By Mitch Brown, ComiX-Fan Staff Writer To find out more about Avatar Press, visit their website at http://www.avatarpress.com.
Avatar Press is the epitome of the “quiet achiever”. Starting out in 1997 publishing titles such as Threshold and Twilight, Avatar is the result of the almost exclusive labor of Editor-In-Chief William Christianson.
Since their launch in 1997, Avatar Press has been known (with some degree of notoriety) for its line of edgy dark fantasy, horror and “bad girl” books such as Hellina and Demonslayer. More recently however, the company has achieved a high degree of mainstream respectability with Avatar’s “no-holds-barred” publishing model proving to be a major drawcard for many “A-List” creators such as Warren Ellis, Alan Moore and Garth Ennis.
Avatar’s adventurous nature has given a home to many projects that some mainstream publishers would be afraid to touch. Avatar's credits include Mark Millar’s caustic satire, The Unfunnies, rumormonger extraordinaire Rich Johnston’s Holed Up and Warren Ellis’ crime noir thrillers Scars and Strange Killings.
In addition to their comic book output, Avatar has also released collections of Warren Ellis’ online commentary (From The Desk Of…, Bad Signal) and brought Alan Moore’s respected Writing For Comics text back into print.
Avatar’s publishing model includes a number of cross media licenses such as the cult sci-fi series Stargate SG-1 and Robocop. Both properties are released through the company’s Pulsar Press imprint. Avatar also produces the Vivid Comix line, based upon “Adult Entertainment” provider Vivid Entertainment’s stable of models.
September and October 2004 look to be a big month for Avatar with the pending launch of two all-new lines of comics from fan favorites Brian Pulido and Warren Ellis.
First off the blocks is Brian Pulido’s all-new line of creator-owned fantasy books, starting with Belladonna #1 in September. With Belladonna, Pulido returns to the type of storytelling that made Chaos Comics a hit in the mid-nineties, launching us into a five-part tale of vengeance centred around the resurrected Celtic warrior Colleen McGrath. After being murderd (along with her husband-to-be) by a marauding horde of Vikings, Colleen is reborn by the goddess Morrigan as the vengeful Belladonna.
Also available in September is Killer Gnomes #1 which, as the title suggests, is a horror story about – you guessed it- murderous garden gnomes. This book, based on a short film by Pulido, promises all the carnage and black humor that rocketed Evil Ernie up the sales charts. Belladonna and Killer Gnomes will be followed by further additions to the line – Unholy and Gypsy.
Unholy is a modern day urban fantasy centring around street rat-cum-Fallen Angel, Penny. Penny and her allies become embroiled in the shadowy struggle between the forces of Heaven and Hell on the mean streets of Detroit City.
Gypsy is a werewolf tale set in England 1879. Sisters Antoinette and Liza are threatened by distrusting townspeople and vivious werebeasts. The sisters are thrown into turmoil when Antoinette becomes the unfortunate recipient of the werebeast's bite, potentially infecting her with the curse of lycanthropy.
Preview editions for both Unholy and Gypsy are available in September.
Warren Ellis will again challenge the industry with his experimental line of “imaginary” pulp comics, Apparat. Each of these titles has been promised a unique style with artists as diverse as Jacen Burrows (Yuggoth Creatures) and Laurenn McCubbin (XXX LiveNudeGirls).
Talking about Apparat, Ellis said, "For some years, I've been amused by the notion of what current-day adventure-fiction comics would look like if the pulp traditions hadn't mutated into the superhero. The ancestry is clear, of course -- the name Clark Kent being a conflation of Clark "Doc" Savage and Kent Allard, the Shadow. If that hadn't happened, and pulp themes had translated directly into comics and stayed that way, what would they look like today? It's a thought experiment, and four fun little stories. There ought to be space for stunts, don't you think?"
The first two members of the Apparat imprint are the "slipstream fiction" adventure Quit City and the slice-of-life-style Cowgirl. A glimpse of what’s to come from Apparat can be found in September’s Warren Ellis’ Apparat Preview.
August is another big month for Pulsar Press with the launch of Stargate SG-1: Fall of Rome by James Anthony and Jorge Correa and the Robocop: Killing Machine Special #1 one-shot, pairing veteran writer Steven Grant with the talented Anderson Ricardo on art chores.
Other upcoming Avatar releases also include the continuations of popular occult series Nightjar; Warren Ellis’ latest Strange Killings mini-series, Strange Killings: Necromancer; and the Lovecraftian terror of Yuggoth Creatures.
Avatar Press is highly diverse and adventurous publisher with an eclectic back catalog that should contain something for everyone.