Welcome to one of my own personal favorites out of every comic I’ve ever written and or published: Knight Watchman: Graveyard Shift #4. Written by Chris Ecker and myself, with covers and art by Ben Torres, I just think it’s great.
It is the conclusion of our “Dark Night Returns” meets “Sin City” storyline. Ben’s art is superb throughout and contains a number of tips of the hat to Frank Miller’s fantastic works.
Knight Watchman: Graveyard Shift #3 by Chris Ecker, Ben Torres and myself hit the comic book stands around August of 1998, about three years after issue #2 had been published by Caliber Press. During that time, Big Bang Comics had moved to our new publisher Image Comics and had to establish ourselves. Graveyard Shift #s 1 and 2 had been reissued by Image (with new back-up material) so our new, larger audience wouldn’t have to go hunting for them. The inside front cover of issue 3 featured a recap of the story from the first two, along with a Who’s Who roster of the main characters.
I am as proud of the four part Knight Watchman: Graveyard Shift saga as anything else I have written or been a part of in the comic book industry. KW:GS was a collaboration between Chris Ecker, Ben Torres and myself. I may be wrong, but I believe that my scripting contribution, especially here in part 2, was mostly in the Galahad sections.
Time for a detour.
The last episode of this blog was about Big Bang Comics #20, but instead of moving on to the next issue, it’s time to play a little “catch up”.
If you recall, Big Bang started out as a series of back-up stories in my Berzerker comic book, published by Gauntlet Comics/Caliber Press starting in 1993. (If you don’t recall, you can go back to earlier BANG blogs #s 4 through 15 and read all about the good old days).
The retro back-up stories proved so popular that we spun them off into their own book, Big Bang Comics, which celebrated and paid homage to the comic book artists and writers of the Golden and Silver Ages. When our deal at Caliber soured, Erik Larsen invited Chris Ecker and myself to move Big Bang to Image Comics, which we did in 1996. (more…)
The only involvement I had with this particular issue of Big Bang Comics was as editor-in-chief, and acting as a sounding board to the three talented writer/artists who created the stories.
Big Bang #20 features a front cover by one of my all-time favorite BB artists – – David Zimmermann. It features the Knight Watchman and the Blitz, and is an extension of the main story, “D Is For Daughter, Deceit And Death.” It is an homage to the Bob Haney/Jim Aparo Brave & the Bold stories of the 1970s which co-starred the Batman with other DC Comics heroes.
