A Very Brief And Incomplete History Of Hard Rock/Metal Comic Books : Metal-Rules.com

WE ARE SUPERHEROES

A Very Brief And Incomplete History Of Hard Rock/Metal Comic Books

(Version 1)

by JP

PREFACE

As we hit the 54th anniversary of Heavy Metal, a few years back (2020), as Managing Editor of Metal-Rules.com, I started this essay series. One one of my goals is to try to add more editorial content and technical information so people can use MR not only as a source of entertainment but reliable information as well. In our 30,000+ pages of content, we have written almost 14,000 CD reviews, 700+ book reviews, 500+ DVD reviews. Over 25 + years we have conducted over 2000 interviews, and our international staff have reviewed over 1700 concerts and festivals world-wide.

We are also celebrating our 29th year as a website so to add even more value for our readers I have written a series of articles about various facets of Heavy Metal. Every year, I am increasingly happy to discover more and more authors, books, on-line publications, scholars and academic studies scouring our massive archives, citing and sharing our work.

Therefore, my modest goal is to continue to make Metal-Rules a resource and repository on a variety of (hopefully!) interesting topics and not just a shallow dumping ground of regurgitated press-releases, click-bait, pop-up ads, political posturing, countless lists and rankings of albums, and endless industry gossip. There are plenty of good sites that already do that well and they are all enjoyable in their own way.

Each feature in this series is named after a Metal band, album, song title or lyric. See if you can figure them all out. Feel free to go back and read the other articles in this series.

Mar 2020- Read All About It (Canadian Metal magazines)

April 2020- Gathered In Their Masses (American Supergoups)

May 2020- A Tribute to The Past (Tribute albums)

June 2020- Reborn In Blasphemy (Re-recorded albums)

July 2020-Still The Orchestra Plays (Metal bands and orchestras)

August 2020-Japandamonium (Live in Japan albums)

September 2020- Grandfather! Tell Me A Story! (Concept albums)

October 2020-Gathered In Their Masses Part 2 (European Supergroups)

November 2020-Don’t Run For Cover (Covers albums)

December 2020-No Presents for Christmas (Christmas albums)

June 2022- I Signed A Contract With The Devil (Record labels)

January 2023 -I Signed A Contract With The Devil-Part 2 (Record labels)

January 2023- Wacken Metal Battle

March 2024-We Are All Superheroes (Comic books)

If you have any suggestions, comments or ideas for future articles, please let me know. You can reach me at [email protected]. Thank you!

If you want to skip the main article, you can just scroll down and look at the list of bands and comics!

Introduction

This is the 14th visual essay in the ‘A Brief and Incomplete History of Hard Rock/Metal’ series. This opening essay is shorter than many of the previous essays in the series because there is not an enormous amount to explain. The concept is pretty self-explanatory.

Comic books, Hard rock and Heavy Metal have been inextricably linked since the 70’s and the start of the Metal genre. Many Metal bands are larger than life and naturally lend themselves to characterization in visual media like comics. Bands with iconic costumed characters, heroes, and anti-heroes like Alice Cooper, Kiss and GWAR are natural fits for comics. Let’s look at them!

Definitions:

1.) Albums vs. comics

There is an important distinction to be made. There are Metal albums that come with a bonus comic. There are stand-alone comics that are based on a Hard Rock or Heavy Metal band. For this essay I have generally focused on the stand-alone comics. The reason being there are a significant number of special editions of albums that come with a bonus comic. They are rare, hard to find, and often quite very expensive. There are several dozen of these from across the years and increasing in popularity. To be frank, I don’t own that many so my main focus is more on the stand-alone comics that you could buy in a comic store. I have added an appendix of albums that came with bonus comic books. (see Appendix A) I have also added some interesting or notable references and collaborations between the two industries. (See Appendix C and E)

2.) Comics vs. Graphic novels

As a quick side note, I’m using the term ‘comics’ interchangeably with ‘graphic novels’. The term ‘comic’ or ‘comic books’ can have some negative connotations to some people, largely based on the fact that serial strips were of a comedic style. Naturally, many of the titles we will explore today are not based in humour. There are far more serious in nature with adult stories, themes, art and writing. However, comics is a broadly used term so I apologize in advance if my use of the term comics is not favourable to you.

History:

Genesis: 1970-1990

The history of Hard Rock /Metal comics while stretched over five decades is relatively compact. It has really only been in the last decade that we have seen massive growth in the number of available titles and the rise of specialty publishers that focus on Hard Rock and Heavy Metal.

