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NYC ComiCon 2010 Update: IDW Announces ‘Infestation’ Publisher Wide Crossover Event!

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Move over Marvel Comics, because there’s an even bigger publisher wide crossover for the undead planned, and it is coming your way this January from IDW Publishing! Today at New York City ComiCon the publisher announced the “INFESTATION” that will run from January through April 2011, and unite some of the publisher’s biggest brands including “G.I JOE”, “TRANSFORMERS”, “STAR TREK”, and even “GHOSTBUSTERS”! Inside you can find all the details on the announcement as well as a plethora of images from the series! Read on for the skinny!

Here’s An Excerpt From The Interview That Can Be Found Over At Comic Book Resources!

“While line-wide crossovers are far from unusual, “Infestation” is quite different in that it draws in several IDW licenses, which adds a few hurdles from the business side of publishing. Waltz joked that IDW was able to overcome these obstacles with “bribes, blackmail, and booze” before confessing that, “seriously, when we first considered doing this, none of us at IDW really believed it would truly happen.”

“Initially, the thought process was that we wanted to do something cool that would draw attention to our own intellectual properties – ‘Zombies Vs. Robots,’ ‘Covert Vampiric Operations (CVO),’ etc. – but we knew that was an uphill battle from the get-go, as non-licensed properties aren’t exactly being embraced by the Direct Market these days, despite the fact that many of them deserve the same kind of audience the licensed properties possess,” Waltz said of “Infestation’s” origins. “The obvious solution, then, was to try and find a way to tie our I.P. into the broader audience our licensed books would provide, but how to get all those licenses on-board was the catch – we just didn’t see all the licensors going for such a crazy idea. But crazy never, ever stops us at IDW (I actually think crazy is part of the company credo. If not, it’s certainly part of the job description in IDW editorial). So, we all pulled together to come up with a plan that we eventually dubbed ‘Infestation’ – an insane mission that brings our IDW Universe and our licensed universes of ‘Transformers,’ ‘G.I. Joe,’ ‘Star Trek’ and ‘Ghostbusters’ together into one massive event, one where they all face a common foe – a true and dangerous threat that contains future ramifications for all the titles beyond just this initial event. We crossed our fingers (and toes and, in Andy Schmidt’s case, our Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow swords) and presented the plan to our licensors and, from the very start, have been absolutely flabbergasted by how supportive and excited they’ve been to be a part of our efforts from A to Z. To put it bluntly, without the licensors being as cool as hell and helpful as they’ve been, there’s no way ‘Infestation’ happens at all.”




“INFESTATION” Begins This Coming January From IDW Publishing!

Comics

[Review] Graphic Novel ‘Tender’ Is Brilliant Feminist Body Horror That Will Make You Squirm & Scream

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Tender Beth Hetland Graphic Novel

Beth Hetland’s debut graphic novel, ‘Tender,’ is a modern tale of love, validation, and self-destruction by way of brutal body horror with a feminist edge.

“I’ve wanted this more than anything.”

Men so often dominate the body horror subgenre, which makes it so rare and insightful whenever women tackle this space. This makes Beth Hetland’s Tender such a refreshing change of pace. It’s earnest, honest, and impossibly exposed. Tender takes the body horror subgenre and brilliantly and subversively mixes it together with a narrative that’s steeped in the societal expectations that women face on a daily basis, whether it comes to empowerment, family, or sexuality. It single-handedly beats other 2023 and ‘24 feminine horror texts like American Horror Story: Delicate, Sick, Lisa Frankenstein, and Immaculate at their own game.

Hetland’s Tender is American Psycho meets Rosemary’s Baby meets Swallow. It’s also absolutely not for the faint of heart.

Right from the jump, Tender grabs hold of its audience and doesn’t let go. Carolanne’s quest for romantic fulfillment, validation, and a grander purpose is easy to empathize with and an effective framework for this woeful saga. Carolanne’s wounds cut so deep simply because they’re so incredibly commonplace. Everybody wants to feel wanted.

Tender is full of beautiful, gross, expressive artwork that makes the reader squirm in their seat and itch. Hetland’s drawings are simultaneously minimalist and comprehensively layered. They’re  reminiscent of Charles Burns’ Black Hole, in the best way possible. There’s consistently inspired and striking use of spot coloring that elevates Hetland’s story whenever it’s incorporated, invading Tender’s muted world.

Hetland employs effective, economical storytelling that makes clever use of panels and scene construction so that Tender can breeze through exposition and get to the story’s gooey, aching heart. There’s an excellent page that depicts Carolanne’s menial domestic tasks where the repetitive panels grow increasingly smaller to illustrate the formulaic rut that her life has become. It’s magical. Tender is full of creative devices like this that further let the reader into Carolanne’s mind without ever getting clunky or explicit on the matter. The graphic novel is bookended with a simple moment that shifts from sweet to suffocating.

Tender gives the audience a proper sense of who Carolanne is right away. Hetland adeptly defines her protagonist so that readers are immediately on her side, praying that she gets her “happily ever after,” and makes it out of this sick story alive…And then they’re rapidly wishing for the opposite and utterly aghast over this chameleon. There’s also some creative experimentation with non-linear storytelling that gets to the root of Carolanne and continually recontextualizes who she is and what she wants out of life so that the audience is kept on guard.

Tender casually transforms from a picture-perfect rom-com, right down to the visual style, into a haunting horror story. There’s such a natural quality to how Tender presents the melancholy manner in which a relationship — and life — can decay. Once the horror elements hit, they hit hard, like a jackhammer, and don’t relent. It’s hard not to wince and grimace through Tender’s terrifying images. They’re reminiscent of the nightmarish dadaist visuals from The Ring’s cursed videotape, distilled to blunt comic panels that the reader is forced to confront and digest, rather than something that simply flickers through their mind and is gone a moment later. Tender makes its audience marinate in its mania and incubates its horror as if it’s a gestating fetus in their womb.

Tender tells a powerful, emotional, disturbing story, but its secret weapon may be its sublime pacing. Hetland paces Tender in such an exceptional manner, so that it takes its time, sneaks up on the reader, and gets under their skin until they’re dreading where the story will go next. Tender pushes the audience right up to the edge so that they’re practically begging that Carolanne won’t do the things that she does, yet the other shoe always drops in the most devastating manner. Audiences will read Tender with clenched fists that make it a struggle to turn each page, although they won’t be able to stop. Tender isn’t a short story, at more than 160 pages, but readers will want to take their time and relish each page so that this macabre story lasts for as long as possible before it cascades to its tragic conclusion. 

Tender is an accomplished and uncomfortable debut graphic novel from Hetland that reveals a strong, unflinching voice that’s the perfect fit for horror. Tender indulges in heightened flights of fancy and toes the line with the supernatural. However, Tender is so successful at what it does because it’s so grounded in reality and presents a horror story that’s all too common in society. It’s a heartbreaking meditation on loneliness and codependency that’s one of 2024’s must-read horror graphic novels.

‘Tender,’ by Beth Hetland and published by Fantagraphics, is now available.

4 out of 5 skulls

Tender graphic novel review

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