SF&F writer Piers Anthony has joined the ever-growing ranks of SF novelists to move into comics as he works with Jeremy Hall and David Nakayama for Revved: the Beginning. The first issue from Image Comics/Top Cow sees a young lad forced to steal a powerful sports car to clear his father’s debt, but things get out of hand he sees visions of the past and future when he turns the ignition. Image and Top Cow are billing it as “the four horseman meet the four hundred horsepower”, which is presumably a reference to Piers’ Incarnations of Immortality series. The premise sounds a little Gone in 60 Seconds with added SF to me, which isn’t necessarily a good thing, but given how popular the manga Initial D is perhaps it will appeal to some readers.
In a related vein, another novelist-turned comics scribe, Richard Morgan, has his latest mini-series of Black Widow collected into a fine new graphic novel edition this week from Marvel. Black Widow – Things They Say About Her is a sequel to last year’s cracking Black Widow – Homecoming and again teams Richard with top artist Bill Sienkiewicz, which is a damned good combo since it allows for an intoxicating mixture of sex and violence, leavened as ever by Richard’s intelligent approach. That’s going right on my book shelf that one! Now if only Marvel would get him to adapt his own Altered Carbon for comics. News that Jeff ‘Multimedia’ VanderMeer is planning a comic strip adaptation of Shriek for Fungus Fancier Monthly magazine could not be confirmed.
Thu, May 25, 2006
Books, Comics and cartoons, News