Tag: Thrillbent

Geekscape Interviews: ‘Insufferable’ Author Mark Waid!

by Eric Francisco

Picture Batman and Robin. They’re the ultimate two-man team: one, a vengeful but intelligent detective, and the other a spunky young ward. The dynamic duo of Gotham City, they rid the streets of crime and villainy!

Now picture if that spunky ward Robin was a total dick.

That’s the premise of Mark Waid’s Insufferable, which just launched its third volume on Waid’s digital comic website Thrillbent. From Captain America, to the seminal Kingdom Come, to Irredeemable and Incorruptible, Mark Waid is a reigning titan of the comic book industry and has forged a new path in creating Thrillbent, the web-centric comic book publishing house.

Waid’s latest series pits the superhero and father Nocturnus at odds with his brash, egotistical son and former crime-fighting partner Galahad. In Volume 3, Nocturnus and Galahad are struggling to join forces once more as the city they have sworn to protect is under siege. Will they save the day or are they only capable of saving themselves?

Before we get to Insufferable, I want to talk about your open letter to freelancers from last year. What led you to write to all working creatives? Did anything happen to you that led you to, in slang terms, drop a pipe bomb?

Waid: [laughs] Nothing happened to me. What happened was, because I’ve been in the industry for such a long time and I’ve seen everything and I’ve dealt with everybody, I tend to be sort of the wailing wall that younger freelancers come to sometimes to look for advice or to look for guidance for those sorts of things. And I’m flattered by that, I don’t know that I’ve got anything important to say, but I had just heard from the thousandth freelancer that week who felt like they had been screwed over by a publisher. And it was the same complaints over and over again. It became so common.

And I just felt like [it was time] to talk to young freelancers and say, “Look, the gist of what I’m saying is all you have is your reputation. All you have is your resume.” And it’s different for everybody, but you have to find the fine line between willing to take editorial direction and take notes to the point it makes the story better, but the moment it starts making the story worse, you’ve gotta walk away. Even though it’s a guaranteed paycheck. You’re gonna end up doing years of bad stories to please editors who are not loyal to you, and then you’re gonna look for jobs somewhere else and no one is going to look at the story and go, “Oh, this must have been badly edited.” No, they’re just gonna look at it and go, “Wow, this story sucks.”

What inspired you to write the story of Insufferable? What inspired you to pit former superhero teammates who are at the tail end of a grudge match?

Waid: I don’t want to name names, but I was reading an interview with a comics pro who was very full of himself [and] very ungrateful towards the people who had shepherded him along and just full of pomposity and braggadocio and I was rolling my eyes going, “Man, what if Robin grew up to be that guy?” And that sparked everything. That sense of seeing Kanye West grab the microphone from Taylor Swift so many times without wanting to say, “Man, dial it back!” So that struck me that that would be a really good superhero [story]. I’ve never seen that relationship before in comics. The idea of, what if your sidekick grew up to be an insufferable douchebag?

Hence the title. 

Waid: Yes!

So Volume 3 starts out with a bang. The whole city is basically on fire. You’ve got Nocturnus and Galahad kind of getting back in the groove, what can you tell us is in store for them? Is this their last hurrah?

Waid: It may actually be their last hurrah. We haven’t officially said so, but the challenge this time with this adventure was, let’s really blow up the stops and remind ourselves that we’re in control of the story. We don’t have to keep the status quo going because it’s part of some universe, we can do whatever we want. So, it is, as my co-creator and artist Peter Krause kept pointing out, for two story story arcs now we’ve had the two of them spiting each other. Which is fun, and fun to write and fun to read, but to keep it from being a cartoon, it’s probably best if their relationship could find some new level. It doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a good level, or a happy level, but we need to find [a new] status quo for them. So that’s where we’re headed to with arc three. They’re going to be in a much different place than they have been.

In relation to your open letter to freelancers and Insufferable, which I assume you have total control over, what’s it like having that freedom? What is it like to stretch your legs without having to be hindered? 

Waid: It’s great and it’s very liberating, but, and your mileage may very, it’s not the end all be all. Because there’s a lot to be said for working with established characters in certain universes too. The upside to something like Insufferable is, as you said, we own it. It’s ours. We’re the boss. We can make up the rules. But that also means we have to invent everything from scratch. And that means there is no mythology or continuity to draw upon, and therefore you can’t take things for granted. You can’t just bring back an old villain because nobody has seen him in awhile. You have to invent this guy. And so, honestly? As much fun as it is to do your own stuff, there is that drawback that people don’t talk about often. Which is, it’s a lot more work.

