Writer Nathan Edmondson is one of my fave comics scribes, with series such as Olympus, The Light, Who Is Jake Ellis? and now Black Widow from Marvel. His new work with Image Comics is a one-shot with an intriguing premise, and the first work from artist Alison Sampson. Official lowdown below.
GENESIS WILL TAKE YOU ON A JOURNEY OF CREATION AND DESTRUCTION
Sweeping visuals and poignant writing make Nathan Edmondson and Alison Sampson’s new one-shot
Nathan Edmondson (WHO IS JAKE ELLIS?, The Punisher, Black Widow) and debut artist Alison Sampson’s, GENESIS, pairs sweeping visuals with poignant writing to bring readers a one-shot that cannot be missed.
GENESIS is a trippy journey of creation and destruction as one man finds himself with the ability to manifest anything by thinking it—only to learn that with seemingly unlimited power comes unstoppable terror.
“Genesis was a fun opportunity to let storytelling and art run wild with the idea of creativity itself—of the boundlessness of imagination and the inevitable vertigo that comes from the unlimited ability to manifest anything into being,” said Nathan Edmondson.
Sampson has a background in architecture which informs her style. “The comic page is built up like I’d design a bit of architecture, with leading and secondary spaces and places and so on. I found it hard to be linear, to cater to a reader—comics and architecture are not always the same,” explained Sampson. “It amazes me what level of design skills comic artists bring to their pages, even as someone who designs every day. I miss the excitement of being on site, but you can do all sorts of things on paper you can’t do in real life, and there is a lot of that still to explore.”
“I’m really grateful for Nathan asking me to do this. The script let me draw on my architectural background (twenty five years of it) to bring something special of my own to the project and I hope that comes across—Nathan is a designer’s writer,” said Sampson. “I’m relatively new to comics and there was a steep learning curve, but Nathan works with some amazing artists, so there was a standard to meet and this made me work harder.”
GENESIS (ONE-SHOT) arrives in stores on 4/16, and will be available for $6.99. It can be pre-ordered using Diamond Code: FEB140504.
I’ve been working my way through the excellent 8 disc Alien Quadrilogy box set as of late. Every film in the franchise is so distinct yet it manages to tie-in to an overall story structure, which is impressive. This year is the 30th anniversary of the first Alien film by Ridley Scott and to celebrate, long-time holders of the franchise in comics form, Dark Horse are releasing a new Aliens series. Written by John Arcudi (who also launches next month’s new Predator series), with art by newcomer Zach Howard, I was impressed by this premiere. It wasn’t until the last page that I realised, very little of the aliens were shown, yet I didn’t care. Arcudi creatively introduces us to a new crew and in a shock that made me laugh with its audacity, dispatched them all in a swift bloodbath. With its references to the events on the planet LV-426, where the first two films were set, it may very well become more closely linked with the mythos. It looks great, and as always in any Aliens story, the humans are the main players and there’s a scientific/military conspiracy at play, but this is only set up here. 
Olypmus is a new 4 ish mini from Image. Written by Nathan Edmondson with art supplied by Christian Ward, it’s focused on two brothers who are now eternal, thanks to the greek god Zeus. It reminded me of another new series by Image, the great Viking. That series also has two brothers coming to grips with the warring world around them and is daring in its visual approach. Whereas that tale is gritty and medieval, Olympus is light and sleekly modern. Some may be turned off by Ward’s art, which is kind of like Tommy Lee Edwards (who supplies the variant cover) in it’s sparseness, but it works well within the rambling, yet coherent, nature of the story.
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