Long time readers of the blog will know I’m a big fan of Lee Bermejo’s artwork. You can find loads of great examples over on his website. Today, I spotted two more in particular that caught my eye, and thought I’d share them on here.
The first is the brooding artwork for Secret Origins #2, a new series published by DC Comics:
Secondly, we have a black-and-white piece of DC’s “Trinity” – Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman:
It’s been quite a while since I read any Zenescope titles. Not really sure why. Anyway, their take on fairy tales should appeal to anyone who enjoys Grimm, Once Upon A Time and other such TV series, not to mention similar novels and other comics. Anyway. In a press release I received today, I saw the image below. That is one scary-ass Tooth Fairy…
The cover is by Giuseppe Cafaro (this is the B Variant).
Loki seems to be popping up in ever-more places. This is no doubt thanks, in part, to the huge success of Marvel’s Avengers and two Thor movies, and the popularity of Tom Hiddleston’s excellent portrayal of the Norse trickster god. (And Hiddleston did a fantastic job.)
Cover by Jenny Frison
Marvel is capitalising on the character’s popularity by releasing a new comic series with the character at centre-stage: LOKI: AGENT OF ASGARD. The series will be written by Al Ewing, with art duties handled by Lee Garbett. Here’s what Marvel has said (thus far) about the series:
“LOKI is back and craftier than ever as the All-Mother’s secret weapon against Asgardia’s strangest threats. With his serpent’s tongue, debonair charm, and taste for the uncanny, there’s no assignment Loki won’t take — including the untimely stabbing of THOR! The surprises only start here for the Prince of Lies, as the most conniving corners of the Marvel Universe are blown open…”
Variant Cover by Frank Cho; Animal Variant by Mike Del Mundo
Meanwhile, Boom Studios has recently announced LOKI: RAGNAROK AND ROLL, their own comic book starring the trickster deity. According to the press release, the series is “a heavy metal twist on Norse mythology” and shows “what happens when you take the classic Norse god Loki and throw him into a rock and roll band in the underground goth clubs of Los Angeles”. This, to me, sounds pretty fun… The series is written by Eric Esquivel and art will be provided by Jerry Gaylord (who has also worked on the rather fun Fanboys vs. Zombies). Here are the two covers for Loki: Ragnarok and Roll #1:
Loki: Ragnarok and Roll #1 Alexis Ziritt and Jerry Gaylord Variants
Here’s a little more information about the series:
Loki steps out of the shadow cast by his thunderous brother as Norse mythology crosses over with the only thing on Earth as wild and crazy — rock and roll!
What happens when Odin banishes Loki to Earth? He finds a world of outcasts that appreciate his style! While his kin sharpen their weapons, he picks up an electric guitar.
Keeping with the Norse mythology theme, Esquivel also penned Thor: The Unkillable Thunder Christ, which I may now have to hunt down…
And, last but by no means least, we have the highly-anticipated THE GOSPEL OF LOKI novel written by Joanne M. Harris. True, this novel is removed from the Marvel Comics universe, but Gollancz/Orion still couldn’t resist adding the following text to the book’s page on their website:
“For fans of THE AVENGERS, this is the first adult epic fantasy novel from the multi-million-copy bestselling author of CHOCOLAT, Joanne Harris.”
Hmm… A little shameless, methinks. Here is the novel’s synopsis:
With his notorious reputation for trickery and deception, and an ability to cause as many problems as he solves, Loki is a Norse god like no other. Demon-born, he is viewed with deepest suspicion by his fellow gods who will never accept him as one of their own and for this he vows to take his revenge.
But while Loki is planning the downfall of Asgard and the humiliation of his tormentors, greater powers are conspiring against the gods and a battle is brewing that will change the fate of the Worlds.
From his recruitment by Odin from the realm of Chaos, through his years as the go-to man of Asgard, to his fall from grace in the build-up to Ragnarok, this is the unofficial history of the world’s ultimate trickster.
