Posted in: Comics | Tagged: about comics, bernie mireault, nat gertler, the jam

Bernie Mireault's The Jam Returns, Rejects Blockchain Kickstarter

The first new print comic book of 2022 is also the first issue of Bernie Mireault's The Jam in decades. The popular alt-hero series that in the 1990s was published by such respected publishing houses as SLG, Tundra, Caliber, and Dark Horse returns in full color in The Jam Super-Cool Color-Injected Turbo Adventure From Hell issue 2, released today my favourite publisher, About Comics. Alongside this, About Comics is also bringing back into print the little-seen The Jam-related graphic novel To Get Her and giving the series its first-ever trade paperback collection, The Jam: Beginnings… all supported by an innovative promotional campaign.

Nat Getler is our collective comic book-and-related hero, bringing work back into print that had been unduly forgotten, missed out from the canon, or in urgent need of archiving. From religious-themed cartoons, to The Green Book, his work as About Comics is always worthy of note.  "We were gearing up to do About's first-ever crowdfunding campaign for these books," explains Nat Gertler of About Comics, "but the crowdfunding service we planned to use made some moves that drove away our fellow publishers and their customers. So we thought we could still have all the promotion, updates, and fan support of a traditional crowdfunding campaign, but instead of making people wait until months after the campaign was over to get their books, they could get them immediately!" And thus was The Jam Non-Starter Campaign born.

The Jam tells the ongoing adventures of Gordon Kirby, who, when casually costumed as The Jammer, patrols the rooftops of Montréal. The new 38-page lead story in the new issue, drawn and colored by series creator Bernie Mireault, adapts a prose story that Mireault had written for the character, where The Jammer (and his dog, Harvey) must stop a mysterious archer targeting the city's residents – but there are much larger forces at play. The tale mixes The Jam's traditional working-class feel with a more divine nature, and backing that up is another all-new story, Avatars of Adventure: Adepts of Arcana, written by author and editor Claude Lalumière and drawn by Bernie. Plus, The Jam story The Chair is printed in color for the first time, and Bernie's story Dr. Robot vs. Monster (from Madman #12) is reprinted as well. And then there's a 6-page portfolio of color images in this 64-page square-bound issue (also available as a PDF.)

The graphic novel To Get Her, a relationship story about Gordon and his girlfriend Janet in the years following Gordie's period as The Jammer, is over 150 pages of story plus appendixes. Originally published as a limited edition a decade back by Mireault himself (with funding from the Xeric Foundation), this is its first unlimited release. The book is being offered in hardcover, paperback, and PDF. The storyline from the original black-and-white five-issue The Jam miniseries is currently being cleaned up and enhanced for The Jam: Beginnings. That collection will soon be published in both paperback and PDF.

These books are not being distributed through standard direct market channels. Orders during the campaign will be handled by Amazon and shipped locally in not only the US, but also Canada, the UK, Australia, Japan, and within the EU. Comic book retailers interested in carrying these books should contact About Comics directly. The promotional campaign runs through to the 2nd of February and readers interested in more details, signing up for campaign updates, and ordering books should head over to http://thejam.aboutcomics.com

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