I started digging into it, and there was this perfect symmetry of a character with a disability who has the ability to be the one of the most powerful people on the planet. And he’s also a person with a history of addiction. So you’ve always got that character dilemma underneath whatever surface-level dilemma he’s fighting against.

I had so many ideas immediately that I knew it was a natural high concept. Plus, there was the opportunity to be reunited with Tony Moore. It’s a treat. I saw Tony’s design on that, and I think it’s incredibly iconic. It will stand the test of time; one of the best designs I think he’s ever done.

Omni: Somewhere in all this, you are now writing the Secret Avengers. While a covert team, they are still very different from X-Force. How was this cast assembled?

Rick Remender: In this case, the Human Torch—the original Human Torch was the first Marvel robot, really the first Marvel character –is in there for more reasons than we see at first. I wanted Hawkeye on the team, because I like Hawkeye. He was orphaned, he was a villain. He’s a troubled guy. He’s like the Avengers’ Wolverine. I wanted that lead again because I think he bounces well off of Beast, [who] is even-tempered. Hawkeye’s got a sense of humor so those guys can go off each other, and I have a lot of fun writing Hawkeye and Beast. And the rest were already in place, except for Captain Britain—you know, I’m wedging my love for Captain Britain into the Marvel Universe.

Omni: [Laughs.] Will ever see another Fear Agent-type book from you when you’re so wrapped up in big-book projects?

Rick Remender: I don’t consider one bigger than the other, you know—not that you do. Numbers-wise, obviously, we’d like to see more people supporting creator-owned books. But since people like what Tony and I have done on Venom and what Jerome [Opeña] and I have done on Uncanny X-Force, we seeing that Fear Agent is doing great again. In fact, we’re doing a Fear Agent omnibus now that the numbers are starting to pick up again. It’s nice to see mainstream people open their eyes a little bit to other great comic books that are being created.

I want to continue that momentum going, so while I’ve got a couple big announcements from Marvel coming up soon, Tony and I have new creator-owned project we’re working on, Jeremy Opeña and I have something we’re cooking up, and I’m working with Greg Tocchini again. Those are some of the guys I like working with. We can’t not create.

–Alex

Last weekend in Seattle, the Emerald City Comicon celebrated its tenth anniversary as the Northwest's premier gathering for fans of all things comics. The ECCC remains one of the last conventions devoted to comics without being overrun by the medium's extension into films and media hype.  Here, fans can readily connect with creators, and the 2012 show was once again full of talent. This week on Omnivoracious, we'll feature interviews with writers and artists who are behind some of the most talked about books and projects in the business.

Up first is writer and artist Brandon Graham, whose booth saw a lot of attention this year due to the success of his recent critically acclaimed title, Prophet, from Image Comics. The book is a re-launch of a best-forgotten hero last seen in the 1990s, and Brandon has made it all his own, full of science fiction adventure and creepy, dripping aliens. His fan-favorite series, King City–for which he is both the artist and writer–was collected in its entirety for this first time last month, and Brandon spoke to us about both books, his influences, and Russian werewolves.

Omnivoracious.com: Your art style reflects a graffiti influence, which is atypical for mainstream comics. Where does this stem from?

Brandon Graham: When I was a teenager, there wasn’t really a comic scene for me to connect with so I ended up hanging out with kids who did graffiti. I did that for a couple years and I always thought of it as a cousin art form to comic books, because Vaughn Bode, who did comics in the 1970s, was such a huge influence on graffiti. I really liked it; it relates a lot–I learned a lot about the culture of art and got trained in the roles of how to treat it with respect, I think.

Omni: This art style is especially on display in the finally collected, massive trade paperback of King City. At well over 400 pages, how long was the project in development?

Brandon Graham: It took about six years, if not longer. It’s kind of amazing that it came together. I always make the joke that it’s a cat book that’s had nine lives. It’s gone through several publishers and three different printing sizes at this point–and four different printings.

Omni: Well, the book gets its due here: Image printed it on oversized pages in a deluxe format with full-color French flaps. For readers who may be most familiar with your more recent work on Prophet, how would you begin to describe King City?