And here’s that beautiful cover again…
Spotted the UK cover in Forbidden Planet in London today, and was moved to share it on here. I’ve been aware of R.S. Belcher’s The Six-Gun Tarot since it came out in the US (published by Tor), but it seems to have also been quietly released in the UK, recently, by Titan Books. Here are the two covers…
Out of the two, I definitely prefer the UK cover (on the right). Really cool. If that doesn’t grab your attention, here’s the synopsis:
Nevada, 1869: Beyond the pitiless 40-Mile Desert lies Golgotha, a cattle town that hides more than its share of unnatural secrets. The sheriff bears the mark of the noose around his neck; some say he is a dead man whose time has not yet come. His half-human deputy is kin to coyotes. The mayor guards a hoard of mythical treasures. A banker’s wife belongs to a secret order of assassins. And a shady saloon owner, whose fingers are in everyone’s business, may know more about the town’s true origins than he’s letting on.
A haven for the blessed and the damned, Golgotha has known many strange events, but nothing like the primordial darkness stirring in the abandoned silver mine overlooking the town. Bleeding midnight, an ancient evil is spilling into the world, and unless the sheriff and his posse can saddle up in time, Golgotha will have seen its last dawn…and so will all of Creation.
I’ll be sure to review it as soon as possible (I already have it).
I’ve only read the first volume of DC’s Earth 2. There was some great stuff in it (artwork in particular), but also some things that didn’t quite work for me. I’ve been told by a couple of other reviewers that some of the things that niggled are longer-term plot-points – an example of my approach to reading comics perhaps not being the best for seeing the wider picture.
Regardless, it’s a series I’m intrigued by, offering as it does an alternative DC Universe. The series is written by James Robinson. If I ever needed an excuse to catch up and keep reading it, though, the covers for issues #14-16 are it:
Cover by Kenny Martinez
Cover by Juan Doe
Cover by Juan Doe
I love these covers! The colours, the weathered-vintage style, the slight Soviet-influence. Really striking. I have no idea what the story is, by this point, but there are the (rather cryptic) synopses for the issues:
#14 – The bells of war ring loudly as Green Lantern, The Flash and Doctor Fate attack Steppenwolf head on – with the future of Earth 2 hanging in the balance.
#15 – Dr. Fate, Red Arrow, The Flash, Green Lantern and The Atom all fall victim to the Hunger Dogs of Apokolips as the war against the forces of Steppenwolf continues.
#16 – The war against Steppenwolf and the Hunger Dogs is over… all hope is lost!
The first two of these issues have been published, and #16 will be published October 2nd 2013. I will start saving up to catch up… now.
Not sure why, but the cover art for Robert Galbraith/JK Rowling’s The Cuckoo’s Calling makes me think of Vertigo Comics’ John Constantine/Hellblazer covers.
The shadowy figure scuttling away, the antique lamppost, the fire-like smog/smoke, the iron wrought fence, London… Ok, so the colour palette is a shade more chirpy than John Constantine’s covers, but if you were to darken it and swap out the birds for bats… Think it would work brilliantly. Below is the closest Hellblazer cover I could find after an admittedly very brief Googling session (by Simon Bisley)…
Incidentally, we were finally able to get a copy of The Cuckoo’s Calling (since the big reveal, all of my local booksellers have an abundance of copies), and Alyssa blitzed through it in a single day. She said it was really good. I’ll try to get to it in the next couple of weeks, but I can’t promise anything. (Too. Many. Awesome. Books. To. Read.)
