Here’s Mike with more details:

William Gravel was originally the lead character in a one-shot mini-series, STRANGE KISS. To tell the horrific tale of a bizarre Elder God and its intended domination of the Earth, the story’s “villain” needed a worthy foil, thus, the Combat Magician, William Gravel was born. It was a tale of irony, hidden agendas and paranoia, a quick-and-dirty little shocker. But Gravel himself became a lightning rod of fan interest; he was far too intriguing to be disposed of after only three issues. Over the course of five years, Gravel continued to sporadically appear on store shelves, each time bringing with him new and disturbing adventures, but even so, we still know very little about the man. I suppose that is part of his allure, so we won’t be exposing everything about him in the GRAVEL ongoing series, just providing tantalizing new details and new mysteries on a more consistent shipping schedule.

It seemed like a natural evolution, launching an ongoing monthly GRAVEL series, based on the incredible response the character’s previous tales generated with both fans and critical reviewers. Maybe it was all about timing, a proper alignment of the stars, or available breathing room in all of our schedules… Or maybe it was Garth Ennis’ suggestion. Whatever the impetus, everything fell into place with surprising ease. William Gravel has been around for years, and has generated quite a following of die-hard fans, who have eagerly awaited the next disturbing chapter in the STRANGE KISS/KISSES/KILLINGS series. They have been loyal, and quite vocal and at last Warren Ellis, Raulo Caceres and I are able to deliver what the fans have asked for, for the first time in full color and with no punches pulled. This is the Gravel we all know, the same lovable bastard, only delivered in monthly installments.

I’m thrilled to once again be working with Warren Ellis, to assist with the refinement of Gravel’s tales. As co-writer, I take Warren’s 7 to 8-page, detailed plot breakdowns that include key passages of dialog and expand upon that, fleshing it out for artist Raulo Caceres. It’s an exhilarating experience, to receive these incredible story pitches and add my own artistic sense of visual pacing, to take what Warren has provided and polish it into a finished product with Raulo’s help. It’s a unique co-mingling of creative energies that results in stories that take the best of what each of us can provide; we build on each other’s strengths to produce a unique comic that, in my opinion, stands apart from everything else on the shelves.

I don’t think we could have chosen a better replacement for me than Raulo Caceres. His attention to detail is extraordinary and it is that sort of immersive environment that I tried to instill in my art when I was working on the previous series. I have to admit: I’m a bit protective of William Gravel when it comes to his visual representation, as until now I have been the only artist to draw him on covers or interiors. But Raulo’s got the goods and he draws an excellent Gravel, full of the same grimness that is his trademark and the heaviness of Raulo’s inking provides the perfect, dark mood that has pervaded Gravel’s adventures through all of the various mini-series.

In the past, we’ve concentrated on showing how William Gravel interacts with the world around him, utilizing his Combat Magic to bring about desired results that, at the end of the day, usually only benefits himself. In the GRAVEL ongoing monthly, we’re going to more closely examine that world of magic of which we’ve only seen glimpses in previous mini-series. We know what Gravel can do, but we don’t necessarily know why or how he does it. Although GRAVEL #0 is not the beginning of some drawn-out origin story, it is the starting point of a new perspective, a side of Gravel that has remained hidden since his first appearance in STRANGE KISS.

For more information about Strange Kiss and other collections featuring William Gravel, the new ongoing series, and the creative team behind GRAVEL follow the links below:

A talk with series artist Raulo Caceres.

GRAVEL Gallery.

GRAVEL Press Release.

Original Strange Killings epic (6 TPBs.)

Local comic retailers are now preparing their orders for GRAVEL #0 and Avatar’s January 2008 releases. When visiting your store this week please use our handy checklist to let your retailer know of what Avatar comics you are interested in purchasing.

Spanish artist Raulo Caceres might not have had much exposure to the US market a year ago, but his work on such projects as CRECY and DOKTOR SLEEPLESS has turned the spotlight on this up and coming artist. And with his rising popularity comes his biggest project to date from Avatar Press, an ongoing series by creator Warren Ellis. GRAVEL features the lead character from Ellis’ original Strange Killings epic, in which Sgt Major William Gravel has appeared in 6 TPBs.

