The worst-kept secret in comics for the last year or so has been that the “secret project” I’m working on is a two-part Flash Gordon graphic novel.
After building my 25-year comics career on creator-owned work, I decided it was time to try something I’d never done: put my stamp on a classic character. And they don’t get much more classic than Alex Raymond’s sci-fi/fantasy hero. Flash Gordon: Two Worlds takes the character all the way back to his 1930s roots while also providing a thoughtful and timely new spin, in the tradition of Darwyn Cooke’s The New Frontier. It will be published in two volumes, the first coming November 10th From Mad Cave Studios, in beautiful full colour by K.J. Diaz.
The project came about fairly organically, but unexpectedly. As followers of my work may know, Mad Cave has been publishing new editions of my Three Thieves series through their children’s imprint, Papercutz. When that deal was struck, they mentioned that they’d also like something new from me. For the first time in my career, though, I didn’t have much to pitch them. Most of my ideas for books have become books already, and the one creator-owned thing I’ve been tinkering with for years (more on that in 2027) wasn’t to their taste. Fortune worked in my favour, though, because no more than a couple of days later, industry news sites were trumpeting the fact that Mad Cave had acquired the licence to all of the classic King Features Syndicate characters, among them Dick Tracy, The Phantom, and of course, Flash Gordon. The granddaddy of space opera.
So I emailed my Three Thieves editor, Adam Wallenta, to see if the company would be interested in a Flash Gordon pitch from me. They were. The downside was that they already had half a dozen other Flash projects in the works, which they’d lined up previous to the announcement. A monthly series, an “Elseworlds” style anthology, a kids’ version, a gender-swapped YA version, something based on the 198o movie, and so on. It doused my interest at first, because I didn’t want to be just one of seven Flash Gordon projects to flood the market. But the more I rolled the idea around, the more I realized that with so many different takes on the character happening, mine could be just that: mine.
And it is. “My” Flash Gordon is about returning the character to his pulpy, classic adventure roots. People have been dragging ol’ Flash through the mud for decades in ham-handed attempts to make him “current” in ways that age quickly and horribly. This isn’t Feathered Hair 1980 Disco Flash Gordon, or ‘90s Skateboarding Flash Gordon. It’s FLASH GORDON, dammit. Those early Alex Raymond comic strips set a style and tone that all of the first wave of superhero artists would eventually crib from. And the movie serials, which began in 1936, would inspire much of the science fiction of the 1950s, and eventually Star Wars. The character’s 92-year history isn’t something to run from, but to be embraced.
Times do change, of course. Readers in 2026 naturally aren’t going to accept some of what’s in those stories from 1934. Like many revisionists before me, I had to find creative ways around some of the racism, for example, especially in respect to the villains, who in the early strips were the worst kind of "Yellow Peril" stereotype.
But in broader terms, I wanted to update the storytelling for a more sophisticated audience that has spent their entire lives immersed in the kind of media universe that Flash Gordon aimed us toward. The original strips have a real beauty and class thanks to Raymond's drawing, and the movie serials have some of the Art Deco chic of German Expressionist films (which they were almost surely trying to emulate). But the stories themselves are a kind of fever dream that's wildly fun, but is often inconsistent or downright nonsensical. I was able to find my way into the material by making that fever dream work as a metaphor, while keeping all of the pulp adventure vibes.
Another change grew out of being a writer in his fifties trying to write a 25-year-old space jock. The original character is positively brimming with youth and confidence, qualities that definitely get harder to access (or relate to) with age. So my story is constructed around a Flash who's a decade older, and has survived a life of hard toil and bitter compromise. For my money, it makes the character more interesting, while also providing a nice contrast to the playful, colourful fantasy happening around him. But don't worry...I don't want to spoil anything, but when I'm done with my revisionist Flash Gordon, I put him right back where I found him. You'll see what I mean.
Flash Gordon: Two Worlds Vol. 1 drops on November 10, 2026, with the second volume coming sometime next year. It's something a little different from me, but it was a lot of fun to use another set of muscles for a change. I'm proud of how it's turned out, and I genuinely hope it will please the multiple generations of fans out there, and new ones too. Please support a local indie bookstore or comics shop, if you can. Enjoy!
