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JUSTIN’S PICK :: MARVEL SUPER HEROES SECRET WARS ACTIVITY BOOK FACSIMILE COLLECTION: (phew) Like most fans of my generation, I am a victim of nostalgia. No industry exploits that propensity quite like comic books. Alongside a cache of Silver Age treasures and unreliable TV reruns, Marvel/Mattel’s Secret Wars toy line was one of my earliest touchstones for the characters I grew to love. In anticipation of its Big Summer Event incarnation, Marvel is releasing this activity book facsimile collection. I don’t think I even had this as a kid, which makes owning it now even more imperative. ‘The specifics weren’t important,’ reads a particularly illuminating appendix in the trade paperback collection of the original Secret Wars series, ‘as long as it featured unique designs that could be made into toys, and as long as it was called “Secret Wars” – two words Mattel had found tested well with adolescent boys.’ Creepy as grown men dispassionately analyzing children may be, the marketing works: thirty years on, and I’m still buying this stuff. Score one for target demographics.

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Hey y’all! Rico, your Heroes Creative Director here (I sound like Julie from the Love Boat), to tell you about our HeroesCon exclusive Secret Wars #1 variant cover. Let’s get the business out of the way first. This thing is beautiful and it’s available for pre-order now. Get it HERE.

When Marvel decided to bring back Secret Wars for 2015′s mega crossover event we knew we had to get our friends Mike Zeck and John Beatty involved and tie it all together with their appearance at HeroesCon 2015 (June 19-21). We asked these comics legends to revisit their classic Black Suit Spider-Man cover from Secret Wars #8. Once they agreed Shelton (the boss!), Justin (Store Manager), Seth (Warehouse Manager), and I got to work brainstorming which characters we’d like to appear on the cover. We placed Miles in the center and then worked out from there. This was a LOT of fun for us as you can probably imagine.

The next step was gathering character reference for Mike to work from while getting Marvel approvals along the way. We sent these over to Mike and he quickly finished his “rough” sketch. That’s the one over there that pretty much looks like a finished cover illustration. Whoa! Mike then completes his pencils, approvals again and then it’s over to John Beatty for some silky inks. Beautiful!

Now the cover heads back to us for colors and trade dress. Since we already changed so much from the original, we thought keeping a similar color scheme, the original logo and corner box would finish this off nicely. Thankfully we didn’t have to work from old scans or build all of that from scratch. Mike had already created a vector file of the entire Secret Wars #8 cover which he very graciously allowed us to use for this! A few tweaks here and there and it was finally complete! We think it’s a great looking cover that honors the past while featuring some great current characters along with favorites from all eras.

Thanks for reading and thanks to Mike Zeck and John Beatty for doing this wonderful cover for us!

Secret Wars #1 comes out on May 6th but you can pre-order a copy now by going HERE. Of course if we have any left, we will have them at HeroesCon, June 19-21 where you can get both Mike Zeck and John Beatty to sign yours.

RICO’S PICK :: RUNLOVEKILL: Anytime Eric Canete takes time from his busy schedule of animation work to draw comic books, I’m checking it out. The 1st issue of this 8 issue series comes out today and if you’re into science fiction, explosions and great art you should check it out. You can tell Eric how much you love this when you meet him at HeroesCon in June.

BONUS PICK :: SENSATION COMICS #9: Don’t miss today’s Sensation Comics featuring 2 great looking Wonder Woman stories. The first features art by HeroesCon family member Mike Maihack and the second is a Lois Lane and Wonder Woman story with art by Chris Sprouse, Karl Story and Jordie Bellaire all wrapped in a great cover by Ben Caldwell.

ANDY’S PICKS ::ASTRO CITY FAMILY ALBUM TP NEW ED

For my money, this is the best Astro City collection. Family and Home are the connecting theme. Two stories stand out. A family moves to Astro City and has to adjust to a world with wall to wall super-heroing and super-villainy. Then Busiek and Anderson focus on the Furst Family-their homage to the Fantastic Four as well as other families of Heroes. And it comes wrapped by a great new cover from Alex Ross.

And wait ’til you meet the dread Mr. Smarty.

NEW YORK HC

Milt Gross was perhaps the most popular comic artist/humorist during the first half of the past decade.  This volume reproduces one of the first graphic novels of all time. The two principle characters from Gross’ successful Sunday strip ‘That’s My Pop’ run wild through the streets of the Big Apple. Yankee Stadium, The New York Public Library and Coney Island along with many other points of interest will never be the same. Gross was a true master. Don’t miss the recovery of this lost gem.

MIRACLEMAN PREM HC BOOK 03 OLYMPUS
Collecting MIRACLEMAN #11-16 and ALL-NEW MIRACLEMAN ANNUAL #1. It’s finally back in print, the final story arc from Alan Moore. It is quite simply the most startling, exciting, violent and eventually transcendent comic books ever created. This volume also includes stories from Grant Morrison and Joe Quesada and Peter Milligan and Mike Allred from the Annual. A must-read for all as well as being the future topic of a Heroes Discussion Group.

JUSTIN’S PICK :: KAIJUMAX #1: This is one of those comics > movies things. Giant Monster Prison might be kind of awkward on the silver screen, but on the paneled page, flowing from the pen of creator Zander Cannon, it just works. With obvious echoes of Godzilla and Ultraman, but also notes of Rampage (one of my favorite arcade/8 bit diversions of yore), exploitation cinema, and 90s gangsta rap, this comic promises to synthesize a lot of disparate elements into a delectable confection. I can’t really say why you should buy this book, other than I don’t know why you wouldn’t.

(PS Bryan Lee O’Malley variant!)

No foolin’, Indie Island at HeroesCon 2015 is the place to be! We just updated our guest list with some great creators! Get your tickets and reserve your hotel rooms today!

Reserve your stay at the Westin Charlotte at a HeroesCon rate!