The fine folks over in the Dark Horse Marketing department recently asked me if, as the editor of Francesco Francavilla’s upcoming creator-owned pulp superhero book The Black Beetle, I’d write up a little blog post about why this is a comic that readers and retailers alike should be excited about. As I’m pretty damn excited to see Francesco’s gritty, hard-boiled supersleuth start patrolling the mean streets of Colt City on a regular basis, I said I’d be more than happy to write something up.
“Great! Two hundred to six hundred words, please,” they said.
“Crap!” I thought. “I love this book, but there’s nothing I can say that can possibly express the excitement I feel when I see a new page full of fantastic Francavilla artwork pop up in my e-mail. No amount of words can sum up that giddiness.”
But then I realized, if a picture is worth a thousand words, I can sure as hell compile a couple of thousand reasons to explain how excited I am about The Black Beetle!
So, copping out with an extreme cliché, I’ll let Francesco do the talking for me, and I think you’ll see what I’m talking about! I mean, who wouldn’t want to read a hard-boiled superhero detective story written and drawn by one of the artists of the critically acclaimed Batman: The Black Mirror…
Francesco’s extremely talented; that much is obvious even after seeing just a single two-page spread that he assembled. He’s got art chops, and I’m sure the folks at Austin’s celebrated Mondo would agree—they hired Francesco to do this amazing poster for San Diego Comic-Con last year…
The man’s art provides a pretty compelling argument already for why you should be extraordinarily psyched for this book, but if you need an official source to justify your excitement, why not ask the Eisner Awards committee? They awarded him the 2012 Eisner Award for Best Cover Artist!
Sure, maybe you’re thinking Francesco can do horror, but what about noir? What about pulp? I think he’s got a few The Shadow covers that would show you the guy doesn’t shy away from darkness, violence, and grit!
And if that’s not enough for ya, check out his Pulp Sunday blog at PulpSunday.Blogspot.com. Francesco’s been drawing love letters to the genre for years now. Don’t you want to see all that time, effort, practice, and devotion come to fruition in a series that’s spawned straight from his own twisted mind?!
Maybe you’re just excited about the Hobbit movie coming out this month and you want to read a book by a creator that feels the same way. Maybe—I don’t know?! I just like it when FF draws orcs!
I think I’ve pretty much spelled out why the excitement levels surrounding this title should be breaking whatever sort of excitement-o-meters you use to gauge your psyched-itude. But hey, if you won’t listen to me, you should at least listen to Jim Steranko and Warren Ellis…
Impressed yet? Psyched? Tripping over your own feet on your way to your local comic shop so you can insist that your retailer save you a copy of The Black Beetle: No Way Out #1?! Well, look, if the above collection of art hasn’t convinced you yet, let me just say this…I’ve been a great admirer of Francesco’s work for a long while now. It’s some of the most gorgeous, impressive, and stunning comics art you can find on shelves today. There’s a beautiful purity to his gorgeous work; it’s infused with so much wonder and love for the medium that you can’t help but feel inspired. And that’s just Francesco before issue #1 of The Black Beetle. I say “just,” because the art, dialogue, design work, effort, and consideration placed into his baby—Black Beetle—are beyond anything he’s done. This is his best work, I kid you not. This is the book that the man was born to draw. And if you’re thinking, “Who’s this goofball editor and why the hell should I listen to his ridiculous ramblings?”—well, okay, point taken. I’m giving you the truth here, folks, but seeing is believing, so take a sneak peek at The Black Beetle: No Way Out #1 and believe.
See what I mean?!
Jim Gibbons
Editor, The Black Beetle