#pollinae

[karenxmenfan]

Roberto Da Costa, Sunspot (44/x)

[balu8]

Adam Pollina: Death

Source: comicartfans

Death of the Endless, in Ivan  lee's 2024 Commissions Comic Art Gallery Room

[ultrameganicolaokay]

Cruel Kingdom #2 by Corinna Bechko, Chris Condon, Andrea Mutti and more. Main cover by Adam Pollina. Variant cover by Tom Fowler and Bill Crabtree. Out in February 2025.

"ONCE UPON A TIME... BLOOD WILL BE SPILLED! Enter the lost aeon of brave knights, foreboding wizards, and gloriously skull-crushing brutality as EC Comics' first-ever dark fantasy title unleashes its next full-throated battle cry of all-out terror with spellbinding writers Corinna Bechko (Green Lantern: Earth One) and Chris Condon (Ultimate Wolverine) alongside enchanting artists PJ Holden (2000 AD), Andrea Mutti (Rebels), and more enthralling talents! No, this is no ordinary storybook—this is CRUEL KINGDOM!"

[avengerscompound]

Tony Stark

Iron Man (1998) #40

[artverso]

Adam Pollina - Sectaurs

[keepsmagnetoaway]

Angel: Revelations 1 (July 2008)

Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa/Adam Pollina

In 2008, Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa - the man best known for writing and masterminding Riverdale, one of the most batshit television shows ever created - and Adam Pollina - the artist on Rise of Apocalypse, indisputably the worst comic I have read for this project in nearly a full year of doing it - teamed up to write a five-issue origin story for Angel. And it...fucking rocked?

Angel: Revelations is one of the most surprising comics I have ever read. Not surprising plot-wise: it basically rehashes Warren Worthington III's well-known backstory as a popular, privileged kid at a fancy private school who grows massive white-feathered wings, a mutation that's extremely traumatic to him while being both frightening and yet also kind of awe-inspiring to those around him. Despite the title, nothing wildly revelatory happens here: the story more or less goes as you would expect it to.

What's surprising is...everything else. Above all, it's Adam Pollina's art. Adam Pollina! This Adam Pollina!

By 2008 he hadn't worked for Marvel for about a decade, having done bits and pieces elsewhere. He then apparently come back utterly transformed, channeling the spirits of Edward Gorey, Egon Schiele and Sylvain Chomet into a series filled with twisted perspectives and long, vertical panels filled with long, vertical figures, highly distorted, highly stylized, utterly beautiful.

This is crazy, y'all. Also that evil priest is coming to kill Warren.

[smashpages]

January sees the debut of another EC Comics five-issue miniseries that will follow the science fiction anthology Cruel Universe.

Cruel Kingdom will contain dark fantasy stories by Cullen Bunn, Al Ewing, Justin Jordan, Leomacs, Chris Condon, Dennis Culver and more, as they conjure “tales of magic, myth and murder from forbidden realms long before our own.” Adam Pollina did the cover.

Read more

[cryptofmadness]

Cover Reveal: Cruel Kingdom #2 Main Covers!

Posted By Chet Reams

Cruel Kingdom, EC Comics' upcoming Sword-And-Sorcery series , has had its covers posted on several message boards. As such, Crypt of MADness is happy to present the main cover variants to Cruel Kingdom issue #2!

EC's Cruel Kingdom issue 2, Cover A by Adam Pollina.

EC's Cruel Kingdom issue 2, Cover B by Tom Fowler and Bill Crabtree

Cruel Kingdom #2 goes on sale February 5, 2025, at comic book stores worldwide.

And here's the Solicitation text: "ONCE UPON A TIME . . . BLOOD WILL BE SPILLED! Enter the lost aeon of brave knights, foreboding wizards, and gloriously skull-crushing brutality as EC Comics' first-ever dark fantasy title unleashes its next full-throated battle cry of all-out terror with spellbinding writers Corinna Bechko (Green Lantern: Earth One) and Chris Condon (Ultimate Wolverine) alongside enchanting artists PJ Holden (2000 AD), Andrea Mutti (Rebels), and more enthralling talents! No, this is no ordinary storybook—this is CRUEL KINGDOM!"

