"I've been friends with these guys for a long time," said Simonson, who brings his Star Slammers project to Dark Horse. "This feels more like coming home than starting some new venture."
Simonson has been working in the field of comics for greater than twenty years, with his first story -- "Cyrano's Army" in DC Comics' Weird War Tales #10 -- appearing November, 1972. He is best known for his mid-1980s run on Marvel Comics' Thor, in which he introduced Beta Ray Bill and transformed the Thunder God into a frog.
Star Slammers was Simonson's first comics project ever, one which he created in 1970 as part of a publicity campaign to bring the World Science Fiction Convention to his home town of Washington, D.C. The campaign was successful, and in 1974 the 20,000+ show was held in the nation's capital. It was the Slammers that also persuaded Carmine Infantino, then publisher of DC Comics, to offer Simonson his first professional assignment.
It was at DC that Simonson met Archie Goodwin, with whom he would later create the critically-acclaimed Manhunter. Goodwin and Simonson would also work together on Heavy Metal's adaptation of the motion-picture "Alien" in 1979. That graphic novel was the first released in the United States, and was the prototype upon which Goodwin would base Marvel's line of graphic novels; with tremendous distribution into bookstores, Goodwin and Simonson's Alien was the first-ever comics material to make The New York Times Best-Sellers List, hitting a high of #6.
Now Simonson returns to his first project, Star Slammers, and finds himself surrounded by many of the friends he made during his more-than-two decades in comics. "They say you can't go home again," said Simonson. "But I have. I just rebuilt the house and moved it to a nicer neighborhood."
Gary Gianni, who is best known for his work on Dark Horse's The Shadow: In the Coils of Leviathan, is a relative newcomer to comics, at least by comparison to Simonson. His comics debut was in 1991 in the First Comics adaptation of O. Henry's "Gift of the Magii." However, despite his late start in comics, Gianni has been drawn to the medium throughout his career. "Geof [Darrow] and I went to art school together, and always talked about getting into comics," said Gianni. "When we got out, I found myself on a different route but I'm very glad our paths have crossed once again."
The route Gianni refers to is one through the field of editorial illustration. His career includes working for the Chicago-based newspapers The Chicago Tribune and The Sun-Times; covers for paperback mysteries and classics, such as Dickens' "A Tale of Two Cities"; and many children's books. While working for the newspapers, he covered courtroom trials as a television sketch artist, during which he spent three months on the trial of John Wayne Gacy, "probably one of the most unpleasant experiences of my life."
"I'm honored to be invited to join this crew," Gianni said. "Their comics are the future of the medium, and that they've seen fit to include me as part of that is greater encouragement than I could ever have asked for."
Gianni's The Monster Men will debut as the back-up feature in Mike Mignola's Hellboy: Wake the Devil. Gianni's horror series has the look and feel of 1920s pulps, "except for the dinosaur growing outta that guy's head!" said Mignola.
"Legend is drawing in the best and most vigorous cartoonists in comics," said Frank Miller. "Walter has been one of the best for a long time and he's only getting better, and Gary is frighteningly good."
"I'm just glad we finally have enough members for a softball team," said Geof Darrow. "Even got an alternate now."
Star Slammers Special, concluding the Malibu-published five-issue series, will ship June 18, 1996, from Dark Horse Comics. Hellboy: Wake the Devil #1, which includes the first chapter of Gianni's The Monster Men, will ship June 25, 1996.