Regular blog visitors may have noticed that there haven't been a lot of new posts this month since I have been busy trying to finish ( or at least check all the boxes in my list of videos I usually include in my posts ) my three posts in honour of the late Peter David's run on THE INCREDIBLE HULK with Dale Keown . Aside from that I also worked more on finishing old posts than starting new ones and of course there has been the case where an entire YouTube channel was deleted and I had to replace a lot of videos. And with the way stuff has accumulated on my laptop I spent the last week putting it in the right folders or making new ones when necessary. Now while doing that I realized that there have been a lot of posts about DC Comics or Marvel Comics but not that many about more independent comicbooks so I have decided to do one that I have been planning to do for a long time which is paying homage to Steve Mannion.
Okay, don't worry if you don't know who Steve Mannion is. I don't think he is well known - even in the independent comic scene - but if you have heard of him it is because of his creator owned comic FEARLESS DAWN.
Or you might have even gotten the FEARLESS DAWN MEETS HELLBOY Free Comic Book Day comic where Mike Mignola drew the framing device part of the comic and Steve Mannion drew the rest. Which was the main part.
Now you might have seen Steve Mannion's art on other stuff because he has worked for DC Comics, Marvel Comics, Asylum Press, Fantagraphics, Eros, iMage, NBM, Papercutz, Kitchen Sink, IDW and Legendary Comics.
For Marvel he drew CAPTAIN AMERICA - SENTINEL OF LIBERTY issue 10.
For DC Comics on the other hand Steve Mannion worked on BATMAN - GOTHAM KNIGHTS issue 37 and the 753rd issue of DETECTIVE COMICS.
He also worked on two of the big books ( at least as far as I know, if you know more about this please let me know in the comments below ) that DC Comics released under its PARADOX PRESS imprint : THE BIG BOOK OF BAD and THE BIG BOOK OF SCANDAL. I had a few of these books - not all mind you I was not rich - and the first book I got was THE BIG BOOK OF URBAN LEGENDS. I remember that every time I went to my comicbook shop ( I don't recall if I was already getting my US comicbooks from the Sammlerecke in Nuertingen / Esslingen by that time or if I was still a client at the comicbook store in Stuttgart ) I picked up the book, read one story ( most of the stories were one page stories so it was perfect for casual reading ) leafed a bit through the rest of the book only to put it back on the shelf again. Well, after a while there came a point where I had already read a big portion of the book so I decided to buy it already.
I am not sure which books I had but I definitely remember reading THE BIG BOOK OF URBAN LEGENDS, THE BIG BOOK OF CONSPIRACIES and THE BIG BOOK OF FAIRY TALES which had all the fairy tales in their original versions before they were censored out of fear they could damage little children. Anyway, I don't think they are still being reprinted but if you can find one at a reasonable price somewhere you should check it out.
They are always an interesting read, the collection of artists is very eclectic and might include some you do not know or at least would not expect to do this kind of work and it has my utmost recommendation.
Coming back to FEARLESS DAWN, as you might have guessed from the cover I included above it's all about World War II, Nazis ( germans are just the best villains, orderly, disciplined, efficient, inventive, have the best food and beer and always kill their enemies on schedule ), spies, Betty Page with some crazy experiments, zombies and dinosaurs thrown in. Basically everything that little boys - and grown up boys - do enjoy.
So it's no wonder that our plucky heroine's nemesis is none other than Fraeuleinwunder Helga Von Krause a.k.a. " The She - Wolf Of The SS " with the whole leather clad uniform fetish thing the name implies.
Initially I just wanted to put my favourite Steve Mannion illustrations into this post but because I had to do kind of an introduction to him - and because we are already at the obligatory 23 pictures per post - we will continue this in the second part where we will have more stuff from the FEARLESS DAWN comicbooks because I found a ton of it while doing the research for this and it would be a shame to let it just go to waste.
she wolf of the ss
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