Oh yeah! If you’re going to the Baltimore Comicon this weekend (it’s going on tomorrow and Sunday, October 10-11), here’s a special offer just for you! Click here or on the image above to open a printable pdf of this coupon! Take it by the Heroes booth (Booths 805-807) at the Baltimore Comicon to get 20% off Shelton’s sweet stock of back issues AND statues! Note that fancy books like Golden and Silver Age, “board” stock, etc, are not part of this offer, and there’s a little disclaimer just in case there’s something we forgot. But otherwise, go to town on that thing!

And even if you’re not hunting any back issues, be sure to stop by the Baltimore Comicon and say hey to Shelton and Winslow!

Ivan Brandon is no stranger to writing comics, from the creator-owned The Cross Bronx (with Michael Avon Oeming), NYC Mech (with Andy MacDonald) and the eisner-nominated hit 24/7 anthology from Image, plus more recent stints in Comic Book Tattoo, Secret Invasion: Home Invasion, and Final Crisis Aftermath: Escape.

But with his newest series Viking, he and artist Nic Klein have created a story as grim and grisly as anything in recent memory; one that’s pushing both form and format. Those of you who missed your chance to meet Ivan at this year’s HeroesCon (listen to this panel featuring him, Brian Bendis, Ed Brubaker, Matt Fraction, and Jonathan Hickman, courtesy of the Dollar Bin) can try for the next best thing here on the blog, although we recommend actually buying the book for Maximum Brandon Effect (MBE).

HEROESONLINE: When is Viking set? How much of Viking is based in something close to “real” history? The depth of some details makes me think you’ve done a ton of research into Norse and Viking history.

IVAN BRANDON: I’ve been intentionally vague about the time, etc… for a number of reasons. For one, I wanted most of that kind of information to be relayed organically. There are no captions in the book, we’re of a moment with those characters and I really want that moment to dominate the experience, so there’ll be visual or verbal clues as to the when and where, but there’s never going to be a bulleted explanation. It’s very much NOT a book about history, so I wanted to avoid anchoring it to real events… all you have is these characters and what they’re going through. But yeah, Nic and I have both done a lot of research and we more often than not try to keep things authentic unless there’s a compelling story reason to stray. Nic could probably teach a class at this point.

HEROES: How long is this series going to run? If you keep killing characters at the rate you’ve been keeping so far, you’ll be out of people by the end of 5 issues.

IVAN: Well, the first season is 5 issues and beyond that we’ll see. I’m trying to really stress the humanity of these characters, so the focus is less a journey to save (or destroy) the world and more about these characters dealing with what they are and what they want to be. People will come in and out of their lives the way people come in and out of mine, although maybe violence will factor into the “out” moreso for them than it would for me. Anything can happen, anyone can die and hopefully we can handle all of that in a way that people will feel compelled to go through it with them.

HEROES: I think this is one of the most grim, violent comics I’ve read since Preacher, and the publishing format–“Golden Age” size, with the art filling every corner of every page–just makes it that much more sense-assaulting. How did this larger-than-normal format come about? Did you want more space for the story, or was it a chicken-or-the-egg thing?

IVAN: I’ve been flirting for a while with the idea of doing a non-standard format… I really dislike that people have this expectation that every story needs to come in this particular kind of package… it’s not a book about Spider-Man, why should it look like one? In this case there was already a lot of risk going on… we were doing a semi-painted period drama in a market that is definitely not asking for one. We were going for an atypical approach in terms of design and aesthetic and I had this new artist that I knew was going to really surprise the audience, so it just seemed like the right time to go all-in, you know? If we’re gonna take the risk, let’s just go all the way. Logistically the format presents obstacles, we have to work much farther ahead, etc… but I think the finished effect is more than worth the trouble.

HEROES: One thing I wasn’t entirely clear on is the geography of the story: Greenland and England are referenced, and at one point the grandfather references “sailing across the world”, but I bet “the world” is much smaller in their minds than we know it to be. Is this set in Norway? If so, where does the family of Egil and Finn come from originally?

IVAN: Yeah, their perception of the world doesn’t span very far. I’ll say this: they’re in a country west of Norway in season 1. Where they’re from and where they’re going are things I’ll leave the story to tell.

HEROES: What’s the deal lately, you’re kinda blowing up the last couple of years? Secret Invasion spinoffs, Final Crisis Aftermath: Escape, now Viking, and it sounds like from your Twitter feed that you’ve got any number of big projects on the horizon? What can you tell us for the future?

IVAN: Not much, unfortunately… and I hate to say things like that, because it sounds like I’m being coy, whereas I’m excited and dying to say, but it’s just not my place to announce things when it’s a work for hire situation. I have a creator owned superhero thing I’m working on… something that hopefully stands out from the rest of the superhero work as much as Viking stands out right now from some of the more kitschy Dungeons and Dragonsesque Viking genre stuff that’s existed in the past in comics.

