Image Comics – Skybound – Kirkman – Transformers – Announcement – Musings – Reaction

It’s an exciting time to be a G.I. Joe or Transformers fan.

There’s a new Transformers movie in theaters right now, the G.I. Joe Classified toy line is continuing to do well and collectors remind me that sales surprised Hasbro after its launch three years back. A major G.I. Joe fan convention took place six days ago (I’ll post about that in a week or two.) And while there have been no new Joe or TF comic books published in six months — an odd dry spell after the last decade-plus — that ended Wednesday in comic book shops with a shock few saw coming. And that was followed, also Wednesday, by some big announcements that Joe and TF fans have been waiting for.

I wish to remind everyone that G.I. Joe, once bigger than Ninja Turtles and Batman, is a smaller brand in 2023. I scour the catalogs for any cool licensing, be that foam bag clips, or Jada Nano metal figures, or cloisonne pins, or mouse pads. The most popular IPs get all that stuff all the time, and lots of versions, too. There’s the version based on this cartoon or that oddly colored video game sprite, plus an new movie and some old movie. G.I. Joe characters tend to be recreated from only their 1980s toy or cartoon looks, and a lot of non-toy Joe packaging these days alludes to the 1980s toy package paintings. (Which is great, but again, not much variety.)

So when someone of Robert Kirkman’s stature goes for the TF and Joe licenses, that’s a big deal. And I don’t wish to diminish the rest of the Skybound masthead. I think this week and for another half-year a lot of people will type or say into a mic the word “Kirkman” somewhat interchangeably as “Skybound.” Let’s remember that Kirkman is an Image Comics Partner (of the level of a Founder, except that he wasn’t there in ’92), he’s Chairman of Skybound Entertainment, Executive Producer of the Walking Dead TV shows, and writer of a lot of comic books past and present. But that company, Skybound, employs editors, designers, managers, directors, and more. Skybound isn’t just Walking Dead reprints and Invincible reprints. Please go read Stealth if you don’t believe me. And who is publishing a Tillie Walden survivalist young adult graphic novel trilogy? That’s the new YA imprint, Skybound Comet. That’s a big deal.

(And that’s just the Skybound masthead. There’s a whole ‘nother one for Image.)

In the broadest sense, I’m pleased, hopping out of my seat excited that Kirkman/Skybound is/are publishing new Transformers and G.I. Joe books because Kirkman has a strong creative vision. I don’t just mean he’s a good writer. I think Walking Dead is good, maybe great. But as importantly, every Skybound book always looks excellent. That’s Rus Wooten lettering Murder Falcon, and Matthew Wilson coloring Fire Power, and the logo design on Assassin Nation, and the interplay of negative space and spot varnish on the cover of the recent Kroma collection. (That’s a miniseries drawn and written by Lorenzo De Felici, who draws the Kirkman collaboration Oblivion Song.) I think we all have feelings and complaints about a lot of imprints, editorial fiefdoms, and entire publishing lines where things usually look good or stellar, but sooner than later a page or a half-issue is rushed or finished by lesser hands. Or for a year a book looks great, and then for a year it looks okay. I do not ever see this happen with Skybound. (I beg Skybound to bring back Layman and Chan to finish Outer Darkness!)

Sure, Kirkman pitched a G.I. Joe story to Devil’s Due Publishing back in 2005 or 2006 or I forget when, and that’s fun. And yes, The Walking Dead and Invincible as TV shows beyond comics are a big freaking deal. But popularity isn’t enough of a reason to celebrate this week’s news. That’s a version of saying “Kirkman is hot, and now he has G.I. Joe.” That’s close, but off. Rather, let’s split it: Kirkman and company always have a high level of minimum quality, which is something that G.I. Joe deserves. And because Kirkman has made a lot of money on popular projects, he can throw some good money at these two brands, G.I. Joe and Transformers. I don’t mean merely to license them from Hasbro, but that he can hire writers, artists, colorists, and letterers who, because of their skill and popularity, demand a higher page rate. And those two reasons are worth celebrating. So let’s look at some specifics:

Daniel Warren Johnson on Transformers. This is a coup for Hasbro, Skybound, and fans. I set up a small DWJ display at my shop a month back with Do A Powerbomb!, the Thor spin-off Beta Ray Bill, and the aforementioned Murder Falcon, and they’ve sold briskly ever since. (If his Wonder Woman: Dead Earth were in softcover, that’d be there, too.) Johnson on Transformers is a similar kind of decision as Rob Liefeld on Snake-Eyes, an auteur with a unique style, and a following. But Johnson has a wider range, so whereas Snake-Eyes: Dead Game generated a lot of heat, but I doubt created any fans, this new TF may splash big and stay big.

