We're getting a start on filling out the earlier portions of the Avatar back-issue store database with cover graphics and issue information, and as we do so we'll ocassionally make note of updates here with some behind-the-scenes commentary on the books in question.

The book we're starting with here is nothing less than the very first comic that Avatar Press published, Pandora #1 from December 1996. Avatar editor-in-chief William Christensen and creative director Mark Seifert began developing the foundations of company earlier that year after having worked on projects for a variety of other companies including London Night Studios and Chaos! Comics -- their first published work was a writing gig in Chaos! Quarterly #1. The company made its first public announcements at Heroes Con in Charlotte, NC that summer.

Christensen & Seifert created the character and wrote this first issue, while Stephen Sandoval, an artist who was a well-known cover painter at that time, helped design her look. Sandoval also provided a beautifully painted Pandora nude cover for this issue, although the cover shown here is by Kirk Lindo -- well-regarded for his dazzlingly intricate work on his creator-owned vampire title Vamperotica.

A flip through the Previews from that month will reveal a radically different industry than the one that exists today. Publishers such as Maximum, Top Cow (this during their brief separation from Image), Big Entertainment, Event, Topps Comics, Chaos!, Lightning, London Night, and others dominated the indy section of the catalog. Company crossovers were a hot trend of the times, with sagas such as Lobo / The Mask, Shi / Daredevil, and Batman / Captain America solicited for the month. Non-sports cards featuring comic book characters were also quite prevalent in the catalog.

In the midst of all that, Avatar listed its first three comics in the catalog for that month (Pandora #1, Silent Rapture #1, and Donna Mia #1), with Pandora becoming the first of those to hit stores with a periodic saga that would form the backbone of the Avatar Mythology. That mythology continues with Pandora and other characters to this day, and the beginning of a major new chapter in the saga is in the works for the not-too-distant future.