Free The Thing Prequel Comic

Here’s the lowdown from Dark Horse about their free digital comic, set in the time of Vikings, and tying in to The Thing remake film.

THE THING RETURNS TO DARK HORSE COMICS

WITH A FREE DIGITAL COMIC THAT SERVES AS A PREQUELTO THE NEW THRILLER IN THEATERS OCTOBER 14!

Dark Horse Comics is pleased to announce that it has created an exclusive digital comic to serve as a prequel to the thriller “The Thing,” in theaters October 14. Starting today, the comic will be released in three parts on September 21, September 28 and October 5 and is available FREE online at www.digital.darkhorse.com and via the free Dark Horse Comics mobile app (http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id415378623). The Thing: The Northman Nightmare tells the origin story of pioneering Norsemen who discover a shape-shifting creature that is hiding in a desolate village with few human survivors.

In December 1991, Dark Horse Comics first published The Thing From Another World #1. In the style of Aliens, Predator and Terminator, Dark Horse Comics picked up where John Carpenter’s classic 1982 film left off. Now, 20 years later, Dark Horse shares a much earlier story about this creature from beneath the ice.

Taking us into frigid Greenland, the comic introduces us to a group of Norsemen who find themselves caught in a game of survival when they discover a terrifying creature. The shape-shifting monster has the ability to turn itself into a perfect replica of any living being. It can look just like you or me, but inside, it remains inhuman. And it hides somewhere in a desolate village with few human survivors, among them a strange group of women…

Said editor Scott Allie: “This property consistently generates much excitement from fans, which made it easy to round up an incredible team for this prequel comic. This is a sincere horror story by guys who know how to knock it out of the park.”

The Thing: The Northman Nightmare is written by Steve Niles (Criminal Macabre), with art by Patric Reynolds (Serenity), colors by Dave Stewart (Hellboy) and a cover by Menton3 (Silent Hill). The Thing: The Northman Nightmare comes to readers as a prequel to Universal Pictures’ upcoming prelude to John Carpenter’s classic 1982 film of the same name.

“Steve Niles and Dark Horse have done it again, truly an amazing book,” said Menton3. “I am extremely proud to be a small part of it.”

The first eight-page installment of The Thing: The Northman Nightmare can be downloaded digitally from the Dark Horse Digital Comics App or at www.digital.darkhorse.com today FOR FREE!

About “The Thing” film: Antarctica: an extraordinary continent of awesome beauty. It is also home to an isolated outpost known as Thule Station. There, a crew of international scientists has unearthed a remarkable discovery. But elation quickly turns to terrifying paranoia in the thriller “The Thing,” as the group of researchers encounters something inhuman that has the ability to turn itself into an exact replica of any living being.

“The Thing” serves as a prelude to John Carpenter’s classic 1982 film of the same name. Directed by Matthijs van Heijningen, the thriller is produced by Strike Entertainment’s Marc Abraham and Eric Newman (“Dawn of the Dead”). www.thethingmovie.net


Batman: Year One’s Catwoman

Here’s the first look at how Catwoman will look in her short film on next month’s Batman: Year One animated film. Cool. She resembles her comic counterpart closley. Hopefully Anne Hathaway in next year’s The Dark Knight Rises will too. Official details below.

 

Warner Home Video to unveil Catwoman animated short, first Justice League: Doom footage at New York Comic Con

 

Warner Home Video, Warner Premiere, DC Entertainment and Warner Bros. Animation proudly present an action-packed hour of first looks at DC Universe Animated Original Movies properties on Friday, October 14 from 3:00-4:00 p.m. at New York Comic Con.

 

Central to the panel will be the world premiere of the animated short Catwoman, starring Eliza Dushku (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Dollhouse) as the voice of title character. The 15-minute short will be included on the release of Batman: Year One, which streets October 18 on Blu-ray, DVD, for Download and On Demand.

 

The panel will also include the very first footage to be seen from Justice League: Doom, the highly-anticipated next entry in the ongoing series of DC Universe Animated Original Movies.

 

The panelists, which include the ultimate voice of Batman, Kevin Conroy, DCU executive producer Bruce Timm and casting/dialogue director Andrea Romano, will offer a glimpse into the 2012 DC Universe Animated Original Movies slate, give away some exclusive prizes to inquisitive audience members, and quite possibly welcome a few surprise guests to the stage.

