Army of Darkness/Evil Dead Comics Discussion Thread!

MCT28

Spinach Chin
Joined
Dec 26, 2023
Comic artist Dave Acosta (best known for Dynamite's Elvira books, and has AOD connections from doing some Ash-centric Die!Namite Lives covers) did this fantastic Evil Dead 2 Deadite Ash commission piece.
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MCT28

Spinach Chin
Joined
Dec 26, 2023
I know this is a bit of a longshot, but does anyone here have the 25-page preview pdf file of Space Goat's "Art of Evil Dead 2" that you could download on the Kickstarter page, and/or the video interview with Frank Hannah (which was also streamed on that Kickstarter page)?
 

MCT28

Spinach Chin
Joined
Dec 26, 2023
Dumping some more comic art.
First up, I got some black and white Fabiano Neves pieces from Army of Darkness Volume 2...
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Then, two images from Army of Darkness/Xena Volume 1...
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And as an added bonus, a cover from Dynamite's scrapped at the last minute Darkman ongoing (a spin-off/sequel to the Darkman vs AOD crossover)
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MCT28

Spinach Chin
Joined
Dec 26, 2023
Next is a handful of black and white inked pages from Scott Cohn's stint on the last half of Army of Darkness Volume 2...
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And a convention-commissioned sketch of Ash.
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MCT28

Spinach Chin
Joined
Dec 26, 2023
Finding concept art from Space Goat's Evil Dead 2 line is a bit hard, but thankfully, Edgar Salazar has been quite generous with posting art from the Beyond Dead By Dawn series!
Here we have the pencils for the three covers:
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Followed by a character study sketch of Raymond and Henrietta Knowby...
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And the complete six-page "prelude" story!
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MCT28

Spinach Chin
Joined
Dec 26, 2023
AOD&ED Comics will be doing a live interview with writer Frank Hannah (writer of the mainline Evil Dead 2 comics) on February 2nd, promising to talk about "the rise, fall, and notoriety of the now defunct publisher Space Goat Publishing"!


If anybody here has a burning question but don't think they can make it, leave it here and I'll ask on your behalf since I will 100% be tuned in for this!
 

MCT28

Spinach Chin
Joined
Dec 26, 2023
RED SONJA VS THE ARMY OF DARKNESS coming April 2025!
Press Release: Fans are invited to sharpen their swords, load up their boomsticks, and rev their chainsaws, because it's time to take on the undead hordes of the Army of Darkness once more! The wisecracking Deadite-slayer Ashley J. Williams finds himself hurtling through space and time again, but this trip is special. This time he's teaming up with the She-Devil With a Sword herself. Has he met his match in ass-kicking and quip-slinging? The unexpected team-up duo will have to learn to work together, because the stakes could not be higher. When the evil being lurking in the shadows this time ends up being none other than the feared dread wizard of the Hyborian Age, Kulan Gath, it's going to take everything to win this battle. Nothing could possibly be worse than Red Sonja's arch nemesis getting his hands on the Necronomicon! Comics renaissance man Tim Seeley (Hack/Slash, Nightwing) takes up his pen to chronicle the latest and greatest chapter in the ongoing sagas of both of these beloved characters. He's joined by his frequent collaborator Jim Terry (Sundowners, Alice Cooper vs. Chaos!) who tackles the artwork of this comedy, horror, and action concoction. Longtime Dynamite fans will be excited to see two of the publisher's earliest pillars in its 20-plus year history in action together. They also may remember Tim Seeley's long legacy with at least half of the equation. Seeley was there practically day one, contributing art for a cover for the AOD: Ashes 2 Ashes series that kicked off the entire Dynamite comics legacy. He's returned since, including for a crossover between Ash and his own Hack/Slash. But miraculously, this is his first stab at the She-Devil!
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Press Release Continued:
"I've been obsessed with AoD since I saw the movie way back in 1992 — in fact, the first Hack/Slash story began life as a pitch to get the rights for AoD for comics!," said writer Tim Seeley. "Having Red Sonja teamed with Ash, a character I know really well, lets me really emphasize her badass feminist qualities, as Ash is an often befuddled sexist idiot." In preparing for the series, Seeley has cited how the infusion of Army of Darkness into Sonja's world allows him to try a modernized take on the She-Devil's earliest era and creative legends the likes of Roy Thomas, Frank Thorne, John Buscema, and others. Army of Darkness' unique take on medieval fantasy works perfectly contrasted with the lush, high-fantasy vision of Red Sonja. Which should entice Sonja fans of all eras."

