SAN FRANCISCO, CALIF. (April 17, 2002) Publisher Larry Young announced
today that AiT/Planet Lar's upcoming August book (available at this
year's San Diego comic book convention) is BLACK HEART BILLY, by Kieron
Dwyer, Rick Remender, and Harper Jaten. AiT/Planet Lar book designer and
cover artist Brian Wood turns in his tenth cover with this project.
"I have lunch with my pal Kieron nearly every Wednesday," said Young,
"and a few weeks ago he let slip that he'd always wanted to finish up
BLACK HEART BILLY, the three-issue comic book which Slave Labor
published two issues of before unceremoniously pulling the plug. He
asked me if I wanted to collect it as a trade paperback, if he and Rick
Remender and Harper Jaten rounded out the series and offered up the
'lost' third issue. I was a little skeptical at first, I have to admit;
I didn't immediately see the charm in the book. But I was on the phone
with Bri Wood and told him we were thinking about putting out the BHB
trade. 'You're mental if you don't,' I remember him saying; then he
offered to not just design the cover, but produce new art for it as
well, since he was such a big fan of BILLY. I re-read the first two
issues, and by the time I got to the corpse of Jerry Garcia in a Nazi
robot body, I guess I was charmed into it."
"It has always been my dream and my goal to be the first rock-and-roll
playing, time-traveling astronaut-President of the planet Earth," said
BHB co-creator Dwyer. "Instead, I decided to do BLACK HEART BILLY with
Rick. Has it been worth it? Only you, gentle reader, can be the judge.
Bring on the Eisners!"
"BHB is an extension of the inner evil in my mind," said BHB co-creator
Rick Remender,"But he's NOT evil. He's just frustrated. He's frustrated
by every hypocritical, self-important pea brain he runs into. Unlike the
rest of us Billy goes one step beyond thinking about doing something
about it…
"We've decided to go with AiT with this project for several reasons. The
most important reason, of course, is the photos Larry has of us.... I
mean, AiT is without question getting large numbers of people to try new
and inventive approaches to comic storytelling. Their library of
products is diverse and interesting. THAT'S what I meant to say," said
Remender.
"BLACK HEART BILLY has been a favorite of mine since day one. True punk
rock comics," said cover artist Brian Wood. "It's an honor to do the
covers for the AiT/Planet Lar collected edition."