Strange Adventures artists Mitch Gerads and Evan ‘Doc’ Shaner took to Twitter Thursday to share some new covers and possibly unveil the book’s second lead.
First things first, for those who haven’t been paying attention, Strange Adventures is the next collaboration between Gerads and writer Tom King, whose previous work together — specifically Mister Miracle — is most notable for winning a trunk-load of Eisner’s. The new book is due to hit in March, and it will add Shaner to the team as well, with Gerads and Shaner sort of working off each other to create a dichotomy between idealized heroes and the naked truth of real, flawed human beings (at least that’s what I’ve gathered from everything that’s been said about this book so far).
Since the book’s announcement at SDCC, there has been a mysterious second lead character that all of the creators have hinted at, with Swamp Thing being a popular theory among DC readers at The Beat (myself included). As of Thursday, however, it seems that Gerads has now put any and all theorizing to rest with this Tweet:
#LetsGetTERRIFIC #DCStrangeAdventures 🚀🚀🚀 pic.twitter.com/rVVgI2JG6T
— Mitch Gerads (@MitchGerads) January 16, 2020
That Tweet, as you can see, strongly suggests that Mister Terrific is our second lead character. This is definitely an interesting pairing, and one that was maybe first hinted at during another King project, Heroes in Crisis, with the two characters beside each other on this page:
Anyway, in addition to that, the duo also shared new covers, which continue to hint at the dichotomy described above, with Shaner putting out clean and shiny work that Gerads then defaces. It’s a cool effect, and one wonders if the interiors of the book will play with comics form in a similar way (my money is on yes, yes they will).
Check out the newly unveiled covers for Strange Adventures #2 below:
UPDATE: The solicitation copy for Strange Adventures #2 is now here:
STRANGE ADVENTURES #2
written by TOM KING
art by MITCH GERADS and EVAN “DOC” SHANER
cover by MITCH GERADS
variant cover by EVAN “DOC” SHANERWhat is the truth about Adam Strange? When an activist who publicly accused him of war crimes ends up dead, the public begins to doubt Strange’s stories about his adventures on the planet Rann—and he’s even starting to doubt himself. It’s going to take a special investigator to get the truth, and he’s going to have to tear apart Adam Strange’s life and reputation to do it.
A special miniseries set on two worlds, it takes two artists to bring Strange Adventures to life. Mitch Gerads tackles the earthbound sequences, while Doc Shaner launches us into space. And it’s all written by Tom King, the Eisner Award-winning writer who brought you Mister Miracle, Omega Men, and Sheriff of Babylon.
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I asked Mitch Gerads about the art process for Strange Adventures at a panel last November. He said that each panel was assigned to either him or Shaner in the script, and that they would draw their panels individually and then Gerads was compositing it together into pages. Based on how he talked about it, I got the sense that each panel was either a Gerads panel or a Shaner panel, which made me suspect that the interiors wouldn’t have them collaborating directly on the same panels, but I’m not entirely sure. He also said that he and Shaner weren’t collaborating directly while drawing their own individual panels specifically so that they wouldn’t influence each other’s interpretations of the script.
Because their process seems so unusual, it might be an interesting idea for a story on the Beat to interview them about how the process works.
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