Flash Gordon, The Phantom, and Mandrake the Magician
team-up in the upcoming Dynamite series, Kings Watch! Written by superstar writer, Jeff Parker, and
drawn by artist Marc Laming, and a cover by Laming as well as a
Subscription-Only cover by Eisner Award winning artist, Ramón Pérez (A Tale of
Sand). Kings Watch is available in comic
book stores and digitally this coming September!
In KINGS WATCH #1, panic spreads across the world.
Strange phenomena fills the skies.
Millions have nightmares of wild lands filled with horrible creatures...
then wake to find the monsters are real. What are three men willing to
sacrifice to save us all? Superstar
writer Jeff Parker (Dark Avengers, Red She-Hulk) and artist Marc Laming (Planet
of the Apes) deliver the earth-crushing event of 2013, featuring Flash Gordon,
The Phantom, and Mandrake the Magician like you've never seen them!
"As a kid I saved a healthy stack of comics pages
from the newspaper to follow The Phantom's jungle adventures, and copied
drawings of the great Sy Barry from those," states Kings Watch writer Jeff
Parker. "The other iconic creation of Lee Falk, Mandrake was intriguing
too, but I mostly had an idea of him from some brief radio theatre episodes on
an album. Later I was lucky to find some of the Nostalgia Press reprints of his
stories. I was also (and still am) really into Flash Gordon. I loved the
Filmation cartoon so don't be surprised if you see elements of that here. It
was also one of the first movie serials I saw thanks to our PBS station showing
them- how perfect was Buster Crabbe as Flash? I of course went to the De
Laurentiis movie multiple times, and got any comic book with him. Then when Kitchen Sink Press put
out Alex Raymond's original newspaper strips, I finally got the whole lush
epic. Mandrake, Phantom and Flash are really where it all begins for super
action heroes, they influenced so much of what we read and watch today. Marc
and I are having the best time reintroducing the pulp adventure trinity for
today's readers, and bringing them together in one thriller which hasn't
happened in years. I can't wait for new readers and longtime fans to read
this."
"I remember the summer of 1976 for three reasons;
the long summer that year when it was so hot that the pavement melted, the
USA's Bicentennial celebrations that even reached our shores in the UK and the
first time I saw the Flash Gordon movie serials on morning TV during the school
vacation," adds artist Marc Laming. "We were pretty adventure &
Sci-Fi starved in the UK in the mid-70's and those serials were like being hit
by lightning and my 8 year old mind was blown. Around a year later a cartoon on
TV (I have no idea of the title) that featured the King Features characters
introduced me to The Phantom who was super cool like Batman and Mandrake who
was a better dressed Dr. Strange and not nearly as scary! When the show
finished I ran straight out to the newsagents to find out more."
"I've wanted to work with Jeff (Parker) for years,
and Kings Watch is a fantastic first project together. We've wanted to place together a cross-over
with King Features most iconic characters for years, but needed to ensure we
brought the fans the right writer. Jeff
is that writer. And Marc Laming
compliments Jeff's script incredibly, as you will be able to see in the pages
attached. This is a series that waited
for the right team to bring this story together, and definitely worth the
wait," states Dynamite Publisher Nick Barrucci.
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