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Legendary Comics Announces Pacific Rim Comic Series

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Guillermo del Toro promised more adventures from the world of Pacific Rim  and he has delivered. Legendary is taking fans back to the frontlines of a larger-than-life battleground with Pacific Rim: Tales from the Drift, the official new comic series presented by director Guillermo del Toro and featuring a story from Pacific Rim screenwriter Travis Beacham. A continuation of the bestselling graphic novel Pacific Rim: Tales from Year Zero, the new Pacific Rim comic series will feature Jaegers never before seen in combat, squaring off against all-new Kaiju creatures.

Legendary is also launching two original titles. First is the riveting espionage thriller Black Bag, starring Legendary Comics’ first female action hero. This gripping series about a suburban wife-turned-covert government assassin comes from writer Chris Roberson, creator of the breakout comic iZombie (recently adapted into a network TV series), and features art from fast-rising talent JB Bastos, known for his standout work on Night Trap.

Finally, Legendary is partnering with acclaimed writer Steven Grant on Cops For Criminals, a daring new crime-thriller series about a federal agent forced to find true justice in the criminal underworld. Pete Woods, whose long and storied career includes iconic franchises such as Deadpool, Catwoman and Robin, returns to pencil, ink and color the title.

To celebrate these launches, Legendary is also giving fans the chance to win an exclusive page of original artwork from the upcoming Pacific Rim: Tales from the Drift. Participants are invited to enter at PacificRimComicArt.com to win this one-of-a-kind prize.

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pr_issue_01_pg_01_PreviewPacific Rim: Tales From the Drift

Following the best-selling graphic novel Pacific Rim: Tales from Year Zero, Legendary takes you back to the frontlines of a larger-than-life battleground with Pacific Rim: Tales From the Drift, the official new comic series presented by director Guillermo del Toro and Pacific Rim screenwriter Travis Beacham.

Prepare to do battle with all-new Kaiju creatures in this thrilling continuation of the Pacific Rim universe.

The series comes from writer Joshua Fialkov (The Bunker, I, Vampire, Elks Run) and features artwork by Marcos Marz (Batman Confidential, Blackest Night: JSA).

More information will be released at a later date.

Release Date: November 2015

Presented by: Guillermo del Toro

Story by: Travis Beacham

Writer: Joshua Fialkov

Artist: Marcos Marz

Colorist: Marcelo Maiolo

Format: 4 issue monthly series

Price: $3.99 single-issue cover price

 

Pages: 1 2 3

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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