WAR HEROES: SUPERHERO TOUR OF DUTY ANNOUNCED

[MattBrady]

There are posters for retailers, there’s a “Gear Up” contest to get yourself drawn into issue #3. What else could their possibly be in terms of promotion and marketing for Mark Millar and Tony Harris’ new superhero comic coming from Image, War Heroes?

Simple. A Tour of Duty. Seven dates, all across America.

A whatnow?

Amazingly enough, Millar was on hand, and more than happy to explain.

Newsarama: Mark - the Superhero Tour of Duty? What's that all about?

Mark Millar: We just wanted to show retailers how committed we were to this book... and, of course, it's kind of a free holiday. As a Scotsman, I'm not going to turn down a chance to see every corner of America on someone else's dime. It's going to be a lot of fun and we hope to meet as many readers as we can while we're on the road.

NRAMA: Care to explain the series again to anyone who might have missed this week's interviews?

MM: Sure, War Heroes is a new superhero series from me (the writer of The Ultimates and Civil War) and Tony Harris (the artist of Ex Machina and Spider-Man: With Great Power). We've described this book as our Ultimates 3... all the stuff you can't really get away with in a shared universe or a PG book... and I very much see it as the third act in a trilogy.

NRAMA: That goes way back to when you first started talking about Ultimates - you’d originally described it as a trilogy….

MM: Ultimates 1 was about the America getting super-soldiers, Ultimates 2 was about the world getting nervous and fighting back against the idea, only to be defeated by America and War Heroes (Ultimates 3 in a sense) is all about America then getting very aggressive in her foreign policy and just taking over the entire Middle East. I wanted to split Ultimates into two books, one being Ultimate Avengers where the traditional heroes fought Ultimate Kang and so on. The other would have been Ultimates 3 where Fury's super-powered troops would be in tens of thousands and just out there fighting the good fight, as controversial as that would have been. But considering Congress gets bombed on page two it was clear this wouldn't work in a shared universe (even the Ultimate universe) and so I came up with War Heroes to finish this story.

NRAMA: So, back to the tour - you're hitting seven dates in America? Anywhere back home in the UK?

MM: Actually, I'm having a kind of Farewell Party on the 9th of August at Forbidden Planet in London and then taking off for the States next day to begin the tour. As ever, there'll be many drinks while we're signing so come along. Should be a laugh.

NRAMA: What about the American dates?

MM: Well, these start two days later on the 9th in New York City and we've still to finalize a couple. But this is a big two week tour and we're going to try to reach as many people as possible. We really think we have something big here, possibly the biggest book Image has had in some time, so we want to make a little fuss. We're very proud of the material and would urge anyone who enjoyed the first two chapters to take a pre-order now. Kick-Ass sold out within hours of release and the second printings sold out same day too. I'd recommend getting an order in ASAP to avoid missing this when the book appears.

Here are the dates we have so far for the War Heroes Superhero Tour Of Duty:

Farewell Party: Forbidden Comics London on Saturday, August 9th

American Tour starts August 16th. Here are the five confirmed, two more to be announced in the future:

1) Midtown Comics, New York City
2) Heroes Aren't Hard to Find - Charlotte, North Carolina
3) Lone Star Comics, Texas
4) TBA
5) Atomic Comics, Arizona
6) Golden Apple, Los Angeles
7) Isotope, San Francisco

Images from Atomic Comics, where owner Mike Malve is already ahead of the game.

[scottmdavis]

the millar wankfest begins.

[head1a]

...personally as an artist not working at Marvel or DC I'm really intrigued by a lot of the promotional tactics they're employing here..it takes a lot more than just putting a book on the shelves these days to get people to buy it, even if you are a proven talent...and well if you don't toot your own horn, than who is?

[Tom Daylight]

who's Mark Tony and Millar Harris?

[painters_eye]

Imagine if other comics could get the hype that this book is getting. Day after day. I suppose people might say, "well don't read this reporting," but I like it when newsarama introduces me to comics that may have been overlooked, this sure will not be overlooked.

Nonetheless I am eager to read this project.

[Colossus2420]

The links are goofy. I'm trying to read the Starlord piece.

[blinkless]

Originally Posted by Colossus2420

The links are goofy. I'm trying to read the Starlord piece.

http://forum.newsarama.com/showthread.php?t=156349

[Skatonic10]

Originally Posted by MattBrady

1) Midtown Comics, New York City
2) Heroes Aren't Hard to Find - Charlotte, North Carolina
3) Lone Star Comics, Texas
4) TBA
5) Atomic Comics, Arizona
6) Golden Apple, Los Angeles
7) Isotope, San Francisco

YAY FOR ME!

[calvin!]

COME TO AUSTIN BOOKS DAMMIT!!!!

[Kikaider]

Originally Posted by scottmdavis

the millar wankfest begins.

I thought he must own Newsarama judging by how much coverage this book is getting.

[AlterEgoComics]

Looks like the mid-west gets passed over.......once again.

Jason

[DSNG]

Mark's one of my fav writers... I wish him the best on his Warheroes project.

He mentioned his desire to split the Ultimates into 2 books... I actually liked the sounds of that. Just don't know if they'd ever get them delivered on time every month



MY FREE SFA WEBCOMIC. UPDATED 5 TIMES A WEEK. [NSFW]

[Billy Parker]

I'm going to the TX one, even though it's 16 hour roundtrip!

This is totally awesome!!!.....so...

Let the fanboy COMPLAINING BEGIN!!!!!!

[victor lanza]

I think I can make the TBA!
Can't wait.

[R.McKegan]

WooHoo!!!

He's coming to Phoenix. Yay, me!