Historically, (at least in North America) there were the two big houses, DC and Marvel who dominated 90% of the comic industry for decades. In the 70’s only the biggest bands at the time, such as Kiss or Alice Cooper would even be considered for a comic, for example. Even then, these were a bit of a novelty. Despite the massive popularity of Hard Rock and Heavy Metal music in the 80’s very few comic publishers had yet to make the connection between the fan bases.

The Age Of Enlightenment: 1990-2000

The 90’s saw young comic publishers enter the market and compete with the big guns. Often these smaller groups such as Image and DarkHorse rose up and were willing to work with Hard Rock and Heavy Metal artists as crossover potential was starting to be realized, even in tiny ways, for example the Iced Earth/Spawn connection in 1996. A prime example is Revolutionary Comics and their Rock n’ Roll comic series which ran from 1989-1993. (see Appendix B)

As Heavy Metal specialty record labels became more successful, they looked for new and interesting ways to market and merchandise artists on their roster. At times, a band might commission a local artist to do a small independent run such as Jungle Rot in 1998.

There was considerable growth in bands releasing comics with their albums but not comic publishers releasing comics about bands. There is a distinction! Only the biggest bands at the time (Ozzy, Metallica, Kiss, Alice Cooper) would get a special one-time, stand-alone ‘comic book edition’, for example Megadeth in 1997. Overall, stand-alone Metal comics at the turn of the century were not very common.

The Dark Ages: 2000-2010

As Hard Rock and Heavy Metal music fell from popularity and mainstream consciousness so did demand for Hard Rock/Metal based comics. From 2000-2010 there were virtually no publications by comic producers about Hard Rock/Metal bands. Only Kiss managed to be the subject of a few short-lived series. Some of the bigger independent Heavy Metal labels started to dabble in producing comics about their biggest artists such as Nuclear Blast and the Hammerfall comic in 2002 and Metal Blade and the Cannibal Corpse comic in 2003, but these were very few and far between.

The Renaissance: 2010-2015

As more and more comic publishers entered the marketplace they needed to stand out from the pack and several of them saw the crossover potential between Hard Rock and Metal fans and comic fans. Companies like Chaos! and Dynamite started to specialize in music-based series, rather than the traditional superhero genre. Metal as a music had exploded and regained global popularity, credibility and most importantly, nostalgia. The kids who grew up on the 80’s listening to Metal were now creating comics and Metal was a deep wellspring of inspiration. We saw a return of comics about the big bands, the usual suspects, Alice Cooper, Kiss, and Metallica and a few smaller acts like Evergrey and Within Temptation producing their own comics.

The Golden Age: 2015-current

Specialization continued even further with companies like Z2 and Opus/Incendium who focused almost exclusively on music-based comics. With the efforts of these two last firms alone the number of comics increased dramatically. Bands that would normally have no chance of getting a title on their own comic book, now could have a short run or single issue written and drawn by fans and for fans.

Almost 50% + of all Hard Rock/Metal comics in existence have been produced in the last 10 years or so. There seems to be no sign of slowing down! More unique individual bands (dozens) have got their own comic title in the past decade, more than all the previous 45 years combined! Non ‘band-specific’ Metal-themed comics are also increasingly being created and published.

We are in a golden age.

Formats:

There are any number of formats and at this point in time (as of time of writing) there does not deem to be a trend or dominant preference in the presentation of these publications. There are regular comic books, hard cover versions, and giant compendiums. There are single issue stories and there are often short runs of 1-6 (occasionally but rarely more) story-line issues that eventually get compiled into a hardcover version. It is interesting to note that with the rise of extensive additional merchandising after roughly, 2010 many bands put out deluxe versions and boxsets that included comics.

How many Hard Rock/Heavy Metal comics are there?

Again, depending on our earlier definition of ‘stand-alone’ vs. ‘special edition album with a bonus comic’ we might be talking about 400 hundred maximum. A well-heeled person could conceivably collect all the Metal comics in existence, unlike the impossible task of owning very Metal album or every comic book. The break down might be about even, 200 of each kind but keeping in mind this visual essay is focusing more on the more common stand-alone comic books.

Production timeline:

As noted, there has been a massive increase in the number of Hard Rock/Metal comics produced.

By way of comparison, there were only about 130 stand-alone Hard Rock/Metal comics published between 1970 and 2015 (45 years). Two dozen or so were by published by one company, Revolution Comics between 1989-1993 (See Appendix B) and another seventy being various Kiss comics, most of them being published between 1997 and 2010.