Beyond that I have several things in the works, a couple at Marvel, a few at DC… really weird and exciting gigs that are nothing like the things I’ve done before and that are hopefully hard for readers of my work to wrap their heads around. I’m trying to do completely different projects every time, I don’t want people to have this preconception of what my work is going to look like before they get to it. I’m trying to surprise people, most of all myself.

Many thanks to Ivan for taking the time to talk with us! There are three issues of Viking out as of this writing, with the fourth to ship in mid-November. You can check out a preview here!

Guys guys guys! If you have kids looking for something safe and fun and FREE to do on Halloween, we’ve got you covered!

On Saturday, October 31st (Halloween, coincidentally) we’ll be having a big ole Halloween shindig here in our store!  We’ve got tons of free comics, including special Halloween comics published by the major publishers, plus tons of swag, specially-priced sale items for that day only, and more! Pluusssss, since it’s Halloween, we’ll have some trick-or-treatables!

But coolest of all, this year we’ll be having a Halloween Costume Contest in our store! Come by in costume, Halloweeners of all ages, and we’ll snap your photo and enter you into our contest! At least one winner (more depending on turnout) will win sweet freebies, with the top prize including a $25 gift certificate to the store! NOTE to parents–we will post these photos on our store’s website and/or Flickr account, so let us know if you’d prefer not to have your child’s picture included!

Don’t miss this sweet event! I’m sure Shelton and Seth will whip up some last-minute surprises for those of you who are value-minded, so there will be plenty to do for young and old! More details as the event gets closer!

I’ve been meaning to say something about this comic for a couple of months–I ordered a bunch for the store right after HeroesCon, I knew they’d be gone before too long and wanted to stock up.  The Death Day mini is a preview of hot-snot artist Sam Hiti‘s next big book, which I believe will also be called “Death Day.” WEIRD. You might, if you’re lucky, be familiar with Sam’s work from his awesome Tiempos Finales (“End Times”), or his several minis or Ghoulash series of sketchbook/strip collections.  If I were going to pick my five favorite cartoonists working today, his name would certainly be on that list, he’s just got something special going on. So, a fair and balanced review of Death Day this will not be. I also encourage you to click on these images, each of which is a two-page spread from the mini, and each will look more awesome all big.

I’m not going to waste too much time talking about the plot of the book — though it comes in at over 30 pages, this is just the barest beginning to the story, which seems to involve two warring groups and a coming massive conflict. But it’s worthwhile to point out that there is nothing explained whatsoever, no captions, no expository dialogue, Sam just kind of spreads out his story like a picnic blanket and you have to figure out where the food is.

I think in a lot of cases this sort of thing can be hit or miss — it takes confidence to pull something like this off. If it works it’s great, your readers are swept up and actively engaged in the story; if it doesn’t work it creates a story that’s muddy and inscrutable.  What separates Sam from normal (lesser?) cartoonists is that his art and story are very similar in this way. Often the pages of Death Day are little more than moving patterns, from which recognizable figures and forms emerge and reveal themselves to us. If you pick up a copy of the book and flip through it, you’ll see what I mean: the opening sequence is something like 20 pages of this, as alien forms move across an alien landscape, some of which reveal themselves to be human, others which become more alien the longer you look at them.

The mini is laid out in two page spreads like this, each page a single panel. Sam takes it a step farther and uses this spread layout to create numerous images which juxtapose against one another and create further abstractions. The spread above appears after a long sequence of images as we see a massive machine receiving the signals from commandoes on the outside. What is it? Is it alive? It’s powerfully reminiscent of the giant Neo-harvesting machines from The Matrix, but as we get closer we see that it’s a network of screens and computer stations, like a giant hivemind operated by little astronaut technicians. What is the image above? There’s little introduction to it, and no explanation. Are we looking at multiple images (upside-down!) on a insect-like compound eye? The following spread does nothing to explain it either:

I finished this mini incredibly excited for the book, super interested in the answers to these questions. I love how inscrutable Sam’s comics can be, and this is the most inscrutable of them all. Too often storytellers feel compelled to hold their audience’s hand and pull them through the story, so it’s refreshing to read something by someone with the guts to allow his audience to investigate the story, to leave just a few clues here and there and allow the interaction between audience and author to coalesce slowly. 

All this is not even mentioning Sam’s gorgeous art–he’s one of the last great brush masters, a dying breed in this age of Cintiqs and digital inking–you can almost smell the black chunky ink on these pages, not to mention those ink washes! Okay I’ll calm down, but I think we have like 8 of these or something: you need to grab one of these badboys while you can. Oh, spoiler alert: the cover at the top of this post is the one I got from Sam — if you want one all sketched on like that, you’ll have to get it directly from him, if he still has any!

