He's just as good promoting his work as he is writing it. At the recent KAPOW! Convention in England, superstar writer Mark Millar announced four new titles coming from him and and a quartet of artists — two he's worked with in the past, one he's dreamt of working with since he was a child, and another a up-and-coming artist who's found his star-making project.
The first project out of the gate is a new ongoing series at Icon spinning out of Millar and John Romita Jr.'s Kick-Ass series following the diminutive ass-kicker herself, Hit-Girl. For this large-scale outing, Millar has partnered with artist Leandro Fernandez (Northlanders, Queen & Country) to tell a story that's been nagging at Millar for years according to an interview with CBR.
"So this is Hit-Girl in her own ongoing book because I found that as I was writing the Kick-Ass comic, Hit-Girl would almost take it over because she was so much fun to write," Millar told CBR. "When I was writing 'Kick-Ass 2' I found myself just desperate to write Hit-Girl, but I had to force myself to give Kick-Ass as many scenes as possible because it was his book. So since I had so many ideas for Hit-Girl that I couldn't fit into one book, so I've just spun it off into a solo title. It made perfect sense."
The second project finds Millar reteaming with his Superior artist Leinil Yu to tell the third part of the writer's unofficial villains trilogy, titles Super Crooks. This series reportedly finds a group of supervillains relocating to a country devoid of super-heroes in order to pull a heist with no capes to stop them.
"[Super Crooks is] like Ocean's Eleven meets X-Men where seven supervillains head to Europe to pull the biggest job of their career where there are no super-heroes to stop them," Millar said. "So it's a fun heist story."
The final two projects were announced, but only by who Millar is working with. One features Millar teaming with Watchmen artist Dave Gibbons, and the other is a 12-issue maxi-series with Frank Quitely. To get the full story story on all of these, head to CBR for Millar's first — and only — interview on these books so far.
After the success of Civil War, Millar has largely avoided full-time gigs writing company-owned characters in favor of creator-owned projects at Image and Marvel's Icon imprint. Although some fans might fault him for writing comics that seem "ready-made" for a movie adaptation, you can't fault the results: Wanted was turned into a movie just three years after the series completed, and Kick-Ass was filming before the final issue of the first series came out. Although he helped found the modern Marvel formula for comics with Joe Quesada and Brian Michael Bendis, Millar seems happiest — and most successful — creating his own projects, and just as intriguing, luring away Marvel's top exclusive artists to work on non-company-owned projects.
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Always been a fan of Millar and no matter how crazy some of his stuff gets (the Nemesis womb-bomb being a recent example) I always enjoy it.
Really looking forward to whatever he’s doing with Gibbons. That’s been rumoured for a while now.
Frank Quitely doing 12 issues of new superheroes with Millar. Excellent. I actually called this creative team-up in an ifanboy thread 6 months ago. Here’s the link:
http://www.ifanboy.com/content/articles/Upcoming_TEEN_TITANS_Variant_Covers_by_Quitely__Hughes_and_Kerschl
I predicted due to when he said he’d be working with one of the top 3 artist in the industry on a creator owned comic. And I thought, well if it’s not Cassaday or McNiven, then it’s Quitely. Nice.
Don’t want to seem overly down on Millar (who is usually entertaining, even when he’s dumbing it down, being crass or just generally half-baked), but he is not up to Quitely’s talents. Never was, never will be. The thought of seeing nothing from Quitely – the preminent artist of this generation of comics – for the next 2-3yrs (for that is how long it will surely take) except Mark Millar comics is depressing me.
Millar is great! Can’t wait for Super crooks!
Isn’t the hit girls series old news? I think he broke this a week or two.
@MadMartigan Yeah, this is a report from the KAPOW! convention.
Millar is good for the industry. Just saying.
*spit take*
Frank Quitely doing a story with Mark Millar!?
I’m not interested in any of these other stories but that one! Yes I’m not a big fan of Millar. But with Quitely as artist, who the hell cares who the artist is!?
Also, it’ll probably take 5 years to come out….
And I ment to say ‘I don’t care who the writer is’. Damn you lack of edit button!
Ok, so I’m assuming Wanted is part of the unofficial villians trilogy and the third is Super Crooks. What’s the other one?
Can’t wait for Hit Girl!
@vadamowens Nemesis. Anyway, I’m excited for all of these! Although I’d rather have more Superior than Supercrooks, but that should be good too.
@Suicidalkangarooz Thanks
*sigh* I have no interest in reading anything written by Millar, but I need more Quitely in my life.
@KickAss You know Millar and Quitely worked together about a decade before you made that brilliant prediction, right?
anyway, 12 issues of Quitely art is going to take another decade to come out… but i’ll buy it
@Ruo12 Exactly. Quitely deserves something meatier than the puerile shock-value trash that Millar will serve up. But who can say no to something that is practically guaranteed a hefty movie option?
Isn’t Kick Ass already Hit Girl’s series?
@Edward- Did I imply that I didn’t know that? Or are you just trying to score cool points?
Yes I read Authority a while back. Good stuff, not nearly as great as what he went on to do in Ultimates though.