Between 2010 and today (Spring 2024 , as of time of writing, 14 years) there are almost 270 more comics, with at least 40 more Kiss comics alone. We have seen output more than double in a third of the time.

Kiss is by far the most prolific with over 100 comics. There are so many Kiss comics (100+) that I created a section for them. (See Appendix D). Following way behind is Alice Cooper with roughly twenty comics and trailing in third place is GWAR with about ten comics and Iron Maiden not far behind.

Misc.

-I have reviewed the vast majority of the titles in the main section you will see here today so please feel free to explore our review archives and read in-depth reviews of these comics.

-Comics are listed chronologically by year of publication and then alphabetically by band name , rather than publisher, or artist or writer.

-As is often the case with comic books there are multiple cover variants and reissues. What I have pictured might differ from your version.

-I’m usually just showing the first issue, (unless noted) with some trivia and a few notes or comments if it is a series.

-This is a living document and I will be updating it periodically.

Enjoy!

1976

Kiss (Marvel)

This could be the very first appearance by a Hard Rock/Metal band in a comic. Kiss makes a cameo in Howard the Duck #12 of all places.

1977

Kiss (Marvel)

Given Gene Simmon’s oft-acknowledged love of comic books, it is not surprisingly that Kiss was the first Hard Rock/Metal band to get a comic. The band got a lot of publicity mileage out of the fact that members contributed a bit of blood to the ink. (see cover bottom). Kiss is by far the band with the most comics, bar none. There is a Wikipedia page and a few fan websites that list the over 100 Kiss comics licensed to publishers like Image, Dark Horse, IDW, Dynamite and more. I won’t duplicate their work but I did create Appendix D , dedicated exclusively to Kiss comics.

1979

Alice Cooper (Marvel)

A close runner up to Kiss, there have been several Alice Cooper comics over the years. This was based on his From The Inside album.

1992

METALLICA (CELEBRITY)

One issue in a very short-live series based on ‘celebrities’.

1993

GWAR (Indie, Slave Pit)

Gwar self-published several comics over the years. Two issues in this series.

GWAR-When Heroes Roamed The Earth (Indie, Slave Pit)

Another two-part series.

1993

Metallica (Rock It Comics)

One issue.

OZZY (Malibu)

One issue.

1994

Alice Cooper-The Last Temptation (DarkHorse)

Well regarded and popular three issue series done done to tie into the album of the same name.

Black Sabbath (Rock It Comix)

One issue.

GWAR-Skulhedface (Indie, Slave Pit)

One issue only.

Pantera (Malibu)

A one-off issue came out when Pantera was arguably the most popular Metal band in America. Reprinted a few times over the years.

1995

GWAR-Slave Pit Funnies (Indie, Slave Pit)

This series ran for six issues between 1995 and 1998.

1997

Megadeth (Chaos!)

A four part comic series to tie in with the Cryptic Writings album. One cover variant (above) was an embossed black leather edition!

1999

Ozzy (Image)

McFarlane takes a crack at the Prince Of Darkness. One issue.

2001

Thor (Armyl comics)

Thor’s first stand-alone comic. Reprinted in 2011.

2012

Dying Fetus (Independent)

Independent single issue produced by the band to tie in with the Reigns Supreme album.

2014

Alice Cooper (Dynamite)

Six issue series.

Alice Cooper (Blue Water)

A three-part series by the lesser known Bluewater group.

Metallica-Nothing Else Matters (Overlook)

160 page illustrated biography of the band.

2015

Alice Cooper Vs. Chaos! (Chaos! Comics)

Interesting tie in with Alice and several Chaos! Comics roster characters. Six issues and multiple cover variants.

2017

GWAR-Orgasmageddon (Dynamite)

This four-part series had multiple cover variants. Collect them all, human filth!

IRON MAIDEN-Legacy Of The Beast (Heavy Metal Comics)

Five issue series with Eddie as the protagonist. Multiple cover variants.

SLAYER-Repentless (DarkHorse)

Three-part series to tie into the album of the same name.

2018

BabyMetal-Apocrypha (z2)

Hard cover, origin story of the popular Japanese band.

2019

GWAR-The Enormogantic Fail (Renegade Arts)

One issue, 100 pages.

IRON MAIDEN-Legacy Of The Beast Volume 2 (Z2)

Another five issue series with Eddie as the protagonist. Multiple cover variants.

Megadeth-Death By Design (Heavy Metal comics)

Massive, 368 page, hard-cover coffee-table for the 30th anniversary of the band. 30 original comics each inspired by a Megadeth song.