(more…)

Garth Ennis talks about STREETS OF GLORY.

Warren Ellis interview at Comic-Con.

Jacen Burrows talks about working on Alan Moore’s new series.

HOW AVATAR PRESS SAVED MY LIFE, Part 5: Strange Killings On Friday The 13th

By Mike Wolfer
And so it began, in the summer of 1999, my long and memorable collaboration with Warren Ellis at Avatar Press. The incredibly high-concept character of Combat Magician William Gravel and his bizarre, and often times perverse adventures afforded me the opportunity to grow incredibly as a storyteller. No matter what Warren threw at me in the script, I was prepared to make him proud, transforming his written words into a gray-toned, two-dimensional reality.

STRANGE KISS begat STRANGER KISSES, then a string of STRANGE KILLINGS assaulted readers’ sensibilities, always pushing the boundaries of what is the acceptable behavior of a hero. But despite the horrific violence, the ritualistic mutilations, and the sexually-depraved zombies, Warren never let us forget that it’s all about Gravel. As Garth Ennis professes, “No matter what, you can always depend on Gravel to be a cunt.”

It came as a surprise and an incredible compliment when I learned that Warren and William Christensen would allow me to assist with the scripting of STRANGE KILLINGS. Warren’s confidence with my ability as a writer was something that had never even crossed my mind, nor would it have been something that I would ever have contemplated. After all, he made the characters speak; all I did was draw pretty pictures. But in reviewing my work, Warren felt that I could flex my creative muscles in a way that would not conflict with his own vision and somehow, the experiment flowed seamlessly. Again, William Christensen opened a door for me, helping me to widen the scope of my resume and strengthen my talent in ways that I had never thought possible.

Always on the lookout, William had a new offer for me as Warren and I wrapped up the finale of the six-issue STRANGE KILLINGS epic, NECROMANCER. Avatar had secured the licensing rights to several New Line Cinema properties and seeing as I was an “old school” horror film fan, the FRIDAY THE 13TH comic series seemed like a natural choice for me to illustrate. It didn’t hurt that Brian Pulido would be writing, since he and I go way back to the “Indy” days when I contributed to several of his Chaos! Comics LADY DEATH pin-up books.

Chronicling the undying rampage of Jason Voorhees was a blast for me, as I had always been a huge fan of the franchise, so when the opportunity arose for me to take over the writing of the series, I was already prepared to finally make sense out of 10 movies-worth of continuity and thematic errors. Oh, the plans that I had, the characters that would return from the films, the situations and locales that we would revisit. I had a grand scheme that would extend over at least two mini-series and even tie-in to the JASON X comic, which I would also be scripting.

My first crack at the property was the “they said it couldn’t be done” JASON VS. JASON X, which I also illustrated. That one turned out to be an incredible crowd-pleaser, with its unexpectedly poignant ending taking quite a few reviewers by surprise. But that’s always been my tactic as a horror writer: Give them what they want, and just when they become comfortable, give them something that hits them emotionally.

I couldn’t wait to get my hands dirty on the regular FRIDAY series, on which I could cut loose with everything I had. My first issue was the FRIDAY THE 13TH FEARBOOK, wherein I tidied-up the carnage created in Brian Pulido’s four-issue run… And then New Line pulled the plug, shifting the book over to Wildstorm to keep it “in house”. The less said here, the better. Let’s just say, I was supremely pissed.

