Posted in: Comics, san diego comic con | Tagged: Aphrodite V, Comics, entertainment, Magdalena, marc silvestri, matt hawkins, sdcc, top cow

How To Get Investigated By The FBI And Other News From The Top Cow Panel (Updated)

By Mike Sangregorio

Saturday morning saw the Top Cow panel where moderator, writer, and editor, Matt Hawkins discussed the upcoming, and ongoing projects from the company. In attendance were owner, and legendary creator, Marc Silvestri, writer Bryan Hill ("Postal"), artist Isaac Goodhart, editor Ashley Robinson, musician and writer Emily Lazar ("September Mourning"), and editor Ryan Cady. Goodhart and Robinson are both hires from the company's Talent Hunt program which, Hawkins informed, would be suspended for 2017 and reinstated in 2018 with a change to the program in that at that time only a single winner will be chosen.

A music video for "September Mourning" played with musician Lazar, in full costume, discussed her goals with the project and the upcoming fulfillment of the project's KickStarter commitments. After this Hawkins was quick to announce that Silvestri himself had spent the last year or so working on a top secret project that was not yet ready to be announced but that if you followed him on social media you may just be able to figure it out.

A new book called "Mechanism" was announced with art and story by Raffaele Ienco. Described as a "sci-fi epic," Hawkins confirmed that the first five issues are already complete. Hawkins added that recently Top Cow had not been putting out as much product as it liked and that was due, at least in part, to a set of policy changes at Image. He seemed to indicate that this would change in the future but reminded the audience that the company was a small shop and always tries to make what it does produce to be its best. These Image policies may have something to do with needing books to ship on time as Hawkins seemed to mention them along with the fact that several Top Cow books are far ahead of their deadlines with respect to production.

"Postal," a book about a town full of criminals, will have its next arc deal with an aryan brotherhood member who "the townspeople must rally around" and thus continuing the tradition of the books attempt to turn accepted crime genre tropes on their head.

A crossover called "Eden's Fall" will be written by Hawkins and Hill and will deal with a variety of existing, non-supernatural properties, including characters from "Postal" and the enemy from Hawkins "The Tithe."

Update – Also in attendance was panelist Zack Kaplan. He discussed his forthcoming series "Eclipse" with art by Giovanni Timpano ("The Shadow"). This series, whose slogan is "live in the night or die by the light," follows the survivors of a solar flare cataclysm that has made the Sun the enemy of humanity and forced the survivors to live in nocturnal societies to survive. It will be released September 7.

Hawkins mentioned that he is still working on "Think Tank." This title resulted in him being investigated by the FBI twice in connection with the research he must due to script the topical, terror-centered plots. There will be one volume of "Think Tank" per year going forward, which Hawkins referred to as "the Hellboy method."

Next up was a discussion of the book "Sunstone" by Stjepan Šejić. The title refers to the 'safeword' of the couple featured in the work of erotica. Hawkins mentioned that the series has been Top Cow's best seller for quite a while and went into a few other series which would be taking place in its world including "Blood Stain," linked by the MMO the characters play, "Mercy," and "Swing" which is written by Hawkins who is working with his wife.

Hill discussed his new title "Romulus," which features a woman raised by a secret society from ancient Rome that run all things in the world today. As the story opens she has turned on them. First issue will ship October. Hill mentioned that "when I was growing up Top Cow comics were character driven, genre books… that were kind of nuts." He wants to bring back what he calls that "special brand of crazy."

"Switch," a relaunch of the popular Witchblade character, began life as a fan project which the company decided to publish. Hawkins mentioned that this was one of many titles that could be read on the company's website for free. When voicing concern over this business model, Silvestri was reminded that it had not hurt sales.

JMS' "Rising Stars" has once again been optioned for a feature film. Silvestri appears bitter as he mentions that "it already inspired enough television shows… this is about time." Silvestri discusses not wanting to make movies or television shows that are bad.

"Genius" is returning for a second volume. This began as a one-shot for the company's Pilot Program many years ago but delays meant that the title was not released until very recently. This affects volume two because the title is about a young woman of Latin descent in Los Angeles declaring her neighborhood's independence from the city itself. The book was politically charged and sharply scripted. The sequel will see the return of the main character and the original writing team. Art will be courtesy of "a female Scandinavian artist." The main character, described as the greatest military mind of her generation, will be acting internationally this time around and training a team of proteges for her new taskmasters.

"Aphrodite V [5]" is returning as is classic character "The Magdalena," the later described as the company's "John Carpenter book" and features a descendant of Jesus, who is a nun, fighting evil with the Spear of Destiny.

A Cyberforce webtoon was announced as was a new book featuring the character Tom Judge ("Rapture") that will be scripted by Bleeding Cool's own Dan Wickline. When approached for comment Dan stated that he will be working with "Rom, the artist I did two issue of Artifacts with (#36 and #37) which focused on Tom Judge. She was a winner of one of the Top Cow talent hunts and I am excited to work with her again. I plan on… taking Judge global. The Rapture, his artifact that allows him to shift into the big monstrosity is only one of its powers. There is another that doesn't get used nearly as much."

When asked about well known, but absent, property "The Darkness" Hawkins admitted that both it and the classic Witchblade are being worked on and will return but at this time they were not ready to announce anything. He followed this by stating that there would be further development on this project discussed at the next New York Comic Con.

Enjoyed this? Please share on social media!

Stay up-to-date and support the site by following Bleeding Cool on Google News today!