You’re actually first writer to tell me about how more of a burden there is in creating your own mythos.

Waid: At least equally a burden. Not more of a burden, but equally.

If you had to choose, where do you find yourself the happiest: working on established characters or creating your own?

Waid: Honestly, I know this sounds like a cheap answer, but it really depends on the project and how enthused I am on any given moment. When it comes to being happy, it doesn’t have anything to do with the character whether it’s an established character or one of my own. The happy moments are when you’ve discovered something new about the characters or about storytelling in general or some new technique in comics. That’s the fun part, and that’s irrespective of who owns the characters.

Modern superheroes tend to be grim, a little self-loathing. Superman is supposed to be a shining beacon of hope, but in Man of Steel he was, I don’t know, a little mopey?

Waid: [laughs] Yes!

As someone who has created some of the most seminal works in comic books, what are your thoughts on superheroes today? Do you think they’re in the right to be self-doubting? Where do you see Nocturnus and Galahad fitting in the modern superhero landscape? Did you want them to reflect any particular age in the history of superheroes?

Waid: I think neither. I think they’re a little more timeless, but that’s because a lot of the heart of what their relationship is has nothing to do with superheroes or crimefighting. It has to do with father/son relations. And that’s pretty universal. So it wasn’t any attempt to do anything like a throwback or some new post-9/11 invention, it was just trying to get more universal themes and do them through a superhero lens.

And as far as superheroes today goes, I’m hoping the pendulum is swinging back away from relentlessly grim and gritty. I don’t think all superheroes should be fun, light, and goofy, but neither do I think they all have to be blood, guts, violence, cynical, and self-loathing. I think there’s a wider palette to be drawn from. I wish there were more out there that wasn’t dark and grim. But I’ve seen advancements. Luckily, I think the success of the Marvel movies as much as anything else are proving to people to people there’s an audience for stuff that’s not relentlessly grim. I think The Flash TV show is also a yardstick to prove that not everything has to be cynical, dark, and ugly.

The creative team you’re working on Insufferable with, you’ve worked on your previous titles like Irredeemable. What was it like getting that band back together?

Waid: Pete and I knew after Irredeemable we wanted to do something together that we could create from scratch. We had a bunch of ideas, but it became a question of what do we do next? I respect Pete immensely as a creative person, I would be a fool to let that guy travel far out of my sight.

You wanted Insufferable to be uniquely for the digital format. The widescreen format was a necessity. Why did you want that style and not the traditional comic book?

Waid: Well if we’re doing it on the web, it only makes sense to do it in the landscape format. Because that’s the shape screens are. And frankly, that’s the shape the world is. That’s the reason why your eyes are side-by-side and not one on top of each other on your head. That’s how we see the world, in a widescreen view. And so, my biggest problem with digital comics at that point had been trying to force that portrait format style on to a landscape screen. You’re scrolling up and down, but you’re not looking at the whole page at once because it doesn’t fit your screen. I just thought that was ridiculous. I wanted to use the screen space to its maximum. And let the art breathe. And that dictated the 4×3 format. Which, again, we can turn into print comics, and will turn into print comics, but I’d rather worry about digital first and then print comics later.

As you said before, we’re approaching an end of sorts with Volume 3. Whether it’s the end or not, what’s next after Insufferable? What do you want to tackle?

Waid: That’s a very good question. Honestly, no one has asked me that question yet and I’m not entirely sure. All I know is that it needs to involve Peter Krause because I’m not letting that guy go.

What, ultimately, is Insufferable about to you? What is it about this story you want out in the world?

Waid: That it’s possible to love someone in your family without liking them. That’s really the universal theme. That’s the father/son thing. It’s like, you can love your family without really liking them.

You can read Mark Waid’s Insufferable Vol. 3, now available on Thrillbent! New chapters are released every Wednesday.

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Geekscape Interviews: ‘Valentine’ Author Alex de Campi

by Eric Francisco

“We know exactly what the end will be. And what’s coming before the end. And it’s all outlined and waiting. I just have to finish writing it.”

That’s what Alex de Campi, the force behind some of the best fantasy and sci-fi graphic novels out today, told me about the inevitable conclusion to one of her most popular series, Valentine. Noted for pioneering comics into the digital age but renowned for its storytelling, Valentine is a fantasy epic that is all about embracing the unknown: A soldier of Napoleon’s forces during the harsh winter of 1812 finds himself at the center of a conflict between his world and the world of magic.