Like I was saying in last week’s Heroes Hotline, the fall convention season is practically as busy as the summer! A bunch of us were wending our way hither and thither last weekend, and some of us will be thithering for weeks to come! Let’s start with last weekend though:

Our man Seth Peagler traveled with our other man Matt Knapik to scenic and mountainous Asheville, for the aptly named Asheville Minicon. Highlights include one of them–details are unclear, it was all very exciting–meeting Jack Davis and getting an autograph on an old copy of Yak-Yak for Shelton, who was away seeing Lucinda Williams in Charlottesville.

Speaking of Shelton, he was away seeing Lucinda Williams in Charlottesville, with his wife Linda. This was like the 7,000th time they’d seen Lucinda or something; Shelton keeps trying to convince Linda to add a little “uc” in the middle of her name. Creepy!  In between enthusiastic hoots and hollers, SD managed to squeeze off a couple of blurry iPhone pics; here’s one:

If you’ve ever seen Shelton talk about Lucinda in person, you know his eyes were probably as big as saucers while he was taking this. Dude sure does love him some Lucinda!

Meanwhile, I was up at SPX in Bethesda, although only tangentially for work, chatting up pros about HeroesCon and spreading good cheer. The rest of the time I was set up as a cartoonist, a secret aspiration I have been fanning into flame lately, and it was awesome. Here is what it looked like:

Gorgeous! I just can’t get enough of this guy. There’s a slowly building con report up at my own site, although I’ve been catching up like crazy this week so the rest is coming soon. So far most of it is about hotel room parties. SPOILER ALERT: so is the rest of it.

But check it: THIS weekend there’s even more travel afoot! Seth and Young Winslow will be driving down to Myrtle Beach for XCon World this weekend, while Shelton will be heading up to Mid Ohio Con, where he’ll be joined by daughter Enola and grand-daughter Faith, who’ll be helping her “Pop-Pop” for the very first time at a comics convention! And next weekend Shelton and Son Winslow will head up to the Baltimore Comicon! And next next weekend Shelton, Winslow and Daughter Shelley will drive up to NYC for the Big Apple Con, where they’ll be meeting our friends Steve and Dana! 5-person NYC onslaught! Be sure to stop by one of our many spots and say hello and buy some comics!

The next few weeks are FILLED with travel for your brave Heroes crew. Coming up Saturday is the Asheville Minicon, where our own Seth Peagler and Matt Knapik will be sojourning. I heard Matt suggest that they should take the long way so they’d have more time to listen to Phish records together. Seth just closed his eyes and smiled.

ANYWAYS, the show will go on from 10-5 on Saturday at the Ramada Biltmore West in Asheville, and admission is FREE! I bet those leaves are starting to change already, so why not make a lovely weekend of it? Feel free to not listen to Phish if you like, too–how could it hurt? More information available here!

When Hey Wait first came out, back around the turn of the millenium or so, it was only by chance that we got one at the store. One of my buddies was of Norwegian descent and proud of it, and when I saw the Hey Wait solicitation, which mentioned that the author “Jason” (real name John Arne Saeteroy) was from Norway, I thought I’d get one for the shop in case my friend wanted one.

When the book came in, I picked it up and leafed through it, and at first couldn’t figure it out. Then came the big “Hey Wait” moment at the center of the book, and after that I was hooked. I’ve been an I’ll-buy-anything-by-him fan of Jason’s since then, but I still think of Hey Wait as his best work, the most nuanced, the most beguiling. Even rereading it before writing this, there are so many things I feel like I only half-understand, images that hint at something I can never grasp all the way.

The book reads almost at first like a collection of one-page strips, each one laid out in the same 6-panel grid. Each page is its own little vignette, sometimes detailing a moment in the characters’ lives, sometimes just a collection of static images for background. Jason doesn’t tell his story so much as allow it to accrete–the moments add up slowly to a sort of comfortable, worn-in picture of a couple of friends enjoying summer, dealing with boring classrooms, confusing adults, girls, etc.

And then all of a sudden there’s only one friend. The second half of the book is almost a mirror image of the first–everything that was pleasant about the lives of the boys in the first half is absent in the second, as the remaining friend becomes an adult burdened by guilt and what seems like a dwindling interest in life. The world of the second half is as bleak, humorless, and despairing as the first half is pleasant.

