Upcoming Ellis project for Marvel: Nextwave

[Velorath]

And the girls.  I like those "Suicide Girls."

On the website.  The girls with tattoos and piercings.  I like those.

No blondes.

[Velorath]

For those who were waiting, the Hardcover just released Wednesday.

[Luxor]

Wasn't it the Premier HC? If so those things blow chunks - wait for the oversized HC coming out in a year

[Samwise]

For those who were waiting, the Hardcover just released Wednesday.

Inconceivable!  I just happened to be at the local giant comic store on Wednesday wondering if it was out and not finding it.  It must have been sitting in the back room the whole time.     Now I have a fine excuse to go back this weekend.   :-D

[Luxor]

I love the cover to issue 11 ripping the piss out of Mark Millar/Civil War  :-D

http://www.comicscontinuum.com/stories/0609/04/nextwave11.jpg

[HaemishM]

Especially the black watch plaid version of the Civil War solid color design at the bottom of the cover.

[Velorath]

Fuck, solicitations for January say that issue 12 will be the final issue:

NEXTWAVE: AGENTS OF H.A.T.E. #12
Written by WARREN ELLIS
Pencils and Cover by
STUART IMMONEN
To all those who HAVEN’T been buying NEXTWAVE– Thanks a lot, jerks! This is the last issue! To all those who HAVE been buying NEXTWAVE– YOU RULE!! Do not miss this pulse-pounding conclusion to the greatest work of western literature EVER! Hamlet? Horrible. War and Peace? What-a-joke! The Great Gatsby? The Great Lame-by, maybe. Those works are going to be moved to the Bad Section of your local bookstores after this issue comes out. Don't miss this or you won’t know what your children’s children are reading in school.
32 PGS./Parental Advisory …$2.99

[HaemishM]

Fuckers.

[Velorath]

Ellis had this to say on his website:

Okay. I just this second got the go-ahead from Nick Lowe to talk about this. So here we go:

Sales on the singles are okay, if not great. Sales on the first collection have apparently been terrific.

We were on such a roll with NEXTWAVE that I was actually into the idea of doing a second year, which is highly unusual for me and work-for-hire properties. So Marvel sat down and looked at the numbers, as they wanted to do a second year too.

What they found was that, at our current sales levels, they could afford for me to write it, but not for Stuart to draw it. Stuart, as a Marvel-exclusive artist, commands a fee commensurate with his astonishing talent. I’m WFH-exclusive too, but they just send me whisky and loose women and I’m fine. So, basically, I could continue to write NEXTWAVE, but we’d need to find another artist. This, to me, was just wrong. I mean, Stuart would obviously be given a far better job that had actual readers attached to it, but it still seemed a bit like the numbers were conspiring to fire him for doing his job too well. Everyone at Marvel pitched in to try and make it work, but the numbers were just against us.

So NEXTWAVE #12 will be the final issue of the ongoing series.

(To clear up a common misconception: NEXTWAVE was always pitched as an ongoing series. However, my original intent was to do 12 and then pass it on to someone else. This got garbled, somewhere down the chain of communication, and so the first issue or two got solicited as “part xxx of 12″.)

However. The numbers game changes when you posit things in terms of limited series.

NEXTWAVE #12 will be the last issue of the ongoing series: but there will be more NEXTWAVE to come, presented as a sequence of limited series.

This was all worked out some months ago, so I had plenty of time to work the final NEXTWAVE sequence into a conclusion of sorts. #11 even features a twelve-page spread that you’ll have to buy six copies of the comic to assemble into its full splendour. Everyone wishes I’d thought of that eight or nine months ago.

That was the news. Return to your duties.

– W

(feel free to copy and spread far and wide, thereby saving me the job.)

[Velorath]

ZOMG!  There are French people in Canada?  That's like right next door!  OH NOES!

[Luxor]

The last page was a great dig at Ultimates

[HaemishM]

DO YOU THINK THIS LETTER ON MY CHEST STANDS FOR AMERICA?

Glorious.

[Velorath]

9 page preview of newuniversal.  With Newuniversal releasing in December as well the start of Ellis' run on Thunderbolts, it's nice to know at least that if you cancel one Ellis book, two more spring up in it's place.

[HaemishM]

That looks good.

[Velorath]

The first issue of Eillis' second Black Gas mini also was released on Wednesday.  Try as I might to really like a "zombie" book written by Ellis, both the first mini and this issue are pretty much average.  I don't really think it's possible for Ellis to write a book that's bad on any sort of technical level, but Black Gas really isn't something I'd recommend to people.

[Velorath]

I wish I could just post the three pages of Nextwave #10 here of Machine Man answering phones at an insurance company.  I will miss this book.

Also, just to talk about the art here for a sec, I had to double check the book to see if any other artists were credited here.  Immonen is the only penciler listed, but I was surprised by the range shown in this issue.  The Bloodstone sequence was a pretty dead on attempt at Mignola's style.  I get the feeling Machine Man might have been an attempt at Allred if I had to take a guess.  Can't quite place the other two art styles, but the Captains seems particularly familiar to me.

[Llava]

God is for fleshy ones.  I am robot.  And your God will vomit when he sees what I've done to you.