“And that’s another thing I love about Thrillbent. They’re not snippy about their platform,” she says enthusiastically about her publishers. “They just want people to read comics. So they’re like, okay, we’re on Thrillbent, and we’re also on Comixology. And even though they’re just ‘a distributor,’ they were incredibly, incredibly supportive of Valentine all through our early days. And so I really wanted to get back on there where we also have fans.”

And appreciative of those fans she is. Thrillbent has unleashed Valentine Volume Two, and I talk to de Campi about everything Valentine, ’80s sci-fi, Point Blank, and her love of military history.

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Valentine is often cited as the work that proved comics can live in the digital medium. Its very storytelling is unique to digital webpages, tension unfolds in the art and transitions in ways even the human eye can’t replicate on paper. Did you intend to make Valentine prove the digital format? What led you to choose its distribution method?

Alex: We weren’t really out to prove anything. I’m a great believer in serialized, visualized fiction. And I wanted to do a book that people could just, you know not everyone sits in front of their laptop. There come times when you’re in the doctor’s waiting room, on the subway, on the bus, just between something. On break from work. On the balcony. And you don’t want to be sitting in front of a large screen. But you’ve got a phone in your pocket at almost all times. So, you pull it out and you can read a little bit of Valentine. And that’s what I was really trying to create. Something that could fill up ten really good minutes of your life between other things on your phone.

And, [in terms of] working visually, some people have trouble reading comics on a page. Especially people who are coming to them later in life. Whereas looking at Valentine on your phone — you know, even if you find comics on a page a little difficult, or you don’t like going to comic stores, or you’re just confused by the amount of titles out there — here is something that you can just enjoy. And that’s all we intended to. There’s no one way to do comics. I do comics on the printed page that I love, I do some digital work that I love, so it’s fun to try new things. But I’m not saying that everything should be like Valentine.

Our hero Valentine is a soldier of Napoleon suffering the Russian winter of 1812. It’s not a setting even movies visit often. What was it about that time and place that attracts you that other eras don’t?

Alex: I love history. I’m a voracious reader and researcher. And I absolutely love history. And I think that more writers should be into history.

Oh yeah, definitely.

Alex: And I especially love military history. Which admittedly it’s not something that you think of when you think a female comics writer, you know we tend to get pigeon-hold into doing things with talking cats and stuff, but actually there’s a hugely wide variety of female talent and we write all sorts of things. A lot of my work coming out in the next year or two is actually set in specific time periods… [But] there are reasons Valentine is set in that time period mostly because they allow me to do a nice twist later on, which I can’t reveal because, spoilers!

But there is a long, thought-out reason. And it’s ultimately, incredibly visually arresting: the white of the snow, red of the blood. There is the blue of the frozen bodies. It’s a very visual spectacle. And you automatically throw your characters in there, and you know that they’re in peril. Blizzards are terrifying. Being alone in blizzards is terrifying, and cold. And it was one of the great military tragedies of all time. One of the great disasters. Half a million men marched in and fifty-thousand marched out.

Wow.

Alex: And it wasn’t really the Russians that killed them. It was the winter. It was sickness. It was lack of supplies. They didn’t bring coats. They marched into Moscow in the summer. And no one really did anything in the winter. They got tied up in negotiating with the Russians until too late in the year and didn’t get out in time. They had these paper-thin boots and people were just dying by the score. I could write an entire series on just the Russian campaign.

I would love to read that.

Alex: Maybe some day I will. [laughs]

Genre fiction today has plenty of stories that blend the modern with the supernatural, bizarre fantasy. But you’ve decided instead on early 19th century. Exactly what inspired the story of Valentine? To put mythical monsters in 1812?

Alex: Valentine is an epic story. We need to be careful with telling people it’s a work of historical fantasy, because it’s very much not. So, all I can say is that part of it is being suitable for the digital serialized storytelling, there are tons of twists that come at you when you don’t expect it. And that’s one of the great joys for me, keeping the reader on their toes. I will say that if you are expecting it to be entirely set in 1812, you are shit out of luck.

