MUSIC AND COMICS COLLIDE WITH A 7 INCH VINYL RECORD AND MINI-COMIC BY MATTHEW ALLISON AND AARON CONLEY AND MUSIC BY JACK THE RADIO

RALEIGH, NC (January 27, 2023) – Jack the Radio releases the first song “Looking For More” from a special collaboration project with professional comic book artists Matt Allison (Cankor, Heavy Metal Magazine) and Aaron Conley (Sabertooth Swordsman, Rocket Raccoon, Bully Wars). 

In 2020 Jack the Radio’s George Hage worked with Allison and Conley to create short comic book stories based on the band’s Creatures album, which featured the Jack the Radio character and was part of a 56-page anthology comic published by A Wave Blue World. 

After years of planning the three have come together to team up on something unique. In addition to new songs from the band inspired by Allison’s Cankor comic and Conley’s Sabertooth Swordsman comic, which he co-created with Damon Gentry, you can expect to see the debut crossover of Allison and Conley’s characters in a short comic. 

The two collaborated on the story with Conley doing pencil layouts and Allison doing ink and color. On top of that, the mini-comic folds out into a poster with Cankor, Sabertooth Swordsman, and Jack the Radio meeting in a whole new way.

The first song “Looking For More” is available on streaming services now.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/M_St71fZjq8

The vinyl and mini-comic/poster, along with shirts, pins, stickers, and comics will be available for pre-order through the Crowdfundr platform starting Monday, January 30th, 2023.

JUSTIN’S PICK :: SABERTOOTH SWORDSMAN HC : Maybe I belabor the point a bit too much, but comics’ real strength as a medium is that it can embrace concepts that other mediums simply can’t. This is evident in the fact that filmic special effects took thirty years to catch up with what Jack Kirby was laying down with a piece of graphite in the 1960s. But that, now, makes for some stiff competition. So, books like Dark Horse’s Sabertooth Swordsman are vital and welcome entries into any library. Morphing and bending genre conventions into a mutant whole, this is a dash of Avatar the Last Airbender, a little Chronicles of Narnia, undercut with the tried and true sidescroller formula. A humble farmer is called upon to rescue his wife and his village from the machinations of the malevolent Mastodon Mathematician. By the power of the Cloud God of Sasquatch Mountain, the farmer is imbued with the power of the Sabertooth Swordsman, and embarks on his sacred quest. Aaron Conley’s art is dynamic and stylized, tastefully shaded, with clear storytelling. Conceptually, writer Damon Gentry has conjured a premise that is at once original and familiar, and I look forward to experiencing the pair’s effort. Along with Tobin & Coover’s Bandette, this is a good week for artful action/adventure.