“None of it actually happened, but it’s all true.” That’s the conceit of HEY KIDS! COMICS!, Howard Chaykin’s Roman à clef about life in the trenches of comics’ formative years, when no one knew they were doing work that one day would form the foundation of the entertainment industry’s dominant engine. The story’s first arc was lauded throughout the comics industry – Mark Millar called it, “the best comic of 2018…a brutal, moving biography of both the industry itself and an artist who was there for all the cool bits” – Chaykin returns for the second of three volumes with the six-issue PROPHETS & LOSS.
Digging deeper into the sometimes-sordid, sometimes-seedy, always-entertaining lives of the men and women who built a multi-billion-dollar industry almost by accident, PROPHETS & LOSS traces a path through the creation of many of comics’ greatest franchises, from companies that dared to push the boundaries of least-common-denominator kid stuff – usually at their peril – to those happy just to ride the waves others took the time to create. Along the way there’s exploitation, Blaxploitation, custom toilet paper, death at the dinner table and plenty more as fans turn pro and pros turn bitter.
Written and drawn by 50-year-veteran Howard Chaykin, the first issue of PROPHETS & LOSS is available now from Image Comics, with issue #2 arriving June 9, 2021.
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