The idea of Valentine came from a very simple phrase that kept echoing through my mind. Which is, all the fairy tales are true. Which has inspired a number of famous stories, but my concept was more… if you read books that you’ll probably never read unless you’re nuts, like Sir James George Frazer’s The Golden Bough, or Joseph Campbell’s Hero of a Thousand Faces, which more people have read, those are both very flawed works for reasons I won’t get into here, because that’s a whole literary/anthropological, people-make-assumptions conversation that doesn’t necessarily have a place here, but there is a a lot commonality in a lot of the tales we tell around the world. Not necessarily for the reasons that Campbell or Frazer draw, but we all tale stories. There are always dragons. There are always bad, undead spirits. There are good spirits.

Partially us confronting our fears of nature, of the unknown, or weather, or death and dying, or sickness. Of leaving things unfinished. And so all these fears coalesce into these stories. And my rather simple explanation of that is, there’s a reason, not just our commonality of these fears across all cultures, that cause these. There is a belief in magic everywhere. You could say, in some ways, that magic is what we call things we don’t understand. Much of technology for us right now is magic. Back in the old days, someone recovering too quickly or falling too in love, or suddenly falling dead, that’s magic. There is obviously no magic now, but what if there was? What if something changed as the Earth “grew up”?

Admittedly humans have only been on Earth for like 1% of the Earth’s total lifespan. But what if at some point, very early on, the barriers between our world and other worlds were softer and there was magic? And as Earth grew into “young adulthood” and it all hardened, creatures couldn’t pass back and forth. Magic kind of drained away, because science and physics. And then what would happen to the creatures that got stuck here? Because, obviously if you’re an immortal, supernatural being, fucking with humans is a shit load of fun. Because we’re soft, we’re squishy, we’re great fun to manipulate, and all you have to do is a little bit of magic and we give you all our money.

But then the magic gets drained away. And then you’re no longer really super magical. Hunting humans has gotten pretty dull. And they’re stuck in their human forms. That’s not cool, like when you used to be a dragon or a unicorn and now you’re a f*cking cart horse.

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There’s a little more humor in Thrillbent’s release of Volume 2. What allowed you to relax a little bit that you couldn’t before?

Alex: There’s always humor in my works. There’s some pretty funny moments in part one, but also in part one you’re dealing with, as I said, one of the greatest military tragedies of all time. I didn’t really want to yuck it up. But the humor is mostly at the expense of Valentine, and I think that is an accurate perception that the way the characters live in a place where the humor is taking place. It’s supposed to be the world of your dreams, and this is what happens when the characters turn out to be quite petty. Valentine must feel like a very out of place, very insignificant, almost slightly abused person in there, but that’s how these people always treat humans. They needed him, and now they don’t need him, and they’re bored with him, and they’re increasingly bored with him, and they’re just gonna be nasty to him. And that’s partially where the humor comes in! That’s why it’s a little bit lighter, because it’s a trivial society.

You’re going from a great military tragedy and the destruction of everything Valentine understands and loves, to this hyperficial, set society. And also I’m poking fun at the tropes of fantasy [but] in ways that make sense. I grew up reading fantasy and science fiction, and I always say that every bad fantasy novel written in the 80’s, most of the ones in the 70’s and a couple in the 90’s — before they all became ten-volume, 900-page epics — I’ve read them all. If you go to goodshowsir.com and other bad sci-fi/fantasy cover blogs, I’ve read all of them. So I know these tropes and I love them, and I love tweaking them a little bit.

This is such an epic world you’ve built, but there’s only so much you can put in. Were there any particular ideas you wanted to explore in Valentine but couldn’t?

Alex: The pacing is quite fast, as is the pacing in a lot of my works, and yeah, I could have done story after story just in the world they’re in in the next few chapters. I could have done Valentine: The Early Years, in fact in the paperback of Valentine that Image put out, we did a 40-page story on Valentine. You can still buy the paperback on my website. www.alexdecampi.com. Buy my stuff! [laughs]

What were some of your influences specifically on Valentine?

Alex: One specific influence for the stuff in the World of the Dawn in the chapters we’re getting into, was Michael Moorcock’s The Dancers at the End of Time, I grew up reading a ton of Michael Moorcock. [laughs] As any self-respecting sci-fi/fantasy nerd has. And Dancers at the End of Time is probably my favorite of his, which is an unusual choice.

I wanted to give props to your artist Christine Larsen for her phenomenal work. What influenced the look and the aesthetic of Valentine?

