Steve Rolston and I are going to be, more or less, parked at the Oni Press booth (#406 on the ECCC floor plan) promoting the debut issue of GHOST PROJEKT #1 this week. We'll also be part of a special 'Q&A' session at the Oni Press Panel on Saturday at 4:00 PM (Room A).

Stop by and say hello if you're going!

Written by Joe Harris (Nightmare Factory, Creepy, Darkness Falls, The Tripper), illustrated by Steve Rolston, coloured by Dean Trippe and published by Oni Press.

Fans of the hit series Queen & Country may rejoice now that Oni Press is once again trodding down the road of action-espionage with their new supernatural spy story, Ghost Projekt.

Russia is often remembered from the shadow cast during the Cold War-era when every stranger was a spy, but now that the Cold War is long over, some things left behind from that era may not stay lost. An abandoned Soviet research facility somewhere in Siberia has been home to a strange and dangerous weapon that is now in the hands of thieves claiming it for their own. U.S. weapons inspector Will Haley has been assigned to find out what dangers the weapon poses, and with the help of Russian agent Anya Romanova, they will find the answers but it will be far from easy.

It's the first of many creator-owned comics titles I'll be launching this year (look for more announcements as we snake through the summer convention season).

You can click here to check out a FREE 13-PAGE PREVIEW of the book!

Other GHOST PROJEKT goodies from around the internets:

Podcast interview with Joe Harris on iFanboy

Ghost Projekt #1 marked a Staff Pick in the Diamond Previews catalog

Interview with Joe & Steve at Ain't It Cool News

Interview with Joe at Bloody Disgusting, part 1 & part 2

Advance review on the A Comicbook Orange podcast

Interview with Joe & Steve at Comic Book Resources

My cracked early Sunday voice follows...

Check it out!

GHOST PROJEKT Book Three (of Five)
"Dark Riders"
(W) Joe Harris (A) Steve Rolston
On Sale May 19, 2010
Diamond Code # MAR101105

Will and Anya race to stop a black market weapons deal only to discover that Will's American superiors may know more than they've let on. But all that might not matter once the supernatural weapon they've been chasing -- the mysterious "Dosvidanya Projekt" -- is unleashed in the heart of Moscow's Red Square!

"In Ghost Projekt by Joe Harris and Steve Rolston the ghosts of Cold War experiments literally haunt the present... the mystery is intriguing and the art great. It gets 3.5 Oranges (out of 5)."

Note: GHOST PROJEKT #1 will be on sale March 10th, not March 3rd as previously listed.

GHOST PROJEKT #1
Written by Joe Harris, Art by Steve Rolston, Colors by Dean Trippe.

Russia is often remembered from the shadow cast during the Cold War-era when every stranger was a spy, but now that the Cold War is long over, some things left behind from that era may not stay lost. An abandoned Soviet research facility somewhere in Siberia has been home to a strange and dangerous weapon that is now in the hands of thieves claiming it for their own. U.S. weapons inspector Will Haley has been assigned to find out what dangers the weapon poses and with the help of Russian agent Anya Romanova they will find the answers, but it will be far from easy.

Diamond Code: JAN10 1074
In Comic Shops 3/10/2010

Diamond Order# FEB101047

(W) Joe Harris

(A) Steve Rolston

As U.S. Weapons Inspector Will Haley and his Russian counterpart Anya Romanova begin to uncover the truth behind the mysterious military project known only as 'Dosvidanya,' those most closely associated with the program keep turning up dead. Can this pair of sleuths get past their cultural differences before the body count rises even further, or is this just a prelude to the nightmare the Soviets planned for their enemies?

Part One is available here.

Check it out!

Diamond Comics Order #JAN101074

Fans of the hit series Queen & Country may rejoice now that Oni Press is once again trodding down the road of action-espionage with their new supernatural spy story, Ghost Projekt.

Russia is often remembered from the shadow cast during the Cold War-era when every stranger was a spy, but now that the Cold War is long over, some things left behind from that era may not stay lost. An abandoned Soviet research facility somewhere in Siberia has been home to a strange and dangerous weapon that is now in the hands of thieves claiming it for their own. U.S. weapons inspector Will Haley has been assigned to find out what dangers the weapon poses, and with the help of Russian agent Anya Romanova, they will find the answers but it will be far from easy.

Readers of Queen & Country will feel at home with illustrations by Steve Rolston, but writer Joe Harris, a contributor to several Batman and X-Men titles, is the new addition to the Oni Press stable. Oni Press is usually known for its original graphic novels but 2010 may just be the year of great comic books from a company already known for its diverse, award-winning titles.