Joshua Williamson on two G.I. Joe miniseries. What a cool surprise, the writer of DC’s biggest books — Batman, Green Arrow, Dark Crisis on Infinite Earths, some Justice League, too, on G.I. Joe. I thought Dark Crisis #1 was kinda dumb, but I thought #2 was quite good. (Let me skip any more review, as that mini is kinda review-proof and I don’t weigh in on DC cosmic events here at A Real American Book!) All I want to say is that I don’t even know how much I like or dislike Williamson’s work (I don’t read as much DC as other publishers), but it’s cool he’s onboard.

And from a marketing standpoint, if the early ad is accurate, surprising that the first two G.I. Joe miniseries will be called Duke and Cobra Commander. That’s a bold choice. (But we do live in a world with a G.I. Joe miniseries called not-G.I. Joe-Snake-Eyes: Dead Game, and there was a book called Cobra — not “G.I. Joe: Cobra“ — 15 years back.)

I’m not familiar with the artist drawing Cobra Commander, so here’s what the Simon & Schuster website says: “Andrea Milana is a cartoonist from Rome, born in 1993. After graduating in Painting from the Academy of Fine Arts, he entered the world of comics through self-publishing, to which he devoted himself for several years. Dahlia in the Dark marks his debut as a professional artist in the US market.” Sounds like a good start! Let’s look at Milana’s online stuff:

And looks like a good start!

Tom Reilly.

Two years back my shop carried the Marvel Thing miniseries that Reilly drew. I was floored by the art. A hundred internalized design decisions on every page, and that is embedded in every panel, every body, every background, every lack of background, every facial expression, every black line of ink. And then the Marvel Ant-Man miniseries that Reilly drew. Again, I was blown away. If you pick these up and don’t see it, keep looking. This isn’t “hot” flash, this is the ability to draw in multiple styles, this is page layout, this is leading the eye. Reilly may not be, or may never be a “fan-favorite,” but he absolutely is an artist’s artist. Abstractly, reading those two Marvel stories, I half-thought “well, this guy or someone like him would never draw G.I. Joe.” How delicious it feels to be wrong. LOOK AT THIS.

Kirkman probably on something Transformers to be announced. Great!

Additional G.I. Joe miniseries. Great!

And now, the part of the announcement we’ve been waiting for since November, with that bonkers last page cliffhanger in G.I. Joe issue #300. The announcement we’ve been waiting for since November 2021, when the rumor leaked that the Joe license would not continue with IDW Publishing. The announcement I’ve been waiting for since April 2022 when I saw Larry Hama in Boston and we talked lightly and vaguely about him ending G.I. Joe with #300. And later, that summer, when he said at a con or two that he was plotting #301. And five days ago when I had coffee with him, and I lightly asked how the new stuff was going and where he was, and he said he’d just turned in the plot for #304: The official press announcement that Skybound Entertainment through Image Comics would publish the continuation of the 1982-1994 Marvel/2012-2022 IDW G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero monthly series! AND WHO WOULD DRAW IT.

Let’s start with covers. I gasped. Andy Kubert and Brad Anderson on the #301 cover? And not just any cover, but the regular, basic, actual non-variant, non-rare NORMAL cover. This is exciting for several reasons. First, Andy Kubert is “hot.” Second, Andy Kubert is excellent. He can draw anything. Third, Andy Kubert is sort of coming home. Hama gave Kubert some of his earliest drawing jobs in comics in the Conan office, and Kubert drew 10 covers for Marvel’s G.I. Joe and G.I. Joe: Special Missions. Fourth, Brad Anderson is one of the best colorists in comics. I have looked with yearning at his work over Gary Frank at DC and Image these last few years, wishing somehow that he could color G.I. Joe. Note the depth created by reds, yellows, and blues to separate the layers in this Sgt. Rock cover.