Alex: It’s all Christine. It’s all her. I’m rather specific about color, and so I was really pleased when Christine and the colorist on the episodes you’re seeing with Tim Durning, Christine herself has gone back to doing colors in the new episodes, but Tim was coloring from about chapter 4 onwards in the old stuff. We talked very specifically about the language of color. We definitely made a choice the opening sequences should be extremely desaturated, except for the red. And when Valentine goes through the gate, everything is extremely saturated and bright and shiny. Each scene has a color, a bit like the John Boorman film Point Blank in that respect, but we play with saturation a lot more than he does. And if you haven’t seen the original Point Blank, go see it.

You said the big idea behind Valentine is to sort of embrace the unknown. Why is that such an attractive theme to you? Why does it speak to you so much?

Alex: We have to do things that scare us to grow as humans. If we stay in a safe area the whole time, we’ll be safe, but nothing interesting will happen. Things will happen to us and we will not happen to things. And I believe in going out there and happening. And that comes from embracing the unknown. Like, doing a comic for a phone. I pitched it to Vertigo in 2005 and they asked, “Why would anyone read a comic on their phone? That’s stupid, go away.” And I was like, “OK. That’s fine.” Valentine is embracing and learning about the unknown and the dark edges and the fringes of our universe. It goes hand in hand with the way Valentine is presented as a digital comic. And it was embraced! We were downloaded half a million times on Comixology. That’s a LOT. [laughs] I stopped paying attention after a quarter million.

What can we look forward to in the future of the story?

Alex: The climactic battle between good and evil. Basically. [laughs] Roland and company come back, lots of people come back. It’s Valentine vs. the world. The stakes continue to rise. The love affair gets more complicated. It all gets very difficult for poor Valentine.

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Your previous works have run the gamut of genre categories. You’ve done tween mystery in manga, French noir, political thrillers, and now fantasy. What other genres do you intend to tackle next? Are there any you’ve always wanted to explore?

Alex: I’ve always said I’ve wanted to do a western. A lot of my stories are western, even though they’re not marketed as such. In some ways, next year is my year of coming home to the story types I truly love. Which tend to be spy thrillers. I’m doing a five-issue spy thriller with Matt Southworth who did the first volume of Stumptown. Wonderful artist and fantastic writer in his own right. I’m doing a story with Perez that’s an eight-issue noir, sort of mafia noir set in Cuba starting at the end of next year. And these are all pretty much written. I was writing issue two of the spy thing with Matt, and I said to him, “I think I’ve accidentally written a western.” There are no cowboys in it, but it has a showdown at the OK Corrall type of feel to it.

I have an ongoing theme in my work of the people out of time or the way of life is changing, or have changed, by people outside of their own culture. And that presents itself as exploring what it’s like to be an ex-patriot, because I’ve lived outside of the United States for a long time. Both in Hong Kong and then London, with short stints in Manila and South America. So that’s something I’m very knowledgable about from first-hand life experiences. Some of the stories that we love are in some ways becoming redundant or irrelevant because of technology. The spy story, what is one man with a gun when there are cameras everywhere? So westerns are always love stories about the passing of an era. The great cattle farms are being broken up. The railroad is coming. There is some sort of weather: drought, fire, whatever. It’s about the end to a way of life. And I write that a lot.

Valentine Volume 2 is now available on Thrillbent and Comixology. You can keep up with Alex de Campi at her website here.

Geekscape Comics: Chris Sheridan’s ‘Motorcycle Samurai’ Is Now On Thrillbent!

by Derek Kraneveldt

Briefly: Thrillbent just keeps getting better and better.

The service has already seen huge success with its launch of Vol 2. of Mark Waid’s Empire and James Tynion’s The House in the Wall, and today marks their first partnership with another publisher with the release of Chris Sheridan’s Motorcycle Samurai.

Not familiar with the book? It was originally released in 2013, and is about:

 A grueling desert wasteland, a mysterious stranger bound and hooded on the back of a motorcycle, and a tough-as-nails warrior out to deliver her cargo by any means necessary. The book blends elements of Mad Max and Kill Bill with loose-limbed energetic artwork and a jaw-dropping use of digital panel transitions. Strap in and let’s ride!

Thrillbent founder Mark Waid says that “We have one singular goal at Thrillbent –  to be the home of diverse, quality content that truly maximizes the benefits of the digital platform. Chris Sheridan’s masterpiece certainly fits the bill. We will continue to look to supplement our subscription with books from other publishers that meet our standards.”