 

An autograph session with the panelists will immediately follow the panel.

 

Billy Tucci’s A Child is Born

Creator of Shi, and superb artist Billy Tucci’s next project will be out just in time for Christmas, and like all his other work, it looks beautiful. You can read an interview at Newsarama with Tucci here in which he talks about A Child is Born, his Christian faith, and his exhaustive research for the book.

Check out the Facebook page for updates and you can order the 32 page, full colour comic now from your local comic shop. (It’s on page 226 of the current Previews catalogue).

Black House Comics Submissions

Aussie publisher of great series like The Dark Detective: Sherlock Holmes is now accepting submissions for their bimonthly anthology, After the World. Awesome news. Details here and summary below.

After the World features short stories in the horror, sci fi and speculative fiction genres and is distributed throughout Australian newsagents and online via www.blackboox.net.

We are looking for stories between 1,000 and 5,000 words, although stories up to 10,000 words may be accepted. At the moment we are particularly keen on strong sci-fi stories.

Each issue of After the World features a story set in our After the World shared zombie universe. These stories are normally around 28,000 words in length and applications for upcoming slots are welcome. Please be aware, however, that we generally allocate these jobs to writers we have worked with before. Please also be aware that it is a guided universe and you will be asked to include specific plot points in any story idea you submit.

Extra Sequential Podcast #57-Aquatic Characters

64 mins. Our maritime message is that you listen to this aquatic adventure for your audio canals, as a tidal wave of seafaring superheroes and stories washes over you. Also, six-packs, Eddie Murphy and arm wrestling and our attempt to mock Aquaman’s harpoon hand, and lustrous hair. He’s the King of the Seven Seas! He demands respect people!

LISTEN TO IT BELOW, DOWNLOAD IT HERE OR ON iTUNES 

You can email us at kris (at)extrasequential(dot)com and befriend us on the NEW ES Facebook page.

2:15 NEWS

An old comic from the creators of Asterix comes to life

Chuck Norris and Van Damme in The Expendables 2

Another Beetlejuice film is coming our way

Top Shelf’s huge sale

Seth and Daniel Clowes tour

Writer J.M. DeMatteis’ weekend workshop

Fables for Japan charity comic

11:29 THEME – AQUATICNESS 

The massively popular One Piece by Eiichiro Oda

The whacky Seaguy from Grant Morrison and Cameron Stewart

Hugo Pratt’s Corto Maltese

Asterix and Obelisk and their battles against pirates

Gestalt’s The Deep – with a sequel now on the way!

Freakangels by Warren Ellis and Paul Duffield

Michael Turner’s Fathom from publisher Aspen

Cartoon Snorks

Tales of the Black Freighter – the pirate story within Watchmen. Also an animated film.

Namor

Aquaman (Read more about him on page 30-37 here at the digital ES mag). Preview of the relaunched #1 here.

Ian Churchill’s Marineman

Jay Piscopo’s The Undersea Adventures of Cap’n Eli and its spinoff Sea Ghost

Abe Sapien

Cursed Pirate Girl

Popeye

Steve Pugh’s Shark Man

X-Men: Regenesis

Marvel have bene teasing the post-Schism state of the X-Men with images featuring a wide cast of characters. With each image they’d unleash, one more character would lose the silhouette. Now, all the characters stand revealed, including Colossus in Juggernaut’s helmet by the looks of things.

X-MEN: REGENESIS – Choose Your Team!

After the cataclysmic events of X-Men: Schism, all of mutantkind will be forced to make the biggest decision of their lives. What team will you choose?

Join the conversation on Twitter with #XMenRegenesis!