Also, in related news, the article in last week’s Sunday Times about the revelation that “Robert Galbraith” was really JK Rowling was the worst bit of journalism I’ve read in a long while. The article is behind the pay-wall, but here are two choice bits that irked me. First of all, the author of the piece was really scraping the barrel, claiming Rowling-as-Galbraith was an elementary deduction, making the article little more than a piece of I-Am-More-Awesomely-Deductive-Than-Thou puffery. The “killer clue” that tipped them off? Yeah, someone told her outright! But after that, the journalist insists,
“Of course it was JK Rowling. There are only two female authors who could write convincingly about the excesses of super-rich, super-glamorous London… There are only two female authors who could write totally persuasively about being chased by paparazzi and write compassionately about being famous. One is Zadie Smith; the other is JK Rowling. I know Zadie and I knew it wasn’t her…”
So, a nice spot of celebrity name-dropping, and a single-handed writing off of 99.99% of female authors who may wish to ever write about high society in the UK. The Sunday Times has spoken: you will never do it convincingly. If you are male? Well, forget it, too. According to the author of the ST piece, men can’t write women well enough or convincingly. The idea that a debut author couldn’t have done this? Unbelievable. The article got worse, however:
“It all became so obvious: the themes of the books are Rowling’s and are subjects she addressed in last year’s The Casual Vacancy – and in the Harry Potter books: noble small people; ghastly, spoilt wealthy ones; social injustice; race; poverty; being in the wrong family…”
So, going by this ‘logic’, Rowling also wrote Gossip Girl… These are universal, as-old-as-time literary themes, and are not the sole (or even rare) province of Hogwarts…
Anyone who’s been reading CR for the past year will know that I’m a huge fan of Richard Kadrey’s Sandman Slim series. I’ve read and thoroughly enjoyed the first four, and I am impatient to get my hands on the fifth in the series, Kill City Blues, to be published in hardcover this August in the UK (artwork above), and July in the US (artwork below).
In addition to book five, the first four are getting released in paperback in the UK as well. Voyager has commissioned some pretty cool, retro, quite ‘LA-punk’ covers for the books. The first two, Sandman Slim and Kill the Dead, will be published June 20th…
These will be followed by Aloha From Hell and Devil Said Bang, on July 5th and July 18th, respectively…
If you haven’t already tried this series, I highly recommend that you do. With the new editions, I can’t think of a better time, either. Even better, if you’re a UK Kindle owner, they’re currently discounted on Amazon…
This is one of my favourite series, which has also managed to maintain its high quality (something that seems rather rare, these days…). Deliciously dark, original, well-crafted, and often surprising.
A new series for the blog (although, I may have done some similar, occasional posts way back when), in which I take a look at an author I’ve never read but really want to. And perhaps should have read by now…
GARY GIBSON, author of many well-received sci-fi novels, published by Tor in the UK. And definitely an author I should have read by now… I’ve always been drawn more to fantasy than science fiction (with the exception of Star Wars and Warhammer 40k, but that’s through long years of familiarity), which probably goes some way to explaining the oversight.
I was reminded of his work today, because Gibson’s Angel Station is Tor’s eBook of the month (DRM free, don’t forget). The author’s novels have received some rather nice new covers for the earlier books (The Shoal series, and his first two stand-alones), to match the style of his latest novel, another stand-alone, Marauder (the full artwork for which graces the top of this post).
Over on the Tor blog, you can read a quick Five Question Interview with the author, which is quite interesting.
Here are the new covers and the novels’ synopses, in chronological order…
ANGEL STATIONS
Aeons ago, a super-scientific culture known as ‘Angels’ had left incomprehensible relics all over the galaxy. Among these phenomena were the Stations, whereby human spacecraft could jump instantly from one part of the galaxy to another. And from them the brilliant Angel technology could be explored and exploited.
One of these stations orbits the planet Kaspar, where the only other known sentient species outside Earth has been meticulously allowed to continue evolving in its own world of primitive ignorance. But suddenly Kaspar's mysterious 'Citadel' has become the vital key to repelling the fast-approaching threat of the stellar burster.
At what cost, though, to its native inhabitants... and to the human residents of the orbiting Angel station?
*
AGAINST GRAVITY
It’s the late twenty-first century, and Kendrick Gallmon, survivor of an infamous research facility called the Maze, is trying to pick up the pieces of his life, even though he knows the Labrat augments inside his body are slowly killing him.
