Here’s my pencils to the new BRAT PACK cover. Yes, I’ll be putting lots of BRAT PACK eye-candy up on the blog this month to remind everyone to order early and often. With Diamond’s new policies regarding minimum orders, King Hell will need all it can get while the book is solicited in this month’s PREVIEWS.

Retailers should be reminded that Diamond will not be relisting Independent books regularly in PREVIEWS like they used to. To avoid those odious reorder charges for a book you know you can sell, the wise store owner will order a boatload now at the best price they’ll ever get from Diamond. Ordering code is: MAR094365 F BRAT PACK NEW EDITION TP

If you’ve never read BRAT PACK, download a free pdf of the first issue and see what all the hooting and hollering is about.

The year was 1993 and Steve Bissette and I were holed up in my little cabin studio feverishly penciling the first two issues of our 1963 collaboration with Alan Moore. I was doing MYSTERY INCORPORATED and Steve had NO ONE ESCAPES THE FURY. One of the great things about the arrangement was when I needed a cool monster, there’s Bissette, king of monsters, sitting at the next board. He gleefully ghosted this FROST BEAST in the MYSTERY MILE trophy room behind my figures of CRYSTAL MAN, THE PLANET and NEON QUEEN. Words by Alan Moore, inks Dave Gibbons, color Marvin Killroy and letters Don Simpson.

To boost my attention span, of course. And now scientists have proven it!

With a remastered edition of BRAT PACK in Diamond PREVIEWS this month, I’ll be posting a bunch of cool odd-ball stuff related to it here to remind everyone to order early and often.

Here’s a really neat promotional piece we did to launch the comic in 1990. It’s a foam-core stand-up that was printed, die-cut and sent to retailers by the young Tundra marketing wing trumpeting the infamous “LIVE FAST. LOVE HARD. DIE WITH YOUR MASK ON.” catch phrase. We didn’t know what we were doing in those days, but somehow we did it right on BRAT PACK, which became the best-selling black and white book that summer.

If you’ve never read BRAT PACK, you can download a 7 meg pdf of the first issue free. And when you are ready to put in your preorder, the Diamond ordering code is: MAR094365 F BRAT PACK NEW EDITION TP.

Character sketch for THE ONE. Pen and ink, 1984.

Here’s a fun cover to my GREYSHIRT: INDIGO SUNSET series.

Here’s a page of original art from the very first issue of 1963: MYSTERY INCORPORATED that will make a nice addition to any collection. It features KID DYNAMO in hand to hand battle with the strange intruder of MYSTERY MILE. Script by Affable Alan Moore, pencils by Roarin’ Rick Veitch, inks by Dashin’ Dave Gibbons and letters by Dandy Don Simpson.

The page is in perfect condition and I’m pricing it at $250. If you are interested shoot me an email.

You can see the other pages I’ve put up for sale here.

I’ve done a neat little gif animation demonstrating how the recent ONE MINUTE LATER commission evolved from rough sketch to pencils, to inks to colors and finished lettered piece. It’s 800k so, in deference to those readers who don’t have broadband, I’ve posted it on its own special page. Check it out!

Here’s a commission I did for the very cool ONE MINUTE LATER site. Essentially it’s a collection of commissioned art in which the artists are asked to take a famous cover and visualize what happened one minute later. My target cover was TALES OF SUSPENSE #65 and the finished inks are seen above. Those guys add the coloring and logos to create a lovely authenticity. Check ‘em out!

I’ve created an animation showing how this piece evolved, from the initial sketches to layouts to pencils to inks and right through to the colored and lettered finishes. I hope to have it up on this site in a few days.

In the meantime, the commission window is still open. Check out some of my previous commissions here. And give me a shout if you are ready to take the plunge.

An all new edition of the BRAT PACK trade paperback form KING HELL is being solicited in this month’s Diamond PREVIEWS (item code: MAR094365 F BRAT PACK NEW EDITION TP). There’s an all new cover and I’ve remastered all the interiors from the original art (and a big thank you to Albert Moy for making that possible).

BRAT PACK’s been my best-seller over the years, with the fourth edition selling out in late 2007. There’s a new generation of fans who dig twisted superheroes, such as THE BOYS and KICK-ASS, who will feel right at home in old Slumberg. Folks looking for something really dark and menacing in the wake of the WATCHMEN hype might go for BRAT PACK too. Here’s what Heidi MacDonald said over on THE BEAT:

“For those not familiar with it, BRAT PACK completes the troika of immortal works dissecting the superhero genre, with the other two being DARK KNIGHT and WATCHMEN. Indeed, for those brave readers looking for a follow-up to WATCHMEN, BRAT PACK could be just the thing. We were flipping through a copy the other day, and it’s just as disturbing and horrific as it ever was.”

Some good news: even though most comics are looking at a 20% price increase, KING HELL has held the line. This edition of BRAT PACK, even with the nice paper and top-notch printing I’ve lined up, will cost the same as the last edition: 176 pages for $19.95.

Some other good news: you can get a FREE 7.2 MEG PDF DOWNLOAD of the first 32 page chapter right here. Pass the word to anyone you know who might enjoy my distinctive brand of superhero horror!