But right around the corner, the zombies were lurking in the form of the screenplay for John Russo’s yet-to-be-produced ESCAPE OF THE LIVING DEAD. John had co-written the original NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD with George Romero and had written this direct sequel that falls somewhere between NIGHT and DAWN OF THE DEAD. Once again, William had put a project into my hands that I could not believe and it was my pleasurable duty to transcribe the screenplay into a five-issue comic book series, juggling scenes, tweaking dialogue and reworking it into a format that held four cliffhanger endings. Not an easy job, to be sure, but a complete joy. It was only a matter of time before George Romero, noting the success we had with ESCAPE decided to officially license NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD to Avatar as well. To keep a consistent feel between the series, I was asked by William to be the writer of NIGHT as well, and had the supreme honor of serving as scripter of the official prequel to the first film, the three-issue NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD: THE BEGINNING. An ESCAPE spin-off, PLAGUE OF THE LIVING DEAD is now also in my hands. It’s true, I am surrounded by zombies and that’s a heavy burden that could easily burn out any writer if a little diversity isn’t thrown into the mix once in a while.

As if on cue, in rides Garth Ennis, the orange sun sinking below the horizon behind him. And in his hands, a script that reads, STREETS OF GLORY.
To be continued…

* Going to dig out my keys to the
DOKTOR SLEEPLESS wiki today and
see if I can work out what’s going
on there.

* Have also created and hidden a
DOK community-style website. Not
a new message board per se, not
the new online community I was
talking about earlier.

* Will also lean on Avatar next
week in re: SCIENCE BITCH t-shirts
to go with the SCIENCE BASTARD Ts.

* Spacebar doesn’t work properly
on new keyboard. Bah.

* The comics business goes to
Wizard World Chicago this weekend.
I am not. In fact, I have no more con
appearances scheduled, anywhere.
This is an immensely pleasant
prospect, post-San Diego. Very
tempting to just take a couple of
years off shows entirely, though
I doubt it’ll happen.

* Have set the Apparat Novella
for December. Have decided to
try and get one done for March as
well, aiming for 3 to 4 a year. The
second one’s historical too. The 3rd
would have to be different…

* Am doing a PA in Second Life
today — details on website.

—————

from mobile device

HOW AVATAR PRESS SAVED MY LIFE, Part 4: Reconstruction
By Mike Wolfer

It was a time of great unrest. Nineteen Ninety-Six. The comic book industry was littered with the corpses of idealistic indy publishers, struck down before their prime by the ravaging, black vacuum created by the rapid retreat of comic book speculators abandoning the market.
William Christensen knew that it was the perfect time to launch Avatar Press. And I believed him. (more…)

HOW AVATAR PRESS SAVED MY LIFE, Part 3: Spiders And Sex

By Mike Wolfer

The idea was simple: Take everything that I loved about exploitation horror movies, add copious amounts of gore, sex, nudity and monsters, stir in some sexually-transmitted disease social commentary and offer it all to adult readers of black and white indy comics.

And kill the heroine at the end of the three-issue mini-series.

But the fans of WIDOW: FLESH AND BLOOD had become so attached to Emma, even before they knew that she could transform into a spider-legged, flesh-eating creature, that her imminent death was hastily rewritten.

Sales of WIDOW exceeded my wildest expectations, so when the final issue of the initial series premiered in the Spring of 1993, I was already at work on a sequel, WIDOW: KILL ME AGAIN. At that time, I had no way of knowing that WIDOW was at the forefront of a wave of wildly popular and eventually vehemently despised comic book characters called… Gulp… “Bad Girls.” I was doing what I liked, and the continued strong sales gave every indication that I was on to something bigger than I had envisioned. There was something about the raven-haired beauty that struck a chord with fans hungry to see a woman have sex with, then later eviscerate and consume her mate.

After the completion of WIDOW: KILL ME AGAIN, I repackaged the first two series into trade paperbacks and in February of 1995, I presented FANGS OF THE WIDOW, an all-ages reprinting of the very first issue. I realized that, after three years of attending conventions around the country, there was a huge comic readership that was being excluded from enjoying the adventures of the sexy arachnid princess by the “Mature Readers” label. As I strove for as strong a literary content as possible, I noted that several other companies were unveiling their own horror heroines, each pushing farther and farther away from thought-provoking content into the realm of cheesecake, pin-up porn. But that wasn’t my concern. I had my own solid reputation for delivering a story along with the sex and blood. There couldn’t possibly be any guilt by association, right?

