Dynamite Entertainment

Dynamite Entertainment is a premiere comic book company that primarily publishes licensed franchises (The Boys, Red Sonja, Army of Darkness, Terminator, RoboCop), literary adaptations (Zorro, Dracula, Sherlock Holmes, Alice in Wonderland), and also its own superhero universe, (Project Superpowers). Dynamite works with many of the top talents in the comic book industry such as Alex Ross, John Cassaday, Matt Wagner, Garth Ennis, Howard Chaykin, and Frank Miller. They have received critical acclaim with their books, receiving two Diamond Comic Distributor Gem Awards, a 2008 Harvey Award for Best American Edition of Foreign Material, andEisner Award nominations for Zorro, The Boys, and The Lone Ranger.

History

Dynamite Entertainment is a comic book publisher founded by Nick Barrucci in 2005, first producing two Army of Darkness limited series published through Devil's Due Publishing until self-publishing their titles later that year. The first two years saw them adding only a handful of titles like Red Sonja and Xena. After devoting itself to publishing only “Army of Darkness,” Dynamite came back one year later with “Red Sonja,” a debuting with a 25-cent issue #0. It sold 240,000 copies and #1, the first to sell at a full cover price of $2.99, sold 100,000 in initial orders which cemented Dynamite's position as a force in comic book publishing.^[1] Now Dynamite publishes a current slate of 14-20 comic books and 2-10 collections per month.^[2]

Dynamite Publishing

Dynamite Entertainment focuses primarily on comic book adaptations of existing properties, with most of their original properties being new interpretations of the classic monsters Dracula, Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde, Frankenstein's monster and the Wolf Man. Currently they hold the rights to publish titles based on films (Army of Darkness, Darkman,The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, RoboCop, and Highlander), television series Xena: Warrior Princess) and literature (Sherlock Holmes, Alice in Wonderland, Dracula, and Zorro). They also have a license based on Terminator 2: Judgment Day and writer Simon Furman produced Terminator 2: Infinity and the sequel Terminator: Revolution.^[3] Other properties include Buck Rogers,^[4][5] Sherlock Holmes,^[6] and The Green Hornet.^[7]

Two additional crossovers have been released through other companies, one through Image Comics in 2005 pitting their monsters against Top Cow published characters Witchblade, the Darkness, the Magdalena and Tomb Raider entitled Monster War; and a 2006 crossover between DC Comics' Claw the Unconquered and Red Sonja via WildStorm Productions.

Dynamite hit the news in 2007 when they took over the publication of Garth Ennis' The Boys after it was dropped by WildStorm. The Boys was initially cancelled due to content problems, but DC allowed the creators to take the book elsewhere. Dynamite won rights to publish the book and it is consistently one of the top three best-selling creator-owned titles.

Dynamite has a reputation for issuing multiple variant covers for their comics. Issues of Red Sonja, Army of Darkness and Battlestar Galactica (among others) have been published with 4 different regular covers, as well as various incentive covers used to drive up retailers orders. This practice is often one of the main criticisms of the company.

One of Dynamite's proudest accomplishments is their Lone Ranger comic written by Brett Matthews with covers by John Cassaday. This book gets great reviews and sets a standard for the company for licensed properties.

At the 2008 Wizard World Chicago conference it was announced that Dynamite have acquired the license from Rebellion Developments to publish reprints of 2000 AD titles, as well as produce new material based on their characters, the first of which will be a Judge Dredd comic book, to be written by John Wagner, with input from Garth Ennis.^[8][9]

In 2009 they announced plans to publish Fighting American. But Dynamite's biggest projects in 2010 will be their push to bring The Green Hornet into the mainstream. Their initial Green Hornet plans call for Kevin Smith writing a mini-series based on his unproduced Green Hornet screenplay. Following that will be a Green Hornet: Year One title written by Matt Wagner, with a follow-up series by Brett Matthews.

Titles

Produced titles

• Army of Darkness: Ashes 2 Ashes (four-issue limited series through Devil's Due)
• Army of Darkness: Shop till You Drop Dead (four-issue limited series through Devil's Due)
• Monster War (four-issue limited series through Image, with each issue changing titles: The Magdalena vs. Dracula; Tomb Raider vs. The Wolf-Men; Witchblade vs Frankenstein's Monster and The Darkness vs. Mr. Hyde)

Published titles

• Adolescent Radioactive Black Belt Hamsters (by Keith Champagne and Tom Nguen, January 2008) ^[10][11]
• Army of Darkness (monthly, first four issues as Army of Darkness vs. Reanimator)
• Avengers/Invaders (by Jim Krueger and Alex Ross, with Marvel Comics)
• Bad Boy (by Frank Miller and Simon Bisley, hardcover reprint of the one-shot, November 2007) ^[12]