Brandon Graham: It’s always a difficult one to describe [laughs]. The gist of it is that it’s about a guy who uses a cat as a weapon. He’s trained in the Dark Art of Cat, and he has a cat that with the right injection can do absolutely anything. There’s a scene where he uses it as a periscope: he looks through its ass and out its mouth [laughs]. He feeds it a key in one scene and it vomits out a second key, and he calls it a “copy cat.” Yeah, it’s just whatever I come up with. That’s the surface stuff, and then there’s [the protagonist] returning to the city where he grew up and dealing with his relationship to his ex-girlfriend, who’s dating this guy who just returned from the Korean Xombie Wars–he’s addicted to this drug called “chalk” that turns you into the drug as you use it. It’s all these science fiction concepts that I grew up [with] and really excited me, blanketed over this thinly veiled autobiographical stuff about how I feel about living in cities and relationships.

Omni: Aliens, cats as weapons, gangsters, magic, Xombie Wars, got it. Did you leave anything for a sequel?

Brandon Graham: Oh yeah, it’s very open. I’ve got a lot of projects that I’m working on now, and it’s hard not to go back to King City. I built something that’s like a playground to me–it’s everything I’m excited about doing. When drawing the book, I would draw little things in the background and think of storylines that I knew I would never get back to. I would draw a doorway and think of what’s going on in that building and decide that it’s some kind of alien drug lab and get really excited about the lines on the paper and promise myself that I’d get back to it someday. Of course, I’ve never gone back to it, but that’s kind of the fun of seeing what you can come up with.

Omni: The King City world is so detailed. It seems as if everything eventually has a dialogue balloon, from soda bottles to chimneys, but what readers may be most surprised by is your sense of wordplay. Where did this love of stream-of-consciousness puns come from?

Brandon Graham: I’m obsessed with rap music. With the graffiti and the rap, there’s all this stuff that was a huge deal to me when I was a teenager. Although I’m not running around tagging stuff anymore, I’m still obsessed with a lot of that stuff–it got in my brain. I really like [how] in comic books, you can be obsessed with architecture one day and the next be obsessed with showing movement from one panel to another. There [are] so many elements, and being able to play with words is another thing.

My favorite type of thing is when you can write a pun that reads completely normally, but when you read it in another light it can come off as wordplay.

Omni: Now you’re able to take your love for words full-time in this newly re-launched Prophet project, also from Image Comics. This series seems like a fairly esoteric one to resurrect. How did this project take shape?

Brandon Graham: It was really bizarre. I was at a bar at a convention, and I was talking to Eric Stephenson, who runs Image, and my friend Joe [Keatinge], who works on their comic Glory. We were just joking around about what I would do if–I knew they were re-launching all these old Rob Liefeld comics–I were to work on Prophet, and I said you could only do it as “Conan in space.” And later on, they were like, “Well, why don’t you do it?”

I was like, “No, no, I can’t. I don’t have time to draw it.” And they were like, “Why don’t you collaborate with some friends of yours and have them draw it?” It sat in my head for a while, and I started thinking about all the fun stuff I could do with it, and I eventually had to go with it–because of how well Image has treated me and how much freedom they promised me. I expected them to rein it in at some point, but they’re letting me get away with pretty much anything. It’s insane.

Omni: You’re doing what few artists have been able to pull off, which is to leave the artwork behind and focus as a writer. What’s the process for you now as you write for other artists, and when do you know to be hands-off versus directing someone?

Brandon Graham: I pretty much write by drawing, so the process hasn’t changed very much for me. The other artists working on it are all friends of mine–it’s Simon Roy, Farel Dalrymple, and Giannis Milonogiannis. I’m drawing some [issues] as well. It’s a really casual process: we get together and talk about what kinds of things we’d like to see in science fiction and what types of things we like to draw. Then I write up notes and we send them back and forth. The artist contributes what he’d like to put in, and we make a story out of bullet points. They do layouts and send them to me, and then I do layouts and send back to them, and it becomes this endless string of emailed pictures. When it’s all finished and drawn, we talk about a script. It’s almost backwards from the way most comic books are written.

Omni: In Prophet, there will occasionally be an inanimate object with a dialogue balloon, and it reminds me of your art. Are you unable to step completely away from the artwork?