2021

Anthrax-Among The Living (Z2)

Celebrating the 40th Anniversary of the band.

Cradle Of Filth (Opus/Incendium)

Five issues (so far) of short stories based on Cradle lyrics and lore.

Dio-Holy Diver (z2)

Hard-cover based on the Holy Diver album.

Exodus-Tales Of The Damned (Opus/Incendium)

Loosely based on the album of the same name. One issue.

Helloween-Seeker Of The Seven Keys (Opus/Incendium)

Three issue series based on Helloween lyrics and lore.

Joe Satriani-Crystal Planet (Opus/ Incendium)

Interesting Sci-Fi story written in conjunction with Satriani based on the album of the same name. Five issues so far.

King Diamond-Abigail (z2)

A hard cover expansion and adaptation of the iconic horror story and album of the same name.

2022

Ayreon-The Universal Migrator (Indie)

Single issue loosely based on the album.

GWAR-In The Duoverse of Absurdity (Z2)

One issue. 120 pages. Famed Metal artist Wes Benscoter does the cover art.

Hammerfall (Opus/Incendium)

The adventures of Hammerfall’s mascot, Hector.

Judas Priest-Screaming for Vengeance

Interesting interpretation and Sc-Fi tale based on the iconic album .

Motley Crue-The Dirt:Declassified (Z2)

Highly believable story about Motley Crue who are international spies fighting zombies and being in a band is just their cover story.

Ozzy-Patient #9 (Image)

Short comic by Todd McFarlane about an inmate in an insane asylum. Released to coincide with the Ozzy album of the same name. Comes with the CD.

2023

Alice Cooper (Dynamite)

The most recent (as of time of writing) Alice cooper series.

Dee Snider-He’s Not Gonna Take It (z2)

Nice interpretation of Snider’s appearance at the US Senate hearing about rock music in the 80’s.

Devin Townsend-Ziltoid (Opus/Incendium)

Fun origin story about Ziltoid as a youth. Based on the iconic character of the clever concept album.

In Flames- The Jester’s Curse (Z2)

In Flames first comic!

Iron Maiden-Piece Of Mind (z2)

Of all the existing Metal mascots, Iron Maiden’s Eddie probably has the most potential for expansion. Stand-alone issue.

Jag Panzer (Indie)

Released in conjunction with the concept album of the same name.

Panteta-Vulgar Display Of Power (Z2)

Pantera’s second comic. Celebrating the anniversary of the iconic, best-selling album.

Within Temptation (Opus/Incendium)

Within Temptation’s second comic.

Bruce Dickinson-The Mandrake Project (z2)

Based on Bruce Dickinson’s first solo album in years, this series is projected to run for 12 issues.

Appendix A

This very incomplete list is a collection of bands who released an album with a bonus comic book. It was separate item, part of a box-set, a reissue, or a special edition. It is a subtle distinction but you had to buy the album to get the comic, unlike the main section (above) which are stand alone books you can buy in a comic store.

GWAR-Hell-o! (Shimmy Disc, 1988)

The very first of many GWAR comics! This three page comic came with the first vinyl pressing.

HOLY MOSES-The New Machine of Liechenstein (WEA, 1989)

The original vinyl, (on a major label no less!) came with a six page comic.

GWAR-Scumdogs of The Universe (Jimco, 1991)

This comic came in the original CD pressing in Japan.

THE ACCUSED-Straight for The Throat (vinyl single, 1992)

ENTOMBED-Wolverine Blues (Columbia, 1993)

Limited Edition album cover

One of the more famous comic/album crossovers. Came with a 10-page comic.

PHANTOM BLUE-Prime Cuts And Glazed Donuts (Indie, 1995)

Came with a comic book. Not pictured.

JUNGLE ROT-Darkness Foretold (SOD Records, 1998)

HAMMERFALL-Crimson Thunder (Nuclear Blast, 2002)

A hard-cover, comic. w. CD edition.

CANNIBAL CORPSE-15 Year Killing Spree (Metal Blade, 2003)

The 15th Anniversary boxset came with a comic book.

HIGH ON FIRE/ RUINS (Relapse, 2005)

This vinyl, split single came with an 8-page comic.

SSS-SSS (Dead And Gone Records, 2006)

The indie, debut EP by these British thrashers (Short Sharp Shock) included a comic.

SLOUGH FEG-Hardworlder (Iron Kodek, 2008)

Came with a comic. Not pictured.

