Let's get this project funded

Mike Grell has a new Kickstarter campaign that launched March 22. The project promises the return of his popular character, Maggie the Cat, and if successful, the conclusion to a story which began in 1996 and has yet to be finished. You can find out more about the Kickstarter campaign here.

I've discussed before how I first became aware of Mike Grell's storytelling and artwork with his Green Arrow miniseries, The Longbow Hunters. From there, I discovered his earlier work on The Warlord and later Jon Sable, Freelance.

Maggie the Cat began as a secondary character in a Jon Sable story, but the character proved to be popular with her creator and readers. It would be easy to dismiss Maggie as a Catwoman knock-off for someone who has not read her stories. But the character is much more than that in Grell's hands.

Maggie is an American woman who married into the British aristocracy. Her husband is now dead, which is no great loss in Maggie's life. But much of her family's wealth and possessions have been scattered. She becomes a very accomplished cat burglar in an attempt to reclaim the various heirlooms and crosses paths with mercenary Jon Sable several times in his comic.

In the mid-1990s, Grell moved over to Image Comics, where he launched such series as Shaman's Tears and Bar Sinister. Image was also home to Maggie the Cat's first solo series in 1996. But the limited series was cut short by the comic implosion in the mid-1990s. Only the first two issues were published, and Maggie's solo story was never completed — until perhaps now.

In her solo story, Maggie is coerced by the British secret service into helping them thwart a terrorist plot. She is teamed with an SAS agent who bears a striking resemblance to a famous Scottish actor who portrayed an equally famous fictional British spy. This first Kickstarter project promises to update and re-release those first two issues with additional pages in a single volume. A few months later, a second Kickstarter will finally resolve the storyline. And based on response to these two volumes, more Grell Kickstarter projects may soon follow.

I encourage you to go check this project out at the link above. It's already well on its way to being funded, but if you have an interest in the storyline and are in a position to do so, I also encourage you to support the project. Grell is a proven writer and illustrator with a long history in comics. He has more stories to tell; let's give him an outlet to do so!

Thank You, Sirs, May I Have Another

Hype

PaperFilms and Adaptive Comics
Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray, writers
Javier Pina, artist
Alessia Nocera, colorist

 I don’t like everything I’ve read by writing partners Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti — at least not everything they write with someone else’s characters. But I have read a few of their original creations — titles like Time Bomb, for instance — that I did enjoy quite a bit. So their names draw my attention when I’m placing my monthly comics order or shopping around for occasional extras.

Several months ago, I came across a Kickstarter promo ad for another original creation of theirs, Hype. Apparently, the duo has released several projects via Kickstarter in the past. Anyway, the promo caught my eye, and their names piqued my interest. I found a support level I agreed with and funded the project. And a few short months later, I had not only Hype but a couple other standalone original graphic novels by the pair to look forward to.

I confess I haven’t yet had a chance to read the other titles I received with Hype — Abbadon and Denver — I’m not even quite sure what they are about. But I have read Hype. And I loved it! The promo art had me expecting a pretty straight-forward superhero title with a little time twist: the main hero, Hype, can only experience life for 45 minutes a day. The rest of the time he’s asleep, recharging. But the actual story is so much more.

The pacing of the story, for example, seemed a bit jarring at first. Transitions were almost nonexistent. The story is told in brief glimpses of the various players. Each snippet of story gives you information about the central characters and advances the plot, but it is clear there is more going on that we readers aren’t privy to. By the third such break, I came to realize that this was a neat bit of writing that allows the reader to experience things in much the way Hype does. It’s a way for us to connect with the character beyond the norm. And it works very well.

I will also reveal that the story in this OGN has a bit of an open ending. There is very much the promise of more action to come, and I hope this creative team can reunite to produce future volumes of Hype’s story, either through another Kickstarter or their own PaperFilms or by being picked up by another publisher. But sometimes, such a story can seem incomplete. Readers are left feeling like they only got half a story for their money, just the set-up and no payoff. That isn’t the case with Hype. This is a complete story, beginning to end, and feels like a satisfying read despite being only 52 pages long. Yet it is also very clear that there is more story to tell with these characters, more questions to be answered, more adventure to be had.

As usual, I'm more of a story person and tend to focus mostly on that aspect of books. But the art is always an important component of the comics medium. Great art can enhance a good story, while art that is not to a specific reader's taste can ruin an otherwise good tale. Javier Pina's art is crisp and clean, not gritty like the covers on the other downloads I scored at the same time as Hype. Pina's art, along with Alessia Nocera's bright vibrant colors, add to the superhero feel of this story despite its departure from the usual story conventions of the genre. They help make this story feel familiar while the writing direction takes readers in an unexpected direction. And the union of all these efforts is something truly worth a look.