So the service has a ton of content for the price of one big two book. That sounds pretty awesome to me. Check out the cover art for Motorcycle Samurai below, and let us know if you’re subscribing!

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Geekscape Comics Reviews: ‘House In The Wall’ Chapter One

by Derek Kraneveldt

Thrillbent is addicting. The subscription service is an all-you-can read offering for creator-owned comic books. Basically, you pay a $3.99 per month subscription, and have access to Thrillbent‘s entire library via your web browser or the Thrillbent iPhone app.

The service currently offers over 260 creator-owned comics, including the second volume of Mark Waid’s Empire. Tomorrow, the catalogue grows again with the first chapter of House In The Wall, which is co-written by Batman Eternal‘s James Tynion and Noah J. Yuenkel with art by Eryk Donovan, colors by Fred C. Stressing, and letters by Troy Peteri.

The book “tells the story of Ariel Carpenter who has been sleep-walking through life for as long as she can remember. Nothing, not her boyfriend, her job or her friends… none of it seems to bring her any closer to reality. The only thing that seems solid, seems real, is a spectral house she visits every night in her dreams. But when she discovers a door to that impossible dream house in the wall of her run-down Brooklyn apartment, she’ll unlock an ancient horror that has the potential to destroy her life forever.”

The first chapter of the book doesn’t reveal a lot about what’s to come, but it does play off as a stellar introduction to Arial Carpenter and the world that she lives in. The first few panels purposefully play off a drab and boring, standard life before everything quickly goes to hell (quite literally). Eryk Donovan’s artwork expertly mixes the mundane with the supernatural, and an interesting reveal at the end of the 36 pages ensures that I’ll return for more.

The first issue of House In The Wall may only act as a preface to the true tale that’s still to come, but it’s a damn good one, and it’s more than worth your $3.99 subscription. House In The Wall begins on Thrillbent tomorrow!

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Geekscape Comics: James Tynion’s ‘The House In The Wall’ Launches This Friday!

by Derek Kraneveldt

Briefly: Thrillbent has already had huge success with its launch of Vol 2. of Mark Waid’s Empire. Now they’re looking to continue that success by releasing the first piece of James Tynion’s The House In The Wall.

The horror series “tells the story of Ariel Carpenter who has been sleep-walking through life for as long as she can remember. Nothing, not her boyfriend, her job or her friends… none of it seems to bring her any closer to reality. The only thing that seems solid, seems real, is a spectral house she visits every night in her dreams. But when she discovers a door to that impossible dream house in the wall of her run-down Brooklyn apartment, she’ll unlock an ancient horror that has the potential to destroy her life forever.”

The book will be available exclusively on ThrillBent, a service that boasts a myriad of awesome comic book content (including Empire) for a cool $3.99 per month subscription. Take a look at the key art for the series below, and let us know what you think!

The House in the Wall is co-written by Tynion and Noah J. Yuenkel, with art by Eryk Donovan, colors by Fred C. Stressing, and letters by Troy Peteri. The first issue launches on Thrillbent this Friday, with new issues following twice monthly!

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Geekscape Comics: Mark Waid’s ‘Empire Vol. 2’ Begins May 28th, Check Out The Cover!

by Derek Kraneveldt

Briefly: It’s been a long time coming, but Vol. 2 of Mark Waid’s Empire is almost here!

The new book will continue “the saga of Golgoth, a remorseless villain whose long-game plan of world domination finally won him the planet Earth and everything on it. While Golgoth’s reign in the first book was filled with challenges and conflicts – including a drug-induced plot again him by his own ministers, his innocent daughter’s troublesome aspirations, and the threat of extraterrestrial forces – Volume 2 opens with his grip on the world as strong as ever.

But where is his strength coming from? The sole loyalist who kept him anchored to humanity is one year gone, and on the anniversary of Golgoth’s loss, several seemingly coordinated new threats are surfacing around the globe. Each presents its own unique threat to the throne, and if Golgoth wants to maintain the crown, he will have to divide his forces–and his attentions–in dangerous new ways.”

The book will be available exclusively on ThrillBent, a service that boasts a myriad of awesome comic book content for a cool $3.99 per month subscription. The first piece of Vol. 2 hits ThrillBent on May 28th, and will continue twice monthly thereafter.

With art from co-creator Barry Kitson, as well as  Chris Sotomayor on colours and Troy Peteri on lettering, Empire should be worth the subscription alone. You can take a look at the cover art for Empire Vol. 2 below, and let us know what you think!

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