Dark Horse Comics Announced New Fred Van Lente Ongoing Title at Phoenix Comicon

I attended the Fred Van Lente Spotlight panel at Phoenix Comicon last weekend. It was an exciting time because Dark Horse just announced a new Van Lente continuing series in addition to his Project Black Sky work. It’s called Resurrectionists. Van Lente said he explores themes about identity and fate—like if you can escape it—in this series. It sounds like a great read. I don’t think it can come out soon enough.

Framed architect-turned-thief Jericho Way has discovered he’s a Resurrectionist, one of a select group of people who can not only remember their past lives, but become them. Two groups are now after his services—the Sojourn corporation, which wants to exploit his powers for mysterious purposes, and a motley crew of modern-day tomb robbers who have been trying to pull the same impossible heist for 3,000 years—and if Jericho joins them, he may steal back his own future!

-From Dark Horse

This new title includes some distinguished creators in addition to FVL writing. Resurrectionists will be illustrated by artists Maurizio Rosenzweig (Clown Fatale) and Moreno Dinisio (Dead Body Road). Cover art from Juan Doe (G.I. Joe). (I hope that Maurizio Rosenzweig gets to draw ladies with clothes on in this series unlike Clown Fatale! He is a skilled artist, but I was not a fan of Clown Fatale.)

Fred Van Lente and Aub Driver check out their presentation at Phoenix Comicon 14

At the spotlight, Van Lente talked to this small but dedicated audience about his career from Conan: The Avenger to Archer & Armstrong (Valiant). With Conan, he was new to Robert E. Howard. And now loves working on it and developing stories based on historical places and events. An audience question asked Van Lente how he is handling the criticisms of Conan purists in his transition to take over the title. He replied that Belit, from Brian Wood’s run, is still present in Conan’s psyche but will soon transition out of that world. He also said that Conan is his favorite character and would write Conan until his arms fell off; even then he would dictate it! Such dedication to that Cimmerian.

Dark Horse is collecting Van Lente’s Action Philosophers! series into a Tenth Anniversary Uber-Edition collecting all nine issues and with new material. Plus, The Complete Silencers will be released by Dark Horse this fall. Finally, if you are curious about making your own comics Van Lente has a how to guide coming out called Make Comics Like the Pros. Seriously, this guy is super busy! I’m glad because I can’t wait to read all this stuff.

by Adrienne Fox

Adrienne is a regular consumer of speculative fiction, fantasy, and horror content--with the occasional costume drama thrown in for good measure. She resides in the Seattle metro-area and is all too often relaxing at home with champagne cocktails, a stack of comic books, and her trusted canine companion by her side.

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