Publisher to unveil new exclusive comics, special announcements and a host of guests.

Top Cow Productions Inc. announced its schedule today for this week’s San Diego Comic-Con, the nation’s biggest and best comics and pop culture extravaganza to be held at the San Diego Convention Center in San Diego, California from July 23 – 27.

Top Cow will set up shop at Booth #2329 and heads into the convention with exclusives, preview books, free goodies and a long list of guests, headlined by Top Cow CEO and founder Marc Silvestri (Witchblade, The Darkness, Cyberforce), artist J.G. Jones (Wanted) and writer Paul Dini (Madame Mirage).

After reading the first two issues of Marcus Almand’s comic book, Razor Kid, I’m left feeling surprisingly compelled to read more. Razor Kid is as indie as it gets, but this does not belie the effort that Almand and his revolving crew of artists have put forth in giving readers a superior product.

Issue one introduces us to 15-year-old Alexander Tanaka, AKA Razor Kid, as he fights Kevin Michaels in an exercise of initiation into the C.A.P.E. (Citizens Authorized for Protection and Enforcement) program. Alexander is a boy genius who’s developed an armored super suit equipped with an assortment of blades and devices including cybernetic arms that replace his own which have been amputated. Kevin, 18, provides quite a test as he appears to be a full-blown martial arts badass.

Review by Jason Thorson

Brand new original manga-style comic book series, based on the Award-winning screenplay by Malcolm Wong

Dabel Brothers Publishing is excited to announce the manga-style adaptation of Malcolm Wong’s award-winning screenplay, Dog Eaters. Malcolm’s screenplay won three awards at the Screenwriting Expo5 in Los Angeles. The story has been adapted by Sean J. Jordan, and features stunning manga-style pencils from Chilean illustrator, Guillermo A. Angel.

Dog Eaters tells the tale of a world 175 years after the “Die Off” – a catastrophe that occurs when the balance of world economic, political, and ecological systems is upset by an oil crisis that spins out of control, eventually wiping out 90% of the world’s population.

Original artwork by Marc Silvestri, Eric Basaldua, Michael Broussard and Sheldon Mitchell to be on display and for sale, with a portion of the proceeds going to the American Cancer Society in Michael Turner’s honor.

Brave New World Comics, Santa Clarita, California’s premiere pop culture superstore, is excited to announce An Evening with Top Cow Productions, featuring the art of Marc Silvestri and the Top Cow Crew.

The Dabels follow up Welcome to the Jungle with adaptation of Jim Butcher’s Storm Front

Dabel Brothers Publishing announced today that Mark Powers and Ardian Syaf will be the creative team adapting Jim Butcher’s Storm Front to comics. Considering the success of Harry Dresden’s first comic book appearance in Jim Butcher’s original story, Welcome to the Jungle, the Dabel Brothers couldn’t wait to begin production on Storm Front.

Dabel Brothers Publishing announced today that they will adapt Robert Jordan’s bestselling Wheel of Time series, which has sold more than 14 million copies in North America alone, into comic book format. The first issue is scheduled to release in December 2008.

The Wheel of Time began in 1990 with the publication of The Eye of the World; ten more volumes have followed. The most recent four books of the series have reached #1 on the New York Times hardcover bestseller list. It is the story of a world – both our past, and our future – in which the battle between the Light and the Shadow must be fought every day; and of the people, both ordinary and extraordinary, who must fight that battle. Jordan wrote eleven volumes of the series and one prequel; he was unable to complete the twelfth and final volume before his death in 2007. That volume, A Memory of Light, will be completed by Brandon Sanderson, a writer chosen by Jordan’s widow and editor, Harriet McDougal, and published by Tor Books in 2009.

“And what have you done lately?” So ends a fast-paced, winner-take-all honey of a comic book brought to life. Wanted builds from a nicely sardonic character study through a romp of an action film into a colossal final fight built around a twist that suddenly catapults the movie from a fun night out into an edge-of-the-seat thrill ride. It may start out slowly, but this movie ends with a bang so big, it will leave you grinning with malicious glee. All nice words aside, don’t go to this movie looking for high drama and a soaring intellectual quotient—although the movie does, at times, make witty, ironic jokes worthy of a wry smile. But if you enjoy a dark comic book writ large and riddled with as much wordplay as bullets, then this is the movie for you.