Brandon Graham: It’s funny; I’ve really been trying to rein myself in and do different types of work in it. I’m trying to do the type of comics that I’d want to read rather than the kind of comics I’m used to doing. But some of the artists I’m working with–like Simon Roy, who’s on the first three issues; he’s excited about doing his work a little more like mine. There’s a cutaway view of an alien city–and that was completely him, and he was like, “Look, I’m doing your style!” And the character wears like this alien skin that becomes a sidekick, and I was arguing with [Roy] about it:

“I just did 400 pages with a guy with a little sidekick animal.”

“Yeah, you got to do that but I didn’t get to do it.” [Laughs.] So, he’s just making me look like a one-trick pony, but I’m really excited about the work he’s doing.

Omni: You mentioned that you were unable to draw Prophet because you didn’t have the time. What else is on your plate?

Brandon Graham: I’m working on a lot right now. If all goes well, I’ll have 19 or 20 issues out this year. My main project is Multiple Warheads, a Russian-werewolf-fantasy comic. Like King City, it’s all over the map–just me having fun. I’m almost feel like writing Prophet, which is a much more reined-in, episodic comic, allows me to do this other completely crazy comic –you know, hopefully readers won’t think I’ve completely lost my mind.

Omni: And that’s going to come out this year?

Brandon Graham: Yeah, I think it will start in October from Oni Press. It’s going to be full-color, and the first issue will be 50 pages. I’m doing everything: hand-lettering it, the colors, the covers, doing the logos.

Omni: Is this your first time working in full-color for a full issue?

Brandon Graham: Yeah, I’ve done a few short stories, and my Prophet issue will be in color before that. With that one, it’s really interesting for me to do a comic without all the puns and the jokes. I’m trying to [make it] deadly serious and serious-up my art style, because I draw as if everything is made out of bubblegum. So when I’m trying to draw seriously, I’m listening to a lot of H.P. Lovecraft audiobooks and heavy metal.

Omni: As serious as you can make a barbarian in space.

Brandon Graham: Yeah, exactly. A deadly serious barbarian in space.

–Alex

In the 1980s, the Garbage Pail Kids trading cards were so notorious that they were banned from select schools (well, mine) and were traded and pored over like some back-alley dice game at lunch (well, mine again). I will never know what happened to my stack of GPK cards, but I no longer have to wistfully imagine what “Clogged Duane” and “Dinah Saur” looked like, thanks to the recently published Garbage Pail Kids by Abrams ComicArts.

Upon delivery, my nearest neighbor immediately asked to borrow the book. The 220-plus page hardcover instantly triggers a lost sense of dark nostalgia in those who were kids in the mid-1980s. This book collects every card from Series 1-5, and it includes a five-page introduction by Art Spiegelman and a two-page afterword by artist John Pound. The rest of the pages are all GPK. Note that the characters had “alternate” cards—same image, different name—and those names are listed at the bottom of every page. The back matter for the cards is not reproduced outside of the front end papers, but the dust jacket is the same material as the old card packaging—and underneath lies a recognizable image of the pink rectangular gum that came in every pack.

Punny highlights for me were “Babbling Brooke” and “Nervous Rex” (lowlight: “Hot Scott”). In retrospect, I do see some cause for concern (sorry, 1986 self!), notably the drug references, stereotyping, and overall bad taste (but never so bad as how that gum fared—once chewed, twice shy). This hindsight makes Garbage Pail Kids an even better read. How did The Topps Company get away with some of these—see “Half-Nelson” and “Stoned Sean,” for example? It’s a fascinating retrospective, and Spiegelman’s involvement in the original series somehow lends credibility to it all.

“Snot was a good idea (gross bodily fluids were a staple of Topp’s sophisticated brand of humor),” Spiegelman writes in the introduction. “We all worked anonymously, since Topps didn’t want the work publicly credited…I was annoyed at the time, but my book publisher, Pantheon, was very relieved. The first volume of Maus was being prepared for publication while the GPKs were near the height of popularity.”

Maus went on to earn a Pulitzer Prize in 1992. A Pulitzer Prize-winning author and illustrator worked on the Garbage Pail Kids cards. You can say this aloud every time your neighbor asks to borrow your copy.

