Posted in: Comics | Tagged: cex, joe glass, kickstarter, The Miracles, vince underwood

CEX Publish Joe Glass & Vince Underwood's Superhero Comic The Miracles

The Miracles by Joe Glass and Vince Underwood,is being published by CEX Publishing in a the new serialised format this October.

The Miracles was an original graphic novel Kickstartered to publication by former Bleeding Cool reporter and The Pride writer Joe Glass, as well as Vince Underwood, Harry Saxon and Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou about superhero refugees and deep family secrets. About high school senior Elliot Morgan: a massive comic fan who discovers he has his own superhuman abilities. Confronted by his favourite comic book characters staring him down in the real world, they reveal they're his parents, refugees from the world of his favourite comic book, who escaped when he was just a baby. Which also made them perfect to appear in the Image Comics series Crossover by Donny Cates and Geoff Shaw

CEX Publishing will publish The Miracles as a four-issue miniseries that includes new content to accommodate the new serialised format this October. What new content? Well, I did ask. John Roberts, Digital Director of CEX Publishing, told me;

"In order to fit it into the 4 issue structure we had to move some things around. So the flow of the book is a little different. It doesn't impact the story, but the order of pages won't match the book. From a traditional comic-telling tradition the changes are more compelling for serialized-based content. Additionally, due to how pages fall we had to create a few new pages including additional dialogue, to accommodate some empty places that cropped up as a result of moving things around. I believe there are some additional dialogue changes to help it read better in a serialized format. And we're extremely excited that Joe and Vince decided to lean into the Kirbisque aspects of the story by creating Kirby-inspired variant covers, this is in addition to producing 4 all-new covers for the series. The book's original cover by Kevin Wada will serve as the cover c variant for issue 1.

"From a personal and professional perspective, I'm really excited by what we're doing. You know Joe, he's a great guy and I loved the Pride, so I'm really excited he was open to bringing The Miracles to CEX. It was also fun working with Joe and Vince to help come up with a strategy to release the series as single issues in a way that will delight new readers but also give pre-existing fans something to get excited about. I mean, a Luciano Vecchio cover is nothing to sneeze at, we're so happy he was willing to provide a cover for the penultimate issue. Also, the corner box is pretty snazzy (he says having designed it). We'll be releasing a Shaker Pint glass of Vince's amazing corner box design as well, which will look great next to the others."

Here's that full solicitation:

The Miracles #1 (of 4)
Writer: Joseph Glass
Colorist: Harry Saxon
Artist: Vince Underwood
Letterer: Hassan Otsmane-Elhauou
On Sale: October 25, 2023 $6.99 48 pages, plus card stock cover

High School Senior Elliot Morgan has been obsessed with superhero comics all his life, especially Major Voltage Adventures, a comic that suddenly ended the year he was born. A family secret unravels just as he's suddenly getting super-powers! Don't miss this double-sized collector's item first issue!
Special Notes: The series features regular A covers, all B covers are Kirby homages, and all C covers are awesome guest artists!

And here's a look at the comic book itself…

This is what Joe Glass said about the series when it was Kickstartering.

Families are important. There are, of course families of all kinds, and those that we find rather than are born into or raised in, but family, whatever our connection to that concept, is undeniably important for us all. Just look at how much of our media, dramas and sitcoms, in particular, centre around the family. Riverdale, The OC, and even dramas focused on seemingly other things, like 9-1-1: Lone Star or the popular MCU TV entry, WandaVision.

Whatever the makeup or situation of it, your family is likely the people you are closest to in the whole world. They're possibly the people you've known longer than anyone else in your life. They're most often the people we love most and hopefully love us back just the same.

So why, then, do all families keep secrets?

Think about, all families do. Whether it be a secret actively kept or a secret through omission, families are always keeping something from each other. And again, all the dramas I mentioned before feature families keeping secrets; and again, we see that in WandaVision too.

Without giving away too many spoilers, WandaVision revolves around secrets being kept. To build a family, to build a safe home, to hide who they are – and the same can be said about my new book, The Miracles, fundraising on Kickstarter now.

As that quirky, mysterious and dramatic TV show builds around secrets in the domestic situation, The Miracles takes a similar focus: Elliot Morgan, our point of view character, is an average high school senior, a total geek obsessed with comics. Naturally, he's shocked when he suddenly starts exhibiting superpowers of his own. But before he can revel in his newfound abilities too much, he's amazed to be confronted by characters from his favourite comic book, Major Voltage and Ms Phantom…and even more amazed when they turn out to be his parents.

One family secret stands revealed, the family being comic book characters who escaped to the real world as refugees from an Unending Catastrophe. But we'll come to learn, even as Elliot decides to become the real world's first superhero, that there are plenty more skeletons in the Morgans family's closet – and forces out there looking to exploit them.

This story is probably my most broadly accessible story to date, while still having a strong meta element running through not entirely dissimilar to the runaway hit, Crossover. After all, everyone can relate to families and the keeping of secrets, especially ones we keep thinking we're protecting those we love…or ourselves.

The Miracles, in that regard, is deeply personal to me. As a teenager, I was both bullied for my perceived homosexuality (which would, of course, turn out that they were right) and terrified that revealing my identity as gay to my parents, so scared that they might turn me away (they didn't, thank gods, they were wonderful). So it was, as a scared and isolated kid, I'd fantasise about discovering some amazing secret that would reveal that I was like the heroes in the worlds I loved so much in comics, all the while keeping the truth about myself secret from everyone, including those closest to me. Within this confusing, delirious swirl of subterfuge and fantasy, a story began to take shape. A story that would become The Miracles.

I've had this story in my head for as long as I've been working on my other major series, The Pride, but it being so close, I needed it to be totally perfect. So the story has gone through numerous variations and revisions, decisions on format, artists involved before finally I found the perfect team of collaborators to make it happen in Vince Underwood (Elk Mountain), Harry Saxon (Vagrant Queen) and Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou (Quantum & Woody). Plus, wrapping it in a gorgeous cover by the fabulous Kevin Wada.

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