It’s like the old saying goes: “This might just be crazy enough to work.”
BOOM! Studios, which is already heading a coup with its licensing of the Incredibles and the Muppet Show (as well as great series like Unthinkable and Irredeemable), now has one more weapon in its arsenal:
Die Hard’s John %@$#%@#in McClane.
According to solicits, Die Hard: Year One is due out in August, and will go back in time to 1976 to explore John’s first year in the police force, a la Batman Begins or Casino Royale. Howard Chaykin will be writing, while Steven Thompson will be drawing, which already sounds to be completely awesome, especially considering how often people in the comics industry talk about Die Hard (I’m lookin’ at you, Dan Slott!).
Can I get a yippee ki yay from the reader base?
May 28th, 2009 at 10:27 am
I like that cover.
May 28th, 2009 at 10:41 am
I like the cover, but I do suggest that if a company is paying a licensing fee to acquire the assets of the film, they should use them. For instance, the cover is cool, but it has no design elements of ANY of the previous Die Hard films. I wish them well with it.
May 28th, 2009 at 10:43 am
BTW, I know it says NOT FINAL ART, but I just wanted to throw in my 2 cents for down the line.
-Thank you.
May 28th, 2009 at 10:48 am
fuck, I would have loved to write this one.
May 28th, 2009 at 10:57 am
God help us
May 28th, 2009 at 11:03 am
Better yet: it’s Howard Chaykin writing it. That’s the catch for me.
May 28th, 2009 at 11:10 am
I’d love to know how the licensing deal was worked out.
Back around 2000, when I was working for ibooks, inc., I spoke with Fox about licensing a series of John McClane novels. They said the problem was that although they owned the title Die Hard they didn’t own the source material (Roderick Thorp’s novel Nothing Lasts Forever, in which the main character is Joe Leland, a guy in his 60s, fighting bad guys in a building to rescue his daughter)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nothing_Lasts_Forever_(1979_novel)
and Thorp would have to approve any spin-off novels, even though the character was changed for the Die Hard film adaptation.
Damn you, Boom Studios, now I’m jealous!
May 28th, 2009 at 2:04 pm
If anything, it could be the set up for a good cop story in 70′s New York, which has always been fertile ground.
May 28th, 2009 at 3:58 pm
@True Grit
What design elements? Generic stills of Bruce Willis superimposed over something exploding with plain block text? Modern movie posters are not exactly the high-end of design, and all the Die Hard posters are pretty much the most generic examples one could ever cobble together for any action flick. Even though it’s “Not Final Art”, if Dave Johnson is going to do covers for this series, I’m pretty sure you don’t hire him for a job and demand he do a cover as bland as a movie poster.
May 28th, 2009 at 4:33 pm
How about a yippee ki meh.
May 28th, 2009 at 5:07 pm
chaykin?
No way.
I was 15 and at my first ever Con in LA looking off in the distance at a display when out of a different direction came a guy cussing and asking me WTF I thought I was looking at. I and everyone around was completely stunned. He seemed like he was on drugs and kept screaming at me for 5-8 minutes before leaving. I was then told by several people in the crowd that that was chaykin.
May 28th, 2009 at 5:41 pm
Is this supposed to look like Bruce Willis?
If so, I’m sorry to say that it looks nothing like him.
May 28th, 2009 at 6:41 pm
Look at it this way: it can’t possibly be as bad- or creepy- as Live Free or Die Hard.
May 28th, 2009 at 9:08 pm
Surprised by this. Hope its good. Might check it out. But I hope this actually and comes to print. I mean wasn’t Boom Studios gonna do The Godfather Chronicles comic? We never even got an answer on what happened to it? There were no info about its cancellation.
May 28th, 2009 at 10:42 pm
@Eric
I hear ya man, I’m just saying that if the previous designs for DIE HARD are something exploding with plain block text superimposed with a pic of Bruce Willis it would be wise for them to create a cohesive look to the comic to make it easier to spot for people who may be big DIE HARD fans and not “die hard” (pun intended) comic book readers. I’m not saying that Dave Johnson artwork isn’t cool, hell, I’m one of his biggest fans, I’m just referring to maximizing the brand’s image.
@hawkangel
The Die Hard property and Bruce Willis likenesses would probably require 2 seperate licensing deals. So, I’m going to guess that it’s not supposed to look like Bruce–just in the same way that the Tony Montana character did not look like Al Pacino in the IDW comic book series.
I wish Boom Studios the best and will absolutely check out the DIE HARD comic book.
May 29th, 2009 at 1:18 am
Great Idea. I’d like to see more prequels like this.
May 31st, 2009 at 4:50 pm
awwww… CHAYKIN!!!!! I HATE YOU!!! I WANTED TO DO THAT!!! LOL!!!!
May 31st, 2009 at 9:42 pm
Thorp’s novels are excellent – OOP in most cases, though. Sroman’s description of Nothing Lasts Forever is accurate,but doesn’t do the novel justice.
I’ll be buying this for sure.
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