UNCANNY X-MEN #1 (SEP110591)
Written by KIERON GILLEN
Art & Cover by CARLOS PACHECO

Variant Cover by DALE KEOWN
NOVEMBER 2011

 

GENERATION HOPE #13 (SEP110610)
Written by JAMES ASMUS
Art & Cover by IBRAIM ROBERSON
Variant Cover by DALE KEOWN
NOVEMBER 2011

X-MEN #20 (SEP110600)
Written by VICTOR GISCHLER
Art by WILL CONRAD
Cover by ADI GRANOV
Variant Cover by DALE KEOWN
NOVEMBER 2011

NEW MUTANTS #33 (SEP110607)
Written by DAN ABNETT & ANDY LANNING
Art by DAVID LOPEZ
Variant Cover by DALE KEOWN
NOVEMBER 2011

Extra Sequential Podcast #56-Comics We Wanna See

77 mins. After a few brief news items we launch into comics we’d like to see some day. This involves dream projects, concept variations and fond memories of 80s cartoons and forgotten 90s TV shows. We also sing. A lot and mention Gerard Depardieu, She-Hulk and Mad Max.

LISTEN TO IT BELOW, DOWNLOAD IT HERE OR ON iTUNES 

You can email us at kris (at)extrasequential(dot)com and befriend us on the NEW ES Facebook page.

2:24 NEWS

Brian Wood at Marvel

Alpha Flight ongoing series

Superman film costume pics

Conan’s failure at the box office

17:14 THEME-COMICS WE WANT TO SEE

 

Carnivale

Nowhere Man

ThunderCats

Star Trek comics NOT based on any of the movie/series characters, and New Frontier

Bionic Six

Asterix and Obelix from new creative teams, ala Spirou and Lucky Luke

Marvel and DC combining forces into one mega-publisher

Peter David returning to Hulk

(good) Indiana Jones comics

Original Phantom stories from Australia

Different iterations of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, such as this great ’80s one

The Ultimates Volume 3 by Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch

Hard science fiction comics

Tom Neely for a new Popeye series, like his surreal “Popeye: Doppelganger”

More Elseworlds tales from DC Comics

Also, comics that do exist but that you may not know about, such as Dark Crystal, X-Men Forever, X-Factor Forever and Buckaroo Banzai.

Check out Project Rooftop and Superman 2000 too.

The Big Bang Theory and DC Comics Team Up

This is my 1800th post. Wow. That went fast.

My podcast co-host Mladen and I disagree on the entertainment value of The Big Bang Theory. I actually quite like it, but maybe that’s just because I like to see comics being discussed during prime time. It would be good to see fanboys and girls portrayed as something other than uber-nerds though.

Well, the show is now being syndicated, ie, repeatable daily, and DC Comics is teaming up to celebrate by offering Big Bang themed backing boards and more goodies.

Further details here, in which you can also see the below excerpt featuring the BBT boys, which after some searching I discovered is from Power Girl #4 from 2009. Read more pages of that ish here.

 

Super Powers Print

Honouring the great Super Powers cartoon and toy line from the ’80s is this new screen print from Mondo Tees and Sideshow Collectibles. It’s $100 and is limited to only 250 copies. More info here.

 

Extra Sequential Podcast #55-Read Comics in Public

53 mins. It’s International Read Comics in Public Day so we discuss the hows and whys of doing so. Also, the definition of geeks, Dan Brown, and cheering superheroes.

LISTEN TO IT BELOW, DOWNLOAD IT HERE OR ON iTUNES

You can email us at kris (at)extrasequential(dot)com and befriend us on the NEW ES Facebook page.

1:22 NEWS

Superman’s film costume loses his red undies

Rolling Stone talks to Grant Morrison

Hero Complex talks to Dan DiDio

A freaky Korean webcomic

Comics documentary on Kickstarter

Shaun Tan wins a Hugo Award

22:37 THEME-INTERNATIONAL READ COMICS IN PUBLIC DAY

We talk about reading comics in public – the what to read, what not to read and general suggestions into making new comics friends. Handy hints galore! Also comics that we’re too embarassed to read, the novels that we see people read on public transport.

Here is a collection of pics all over the world of people participating last year.

Read Comics in Public Day on August 28

This Sunday, August 28 is International Read Comics in Public Day. The title says it all, but check out their site to see what it’s all about, plus events in cities all over the world where you can let passres by knwo of your unabashed devotion to sequential art, and meet fellow fans too. Awesome.

Most of my comics reading is done in public anyway, on the bus or train. It’s a good opportunity to let those around you know that yes, comics still exist, and this is what they look like. Go forth ambassadors!

