I think of Frazer Irving as an artist who is able to walk the fine line between cartoonish expression and horror-inducing rendering. Look no further than than his work with characters like Judge Death, The Joker, or more recently Max Nomax and you’ll find that Irving has a knack for presenting horrific characters in a way that is uniquely his own. He exaggerates motion and anatomy to make his characters ‘act’ in unsettling ways while dramatically using light to reveal every dent, divot and protrusion on the same character’s faces.
I had the pleasure of talking with Max Bemis back when “Oh, Killstrike” was announced and was floored by the art Logan Faerber had done for the first issue. There’s almost a Guy Davis approach to design that Faerber is using for this story. That said, Irving’s art could not be stylistically further from the comic’s interiors. Despite that, because Irving has so much experience with otherworldly and otherwise unrealistic characters, his approach to this cover makes a lot of sense. And beyond that, he made such a giant and imposing character feel huge despite only having a portion of the cover to work with.
Look for “Oh, Killstrike” to hit stands next month, the solicit for issue one follows.
Oh, Killstrike #1 (of 4)
Publisher: BOOM! Studios
Author: Max Bemis
Artist: Logan Faerber
Cover Artists:
- Main Cover: Logan Faerber
- BOOM! 10 Years Incentive Cover: Frazer Iving
- Incentive Cover: Kris Anka
Format: Standard comic size, 32 pages, full color
On sale: May 20, 2015
Final Order Cutoff Date: April 27, 2015
Synopsis:
What’s to Love: Say Anything frontman Max Bemis writes a love letter to 1990s superhero comics in this tongue-in-cheek homage to the era, featuring the art stylings of Logan Faerber—reminiscent of works by Chip Zdarsky and Jeff Lemire. Much like Polarity, Oh, Killstrike is very personal to Bemis: It’s about a new dad who loves comics from his youth. Part twisted buddy comedy, part profound coming-of-age story, we could not stop smiling when reading Oh, Killstrike.
What It Is: Jared, a new father, fears parenthood. An old comics fan, he turns to them for comfort. But when he unwittingly lets loose his favorite character, Killstrike—a single-minded, vengeance-loving anti-hero—onto the world, Jared must find a way to send him back before he harms all the people he loves the most. But before that happens, Killstrike leads Jared on a quest of self-discovery to make him realize the kid who loved this character is not the man he has become.
