Hello and welcome to Comic Drake where I talk
about comic books and my name is Drake.
There’s a really good chance that if you’re
already famous, you can just move to any other
medium outside of the one that made you famous
in the first place and you can get relative
success off of your name alone.
So it’s no real surprise that with comic
books being this big huge industry that some
people outside of the comic industry have
tried to come in and make a name for themselves
to various degrees of success.
So today, I want give you guys a little bit
of an insight into some of the mainstream
celebrities that have come into the world
of comic books and tried to have some footing
in there.
It’s interesting and there’s even some
surprising ones.
So let’s take a look.
C.M.
Punk is best known for being a two-time WWE
champion and for his stint in the UFC, but
did you know that he actually has a few noteworthy
comic publications?
Well, he started off with a short and comedic
story at the end of the Thor Vol 4 Annual
in 2014, but that flew under the radar.
A year later, he hopped over to DC Comics
under their Vertigo imprint in order to write
another short story for their Strange Sports
series, but that too went pretty unnoticed.
It wouldn’t be until another year later
that C.M.
Punk would go back to Marvel and be handed
the reigns of a solo title of his very own
with Drax.
See, the Guardians of the Galaxy were pretty
obscure until they hit it big in the Marvel
Cinematic Universe and to hop on this newfound
success, Marvel gave every single member of
the main crew their own solo title.
The 2016 Drax series would be the first time
that the character headlined a book in eleven
years and would try to better match the tone
of the books with that of the movies.
The end result was… actually pretty good.
It was a lighthearted adventure that was pretty
fun to read despite not having any real lasting
impact on the character.
I legitimately think that with some time and
experience, C.M.
Punk could turn into a solid writer and I
am seriously stoked to see what he puts out
next!
Growing up, the Goosebumps series was INSANELY
popular around school and I’ll admit that
I got into them quite a bit.
Series creator, R.L. Stine, had a couple of
small comic releases under his belt, but nothing
too notable.
That is until March 2017 when Stine came over
to Marvel Comics to bring back one of their
classic horror series, the Man-Thing.
I typically try to pick up physical issues
of new number ones as soon as they come out,
but when Stine’s Man-Thing hit store shelves,
I actually had a hard time finding it with
both of my local comic shops selling out rather
quickly.
I totally get it.
For many people, Goosebumps is synonymous
with childhood nostalgia.
There’s just one problem though.
Have you actually tried going back and reading
any of those books these days?
The writing is terrible and Man-Thing was
sadly no different.
I suffered through the five issue mini-series
and what I found was an awkwardly paced and
incoherent mess of a book that wasn’t even
so bad it’s good in ironic hipster fashion.
Seriously, the only thing that the book had
going for it was “star power” from the
writer and I’d be completely okay with never
reading another Stine creation ever again.
Speaking of childhood, I was big fan of My
Chemical Romance back in middle school...
and by that I mean I that I pretty much only
listened to The Black Parade album on repeat.
Well believe it or not, the MCR frontman,
Gerard Way, is a MASSIVE fan of comics and
he even had a two issue miniseries of his
own called On Raven’s Wings which was released
by the indie publication, Boneyard Press,
in 1994 when he was only fifteen years old!
Since then, Way has created the cult classic
Umbrella Academy series over at Dark Horse
Comics which actually won the prestigious
Eisner Award!
That is no small feat and is highly respected
in the industry.
With that on his resume, it’s no surprise
that these days, Way spend most of his time
as a major player in the comic industry as
the head of his own imprint under DC Comics
called Young Animal.
As the imprint’s main man, Way actually
gets involved pretty heavily in the creative
process and writes two series, Doom Patrol
which is one of DC’s oldest properties and
is even where we originally got Beast Boy
and Cave Carson Has a Cybernetic Eye which
is a revival of a classic DC adventurer series.
Young Animal has seen great success, supplying
readers with unique types of stories that
we usually don’t see in the mainstream space
and it is highly reminiscent of the golden
days of DC’s Vertigo imprint.
I’m extremely impressed and I hope that
Gerard will continue to lead the Way for new
reading experiences.
Okay, this should come as no real surprise
so I’ll try not to spend too long on the
subject.
Kevin Smith is a comic book junkie and regardless
of if you love him or hate him, I honestly
think that Smith has pretty much as much push
in the comic industry as he does in film.
Kevin Smith has written some great stories
for both Marvel and DC including one of my
favorite runs in all of Daredevil’s history,
but I’m legitimately curious why both of
his passions haven’t converged more frequently.
I mean yeah, he’s directed an episode of
The Flash and one of Supergirl, but the dude
has written for big characters like Batman,
Spider-Man, Daredevil, and Green Arrow.
