Brian Michael Bendis Announces DC’s First Jinxworld Titles

During a recent interview on John Siuntres’s Word Balloon podcast, best-selling comics writer Brian Michael Bendis hinted that there could be two new Jinxworld books announced during Emerald City Comic Con — and like clockwork, here they are.

Bendis will re-team with two artists who helped him make some of his best-loved comics on a pair of new series, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Bendis and his Alias collaborator Michael Gaydos will reunite for Pearl, while David Mack, who worked with Bendis on numerous projects, will draw Cover.

Pearl, which will launch in August, centers on “a tattoo artist for the Yakuza who lives in modern day San Francisco and falls in love with a counterpart from a rival faction,” THR says.

In Cover, the intelligence community recruits a well-known comics artist to be a spy. Since the tease says that it is based on a true story, it immediately calls to mind the tales of Jack Kirby helping the CIA rescue diplomats in Iran by creating concept art for a movie that was never going to happen. The story behind that art was dramatized in Ben Affleck’s Oscar-winning film Argo, although Kirby’s role in that film was non-existent. A documentary film meant to explore Kirby’s role was scrapped due to undisclosed legal issues.

“Who has a better cover story than comic book artists and writers, who get to travel the world and no one is actually paying attention to what they’re doing?” Bendis noted. “David and I have had a lot of travels over the last few year,s and we are going to have a lot of fun examining the world of espionage through the world of Comic-Con.”

When Bendis came to DC, the headline-grabbing announcement was that he was going to take over the Superman titles, beginning with April’s Action Comics #1000. Along with that, though, Bendis also got a custom imprint where he could hand-pick creative teams to do unique takes on traditional DC heroes.

And, of course, he brought his Jinxworld imprint with him, making DC the distributor of books like Powers and Takio.

Both Cover and Pearl will be available in comic shops and online this fall.