–Alex

When I began the newly published Avengers: The Children’s Crusade collection, I did not expect it to be one of the best superhero comics so far in 2012. For one, I’m not a huge Avengers fan. Yes, I’m thrilled at what I’ve seen so far of Joss Whedon’s directorial adaptation set to release in May, but the team (comprised of Captain America, Thor, and Iron Man) always seemed too goody-two-shoes for me. Secondly, Children’s Crusade stars what I thought to be glorified side-kicks, the Young Avengers.

Let me tell you, Omni readers: I was wrong.

Children’s Crusade turns the Young Avengers into a must-read team; it picks up long lost threads from Avengers Disassembled and House of M and resolves them with aplomb; it makes me care about where the regular Avengers team goes from here; it features an extended guest appearance by X-Factor, still the best X-Men team on the stands; it turns Doctor Doom, often a one-note villain, into an at once sympathetic and hated character. The book does far more than this, but I cannot say too much more without spoiling all the great plots and subplots that writer Allan Heinberg (screenwriter for Gilmore Girls, among other notable television shows) effortlessly weaves to a satisfying close by the oversized hardcover’s end.

Here’s what I can say: it’s superhero nerdiness on a human scale. The Scarlet Witch, Magneto’s estranged daughter, finally surfaces after casting a spell in House of M that eradicated the majority of mutants. A power of that magnitude must be kept in check, and her former teammates on the Avengers seek to do damage control while the X-Men want to bring her to justice. Meanwhile, the Young Avengers (led by Wiccan, who just so happens to be the Scarlet Witch’s maybe-son) try to find her before either team. Then they all run into Doctor Doom.

If you remain unconvinced, I suggest reading it for the artwork. Jim Cheung is an artist whose work is usually limited to smaller scale projects due to his turnaround time, but here he crafts nine chapters full of multiple characters per panel, sweeping backgrounds, and believable emotions. Cheung’s style blends an eastern influence with western storytelling. It’s a fantastic pairing that allows for an emphasis on kinetic figure poses and facial features, while still maintaining traditional panel sequences and character designs. Colorist Justin Ponsor meticulously chronicles complex costumes and expansive and explosive settings. It’s gorgeous, and Marvel chose a larger-than-normal format to present it all. Am I gushing? How about a bonus chapter illustrated by none other than Alan Davis?

Avengers: The Children’s Crusade is swoon-worthy superheroism. It’s an event without all the unnecessary tie-ins or grim attitudes; a welcome change of pace in a genre that rarely deviates from the status quo. Its ramifications will ripple throughout Marvel’s 2012 titles, but its emotional impact is for once far greater than its continuity.

–Alex

Just in case the late Stieg Larsson’s international bestseller, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, hadn’t yet reached unbiquitous status (been to an airport in the past two years?), DC Comics’ Vertigo imprint recently announced that it scored the graphic novel adaptation. In November, the world will finally be able to place images alongside Larsson’s prose–no, wait, director David Fincher already adapted the book to film last year, and before that there were the brooding Swedish film adaptations. While those big screen versions had hours of opportunity to translate the novel to screen, Vertigo’s comic will have a limited number of pages to capture Mikael Blomkvist, Lisbeth Salander, and the increasingly twisted twists in their lives. It’s no easy task to condense Larsson’s sprawling text, and this week Comic Book Resources spoke with the newly announced writer of the graphic novel, Scottish crime author Denise Mina, about her plans to shape Larsson’s vision into what’s sure to be one of the most anticipated graphic novels of 2012:

"Adaptation is interesting because every filter changes every story. Even through what they chose to leave out or emphasize [in the films], each person makes a new story. I think the important thing is to go back to the source material and use that. For example, in the first book Lisbeth gets a tattoo to commemorate being attacked, which I thought was very significant, but it didn't feature at all in either movie adaptation."

About whether or not she could crib adaptation cues from the films:

"The films were good and I made notes of changes they made but honest[ly], I don't see comics as a story board for films. I feel that they're a different form, they have a different pace, there's a different speed of reading them and they have different narrative beats. Changes made for films wouldn't really help me write a comic. It was disappointing because I thought I'd be able to steal solutions to some narrative problems but it wouldn't work."

Mina’s efforts will be paired with artists Leonardo Manco and Andrea Mutti. And just when the series couldn’t get any more provocative, there’s the cover by Lee Bermejo. Resistance is futile; this tattoo isn't going anywhere.  

–Alex