Friday, June 14, 2013

Kings Watch!

Where's My Hat?
We Three Kings

As much as I hate to say it, I will likely be buying a Dynamite Comic this fall. The news that Dynamite will be teaming up the iconic King Features trio of The Phantom, Flash Gordon, and Mandrake the Magician will get me to travel where haters-of-pointless-endless-alternate-covers fear to tread. Also of interest is that the writer is Jeff Parker, who wrote some of the last comics I really liked from Marvel, specifically the very clever and intriguing Agents of Atlas books. So Parker has a nice track record with this stuff which gives me hope it won't suck too much. He talks about the upcoming project dubbed "Kings Watch" here. It's mentioned that he created the logo, which I like a lot. That kind of attention to detail speaks well of what he has planned.

Marc Laming Jungle Action

The artwork for Kings Watch by Marc Laming looks to be pretty good too, if not my ideal. The characters appear to be pretty much on the classic models with an eye for movement and action.

Ramon Perez Alternate Cover

Putting this trio together makes sales sense, but actually could make for a haphazard story. Defenders of the Earth was a lot of fun, but I definitely relegate it to the kiddie cartoon category. I expect a bit more from comic books like this. Phantom and Mandrake can work together fairly straightforwardly, but Flash could might bend the premises of both a bit much. We'll have to see. I very much look forward to seeing what Parker and company can come up with.

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4 comments:

  1. If you haven't checked out their other pulp comics, you might want to do so. MASKS and THE SHADOW have been rather excellent, and they're bringing back Captain Action later this year, with Chris Roberson writing.

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    1. I've glanced at the other books they do and I'm not that interested, though thanks for the recommendation. I do keep reading that Masks is great, so maybe I'll give it another look. I'm a bit sad to hear they have the rights to Captain Action now as that's another property they seem to have lifted away from Moonstone. What does Nick Barrucci have against Joe Gentile anyway?

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  2. "What does Nick Barrucci have against Joe Gentile anyway?"

    I think it's the problem Moonstone has with getting books out on schedule.
    Licensors don't like it when products based on their properties aren't available for the audience to spend money on them.
    (Failure to meet delivery date is grounds for cancelling a license.)

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    1. Valid criticism.

      But I've noticed that Dynamite doesn't seem to turn to a project until Moonstone has plowed the road a bit. Maybe it's unfortunate timing, but first the Phantom which Moonstone was doing quite well with and hitting marks (eventually), and now Captain Action a character no one had even thought about for decades. And since the Phantom left Moonstone, we've not exactly been covered up in product.

      This is first Dynamite project in quite some time that's looked attractive to me, and that's because it seems to be about the writing first and the artwork second.

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