A year ago, comics gossip columnist Rich Johnston gave us "Watchmensch," a parody of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' "Watchmen" that spoofed the industry's relationship with Hollywood and creators' rights. Now he's back with yet another tongue-in-cheek project that should hit close to home: a comic inspired by the collector market.
Published by Image Comics and titled "Chase Variant One Shot (Is All I Need)," the story follows a lethal, four-armed assassin named Chase Variant who was manufactured by a secret agency that only creates a small number of her particularly rare model. Her "limited-edition" status makes her the target of various governments who want a Chase Variant of their own.
Appropriately enough, "Deadpool" and "Youngblood" creator Rob Liefeld — who played a big role in the explosion of variant covers and other elements of the 1990s comic-collector market — has created a limited-edition cover for the issue, which hits shelves today. Read on for your first look at Liefeld's "Chase Variant" cover.
"Heavy Metal" artist Saverio Tenuta and "2000AD" artist Bagwell provide the interior art for "Chase Variant," which Johnston describes as follows: "Chase Variant is the story of a genetically engineered assassin on the run from bounty hunters - while somewhere a card game is played by unseen assailants, that has a strange affect on her world. It's a metatextual action adventure comic that crosses the world of Michael Bay with those of Rene Descartes, Tomb Raider with Annie Hall, The Matrix with Magic: The Gathering. It's both a balls-to-the-wall high ocatane comic and a treatise into the nature of reality, existence and games."
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