Comics
OMFG: Eisner-Winning Team To Write A New ‘Mars Attacks’ Ongoing!
I’m sure you all remember that Tim Burton cult classic, Mars Attacks starring Jack Nicholson, Tom Jones, and horse-face Sarah Jessica Parker. Well, we’ve got a surprise for you, those little freaky aliens are coming back in a big way. IDW announced today that the Eisner Award winning creators, John Layman (CHEW) and John McCrea (Hitman), will be behind a brand new Mars Attacks ongoing series this summer. It’s gonna be weird, funny , and definitely creepy. Layman plans to bring a whole lot of destruction to earth in this series, so get stoked for the destruction of humanity. Check out details about the story, cover art, and more after the break.
IDW Press Release reads as follows:
San Diego, CA (January 23, 2012)— IDW Publishing and Topps are pleased to announce the multiple Eisner Award-winning creative team for MARS ATTACKS, an all-new ongoing comic series based on the fan-favorite Mars Attacks franchise.
Debuting in June 2012, IDW’s comic series will offer the first stories of an all-new Mars Attacks universe, bringing the brand’s outrageous action and dark humor to a new set of tales. Writer John Layman, author and co-creator of the Eisner-winning series Chew, will pen the series, with art by John McCrea, best known for his collaborations with Garth Ennis, including Eisner-winner Hitman.
“I’m a huge fan of Mars Attacks from a long way back. I own about half the original card set from 1962 and have a pretty big collection of collectables and doodads,” Layman said. “It’s always been a dream of mine to destroy the Earth and inflict huge degrees of suffering on the rest of humanity. With this Mars Attacks series, I finally get my chance.”
Created in 1962, Mars Attacks celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2012 with major product launches throughout the year. IDW’s new comic series, as well as high-quality reprints of existing material, will be a cornerstone of that effort.
Originally published by Topps as a series of trading cards, Mars Attacks was created by Len Brown and Woody Gelman, after Brown was inspired by the Wally Wood cover to Weird Science #16 (EC Comics). The cards went on to achieve cult status for their then-shocking imagery—fully painted by pulp legend Norm Saunders and based on designs by Wood and Bob Powell—and remains a staple of pop culture. Topps revived the franchise in the mid 1990s with a second card set, comic book series and toy line. The story was also adapted into the 1996 feature film Mars Attacks!, directed by Tim Burton.
“We were excited to hear of the award-winning creative team that IDW had secured,” said Ira Friedman, Topps vice president of global licensing. “John McCrea was our first choice to illustrate Mars Attacks and we were thrilled that IDW was able to bring him aboard. His experience drawing over-the-top violence on comics like Hitman, Judge Dredd and The Boys, coupled with John Layman’s penchant for twisted, offbeat humor makes them the perfect team to relaunch Mars Attacks.”
MARS ATTACKS will include covers by McCrea and alternate covers by such comic-book luminaries as Sam Kieth, Ben Templesmith and Eric Powell. The first issue will also feature a unique approach to variant covers: It will ship with 55 different covers, each depicting one of the original trading cards from the debut set of Mars Attacks from 1962. A complete collector’s set of the 55 covers in a box that replicates the original card packaging will be offered separately as well.
MARS ATTACKS #1 ($3.99, 32 pages, full color) will be available in stores in June 2012.
An ongoing horror anthology series from BOOM! Studios, Hello Darkness is back this summer with Issue #23, and BOOM! has provided Bloody Disgusting with an exclusive sneak peek.
The temperature rises and so does the body count, as the horror anthology series returns for another round of summer slashing in Hello Darkness #23, releasing July 22, 2026.
In “Sunday Pt. II,” Ryan North and Giada Belviso send a Bride of Christ over the deep end into madness.
Then, Rich Douek and Stevan Subic lead you down a bloody path to the old west, where a brash young gunfighter seeks a showdown with “The Man Who Outdrew Death.”
Sink into the cool, briny depths of Kelly Williams’s “Old Wounds” when a grizzled light housekeeper hears the call of the sea one final time.
And finally, serve up a preview platter of erotic thriller “Gastronomique,” as a royal spy, Lady Charlotte, embarks on a cat-and-mouse hunt for the deadly cannibal Tarrare, from Marguerite Bennett and Helena Masellis.
Beat the heat with an all-new pool of fresh nightmares and dive right into horror’s deep end!
Peek inside the bloody pages of Hello Darkness #23 below!
Horror fans rejoice in cadaverous delight, because Hello Darkness is a brand new ongoing anthology series featuring what BOOM! Studios is known for–the best in modern Horror, Fantasy, and Mystery, not to mention the darkest stories yet from a murderer’s row of world class creators. Everything from primal fears to modern political horrors will be explored, in the classic style of Creepy and Eerie and the contemporary chills of Black Mirror.
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