Most good cartoonists use the form and language of comics to create something unique, not simply illustrated dialogue with occasional captions for exposition. But Jason, especially in Hey Wait, is a master. From the anthropomorphized characters, which seem to only loosely resemble a collection of dogs and birds and so forth; to the fact that instead of driving cars, fathers come home in the evenings on stilts. Or that the “tough” characters in the book, the intimidating ones, seem to be rotting corpses, with visible skulls and torn bits of flesh.

Most scenes we’re shown in the book are quotidian in the extreme, such as the page featuring six panels of the boys reading comics, then agreeing in the last panel that Neal Adams is the best Batman artist ever. But in another, the boys’ kite is stolen by a passing pterodactyl. Hey Wait is normal enough to be your own life, but these little touches of strangeness lend it a pervasive dreamlike quality that forces you to reexamine things that otherwise you would not look at twice. Hey Wait is probably the most obvious in this; in later works Jason would tone that dissonance back to a more nuanced position, letting the situations and his characters’ often bland reactions to them do most of the heavy surrealist lifting.

One of the stranger things about how Jason constructs his pages is that they often are not composed in a traditional way, with compositional elements directing your eye around the page. This is not to say they’re not composed–but Jason (usually) seems to be composing per panel. Each panel seems to be a snapshot of a moment–his pages rarely flow like a Jeff Smith‘s or Paul Pope‘s might, but rather are often a series of little cages, with the action stilted and chopped up. I’m inclined to think that this is, at least in part, a conscious decision–Jason’s stories are never about things flowing. If there is romance in his books, it is uncomfortable romance. If there is a battle, it is a clumsy battle. And, because of the static image quality of the panels, it often feels like, instead of being carried along as part of the story’s flow, we are forever merely watching it, removed from it–another level of discomfort? It’s hard to say whether or not certain choices an artist makes are purposeful or accidental, and harder to say whether it matters. But I’m a fan of Jason’s, and I prefer to think that he’s a smart dude making some ridiculously smart comics.

If you haven’t read Hey Wait yet, mm-mm you’ve got some good reading ahead of you. And if you have and dug it, I would also recommend The Last Musketeer, The Iron Wagon, and especially I Killed Adolf Hitler, one of my favorites. Oh but that new Low Moon is good too, and how could I leave out The Left Bank Gang? Jeez, he’s good. There’s a great profile of him at the Read Yourself Raw site too, that might be worth your time.

Our buddies Rick Fortenberry and Dave Hinson are putting on another of their Charlotte Comicons this Sunday, September 13 from 10am to 4pm, at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in uptown Charlotte.

Admission is just $3, BUT you can knock an extra dollar off if you print the coupon above and bring it in! Click on the image or right here to open a printable pdf coupon. You can find a complete guest list, exhibitors and more at the Charlotte Comicon site. Have a great weekend!

Today is the eighth anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, which killed 2,993 human beings from over 90 nations. We hope you will join us in commemorating the lives of these people, as well as the great loss shared by their families, their many friends and loved ones, and the rest of the nation on this day.

I really wanted to say something about this a few weeks ago, but things got away from me. But no time like the present! August 12 was the two-year anniversary of our friend Mike Wieringo‘s death.  Mike was one of the sweetest, friendliest, most generous people ever to cross the threshold of a HeroesCon, and believe me that’s saying something. 

I don’t want to get into a long thing here, because frankly I liked Mike a lot and it will totally screw up my day if I get all sad. Besides, many other people (including Mike’s brother Matt) have already done a much better job than I could.

BUT I do want to point out something we can all do to commemorate the life of Mike–contribute to the Mike Wieringo Scholarship, the first of which was awarded this June at the HeroesCon Art Auction. It took a little longer than normal, mainly because Matt Wieringo got a loonnnnng standing ovation when he took the stage to present the award:

This is just as people starting to stand up–at that point I had to stop taking pictures because I wanted to clap too.  Anyway, the scholarship is awarded to a student at the Savannah College of Art & Design‘s Sequential Arts program.  The scholarship was set up through contributions and the sale of some of Mike’s original art, and is run by Matt, so 100% of the proceeds go to the scholarship.  If you’d like to donate you can drop your donation off at the store and we’ll get it to Matt, or send you donation by mail here: 

Savannah College of Art and Design
Attn: Office of Institutional Advancement
Mike Weiringo Memorial Scholarship Fund
P.O. Box 3146
Savannah, GA 31402

Make the check out to “The Savannah College of Art & Design” and put “The Mike Wieringo Scholarship Fund” in the memo line.  Be sure to include your name and address somewhere, so SCAD can send you a thank you note. I’m a little unclear on whether the donation is tax-deductible or not.

We don’t make a lot of these kinds of endorsements, but this is something that’s important to us, and we think it’s a great cause, something Mike would have been enormously proud of. And something which we’re enormously proud to be a part of as well!