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https://bleedingcool.com/comics/tim-seeley-jim-terry-see-ash-join-red-sonja-vs-army-of-darkness/
 

MCT28

Spinach Chin
Joined
Dec 26, 2023
In a shocking twist, I reached out to Tim Seeley himself and asked if this was going to be connected to any previous titles (Seeley has been on my writer naughty list after he intentionally screwed with his own continuity in Hack/Slash vs. Chaos), and much to my surprise, he said that this book is actually a sequel to Army of Darkness Forever, and that Red Sonja is a mash-up of various incarnations. I was so worried that he was gonna make this a sequel to AOD vs Hack/Slash and not be aware that Ash and Sonja (well, the second Sonja) already met in that continuity back in Prophecy.
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EDIT: Virgin covers are out!
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MCT28

Spinach Chin
Joined
Dec 26, 2023
Reminder that TOMORROW is the Frank Hannah livestream. I will post a recap/things of note on here when it's all said and done (provided it doesn't run too late)
Alright, livestream is over. Here are the interesting tidbits:

On what happened to Space Goat:
* It seems Space Goat had money problems from the get-go. It wasn't until Hannah's nine-issue run was over that he actually got paid for writing them (after pestering and yelling at Shon Bury about it). After Hannah got paid for those books, he basically got pushed out and ghosted by the company when he inquired about continuing writing the ED2 series.
* Hannah didn't know about the board game until the day it launched (which happened after the aforementioned payment ordeal and subsequent ghosting). Space Goat then roped him back in to film a video for the Evil Dead 2 Omnibus & Art Book Kickstarter project.
* Bury used money from the ED2 board game Kickstarter to start paying all the other comic writers and artist he owed. Apparently some people were getting paid on time, and some (like Hannah) were not. Bury thought the money train would keep rolling his way with the Terminator board game, and was disappointed it didn't even come close to the same level as ED2.
* There was an internal revolt at Space Goat when Bury started burning through the Kickstarter money, and a lot of people left the company. Everything truly fell apart when Bury was accused of assault by an employee, followed by an alleged lawsuit, and eventually the bankruptcy. Bury has basically vanished since then.

On the comics themselves:
* Each series was only three issues since that's where sales start to dip on titles that run a bit longer than that.
* Since Space Goat had no real social media presence at the start, word of mouth and convention appearances is what informed them of the first book's success.
* The #1 rule StudioCanal had for the series was that nothing can effect the events of Army of Darkness or "disrupt the canon".
* Hannah knew of the "Revenge of..." one-shots during their production, but was not kept in the loop by editorial about their actual plots (which is why the main series never mentioned the events from those books).
* The simulacrum Ash losing his hand in Dark Ones Rising was not a mandate from editorial or StudioCanal (or even fan request), Hannah figured that people would want to see the more iconic depiction with the chainsaw hand and decided that point was the right time to bring it in.
* StudioCanal didn't interfere at all in Hannah's run except for one instance: they did not like the idea of Ash being born out of the cow in Dark Ones Rising #1, so the artwork was intentionally kept vague so you didn't know if Ash came from the cow or emerged from the mud puddle.
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On the plus side, Hannah revealed that he another industry professional have recently been floating the idea of getting another publisher to pick up the Evil Dead 2 comic rights to reprint the Space Goat stuff and continue where the series left off. While this at the "just talk" stage, he said he'd love to revive the title, and has ideas ready to go if it does happen.
 
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MCT28

Spinach Chin
Joined
Dec 26, 2023
The Army of Darkness Forever Volume 2 (collecting issues #7-13) paperback is slated for release on May 27th, 2025, but with Dynamite's track record on trade releases and the ongoing troubles of Diamond Distribution, we'll see if it actually comes out on that day (or if Dynamite will even be around by then).
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Kain

Captain Supermarket
Staff member
Joined
Jun 11, 2015
Location
NYC
The Army of Darkness Forever Volume 2 (collecting issues #7-13) paperback is slated for release on May 27th, 2025, but with Dynamite's track record on trade releases and the ongoing troubles of Diamond Distribution, we'll see if it actually comes out on that day (or if Dynamite will even be around by then).
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When did volume 1 come out?
 

MCT28

Spinach Chin
Joined
Dec 26, 2023
"Livestream with RED SONJA VS. THE ARMY OF DARKNESS Author TIM SEELEY" on the official Dynamite YouTube channel:
 
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