Previews

If nothing else, Archaia's new horror series Plunder has the best named team in comics, Swifty Lang and Skuds McKinley. "Hey have you seen Skuds and Swifty?" is what everyone will be saying at Comic-Con 2015. The book arrives in February, and offers us a tale reminiscent of both Captain Phillips and The Thing.

Eric Heisserer aims to tell a tale in the tradition of Arthurian legends and Star Wars. With artwork by Felipe Massafera (Green Lantern: Emerald Warriors, Captain Midnight), Shaper looks to carve a niche for itself in the rich tapestry of sci-fi adventure.

Valiant has their own plans to build on their popular Valiant Next initiative

This preview of the new Richard Corben book from Dark Horse came in my email yesterday to promote the FOC of the book—the last day that retailers can adjust orders. So I missed posting it when it would do any good (I was in meetings and on deadline yesterday). But perhaps consumers will be interested as well! Corben is a powerhouse of the first wave of self-publishing and "ground level" publishing in the 80s, and he's still rocking out with the art.

Yep it's part three of our annual look at the year coming and going. My trip to Angouleme in 2014 enabled me to add more international participants to the survey, so look for some perspective the global comics business and even a wee Joann Sfar preview in the answers below. Part One and Part Two of the survey can be found here.

At the summer Image Expo one of the most notable announcements was Tooth and Claw by Kurt Busiek and Ben Dewey. Not only did it mark the return of Busiek with a new comic for the first time in years, but Dewey's art looked amazing. The story involves high fantasy, with animal protagonists and Game of Thrones level intrigue. The first issue is on sale today in a bargain format: just $2.99 for 40 pages of story. As you can see from the preview pagesk, this is one spectacular comic. One of the best things comics do is world-building and this looks to be a strong examples of that by Busiek and Dewey.

The Valiant is the lynchpin of Valiant Next, a new hopping on point for readers from Valiant. A prestige format limited series with art by Paolo Rivera, and a variant cover by Francesco Francavilla, there's no chance we're not going to run a preview any time it gets into our inbox. The story by Matt Kindt and Jeff Lemire doesn't hurt either.

Ethan Young is a cartoonist best known for his autobiographical webcomic Tails, but he's going to be coming out in a big way next August with NANJING: The Burning City, a full length historical comic to be published by Dark Horse. According to the publisher: After the bombs fell and shook the walls of Nanjing, the Imperial Japanese Army entered and seized the Chinese capital. Through the dust of the demolished buildings, screams echo off the rubble. Two abandoned Chinese soldiers are trapped and desperately outnumbered inside the walled city. What they’ll encounter will haunt them. But in the face of horror, they’ll learn that resistance and bravery cannot be destroyed by the enemy. Dark Horse provided a preview of the book, and it's in a rugged black and white style well suited to what sounds like a grim tale. Tails has a looser, more cartoony look, but this is a little Kubert, a little Tardi...

Amazon's Jet CIty Comics imprint has been chugging along with a series of comics based on predominantly SF authors. including Hugh Howey, George RR...

I just arrived at SPX and the thrill of excitement over comics is a palpable thing, as the young and the young at heart...

This sells itself doesn't it: hawkeye takes on the most popular Marvel character of the moment in a Halloween adventure. by Gerry DUggan and Matteo Lolli with a cover by James Harren (!) and a Jason Pearson variant.

Let's end this week with some art! No publisher puts out more consistently beautiful books than Nobrow, and "(In a Sense) Lost and Found&quot...