See PREVIEWS page 279.

(W) Joe Harris (A) Steve Rolston U.S. Weapons Inspector Will Haley has seen his share of scary stuff. When your job routinely involves donning a hazmat suit, grabbing your Geiger counter and jetting into sometimes-hostile territory, "scary" feels almost normal. But when the alarm sounds at an abandoned Soviet facility, Haley, along with Russian "operativnik" Anya Romanova, must track a stolen weapon unlike any they've encountered before. What is the "Dosvidanya" project... and are they too late to stop it?

Diamond Comics Order #JAN101074

I'm going to be updating the site as called for as we get closer to launch with news of promotions, convention appearances and previews. Steve Rolston is knocking himself out getting this book looking as good as it does, and colorist Dean Trippe is helping make this a nice followup to Oni's recent color series successes, RESURRECTION and STUMPTOWN.

Please let your retailer know to order you a copy!

***REVISED

Check out these special preview images by Steve Rolston and Dean Trippe!

From Dark Horse's Site:

Uncle Creepy is back with the third thick and icky issue of Creepy! This issue Doug Moench and Angelo Torres team up to tell a tale of demonic devotion and organized crime, Joe Harris and Jason Shawn Alexander wrap their warped three-parter, "The Curse," and a weird revisionist look back at the fall of the Nazi empire reveals a shocking truth-evil never dies! Plus an all-new Loathsome Lore, a bonus Creepy classic story, and more!

* Creepy debuted to rave reviews in July 2009, and the first issue sold out!

"Terrifyingly good!" - Cory Doctorow, boingboing.net

Publication Date: February 24, 2010
Format: B&W, 48 pages
Price: $4.99
UPC: 7 61568 15862 5 00311

As previously mentioned, Part Two of THE CURSE in last quarter's issue suffered a printing error. As a result, Dark Horse has made the entire 10-page story available for free online and it's still up for your consumption.

I was a complete newbie writer. Early 20-something. And I'd somehow slipped under the Marvel Comics fence and into the House of Ideas... which wasn't a very functional place, in those days. The company was still in bankruptcy. The X-titles, which I would eventually contribute more to, were running on fumes while trying to find their footing and everything felt transitory around the old offices on Park Avenue South.

SLINGERS would launch in a void in which the core Spider-books (themselves riding a similar wave of fatigue and reader dissatisfaction) took a brief hiatus. The title was my first monthly endeavor after writing a few fill-in issues of X-FORCE and X-FACTOR and I had to learn on my feet. I made some choices I'm probably proud of to this day... as well as some strange ones that make me scratch my head and wonder what the fuck I was thinking now that I'm nudged to recall some of them. I was just a kid, lucky to be there, even if the company was in dire straits and suffering a terrible malaise.

We weren't helped by the silly sales gimmick that saw variant interiors stretch through four separate editions of the first issue... but we did try to deliver well-characterized stories of real young people in extraordinary situations. At that time, I didn't have a role model for what I wanted this title to be. I just wrote it as though attempting to fill a void I thought was there, at the time. And I still get emails from fans of the book who kept me oddly informed of the eventual fates and re-appearances of Ricochet, Hornet, Prodigy and Dusk over the years in the pages of books like Marvel's RUNAWAYS.

Makes me smile to look back on this. Though now I have this strange pang of regret that I never got to tell that Asgard story I'd planned for year two.

First, this second chapter of "The Curse" is mis-credited. A different writer's name is printed on the opening page when I did, in fact, write it. Same as I did "Part One" of this serialized tale of murder and mind-fucking, as well as the forthcoming "Part Three." Dan Braun has a terrific story elsewhere in this book... it just isn't "The Curse."

Second, page 8 of this 10-page chapter is missing text.. as in, all of it. No balloons. No captions. No nothing. And, I assure you, where there's certainly a time and place to get silent on a comic book page, the climax of this story's chapter was certainly not one of them. It's a weird production mistake that slipped through the cracks and, though it sucked to see this really fun and twisted story so gorgeously drawn by Jason Shawn Alexander presented unfinished and incomplete, Dark Horse Comics has made the entire 10-page story available for free online to make good.

The printed version will, obviously, be corrected in any future printings and collections. But, for now, I'd really appreciate it if people who read any press or reviews pertaining to CREEPY #2 could be made aware of this.

Like everyone else involved in the relaunch of CREEPY, I have a great deal of affection for the title and its history. Honest mistakes happen in the maddening process of getting comics out on time, though it still hurts to see one's work presented as less than was intended. I am proud of this story and wanted to set the record, however small, straight.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Best,
JH