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."