[HaemishM]

I am here to process your worthless fleshy life and to find it lacking in the values that would logically encourage us to prolong it.

My power transports the mind... but you do not appear to have one.

ZOMG. BOOM.

God, this book just keeps bringing quotes full of teh funney.

The Captain's story reminds me a bit of Frank Miller's more impressionistic work or of David Mazzuchelli's later stuff. The Captain Marvel bits remind me of Gil Kane or Carmen Infantino.

[Margalis]

Is this supposed to be a remake of the "new universe" books marvel did in the early 90s? (?)

Seems very much the same. Normal earth-people get special powers due to the "white light" event. Is this supposed to be an official re-imagining, an homage, or sly wink and nod or what?

[Velorath]

Is this supposed to be a remake of the "new universe" books marvel did in the early 90s? (?)

Seems very much the same. Normal earth-people get special powers due to the "white light" event. Is this supposed to be an official re-imagining, an homage, or sly wink and nod or what?

Newuniversal, which I linked to a preview of a few posts ago, is a reimagining of the New Universe.  Not to be confused with Nextwave which is the book we've been talking about for most of this topic.  The're both written by Ellis.

[Raguel]

I've probably written this several times before, but I really liked FabNic's (can't spell his real name, heh) work on Psi-Force. I can only assume that the asian girl in the book was one of the members of Psi Force, so I may be forced to relocate my local comic shop. 

[Velorath]

I've probably written this several times before, but I really liked FabNic's (can't spell his real name, heh) work on Psi-Force. I can only assume that the asian girl in the book was one of the members of Psi Force, so I may be forced to relocate my local comic shop. 

Apparently she's actually a completely redone version of Nightmask (who was a guy in the original New Universe).

[Zetleft]

I still have some old copies of New Universe around here, including the whole Judge series.  Was pretty entertaining stuff I recall.   

[Raguel]

I don't know who started Justice, but iirc Peter David  wrote a lot of the later stuff.

[Zetleft]

I don't know who started Justice, but iirc Peter David  wrote a lot of the later stuff.

Yeah Justice, gonna have to see if I can find that. 

[Llava]

6 dual page spreads in a row and they were the 6 best dual page spreads ever.

[HaemishM]

Issue #11 is out and it is good.

"I have re-invented suicide as a group activity. Go me."

[Velorath]

I read the first Ellis issue of Thunderbolts (#110) last week.  Didn't write any sort of review on it because... well, I'm not sure whether I like it or not.  I'll have to wait and see how he handles certain aspects of the characters and story.

[Llava]

It's hard to review #110 because it didn't really do anything.  It's not bad, but there wasn't really anything to be bad.  Some stuff is confusing and contradicting the end of the last Thunderbolts arc, though.  It seemed that the remaining Thunderbolts members made some sort of deal with the government, now they're being led around in cuffs.  Moonstone, who I'm pretty sure already agreed to join the team at the end of the last arc, has to be convinced to join up.  The first change can be accounted for with Osborne taking over, not sure what the deal is with the second.

Still, I like the characters,  the writer, and the concept. Definitely sticking around, but the opening wasn't the OMG HUGE SMASH I was hoping it'd be.

[Velorath]

I don't see any reason for Songbird to stay in the group (and without here around Radioactive Man wouldn't be likely to stay either).  Even if they voided the presidential pardon she got in original series due to her using her powers, her criminal record from her time as Screaming Mimi certainly shouldn't be major enough for her to be pressured into joining the current incarnation of the Thunderbolts.  Given the current make up of the team though, I don't see her sticking around if she had the option to leave.  I'm curious to see how everything will play out though.

[Velorath]

Interview with Warren Ellis about his upcoming novel Crooked Little Vein, which is due to release on July 24th.

[Llava]

It’s a sad, horrible and strangely endless day in the history of the universe. In some ways, every day will now be Death Of NEXTWAVE Day. For as long as you live. Whether you know what I’m talking about or not. Something will always be missing from your heart, and that constant incompleteness will drain the joy from every single moment of your existence until you lay on your death bed, listening to your pulse stutter and stop, knowing that somehow, someway you failed at life.

Knowing that nothing in the world had been right since Death Of NEXTWAVE Day.

Also, a post here from Ellis:
http://www.the-engine.net/forum/discussion.php?webtag=ENGINE&msg=6696.1

And he says this, "NEXTWAVE #12, the ONLY Marvel comic that's been in actual Marvel continuity for the last year, is over this week. It ends."  I recommend reading it.

It also includes such dialogue as-
Random Poster: Today I killed my children so they would not know the despair of living in a world without NEXTWAVE.
Ellis: I approve.

[Velorath]

"Oh yes!  A M.O.D.O.K. and a M.O.D.A.M. made sweet monkey love by the light of a rack of Worlds of Warcraft servers, and I was the result!"

[Samwise]

The first Nextwave TPB is out.  I devoured it in a single sitting.  It was delicious.  Can't wait for the next one.

[TenaciousMike]

For you Nextwave fans, pick up Dynamite's Marvel Zombies vs Army of Darkness #3. 

Cameo appearance so awesome I nearly shit myself.