Awards season is loose in comicland and I can already tell you what won’t be getting awards, this year or any other year. Anything that smacks of a licensed property. When I speak of a licensed property, I mean anything like Battlestar Gallactica, or The Phantom, or Buffy, or Conan. Or Star Wars.
And, yes, I write some of the Star Wars comics – currently my book is Star Wars: Legacy. If that sounds like a conflict of interest on my part or that maybe I have an axe to grind – so what? If there is one thing being in rotation with Michael Davis has taught me, there is no shame in saying your own name and being proud of what you do. Michael is my hero and my shining example. I intend to channel my inner Michael.
I’m as proud of my work on Star Wars as I’ve been of anything I’ve done in my career – and never more so with Legacy. We’ve jumped down the Star Wars timeline 100 years past anything that is being currently done in Star Wars, including the novels. We’ve imagined a whole new galaxy of characters and re-defined Star Wars, working from its past while making it open to newcomers.
But forget me for a moment. Wait – I’m channeling my inner Michael. Don’t you ever forget me but, in addition to me, there are other folk doing superlative work. My artist and partner in crime, Jan Duursema, is doing some of the finest work of her career and, given the amount of talent she has to begin with, that’s considerable. When a new Star Wars project is conceived, it usually takes a team of designers a year or so to come up with the look. Jan designed it herself (with Sean Phillips designing a lot of the ships) in less than a year while she was finishing work on our predecessor Star Wars title, Republic. She has a wonderful team of Dan Parsons on inks and Brad Anderson on colors and both of them contribute massively to the just straight out beauty of the books.
And it’s not just our book. Doug Wheatley does breathtaking work on Star Wars: The Dark Ages. Nor is it only Star Wars; Timothy Truman and Cary Nord have been doing stunning work on the Conan title. Nor is it only Dark Horse books; the number of books based on licensed properties is growing and coming from many different publishers. Their sales are increasing; the first issue of the new Buffy, the Vampire Slayer series cracked the Top Ten on Diamond’s list the month it came out.
So – where’s the love? Where’s the respect? Certainly, Legacy gets it from the Star Wars fans. I was out at Celebration IV about two weeks ago and it was in plentiful display. I find it frustrating that more general readers aren’t at least looking at the titles. These are just good comics, gang – good characters, good stories, lots of adventure, intrigue, great dialogue. And these are just in my comics. (Man, I’m loving channeling my inner Michael. Maybe I’ll call him John-Michael. Or is that too French?) The point is – they’re as good as or better than most of the comics out there. I’ll stand them up against anybody else’s willingly. (more…)
Since it worked so well for Jericho, there’s another grassroots campaign in the works – this time, people are sending Mars bars to CW president Dawn Ostroff in an attempt to save Veronica Mars.
Greetings! We here at 
Perhaps the comics’ first "costumed" hero, Mandrake The Magician, is headed to the big screen once again.
Variety 
Like many of you, I thought the Valiant universe was dead and gone. Well, not so fast.