Then one day his heart stops beating, forever, and a ghost urges him to return to the source of all his nightmares, a long-abandoned military complex filled with entirely real voices of the dead.
I really like this cover. Reminds me a little of the artwork for Chris Wooding’s Fade, actually.
*
The Shoal Sequence:
STEALING LIGHT, NOVA WAR, and EMPIRE OF LIGHT
In the 25th century, only the Shoal possess the secret of faster-than-light travel, giving them absolute control over all trade and exploration throughout the galaxy. This gives the Shoal absolute control over all trade and exploration throughout the galaxy.
Mankind has meanwhile operated within their influence for two centuries, establishing a dozen human colony worlds scattered along Shoal trade routes. Dakota Merrick, while serving as a military pilot, has witnessed atrocities for which this alien race is responsible.
But the Shoal are not yet ready to relinquish their monopoly over a technology they acquired through ancient genocide.
Marauder, below, is also set in the Shoal universe, but is a stand-alone…
*
Final Days Series:
FINAL DAYS and THE THOUSAND EMPERORS
It’s 2235 and through the advent of wormhole technology more than a dozen interstellar colonies have been linked to Earth. But this new mode of transportation comes at a price and there are risks. Saul Dumont knows this better than anyone. He’s still trying to cope with the loss of the wormhole link to the Galileo system, which has stranded him on Earth far from his wife and child for the past several years.
Only weeks away from the link with Galileo finally being re-established, he stumbles across a conspiracy to suppress the discovery of a second, alien network of wormholes which lead billions of years in the future. A covert expedition is sent to what is named Site 17 to investigate, but when an accident occurs and one of the expedition, Mitchell Stone, disappears – they realise that they are dealing with something far beyond their understanding.
When a second expedition travels via the wormholes to Earth in the near future of 2245 they discover a devastated, lifeless solar system - all except for one man, Mitchell Stone, recovered from an experimental cryogenics facility in the ruins of a lunar city. Stone may be the only surviving witness to the coming destruction of the Earth. But why is he the only survivor – and once he’s brought back to the present, is there any way he and Saul can prevent the destruction that’s coming?
*
MARAUDER
Megan Jacinth has three goals, and they all seem unattainable.
First, she needs to find her oldest friend Bash, who she’d left for dead to save her own life. Then she needs Bash’s unique skill-set to locate an ancient space-faring entity. Lastly she must use this Wanderer’s knowledge to save human-occupied worlds from an alien incursion.
The odds seem impossible, but the threat is terrifyingly real. Megan finds Bash, but the person she’d known and loved is a husk of his former self. Bash is also held captive by her greatest enemy: Gregor Tarrant. Tarrant wants the Wanderer too, even more than he wants her life, with motives less pure than her own. And he’s close to finding Megan’s most closely-guarded secret. A race across space to reach the Wanderer seems Megan’s best option. But this entity is also known as the Marauder, and is far from benign. The price for its secrets may be just too high. Megan should know, as she still bears the scars from their last encounter…
I actually have a copy of Final Days, somewhere, so I think I’ll try to get that read. But I may start with Angel Stations. We’ll see.
[If you’re in the UK, Amazon are selling the eBook for less than £4, which is less than Tor, but obviously locked to your device with DRM… The same goes for Nova War and Final Days; Stealing Light and Empire of Light are under £5.]
Anyone read Gibson’s work? What did you think?
Ok, keeping with the Angry Robot theme, here are two more covers for upcoming books, both of which share a feature with each other and so many other fantasy and sci-fi books of late: the Hooded Man on the cover. Personally, I find the conformity rather amusing, and some of the covers are pretty great. These two are two of the better examples of Hooded Men Covers. Here are the synopses and details for the novels…
Jay Posey’s THREE, book one in the Legends of the Duskwalker, published in August 2013 (cover by Steven Meyer-Rassow):
The world has collapsed, and there are no heroes any more.
But when a lone gunman reluctantly accepts the mantle of protector to a young boy and his dying mother against the forces that pursue them, a hero may yet arise.