More info on Cover Variants for issue 2 of Cruel Kingdom:

CRUEL KINGDOM #2 (of 4) WRITTEN BY CORINNA BECHKO, CHRIS CONDON & MORE ART BY PJ HOLDEN, ANDREA MUTTI & MORE COVER A BY ADAM POLLINA COVER B BY TOM FOWLER WITH BILL CRABTREE HOMAGE VARIANT (1:10) BY JAY STEPHENS B&W ARTIST EDITION VARIANT (1:20) BY TOM FOWLER ARCHIVE EDITION VARIANT (1:50) BY RIAN HUGHES

[tomoleary]

Adam Pollina and Mark Morales X-Force #53 (1996) Source

Colorist uncredited

[jkparkin]

Cruel Kingdom #2 (Oni Press, February 2025) cover by Adam Pollina

[karenxmenfan]

Gaveedra VII, Statterstar (42/x)

[balu8]

X-Force #44: Already in Progress

by Jeph Loeb; adam Pollina; Mark Farmer; Marie Jarvins and Chris Eliopoulos

Marvel

[ultrameganicolaokay]

Cruel Kingdom #1 by Al Ewing, Charlie Adlard, Greg Pak, Leomacs, Chris Condon, Kano and more. Variant covers by (1) Liam Sharp and (2) Jay Stephens. Main cover (3) by Adam Pollina. Out in January 2025.

"WHERE ONCE A CRUEL UNIVERSE BECKONED... NOW A CRUEL KINGDOM SHALL REIGN! Oni Press is proud to unveil a spellbinding new chapter in the distinguished lineage of EC history! Enter: Cruel Kingdom—EC's first-ever dark-fantasy anthology conjuring tales of MAGIC, MYTH, and MURDER from forbidden realms long before our own! Behold the bloody and barbarous age of wizards, knights, and dragons as reimagined in the immutable EC manner as master scribes Al Ewing (Immortal Hulk), Chris Condon (That Texas Blood), and Greg Pak (Darth Vader) couple their forces with iron-wrought artists Charlie Adlard (The Walking Dead), Kano (Cruel Universe), Leomacs (Ghostlore), and more to forge a terrifying new vision of death, life, and adventure 'once upon a time.' From the twisted minds that spawned Epitaphs from the Abyss and Cruel Universe, steel thyself for 40 pages of fatal fantasy and skullduggerous sorcery in one cursed tome of comic book enchantment!"

[geekcavepodcast]

Oni Press's EC Comics Line Presents "Cruel Kingdom"

Oni Press's EC Comics line grows with Cruel Kingdom, a four issue dark-fantasy anthology. Cruel Kingdom #1 will be written by Al Ewing, Chris Condon, and Greg Pak and illustrated by artists Kano, Leomacs, and Charlie Adlard.

Cruel Kingdom #1 (of 4) goes on sale on January 8, 2025. The issue sports various covers by Adam Pollina, Liam Sharp, Jay Stephens, Rian Hughes, and Tom Fowler and Nick Filardi as well as a black sketch cover.

(Image via Oni Press - Adam Polina's Cover A of Cruel Kingdom #1)

[transistoradio]

Angel: Revelations #1-5 (of 5) (2008), with cover art by Adam Pollina.

[keepsmagnetoaway]

Angel: Revelations 3 (September 2008)

Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa/Adam Pollina

Day three of my running up to random strangers in the street yelling "did you know Adam Pollina could do this? Did you know anybody could do this?"

I mentioned Sylvain Chomet earlier, the French animator behind Belleville Rendezvous: I think these secret service goons (one of Warren's classmates is the Vice President's son, don't worry about it) are an intentional tribute to the gangsters in that film.

Augh, this art ! This art, yo!

Ok. Anyway. I have to get a hold of myself and talk about the Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa angle. Aguirre-Sacasa is a fascinating dude with some very constant themes in his work, notably queerness, heroism, high schools (especially fancy private ones), and comics themselves. His own superhero origin story, as it were, is that he wrote a play in which Archie from the Archie comics comes out as gay and attempted to put it on without any kind of copyright permission/licence/whatever, and it got shut down by the owners of the Archie IP a few days before it was going to premiere. This was in 2003, a few years before he wrote Angel: Revelations.

Fast forward 10 years from then and, via a writing stint on Glee (there's an amnesty for being involved with Glee, this is tumblr, you can't throw stones) and some comics work, he ended up becoming the chief creative officer of...Archie Comics. Where he masterminded a reinvention of the entire brand and launched Riverdale, the TV show that everyone initially laughed at for being a dark, gritty YA version of Archie, until suddenly everyone was like "wait, is this...good?"

To be clear, the answer to this was actually no, Riverdale was not good, not as such. But it was fun, and it was bonkers, and it was delicious, and for a while it was absolutely the craziest thing on television, with seven absurd twists per episode, multiple wild swings in tone, a season about an evil D&D cult, several different serial killers, I think alien abductions, Archie fighting a bear, tickling porn, Veronica's dad being a drug lord...I, honestly, at one time I watched a bunch of Riverdale and it was a blast. Go look it up.

Anyway my point with all of this is...I don't know. My point is, it's amazing that Aguirre-Sacasa also wrote this, it's fascinating that it displays many of the same interests and hang-ups, and he did a great job with it. Not as great a job as Adam Pollina, mind.