I’m honestly just surprised.
Regardless, Smith’s heavy involvement in
the comic scene is one of the biggest that
we’ve seen from celebrities and he’s at
least worth giving a bit of recognition in
this video.
Alright so this might surprise you, but Samuel
L. Jackson is REALLY into comics and in fact,
it’s his regular reading that led him to
discover his likeness being used for Ultimate
Nick Fury back in 2002.
Which ultimately landed him the role of Nick
Fury in the Marvel cinematic universe.
In fact, we did an entire video talking about
the before and after of that encounter.
So I guess you should go watch that.
Shameless self promotion aside, Jackson co-wrote
a comic series in 2010 for Boom Studios titled
Cold Space alongside Eric Calderon whom Jackson
worked with on the Afro Samurai movies.
Cold Space isn’t a bad book, but it’s
just an uninspired four issue sci-fi story.
The main character, Mulberry, is very clearly
just Samuel L. Jackson IN SPACE who boils
down to a lot of the galactic badass space
criminal tropes that we’ve seen time and
time again.
The title looks and reads like it is seriously
just trying to get adapted into a movie or
a TV show, but hey, at least Jackson was actually
trying to present an original story instead
of just cashing in on his personal brand alone.
It’s like a lot of celebrities will do endorsements
just to try and get popular, but another good
example of someone with an original story
was actually Mark Hamill.
It’s nothing new for the comic industry,
but some people will actually write comics
to be strictly sold as screenplays.
In fact, Mark Hamill got on this by l co-writing
a comic that he was originally being pitched
around as a screenplay that he was wanting
to direct called The Black Pearl.
Honestly, I haven’t read this book because
no matter where I’ve looked, I simply can
not find a copy at any of my local shops.
It looks like the publisher, Dark Horse, hasn’t
re-released Black Pearl in a good while or
even made it available digitally.
From what I’ve read online, The Black Pearl
stars a character named Luther Drake (no relation)
who is a vigilante that gained some sort of
media exposure after stopping a kidnapping.
Hamill wanted the series to focus less on
superhero antics and more on “sensationalism,
tabloid journalism, and all the things that
thrillers come from."
I’d seriously be interested in giving the
series a read if I ever stumble upon a copy
in the wild, but by no means am I making it
a must find for my collection because I heard
it’s frankly not that great.
Maybe some day, Mark Hamill will finally lock
down funding to get his pet project off the
ground, but after several attempts, it’s
not looking likely.
Finally, let’s move from Star Wars to Star
Trek.
That’s right, William Shatner tried so hard
to be a multimedia icon that not only did
he have that cringeworthy music career, but
he also tried his hand at being a novelist.
Here’s the thing though.
Shatner’s books weren’t even written by
him and were instead created by ghost writers.
That’s writers, not riders which does actually
bring to mind that it would be interesting
for William Shatner to play Ghost Rider, but
I digress.
The sci-fi novel series, TekWar, written by
“Shatner” was adapted into TV movies,
a video game, a TV show, and of course…
comics.
Now if that wasn’t interesting enough because
frankly it really isn’t, another one of
“his” books, Man O’ War, was adapted
into a digital comic series after an Indiegogo
campaign in 2015.
This whole thing is super baffling so let
me just walk you through it.
The Man O’ War brand was licensed by Shatner
to a company called LNL Partners for a “cinematic
graphic novel” to be read on an app called
Panelfly, the website of which is no longer
active.
Now get this, the book actually surpassed
its campaign goal of five thousand dollars
with thirty seven backers and it’s worth
noting that nearly half of the funding came
from a single anonymous backer who pledged
two thousand five hundred dollars to be included
as a character in the book.
The videos featured in the campaign were hosted
by a YouTube channel that has deleted its
account since and are no longer available,
but here’s a snippet of one that I was able
to find.
Honestly, it just blows my mind that this
project was even made in the first place and
I’m just really fascinated by the journey
that this 1996 book that Shatner had made
and I’m just really glad that I could share
this interesting and strange bit of trivia
with you.
In my experience, most of the celebrities
that come in and try to make comics typically
don’t do a very good job, but every so often,
you do get one or two that really are surprising
and make some pretty interesting books.
So hopefully this was educational and hopefully
you learned a little something new in terms
of comic book trivia.
But of course, this videos would not be possible
without all of our amazing supporters over
on Patreon.
Badasses like Taylor Adams, Yosh Flores, Bonnie
Davies, Ashley Donson, Billy Lewis, and Sebastian
Walker.
You can see even more names of our supporters
down there in the description below!
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You can learn even more trivia and fun facts
here on the channel and hopefully, I’ll
see you next time!
