Avatar Press has announced that it will be publishing the saga of one of the most acclaimed characters in indy comics with a series of mini-series featuring Billy Tucci's Shi. Shi launches at Avatar with Shi: Poisoned Paradise, a full color mini-series written by Tucci and featuring artwork by Karl Waller (X-Men Movie Wolverine Special, Wonder Woman).

"I've been friends with William Christensen for eight years now, and his devotion to the comics industry make this business venture an honor," says Shi creator Billy Tucci. "Avatar's absolute dedication to detail, shipping record and high production values will afford me the freedom to concentrate on the story and art aspects of Shi."

"Shi is arguably one of the greatest success stories in comics during the past decade," asserts Avatar Press editor in chief William Christensen. "A lofty claim, but consider that even high-profile successes like the Image guys paid their dues for years and years in the industry before breaking out big on their own. Billy came out of virtually nowhere and put out a book that was a hit from day one. There really aren't too many examples of that in recent comics history, and it shows the strength of Billy's vision and the strength of the character Shi. We are sparing no effort to continue the legend."

The debut mini-series Shi: Poisoned Paradise will be drawn by Karl Waller, an artist with string of high-profile credits to his name. Waller was penciller on the 1987 John Ostrander / Tim Truman mini-series Hotspur at Eclipse; he pencilled the D.G. Chichester-written Dark Horse series Motorhead, on which he was inked by Tim Bradstreet; he teamed with Christopher Priest on a Legends of the DC Universe arc; and worked with Jay Faerber for Marvel's X-Men the Movie: Wolverine special. Waller was also tapped for a couple months worth of Wonder Woman covers when Adam Hughes took a breather on that magnificent run recently, and has been a cover and pinup artist of note on the indy scene over the years. With Avatar Press, Waller has done dozens of covers for a wide range of Avatar titles, interior artwork for Threshold and Raw Media shorts, pencils and inks on the legendary 1997 Avatar one-shot Silhouette, and on the recent Robert Lugibihl-written Avengelyne/Shi #1.

Shi: Poisoned Paradise is a full-color mini-series written by Billy Tucci with art by Karl Waller, and color by Nimbus Studios. Avatar will preview the series in May and launch the mini-series in June 2002.

How much of a monster do you have to become to catch one?

Warren Ellis faces the terror of that question in Scars, a major new six issue mini-series launching this fall from Avatar Press. Art on the series is provided by acclaimed Ellis collaborator Jacen Burrows (Dark Blue, Bad World), and Avatar will preview the saga in a 75 cent sampler in May.

"Scars is my first major attempt at producing a straight police story -- as straight as I can tell it, anyway," says Warren Ellis. "The one thing that stays with me from my conversations with police officers is that the job is scary, scarier than most people ever find out, and that the job marks you. Marks everybody. Sanitised crime fiction desentitises the reader to the extreme emotional reaction engendered by proximity to the result of violent crime. This is a story about the scars of a policeman, and about how terrifying the things that people do to other people really are."

"As the work on Scars has come in from Warren and Jacen over the past several months, it's been clear that this is one of Warren's most powerful, terrifying, and gut-wrenching works," notes Avatar Press editor in chief William Christensen. "It's a concept that almost seems to compel him to get the story down on paper. And Jacen Burrows is rendering that story with a skill that Dark Blue and Bad World readers have only begun to glimpse."

"We are also trying some new things promotionally with this series," adds Christensen. "I'm told that the 75 cent Scars sampler is the cheapest comic item in the Previews catalog for May, and we're driving the price down even further by offering bundles of the Sampler to retailers at an even better price. This is one of Warren's best series yet and we're going to get the work into people's hands well in advance of the series to prove it."

Launching this Fall, the six issue Scars series promises to be one of the greatest Ellis works yet, and the ultra-cheap Scars sampler is a perfect way to get a sneak peek months before the first issue is released. He's a cop trying to deal with the extremes of homicide detail and the realities of the chaotic world he works in ? who finally falls on a case that doesn't fit into his coping mechanism. A case that speaks directly to the one question he's tried never to ask himself. How much of a monster do you have to become in order to stop one? The Scars sampler shows six sequential pages of the series as well as an all-new four page essay from Warren Ellis.

Warren Ellis' Scars Sampler retails for 75 cents and is scheduled for release in May from Avatar Press.

Avatar Press has announced that it will collect the out of print classic Warren Ellis serial Atmospherics into a single graphic novel for the first time. The 1996 Ellis tale of a witness to mysterious cattle-mutilation style killings in a small town features the artwork of painter Ken Meyer. The deluxe squarebound graphic novel is scheduled to ship in May from Avatar Press.

"Atmospherics is one of my lost works, written for a noble experiment that no-one really saw -- a one-dollar anthology of creator-owned material," says creator Warren Ellis. "But that was in the dark days of the mid-Nineties, and I'm delighted to see Avatar dust it off for a new generation of people who like to read new ideas."

"This twisted little tale was destined to claw its way back into ink and pulp," adds Avatar Press editor in chief William Christensen. "And I'm pleased to be working with Warren and Ken to remaster this classic Ellis work. We're doing fresh scans, letters, and production on the work and putting it into the deluxe package that it deserves."

Ellis and painter Ken Meyer unleash a totally remastered version of this terrifying alien tale that has been out of print for many years and never before collected into one graphic novel. She's in a hospital. Except it may be a police station. She's been traumatized. Or she's been arrested. She's the only living witness of a cattle-mutilation style attack on humans. Or she's a multiple killer who has a psychotic reaction to heroin use. Who may not survive discovering who she really is. This deluxe square bound graphic novel also features all the stunning paintings Ken Meyer produced for the series, many of which have never seen print, a special section focusing on how Ken creates his work, and a new introduction by Warren Ellis.

Warren Ellis' Atmospherics is a 48 page squarebound graphic novel written by Ellis with artwork by Ken Meyer, scheduled to ship in May 2002 from Avatar Press.

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