Review by Dana Hagengruber

Flames Rising was fortunate to attend Wizard World Chicago this year, at the gorgeous Rosemont Convention Center in Des Plaines, Illinois.

This was our first year at the convention, and we’re happy to report that we are making plans to go back next year.

What do you get when you mix an ancient Sanskrit epic that is integral to the Hindu religion with a graphic novel? You get Ramayan 3392 A.D. Created by Deepak Chopra and Shekahr Kapur, the graphic novel attempts to transcend the boundaries of normal storytelling into this visual medium. Is it successful?

To put Ramayan 3392 A.D. into perspective, think about what it must have been like when Marvel Illustrated’s staff put together Homer’s The Iliad into graphic novel form. This particular graphic novel is a re-imagining–not a re-telling–which is an important distinction to make.

Marvel Zombies: Dead Days (Hardcover Edition)

At last – experience the birth of the Marvel Zombies as told by the creative team of the best-selling limited series, and then witness their rise as they attempt to slake their hunger across two universes!

First, Kirkman and Phillips pull out all the stops as they reveal the secret story of the day the Marvel Heroes became brain-eating monsters in Marvel Zombies: Dead Days! Next, follow the Marvel Zombies into the pages of Millar and Land’s Ultimate Fantastic Four!

This week’s Flash Fire Mini-Reviews list is going to be a little different…

We talk about a lot of great Horror & Dark Fantasy books, games and other entertainment on Flames Rising and often have suggestions of where to get these great items. This week we’re going to take a look at a few of these online stores and hit the highlights of what makes each of them work for fans of horror…

After a short break, the Flash Fire Mini-Reviews are back (from the dead)!

Zombies have always had a following among horror fans. We have several reviews of great zombie games, books and more here on Flames Rising. Among the recent zombie reviews are Plague of the Dead 2, Happy Hour of the Damned and Zombie Fluxx. There are plenty more, including great titles from Permuted Press and Eden Studios.

This week we will be checking out a mix of zombie entertainment. Games, Novels and a Movie will make up the horde…

Yahoo Movies just posted a brand new trailer for Hellboy II: The Golden Army! After an ancient truce existing between humankind and the invisible realm of the fantastic is broken, hell on Earth is ready to erupt. A ruthless leader who treads the world above and the one below defies his bloodline and awakens an […]

Along with Edgar Allan Poe and Stephen King, Howard Phillips Lovecraft is considered one of America’s most innovative and popular American horror writers. The master of the weird tale during the first decades of the 20th Century until his premature death in 1937, Lovecraft’s distinctive style and canon of work has influenced as many authors as the stories of Ernest Hemingway and Dashiell Hammett. Lovecraft’s earliest published work, Herbert West: Re-Animator, was turned into the 1985 cult classic film, Reanimator.

Caliber Comics has published a number of Lovecraft’s classic tales and inputed a modern spin for today’s audiences and the writers are developing new tales based on Lovecraft’s imaginations in addition to adapting some of the classic stories.

Axiom-Man is a superhero whose true identity is a bumbling social introvert named Gabriel Garrison. Gabriel works in an office and he’s madly in love with Valerie Vaughn, the gorgeous coworker who predictably won’t give him the time of day. Axiom-Man’s conduit to the rest of the world, especially its seedy underbelly, is Sgt. Jack Gunn, an old school lawman with whom he shares a love-hate-love relationship of mutual necessity. If you’re keeping track, that’s one Superman, a Clark Kent, Lois Lane with a twist of Vicky Vale, and a generous helping of Commissioner Gordon. These clichés don’t exactly stop this story dead, but they certainly don’t make for the most compelling read either.

Review by Jason Thorson

Do you enjoy fright in your InBox every morning? Do you jump with glee when blood splatters all over your web page? Well, new to Flames this year will be reviews of the good, the bad, and the horrific in new media formats that we haven’t covered before. We couldn’t think of a better place […]

Most of us who love the horror genre have at least heard of H.P. Lovecraft. His influence spreads out like the tentacles of the beings that populate his stories–into movies, comics and role-playing games, as well as the works of today’s great horror writers.