(Anderson does a similar thing on the #301 cover, too.) Yes, I could look at Brad Anderson colors all day. There’s that Vietnam issue of Junkyard Joe that, if you squinted and turned your head sideways, was just an issue of The ‘Nam or a G.I. Joe flashback. And it gets better, because the Popverse article/press release doesn’t just specify that Kubert is doing one cover, but is “signing on for a tour of duty as cover artist.” Be still my heart!

Chris Mooneyham.

I will admit that this artist was off my radar. We carried a bit of his Five Ghosts back in ’13 when it launched. I recall thinking that I liked Mooneyham’s sense of atmosphere, the heavy shadows, and the old school quality of his figure drawings and page layouts. More European than, say, manga or cartooning. (Nothing wrong with those, but I do love the more standard American Adventure Style in play at Marvel Comics around 1960-1990.) But a quick check back on some work…

…and at first blush, yes, I think this chap could be a great fit! And he went to the Kubert School! Now, I don’t write that to make a connection to Andy Kubert, who attended and also has taught there. Or that school founder Joe Kubert drew Sgt. Rock, a military book. Rather, that G.I. Joe comics artists and toy designers Mark Pennington, Kurt Groen, Bart Sears, Steve Leiber, Alex Sanchez, and Lee Weeks went there! You don’t have to be a Kubie to draw G.I. Joe, but it doesn’t hurt!

A big remaining question was who would color Chris Mooneyham on G.I. Joe. In the time between me writing most of this blog post and finishing it, that name was announced as an ARAH-centric press release appeared from Skybound to supplement the earlier Energon Universe one. So here I am Thursday night/Friday morning rewriting this paragraph. Now we know (ha) that coloring G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero will be Francesco Segala, who has colored Power Rangers comics for BOOM!, a graphic novel I’m not familiar with, and other stuff.

Mooneyham historically uses a lot of black ink, which suggests flatter colors and/or a more limited palette, not the rainbow of gradients you might see on X-Men or Justice League in ’23. (I know there’s no Justice League right now, by the way.) But to repeat a point from earlier, every Skybound book has great color. From Dave McCaig’s temperature separations on The Walking Dead Deluxe (did you see my letter in issue #61? It’s all about McCaig) to Bill Crabtree’s animation flats on Invincible, to Afu Chan’s subtle textures in Outer Darkness, so I am optimistic here. That leaves the creative team as…

This is a G.I. Joe blog, and I co-host a G.I. Joe podcast, and am writing a G.I. Joe history book, but don’t forget that I’m also a Transformers fan, and gobbled up IDW’s TF books, particularly the Greatest Transformers Stories Ever Told in the More Than Meets the Eye/Robots in Disguise/Till All Are One/Windblade/Optimus Prime/Unicron cycle of 2012-2018. While any new TF launch will have to somewhat compete with that, whether on paper or onscreen, Skybound is a legitimately exciting place for such a launch and I look forward to any and all TF comics.

I will make three last, quick points:

–Void Rivals #1 was fun. Part Vaughan/Staples Saga, part Transformers 1984 episode “Fire in the Sky.”

-Yes, I own a comic shop, no, we didn’t know about the Void Rivals reveal and 1:100 variant stunt until it was too late. As a businessman, that’s disappointing. As a fan who doesn’t care for variant covers, it was a shoulder shrug. As a reader, it was pretty cool. Let’s not forget that Robert Kirkman has a history of this, ending/cancelling The Walking Dead in a shock move no one knew about until the issue arrived at retail, including in the run-up, fake catalog solicitations. And that final issue was triple-sized, but for the normal cover price. And then, a year later, writing and publishing a whole, free, surprise Walking Dead epilogue comic book that went to comic book shops during the pandemic. I mean, this guy wants readers to have a really good time.

-I don’t want G.I. Joe and Transformers to be in the same universe. The scales (I don’t mean size) are all wrong. But since every publisher that has had the licenses has teamed them up, and since the Hasbro-verse/Revolution-verse at IDW was pretty fun, and since there’s still a “regular” G.I. Joe in the Larry Hama-written series, you have at it, Skybound Entertainment and Robert Kirkman.