• Battlefields (by Garth Ennis):^[13][14]
  • Night Witches (with Russell Braun, 3-issue mini-series, October-December 2008)^[15][16]
  • Dear Billy (with Peter Snejbjerg, 3-issue mini-series, January-March, 2009)^[17][18]
  • Tankies (forthcoming)^[19][20]

• Battlestar Galactica:
  • Battlestar Galactica (based on the original science fiction series)
  • Battlestar Galactica (based on the new science fiction series)

• The Boys (by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson, moved from Wildstorm)
• Buck Rogers (by writer Scott Beatty^[5][21] and artist Carlos Rafael)^[22]
• Claw the Unconquered/Red Sonja: Devil's Hands (limited series through DC/Wildstorm)
• Dan Dare (by Garth Ennis and Gary Erskine, collected volumes, moved from Virgin Comics)^[23]
• Darkman vs. Army of Darkness (bimonthly)
• Darkness vs. Eva (by Leah Moore and John Reppion, with art by Edgar Salazar, one-shot, Top Cow/Dynamite Entertainment, forthcoming)^[24][25]
• Dead Irons (by James Kuhoric, with art by Jason Shawn Alexander, 5-issue mini-series)^[26][27][28]
• Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash (by James Kuhoric, 6-issue mini-series, co-published with Wildstorm) ^[29][30]

• Highlander:
  • Highlander
  • Highlander: Way of the Sword
  • Highlander Origins: The Kurgan

• Jungle Girl
• Just a Pilgrim (hardcover collection)
• Kid Kosmos (graphic novel by Jim Starlin)
• The Lone Ranger (monthly)
• The Man with No Name: The Good, The Bad And The Uglier (by Christos N. Gage^[31] and Wellington Dias^{[32] [33]} (1-6), Matt Wolpert and Luke Lieberman (7-11),^[34] and Chuck Dixon (12-)^[35])
• Marvel Zombies vs. The Army of Darkness (co-published with Marvel Comics)^[36]
• Mercenaries (by Brian Reed, 3-issue mini-series)
• Painkiller Jane (limited series)

• Project Superpowers (by Alex Ross and Jim Krueger, January, 2008)^[37] spin-offs include:
  • Black Terror (written by Jim Krueger, with art by Mike Lilly)^[38]
  • The Death-Defying 'Devil (written by Joe Casey, with art by Edgar Salazar)^[39]
  • Masquerade (written by Phil Hester, with art by Carlos Paul)^[40][41]

• Raise the Dead (by Leah Moore/John Reppion, and pencil by Hugo Petrus and inks by Marc Rueda, 4-issue mini-series, 2007, tpb, 120 pages, February 2008, ISBN 1933305568)

• Red Sonja:
  • Red Sonja (monthly)
  • Red Sonja Goes East and Red Sonja: One More Day (oneshots)
  • Red Sonja vs. Thulsa Doom (limited series)

• Savage Tales (anthology)
• Scout (trade paperback collections)
• Six from Sirius (hardcover and softcover collections)
• Tales of Army of Darkness (one-shot, planned as an annual)
• Super Zombies (by writers Marc Guggenheim/Vince Gonzales, with art by Mel Rubi, ongoing series, March 2009)^[42][43][44]

• Terminator (by Simon Furman):
  • Terminator 2: Infinity (with Nigel Raynor, moved from Dark Horse Comics)
  • Terminator: Revolution (with Lui Antonio)

• Witchblade: "Shades of Gray" (a crossover with Dorian Gray, by Leah Moore/John Reppion and Stephen Segovia, co-published with Top Cow) ^[45]
• Xena: Warrior Princess
• Zorro

Upcoming publications

• Army of Darkness (hardcover collection of the 1992 Dark Horse movie adaptation)
• Spider-Man/Red Sonja (co-published with Marvel Comics)
• The Complete Dracula (by John Reppion/Leah Moore, with art by Colton Worley, 5-issue limited series, Dynamite Entertainment 2009, forthcoming)^[46][47][48]
• The Trial of Sherlock Holmes (by John Reppion/Leah Moore,^[49][50] with art by Aaron Campbell,^[51][52] forthcoming)^[53]
• The Green Hornet^[7], a miniseries to be written by Kevin Smith, adapting his script from a film version abandoned in 2004.^[54]
• Thulsa Doom (by Arvid Nelson and Lui Antonio)^[55][56]
• The Complete Alice in Wonderland (by John Reppion/Leah Moore)^[57]
• RoboCop^[58] (by Rob Williams,^[59] with art by artist [TBA],^[60] 2009)
• Stargate (with writers Chuck Dixon (Stargate Universe prequel), Brandon Jerwa (Stargate-SG1) and Doug Murray (Stargate Atlantis) with art by John Watson)^[61]

Notes

References

External links

• Official website
• Dynamite Entertainment's Regular Contests
• Dynamite Celebrates Five Years, Comic Book Resources, April 16, 2009