album_picm.php.jpegHey ya’ll, did you see the interview with Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray about their upcoming THE HILLS HAVE EYES: THE BEGINNING graphic novel at Newsarama? The art by John Higgins looks sweet. There is even more up at IGN. It’s nice to see such great artwork by Higgins — he’s a talented industry veteran who is just getting better with time.

Wait it seems that the entire Fox Atomic comics site has been redone. Looks sharp, and even has a nice RSS feed for the Beat. Thanks guys! This Nightmare Factory book looks interesting and has some great people involved — writers Stuart Moore and Joe Harris and artists Colleen Doran, Ben Templesmith and Michael Gaydos. I wonder who is editing this thing?

Oh. It’s me.

hills-have-eyes-the-beginning-20070208033304414.jpgWell, I didn’t know how to break the news to you all, so I let someone else scoop my own exclusive story, but yes, I have taken over the reins of editing the Fox Atomic line of graphic novels. Jimmy P. edited the first one (28 DAYS LATER: THE AFTERMATH) but then suggested my name to E-I-C R. Eric Lieb when he had to step down due to his workload at DC, and so whaddaya know, here I am again.

This is only a part time gig, and won’t affect the Beat or my PW duties. But it does explain why I’ve been kinda swamped lately and some references to a mystery project.

And of course, it does give me tons more conflicts of interest and NDAs!

hills-have-eyes-the-beginning-20070208033303477.jpgAs for how I’m going to deal with that…well obviously I’m not going to make this the Fox Atomic blog. If a story goes up elsewhere I will link to it, as I have today, and I may do a couple of sneak peeky things here just because it’s fun.

Everything else I’m just going to keep juggling like I always have. If anyone has any questions or concerns, put em in the comments and I’ll do my best to answer.

And now to shift into sincere hype mode for a moment: I am psyched about this gig because to be honest, I had missed working with some of my favorite peeps. Blogging and snark are fun, but not the same as digging in and helping talented people carve out stories from raw material. I like them both and I’m lucky to be bale to do both.

And of course I couldn’t be working with better people than this bunch of folks. They are the creme de la creme. I am also really digging working with Eric Lieb, who, ironically I met several years ago while I was working on a story for the New York Post about movies at Comic-con. Eric is one of those comics moles who gets it.

As you can see from John’s stunning art THE HILLS HAVE EYES: THE BEGINNING is a dark, brutal, savage tale…that still says something about the importance of family. And working with Jimmy and Justin again is like working with family…a very talented family.

THE NIGHTMARE FACTORY is a translation of the work of one of the most fascinating writers I’ve read in recent years, Thomas Ligotti. He truly is a modern successor to Poe and Lovecraft in that his language and structural sense are so skilled and idiosyncratic, his terrors so refined and yet visceral. I think this book is going to turn out pretty sweet.

On beyond that, Eric and I are cooking up some other secret stuff and wonders yet unseen.

Okay hype mode off. You may all snark away now. But that’s the straight scoop, and I hope to be able to keep you posted on all the updates as they occur.

14 COMMENTS

  1. Fables was all Shelly Bond’s! No credit from this corner.

    I wish one or two people remembered BIGG TIME, the sairical graphic novel by Ty Templeton I edited. That came out pretty well, too. Ty be funny.

  2. Heidi, I remember Bigg Time! I’m pretty sure I interviewed Ty Templeton not too long after it came out and I bought my copy of it. I wish Ty did more OGNs for Vertigo or somebody. Thankfully he’s still doing good work with the Planet of the Apes series.

    Congrats on the new job.

  3. Congrats Heidi. Glad to see you back with red pen in hand!

    And I remember BIGG TIME very well indeed. Ty be very funny indeed. I keep trying to talk him into making a movie out of it.

  4. Back in editoral, eh?

    Well, I’ve got this great idea for a series about a crazy sailor who teams up with a talking giant squid, and they go on adventures to save all those bizarre deep-depth fishes that have been popping up in the Sea of Japan.

    See, we all love a good fishing story, so this will sell a ton at Bass Pro Shops and…

  5. Congratulations! As much as I love your writings about comics, I always thought it wasn’t right that you were out of the editing business. I’m looking forward to your books.

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