Out this week: The Last Count of Monte Cristo (Abrams ComicArts/ Megascope, $24.99):

Ayize Jama-Everett and Tristan Roach put a new spin on The Count of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas’s classic tale of love, betrayal, revenge and redemption. This one is set in a future “hundreds of years after the polar ice caps have melted and submerged our planet into a new era of technology and culture.” 

Thanks to @smallbeerpress for the ARC of Heroes of An Unknown World, the final installment if Ayize Jama-Everett''s Liminal series.

Powered by RedCircle On this week’s live show, guests Ed Gross (“Voices from Krypton: The Unofficial Unauthorized History of Superman”) + Ayize Jama-Everett (“The Last Count of Monte Cristo”) + Edgardo Miranda-Rodriguez (“La Borinqueña Volume 1 Omnibus”). SUBSCRIBE ON RSS, APPLE, ANDROID, SPOTIFY, STITCHER, OR THE APP OF YOUR CHOICE. FOLLOW US ON TWITTER, INSTAGRAM, AND FACEBOOK. SUPPORT OUR…

Powered by RedCircle On this week’s live show, guests Ed Gross (“Voices from Krypton: The Unofficial Unauthorized History of Superman”) + Ayize Jama-Everett (“The Last Count of Monte Cristo”) + Edgardo Miranda-Rodriguez (“La Borinqueña Volume 1 Omnibus”). SUBSCRIBE ON RSS, APPLE, ANDROID, SPOTIFY, STITCHER, OR THE APP OF YOUR CHOICE. FOLLOW US ON TWITTER, INSTAGRAM, AND FACEBOOK. SUPPORT OUR…

Ayize Jama-Everett made a splash a few years go with the publication of his novel The Liminal People. Since then he’s published two more novels, The Entropy of Bones and The Liminal War, but his new project is the graphic novel Box of Bones. Currently being kickstarted, the book is the result of a conversations with Jama-Everett and his friend John Jennings, the writer-artist-editor-publisher-scholar-festival organizer, who Jama-Everett interviewed recently for The Believer.

Box of Bones is described as “Tales from the Crypt meets Black History” and involves an anthropologist searching for evidence of a box which has appeared throughout history in the Africa diaspora. It is that rare project that manages to be both a deeply researched historical work, and an entertaining horror ride. We spoke recently about writing comics, working with multiple artists and a winning formula for horror.

There are some people who like comics. There are others who love them. Then, there are those who live and breathe comics. Not as a way to keep copyrights up-to-date for further cinematic use, but who see the comic form as important; as a worthy and necessary part of our collective artistic and cultural life. Professor, scholar, and creator, John Ira Jennings, embodies the latter.

(more…)