7/5/07
TWO NEW GRENDEL T-SHIRTS PREMIERE AT SDCC
Featured here for the first time are two
brand new Grendel t-shirt designs that will make their
premiere at this year's San Diego ComicCon! Brought to
you courtesy of Graphitti designs, the shirts help highlight
two significant events for Grendel's 25th anniversary
celebration and BOTH were designed and illustrated by
Grendel creator, Matt Wagner. The
first depicts all six
major incarnations of Grendel from the title’s legendary
first 50+ issue narrative. The second is to tie-in with
the SDCC release of a special preview issue for the all-new
Grendel storyline, BEHOLD THE DEVIL #0.
Keep checking back to this section for
news of still another special GRENDEL item that will
be offered exclusively at this year's SDCC,2007!
6/25/07
DC DIRECT UNVEILS TRINITY ACTION FIGURES
DC Direct,
the product and merchandising arm of DC Comics has announced a March
2008 ship date for the first four figures based on my interpretations
of their “Big Three” characters as featured in my 2003
mini-series, TRINITY. The initial line includes, of course, Superman,
Batman and Wonder Woman as well as arch-Batman-villain,
Ra’s Al Ghul. Check out the FIGURES section
of the GALLERY for production shots of the figures (Ra’s is still
in the prototype stage) and the SKETCHES section for my
pre-production designs!
5/31/07
GET NAKED, BE FAT AND RAVE, BABY...RAVE!
For
those of you that don’t already know,
I'm finally escaping the same old Artist’s Alley routine at this
year's San Diego ComicCon and bunking up with a group
of fellow creators who have--for several years now--labeled
themselves Naked Fat Rave! This mighty, mighty roster
of
talent includes; Arthur Adams, Joyce Chin, Bruce Timm,
Phil Noto, J Scott Campbell, JH and Wendy Williams, Amanda
Connor, Gene Ha, Michael Golden and Renee Witterstaetter,
Tim Sale annnnd...ME! As my dear old chum, Timmy (he
and I are actually sharing a table) recently said on
his web-site’s Message Boards, with such an overwhelming
crowd of talent it, “beats me how the universe doesn't just split
in half.” I couldn't agree more! For those attending the show,
our enclave is located at the following spaces; 4601,
4603, 4700, 4703. Make sure you stop by and see us. Hell,
with a line-up like this, you should maybe even just
count on spending an entire day at the Rave!
GRENDEL SYROCO
FIGURE UNVEILED!
As promised,
a limited GRENDEL edition for Darkhorse’s
charming line of “Syroco” figurines has been completed and
will soon be solicited. Go HERE to
take an advance peek at this swell rendition of the Anniversary
Boy!
5/3/07
BEHOLD THE DEVIL #0 COVER!
This
is the cover art for the special introductory comic that will
lead-off the new series, slated to premiere this fall.
This 50 cent comic will debut at this year's San Diego Comic Con.
It features a six-page story that acts as a prelude to the main storyline
and will also feature the first part of what Matt Brady of Newarama
has dubbed "THE
definitive Grendel interview". In addition to being one of the
web's most noted comics journalists, Matt is a longtime
Grendel fan and has threatened to do this interview with me for years
now. Finally, it has come to fruition! The first part will run here
in BTD #0 and the suceeding parts will post everyday on Newsarama.com for
the week following the con. I will say, the interview
lives up to Matt's description. He's a seasoned and insightful interviewer
and his questions never fail to draw out perceptions and facts about
the creative process that I often haven't even vocalized to myself.
For any serious Grendel fan, this exchange is NOT to be missed!
BATMAN;
B&W
MINI STATUE NOW AVAILABLE!
Based on my designs, DC Direct has produced this
lovely little statue (measures 7 1/2" high) which is now
for sale at your local comic book shop. I'm extremely
happy with how this turned out and would like to give
a specail shoutout to the sculptor, Paul Harding. Paul and I are currently
working on something new for DC Direct which should be announced soon.
4/20/07
LIST OF CONTRIBUTOR’S TO ART OF MATT WAGNER’S
GRENDEL
The list is
finally official and it couldn’t
be sweeter! As an added bonus to this summer’s ART OF GRENDEL
tome, an all-star roster of artists have contributed stunningly beautiful
pin-ups of their various favorite versions of the centuries-spanning
title character. The resultant pin-up gallery features a veritable Who’s
Who of the comic book field’s hottest talents!