File Under: Science Fiction [ Three For All | Apocalyptic Wasteland | A Journey Home | Fear the Weir ]
I like the rain-effects on this one.
James A. Moore’s SEVEN FORGES, published in October 2013 (cover by Alejandro Colucci):
The people of Fellein have lived with legends for many centuries. To their far north, the Blasted Lands, a legacy of an ancient time of cataclysm, are vast, desolate and impassable, but that doesn’t stop the occasional expedition into their fringes in search of any trace of the ancients who once lived there… and oft-rumoured riches.
Captain Merros Dulver is the first in many lifetimes to find a path beyond the great mountains known as the Seven Forges and encounter, at last, the half‐forgotten race who live there. And it would appear that they were expecting him.
As he returns home, bringing an entourage of the strangers with him, he starts to wonder whether his discovery has been such a good thing. For the gods of this lost race are the gods of war, and their memories of that far-off cataclysm have not faded.
File Under: Fantasy [Savage Lands | Vengeful Gods | An Expected Journey | Battalions at War]
A brighter cover, less brooding. There’s something about it that reminds me of the cover for Gail Z. Martin’s Ice Forged. Maybe it’s just a connection made by the cold climate and snowy mountains in the background portrayed… Colucci also did the cover for The Red Knight by Miles Cameron (Orbit US).
Hot on the heels of Joey Hi-Fi’s two awesome covers for Charlie Human’s Apocalypse Now Now (Century), Solaris has unveiled the artist’s superb cover for Tony Ballantyne’s next novel, Dream London. The novel will be published in October 2013. In the meantime, here’s the synopsis:
Captain Jim Wedderburn has looks, style and courage by the bucketful. He’s adored by women, respected by men and feared by his enemies. He’s the man to find out who has twisted London into this strange new world, and he knows it.
But in Dream London the city changes a little every night and the people change a little every day. The towers are growing taller, the parks have hidden themselves away and the streets form themselves into strange new patterns. There are people sailing in from new lands down the river, new criminals emerging in the East End and a path spiraling down to another world.
Everyone is changing, no one is who they seem to be.
While I understand that there are certain images that are iconic or eye-catching, I can’t help but raise an eyebrow at the similarities between the covers for Brooklyn Animal Control (a one-shot from IDW) and Garth Ennis’s new series, Red Team #2 (Dynamite):
I’ve read neither comic (though I’d like to give the series a try). But damn, those compositions are similar…
That’s my rather fanboy-esque way of titling a post featuring a LOT of new artwork. I missed the original post, when it went up in March, but I thought I’d share some of the images on here. Because they’re pretty marvellous:
Ones that really stand out for me are Peter Higgins’ Truth And Fear (I assume this will be published by Gollancz in the UK, as Wolfhound Century was):
Simon Morden’s Arcanum, which I’ve never heard of (but his Sci-Fi has been very well received)…
And the third book in Francis Knight’s debut trilogy, Last to Rise:
I just really liked the cover, so I thought I’d share it here:
The cover is by Joe Quinones. The series is written by Kelly Sue DeConnick, with interior art by Filipe Andrade (pencils) and Jordie Bellaire (colors).
Captain Marvel #11 will be released on March 20th 2013.
I just saw this on CBR, as part of an other-wise black-and-white preview for Fairest #14, and really wanted to share it. This excellent, atmospheric piece is Adam Hughes’s cover for the Bill Willingham-penned issue from the very good Fables spin-off series:
Fairest #14 is billed as a “special issue”, written by Willingham (who created Fairest and Fables) and features internal art by Barry Kitson. Here’s the synopsis:
Dating is hard for everyone in this standalone tale — but it’s especially tricky if you’re a gorgeous tree nymph from Fabletown. Princess Alder tells her tales of woe to Reynard the fox
Fairest #14 will be published April 3rd 2013.