It was at the New York Comic Book Spectacular in February 1995 that I met the head of London Night Studios, a company intent on getting their hands on WIDOW. “Bad Girls” were everywhere: RAZOR, LADY DEATH, CRY FOR DAWN, all of which did better than WIDOW on the sales charts, so it only made sense to me to join forces with another stronger company. Let someone else handle the myriad back-breaking chores associated with publishing while I concentrated solely on writing and drawing. It sounded good at the time and the deal that we eventually struck for London Night’s right to print FANGS OF THE WIDOW and a new, full-color series titled WIDOW: METAL GYPSIES was too good to pass up. WIDOW in full color! It was a step that I could not financially or creatively have performed myself. I signed on the dotted line.

The all-ages, first issue of WIDOW: METAL GYPSIES broke into Diamond Comic Distributor’s August 1995 Top 100 sellers, but the absence of WIDOW’s previously-established adult content was sorely missed by fans. Regardless, the 5-figure check that London Night handed me for that first issue made the story-telling concession worthwhile, or so I had justified it to myself. Oh, the things I would do with that sweet, sweet money…

To this day, I’m still unsure why I received the call from London Night Studios, four months later, telling me to “cancel Christmas.” That’s right: After two issues of METAL GYPSIES and four issues of FANGS, they were pulling the plug. Sales were slightly down, but still strong enough to justify the continuation of publication. Over the years, others in the comic industry have theorized that it was killing London Night to write those big checks, knowing that such huge chunks of money were flying right through their fingers. I just don’t know.

Fine. Fuck it.

I immediately picked up the reins, shifting WIDOW back to Ground Zero, where I published the third and final issue of METAL GYPSIES and resumed the reprint book, FANGS OF THE WIDOW. Next on my agenda was a five-issue series, WIDOW: BOUND BY BLOOD, featuring a new supporting character, Brandi Five-One.

It was 1996, the year all indy publishers fondly remember as the Year Of The Implosion.

Hundreds of publishers, hundreds of “Bad Girls,” hundreds of variant and gimmick covers and hundreds of “Issue #1’s” soon made it apparent to the multiple thousands of speculators who had artificially inflated sales that there was no longer any investment potential to be had in comics. So they fled, in droves, collapsing the market and driving scores of publishers, and even comic book stores and distributors out of business, including the juggernaut Capital City Distribution. But with my low overhead and myself as the only employee of Ground Zero Comics, I survived. After three issues, I shifted the conclusion of the BOUND BY BLOOD storyline over to the pages of FANGS OF THE WIDOW as a cost-cutting measure, while testing the waters by putting WIDOW: PROGENY and the WIDOW CINEGRAPHIC SPECIAL on the market. I even produced the elusive WIDOW Trading Card Set for those hardcore collectors. I was barely above water, but I could still breathe while others perished.

And then an interesting thing happened. An associate who I had met at various conventions and who had financed several variant cover versions of WIDOW books for his gigantic mail order company was starting his own publishing venture at a time when so many others were dropping like flies. We had done business through the entire London Night fiasco and he assured me that if I were to bring WIDOW over to his new company, the same would never again happen to me.

That man was William Christensen,

His new company was called Avatar Press.
To be continued…

HOW AVATAR PRESS SAVED MY LIFE, Part 2: The Execution

By Mike Wolfer

It was in January, 1987 that I received the advance sales figures for my first self-published effort, DAIKAZU #1. After months of preparation, setting up Ground Zero Comics, lining-up distributors and generally working myself to death, I had hoped that I would sell enough books to at least cover my start-up and advertising expenses and hopefully pay for the printing of that first issue.

I was shocked that, when tallying the orders from my various distributors, my sales reached nearly 4,000.

I did the math, over and over. I was still shocked by the profit that I would be making. And I began to realize that perhaps my aspiration of one day working for Marvel Comics might not be as fulfilling as I had originally envisioned. At least, it couldn’t be as profitable as self-publishing. All I had to do now was get the thing printed, shipped and onto the store shelves. (more…)