The feature artists
(in no particular order) are:
Frank Miller
John Cassaday
Travis Charest
Paul Pope
Dave Johnson
P. Craig Russell
Eric Powell
Tony Harris
Fabio Moon and Gabriel Ba
Darwyn Cooke!
These guys have all turned in BEAUTIFUL
renditions of Grendel and have really helped turn the
publication of this book into a very special event!
4/5/07
GRENDEL
SILVER ANNIVERSARY print now available!
Show
you’re part of the Devil’s Crew and help
support the Comic Legal Defense Fund!
The
CBLDF has made available on their website a commermorative
print that I recently produced with them and which
made its debut at this year’s
Wonder Con in San Francisco. The print features the cover
art from the upcoming GRENDEL ARCHIVES volume and comes
in two versions—a normal s&n edition of 150
that goes for $25, and a more limited version each of
which comes with an original inkwash head sketch for
$100, editions A-Z.
Here’s
the link to the page where you can order them:
http://cbldf.safeshopper.com/10/cat10.htm?798
These
are printed on a beautiful watercolor paper stock and
the featured scan for the “regular” edition
is closer to their actual appearance.
Thanks
in advance to anyone who purchases one for helping
to support The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. In a
time when our civil liberties seem to be more threatened
with every passing day, the Fund’s cause
and their hard-fought efforts to preserve our freedoms
of expression are now more important than ever!
3/16/2007
The new Hunter Rose Grendel
series, BEHOLD THE DEVIL, will debut in a specially
priced
#0 issue that will premiere at this year’s San
Diego Comicon International! This 50¢ book features;
a six-page all-new story that will act as an introduction
to the upcoming eight-issue series as well as part one
of what Newsarama’s Matt Brady promises will be “THE
definitive Grendel interview.” The subsequent parts
of this lengthy dialogue between Matt and I will be serialized
on Newsarama. Check back in the coming weeks for a special
preview of the cover art.
In honor of the character’s
silver anniversary, Darkhorse has begun production
on a
GRENDEL Syroco figure to be released later this year.
For those unfamiliar with these
quaint little figurines, go to Darkhorse’s web-site
(www.darkhorse.com) and just type Syroco
into the search bar. These are Darkhorse’s clever
recreations of an old style of toy statue and
part of their charm is their crude, almost folk-art sort
of depictions of pop culture characters.
In fact, here’s links to two of their line that
I find particularly cool.
http://www.darkhorse.com/profile/profile.php?sku=19-161
http://www.darkhorse.com/profile/profile.php?sku=10-254
The Dark Horse Syroco figures
also come in an attractive tin box that features decorative
artwork of the character inside.
2/15/2007
Welcome to the newly revamped
version of MATTWAGNERCOMICS.COM! Please check back
here regularly for breaking news and updates on all
my various projects and appearances.
Of course, the big news
for this year (2007) is the 25th anniversary of Grendel!
As such, we’ve got a lot of projects, press and
just general goodness planned throughout the year.
To kick off this auspicious event, we’ve got
an all-new, hardcover edition of DEVIL BY THE DEED
(link to cover art here), which has been freshly color
re-mastered to fit the Black, White & Red milieu
that has since become Hunter Rose’s domain. This
sweet lookin’ volume comes with a new introduction
by me and is restored with its original edition’s
introduction written by Alan Moore! Look for it on
your store shelves the first week in April.
Next on deck is the first-ever
reprinting of the hard-to-find original B&W issues
of Grendel. These are not only the very first appearances
of Grendel, but also my first professionally published
work and have been much-sought-after collector’s
items for years. Until now, I had avoided re-issuing
this material due to the fact that it’s an unfinished
story. The story of Hunter Rose was later revamped
and re-presented as DEVIL BY THE DEED, making the material
covered in these original issues somewhat obsolete
by my own narrative standards. This collection, titled
GRENDEL ARCHIVES (link to cover art here), includes
Grendel’s first appearance in Primer #2 as well
as the three issues of his eponymous title that eventually
saw print. I finally decided that the silver anniversary
of my flagship character was a suitable occasion to
have these puppies see print once again.
I’m an official guest
at this year’s Wonder Con festivities and will
have a table in Artist’s Alley as well as a special
signing at the Darkhorse booth on Saturday, from 1-2
pm, as well as a Grendel themed panel, also on Saturday
from 6-7 pm.
