GEHENNA: NAKED AGGRESSION
Action! Crime! Revenge!
THE DAY HAS COME
We’re in the catalog, everybody. We’re available for order!
GEHENNA: NAKED AGGRESSION is Maurizio Rosenzweig full-speed crushing an action-revenge story. It’s a blast, from start to finish.
The story is easy: A woman is trapped in a cycle of revenge and now she’s marked for death. But she’s managed to survive multiple attempts, and the contract on her life has been repackaged and sold as debt. It’s passed from one criminal organization to another, each unable to complete the contract. Our protagonist must end the chain of title on that debt. With a bullet.
Each issue is broken into parts, each built with individual momentum intended to propel the larger story. It was the freest I’ve felt writing, and the result is a stream-of-consciousness effect that compliments the protagonist’s race through the city of Chicago.
I’ve talked in this newsletter about how execution is absolute. A clever idea is nice, but not so nice as a story done well. And that’s what Maurizio and I aspired to here. The goal was to tell a moment-to-moment action story where there was no pause button. The model was the Mike Baron & Mark Texeira THE PUNISHER #36, an issue I’ve praised up and down in this newsletter.
I believe there’s readers like me out there who want their books art-first and to-the-point. Music puts me around a lotta people who read comics in the early 00s but haven’t kept up. Everyone remembers BATTLE CHASERS. Everyone. It GRABBED young minds. And while I think there’s a place for more measured work, I don’t think this is the moment for it (even when I do it). I want BIG. I want visual.
The choice to make the protagonist and antagonist full-figured women is fan-service, certainly, but don’t dismiss it. I hope you’ll excuse me intellectualizing fan-service for a moment:
This is a visual medium, I think it goes without saying. I don’t suggest characters have to be sexy, or even attractive. But if they are to be attractive, they must be very attractive. Just as if they are to ugly, the should be hideous. Character is most of our job here. I don’t care about the 2020s political civ that ‘sexy’ and ‘ugly’ are forced through by boring people. I care about characters I want to look at. Sometimes that’s sexy, other times that’s ugly as. Failure to compel is the only real sin. What do they say about successful cartooning? Every character instantly recognizable by their silhouette?
Regarding the choice to do a straight-up action story: I’m not clever enough to decide what my career ‘needs’ and then create a book around that. My work is fueled exclusively by intuition. There is no plan. So I was happy when Maurizio and I tripped into a series I could hand-sell to anyone. This book is equally for the diehard comic reader and someone who hasn’t read sequential art since GARFIELD. There’s an incredibly high level of craft on display, but the book remains approachable.
And that brings us to the call to action here. Some of you don’t read comic books. You know me from music and read this newsletter because it’s fun to watch someone be passionate. It’s you I’m talking to directly now. I have always endeavored to keep my music career and comics career separate. If sometimes they kiss, like in the case of RUN THE DUNGEON or selling comics at the band merch table, that’s fine. But I never wanted to leverage one to service the other.
That’s gotta change.
Comic books need new readers. I won’t be dramatic and say the artform is dying, but I will say it’s lost momentum. We need new blood. Not just new talent, but new eyes. And so I come to you. People who know my sensibilities and trust that I can deliver something good. I ask that you start with this book. Or start again with this book.
Call your local comic book store. Tell them exactly this:
“Hello, I’d like to order GEHENNA: NAKED AGGRESSION issue one from Image Comics.
They will ask if you have a pull box with them. This is just a way of saying ‘account.’ Say no. Then give your name when they ask for it. They’ll ask you what cover you want. You can preview those at the end of this newsletter. They’ll tell you June 11. And you come in on that day.
That’s it.
Comic books work on a preorder system. Meaning, stores base their orders on preorders from readers. No preorders of a book? Likely no copies in the store. At all. So preorders are the lifeblood on this system, silly as it may seem. Do not wait.
Make that call. Make GEHENNA: NAKED AGGRESSION issue one a hit.
This series is part of Marco and I’s Frontiersman Universe, and longtime readers will recognize a cameo next issue. But Gehenna is a street-level character, unlike our books up to this point. Obvious influences are Frank Miller’s run on DAREDEVIL and the aforementioned THE PUNISHER era. But a more contemporary inspiration was Charles Ardai’s GUN HONEY. What he’s managed to accomplish with that universe of books is pretty fascinating. A completely indie, totally new property that packages an espionage story inside a bad girl comic. I wanted to see what the appetite for girl-with-gun stories was among Image Comics readers. I believe the winds are changing, and I’m betting that maybe people want maximum fun.
A COUPLE STRAY NEWSLETTER THINGS
Who read WHITEOUT by Rucka and Lieber?
Dustin Nguyen went hard at Marvel for underpaying and cutting creators out of international residuals. Everyone clapped. But will still take the Marvel job when they call. So what was achieved?
Harvest Lake was the most needlessly horny Cthulhu movie ever made. Which helped.
Less exciting a read than some of Chandler’s other stories, but it checked every box for noir as a genre. A good time.
AIGHT IMMA HEAD OUT
If I’m at all annoying with the self-promotion over the next couple months, it’s because I think GEHENNA is a title that you’ll enjoy. It’s the least niche thing I’ve done, and for that reason a good place to start. Furthermore, I’m proud. Mostly of Maurizio, who just produced the most eye-arresting comic of the year. Everyone have a good week. Do for self.
I drove 45 minutes and physically entered my nearest comic shop for first time in years today. I successfully placed the order. I took my 10 year old with me. She witnessed two gen-x men intensely discussing which year was the best for scooby-doo. One of them had tears in his eyes. Half way home she asked me what a scooby doo was.
Added to my pull!