For those who don't know, Atomic Robo is an old-school pulpy treat of a comic about a robot created by Nikola Tesla in the 1920s who's gone on to fight secret scientific insanity (and Stephen Hawking) throughout the rest of the 20th Century like some cybernetic Hellboy. Wegener's clean, crisp art and Brian Clevinger's writing make a potent combination, especially on stories with titles like "Atomic Robo and the Fightin’ Scientists of Tesladyne" and "Atomic Robo and the Shadow From Beyond Time."


Atomic Robo is published by Red 5 Comics, and their site gives you a variety of ways of buying the books. But with pages of the original art available for under $100, we'd suggest making sure that you make sure that you have some money left over after picking up back issues, just in case.

[Scott Wegener]

The publisher, formed by co-founder of TheForce.net Scott Chitwood and former director of Lucasfilm's StarWars.com, Paul Ens, have the perfect one line pitch for Afterburn (written by Ens and Chitwood): Indiana Jones meets Mad Max. Chitwood explains the premise like this:

In this story, half the Earth is hit by a superflare from the sun. All of Europe, Asia, Africa, India, and Australia are essentially microwaved. People out in the open were killed while the survivors were mutated by the radiation. However, all their treasures remain intact. Our anti-hero, Jake, is a treasure hunter that raids this post-apocalyptic wasteland for profit. It's a pulp adventure filled with big action scenes, unique international settings, and a lot of fun.