I’m currently reading some of Sam Sykes’s fourth novel (not for review), which means there may be a bit of a delay before my next novel review appears on the blog (well, actually, I have one coming up on Thursday, but after that…). Therefore, and in keeping with my Sykes-mood at the moment, I have shamelessly pinched the French artwork for Sam’s third novel, Skybound Sea, from Staffer’s Book Review. Because it’s jaw-droppingly good:
That is so, so much better than the UK and US covers for the book. The artist is Marc Simonetti.
Kataria looks bad-ass, and Gariath… Wow. (He’s the big, red, demonic-looking fella in the near-background).
Dear Pyr and Gollancz: re-release the novel with this cover.
Thank you.
[NB: I’m only guessing about the French Publisher – they’ve published the first book, but I can’t find much evidence of book two or three… I’ll keep checking, and post correction/confirmation as I find out.]
Just a quick artwork post, this time for the cover of issue #14 of Jim Zub’s Skullkickers comic series:
The cover is by Saejin Oh. The series is written by Jim Zub, with internal art by Edwin Huang and colors by Misty Coats. (You can check out a preview of the issue, here).
I’ve recently bought the first collected Skullkickers book, so expect a review in the near future (sort of: I’ve got a lot of graphic novel reviews now ready and scheduled).
I’ve just got hold of Princeless Volume 1 and also the first two issues of Volume 2. In advance of a review, I thought I’d share the cover for the second issue in the second volume, because it made me chuckle. It’s also a sentiment I agree with, and there are certain comics publishers who are entirely guilty of “bringing the whole artform down”, as the character says (long-time readers will know which ones they are, as I can’t pass up an excuse to mention it in my reviews)…
Review of the series coming very soon. This particular issue will hit shelves in March 2013.
Just a very simple artwork post, in the wake of my earlier post about I, Vampire’s end. Here is the cover art (without text, etc.) for the final three issues of the Josh Fialkov-penned and Andrea Sorrentino-drawn series. Let’s start with #17 (published February 27 2013):
I just really like the composition and sinister air to this piece. The imminent violence and (possibly) execution of Constantine. It’s quite eye-catching.
James Rollins, author of the Sigma Force scientific thrillers (which I’m rather fond of) has teamed up with Rebecca Cantrell to write a new series of thrillers, this time with a slight Dan Brown-Da Vinci Code slant to it. Only, hopefully much better. As I say, I’m fond of Rollins’s Sigma novels, so I have high hopes that he’ll do as good a job with this new venture. (I have a copy of the book, and it’s inching its way up the ever-growing Mt. TBR.) The series also includes an eShort prequel (of sorts), the artwork for which was recently unveiled. I decided to do a side-by-side comparison of the US and UK artwork for the two, as they are quite different.
This is next novel from the author of Horns, Heart-Shaped Box, and the ongoing Locke & Key comic series. The title is slightly different in the UK and US (as you can see in the title of this post).
Victoria McQueen has a secret gift for finding things: a misplaced bracelet, a missing photograph, answers to unanswerable questions. On her Raleigh Tuff Burner bike, she makes her way to a rickety covered bridge that, within moments, takes her wherever she needs to go, whether it’s across Massachusetts or across the country.
Charles Talent Manx has a way with children. He likes to take them for rides in his 1938 Rolls-Royce Wraith with the NOS4A2 vanity plate. With his old car, he can slip right out of the everyday world, and onto the hidden roads that transport them to an astonishing – and terrifying – playground of amusements he calls “Christmasland.”
Then, one day, Vic goes looking for trouble—and finds Manx. That was a lifetime ago. Now Vic, the only kid to ever escape Manx’s unmitigated evil, is all grown up and desperate to forget. But Charlie Manx never stopped thinking about Victoria McQueen. He’s on the road again and he’s picked up a new passenger: Vic’s own son.
NOS4R2/NOS4A2 will be published in April 2013. In related Joe Hill news, Horns will be hitting movie theaters in 2013 and stars Daniel Radcliffe in the lead role, Ig Perrish.