The concept is fairly simple: we’re asking that everyone take an hour or two out of their day on August 28th (also the birthday of Jack “King” Kirby, incidentally) to read a comic book in a public setting–a park bench, a beach, a bus, the front steps of your local library (we do ask, however, that you be mindful of local loitering laws). Let strangers see you reading a piece of sequential art.

Take to the streets. Be proud. If someone asks what you’re reading, say, “a comic book” (the phrase “graphic novel” is also acceptable, but let’s face it, it sort of defeats the whole purpose). Heck, lend them a book, if you’ve got an extra–what better way to make a new friend and convert a new reader?

While you’re at it, why not get a friend to snap a picture of you reading? Send it along and we’ll post it up for you in our photo gallery and on our site.

It’s all pretty straight forward, of course, but if you’ve got any questions–or suggestions–feel free to drop us a line at readcomicsinpublic@gmail.com.

Incredible Hulk #1

This is a good time to be comic-curious, with a slew of #1s coming in the next few weeks. Here’s another one.

SMASH!

This October, Incredible Hulk #1 smashes into stores courtesy of Marvel Architect Jason Aaron & legendary artist Marc Silvestri, featuring all-new variant by acclaimed artist Ladronn (Planet Hulk)! Prepare for an Earth-shaking brawl for the ages that no fan of the Marvel Universe can miss—Banner vs Hulk!

Can’t wait to see what Aaron and Silvestri have planned for the Jade Giant? Join the conversation on Twitter with #HULK!

INCREDIBLE HULK #1 (AUG110584)

INCREDIBLE HULK #1 LADRONN VARIANT (AUG110587)

Written by JASON AARON

Art & Cover by MARC SILVESTRI

Variant Cover by LADRONN

ON SALE THIS OCTOBER!

MASScanvas, My Chemical Romance & Make-A-Wish

The lead singer of my Chemical Romance Gerard Way wrote the excellent The Umbrella Academy series from Dark Horse. That’s excuse enough to share this here video featuring the band and a competition they recently run in conjunction with MASScanvas. The band chose 5 shirts (and they’re all great), which are now available to buy right here. There are only 2019 made of each design and if you make a purchase before Friday, you automatically go into a draw for a VIP experience with the band or a signed guitar. The better news is that proceeds go towards helping the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

While we’re talking shirts, Slave Labor Graphics have just released a shirt featuring a long out of print design by Jhonen Vasquez. Check it out here.

DC Art, Awards and Logos

Time flies. DC’s relaunch of its entire superhero line is now only days away, with the new Geoff Johns and Jim Lee Justice League #1 coming at us on August 31. Then September sees the remaining 51 #1 issues arrive. If you’re on Twitter, or even if you’re not, you may’ve seen some sneak peeks at some of DC’s new titles, and here’s what ‘s been released thus far, including pages from Nightwing, Teen Titans, Hawk and Dove, Animal Man and a few others.

An article at Hero Complex says the orders for Justice League #1 have reached 200, 000, making it the year’s most ordered single issue. Six other DC #1s have topped 100, 000. That’s good news, but of course it doesn’t really mean anything just yet. The important numbers will be what sales the second, and third, and so on, issues get.

“The walk-in, casual fans have gotten away from us,” DiDio observed. “We are down to just the die-hard buyers.”

Comic-book stores have become increasingly barren, with sales dropping consistently over the last three years and down an additional 7% so far in 2011.

Theories abound as to why. Some blame convoluted story lines, while others point to cynical publicity stunts like killing key characters only to bring them back a few months later. But the main culprit more likely lies beyond the page: Today’s youth is far more interested in spending its leisure hours in the digital worlds of YouTube, Xbox and Twitter.

The generational shift is not lost on DiDio and his associates at DC. For the first time, the comic-book company will now make each of its issues available on digital devices such as iPads the same day it arrives in stores — a jarring departure for many retailers that only have to look at the fate of record stores to see the dangers that digital downloads present to brick-and-mortar merchants.

The Harvey Award winners were announced at Baltimore Comic-Con. Blacksad, Scott Pilgrim, Daytripper, Darwyn Cooke. There’s some worthy victories. Get the full list here.

Finally, who doesn’t like a good logo? Check out all of DC’s new 52 logos here.