CANNIBAL CORPSE-Evisceration Plague (Stomp, 2009)

The deluxe Australian pressing on Stomp Records came with a graphic novel. The band’s second foray into comics.

ELECTRIC WIZARD-Black Masses (Rise Above, 2010)

The very Limited Edition (100 copies) Double LP vinyl boxset included a bunch of stuff including a 16-page comic called Crypt Of Drugula.

F.K.U.-Where Moshers Dwell (TPL Records, 2012)

The Swedish, vinyl, re-pressing of Freddy Kruger’s Union’s third album included a 10-page comic.

EVERGREY-Glorious Collusion (SPV, 2011)

The European digipak included a comic.

WITHIN TEMPTATION-The Unforgiving (Roadrunner, 2011)

Many deluxe versions came with a comic to accompany the concept album.

ORDEN OGAN-To The End (AFM, 2012)

This boxset version came with a comic box…and a snowglobe!

GHOUL-Mainaxe (Tankcrime, 2013)

Came with a 16-page comic (Photo not available)

ACTION-30th Anniversary Action Kit! (Universal, 2014)

For their 30th anniversary, this long-running Japanese band released a boxset with a comic.

LORDI-Scare Force One (AFM, 2014)

The deluxe boxset came with a 24-page comic illustrating the lyrics.

THOR-Unchained (Deadline, 2015)

This EP was originally issued in 1983. In 2015 it was repressed on Orange vinyl and came with a 20-page comic book.

JOEL GRIND-Poser (Original Comic book Soundtrack) No. 1 (Waxworks comics, 2018)

Eternal thrasher, Joel Grind (Toxic Holocaust) of did this interesting comic crossover which became a short-lived series.

EVERFROST-Winterider (Rockshots, 2019)

Comes with a 24-page comic. (Not pictured)

LORDI-Killection (AFM, 2020)

Lordi’s second comic book is found in the boxset version of Killection.

METAL CHURCH-Return Of The Fake Healer (Rat Pak, 2020)

This best of collection came with a comic book.

SUIDAKRA-Wolfbite (MDD, 2021)

The deluxe boxset comes with a comic.

DEATH SS-X (Night of The Vinyl Dead, 2021)

The deluxe vinyl version of the ‘X’ album comes with a 24-page comic.

MAJESTY-Back To Attack (Reaper Entertainment, 2023)

The deluxe boxset comes with a 20-page comic.

Appendix B

Rock N’ Roll Comics (Revolutionary Comics, USA)

Texas based Revolutionary comics published a series of 63 music-based comics between 1989 and 1993. Each issue was an adaptation of the unauthorized origin story of various bands. About a third of the titles were Hard Rock. The publisher suffered a number of lawsuits from various bands who said that the comics infringed on their rights. These magazine-sized, black and white comics had some adult content and popular issues could have print runs as high as 75,000 copies. By early 1992 they publisher had largely stopped focusing on Hard Rock and moved into pop bands. In 2005 a documentary film was produced about the publisher and the comic line.

Here is a list of some of the Hard Rock titles. In 2010 the Bluewater group bought the rights to re-publish some titles and reprinted them into compendiums. For our purposes they made one issue called Hard Rock Heroes, a 240 page compendium released in April of 2010.

#1 Guns’ N Roses (July 1989)

#2 Metallica (August 1989)

#3 Bon Jovi (September, 1989)

#4 Motley Crue (October 1989)

#5 Def Leppard (November 1989)

#8 Skid Row (February, 1990)

#9 Kiss (March, 1990)

#10 Whitesnake/Warrant (April 1990)

#11 Aerosmith (May 1990)

#15 Poison (September 1990)

#16 Van Halen (October 1990)

#18 Alice Cooper (December 1990)

#20 Queensryche (January 1991)

#22 AC/DC (February 1991)

#23 Living Colour (March 1991)

#24 Anthrax/Faith No More (March 1991)

#28 Ozzy/Sabbath-Part I (June 1991)

#29 Ozzy/Sabbath-Part 2 (July 1991)

#33 Guns ‘N Roses (September 1991)

#34 The Black Crowes (September 1991)

#42 Metallica (January 1992)

#43 Guns ‘ N Roses (February 1992)

#44 Scorpions (February 1992)

#48 Queen (June 1992)

#49 Rush (July 1992)

#57 Aerosmith (March 1993)

BlueWater Reprint/Compendium. (April 2010)

Appendix C

This fun section is just a selection of miscellaneous album art or inserts that have comic book themed art or characters. There are many more but these are some of the notable ones. These are not stand alone comics, they are physically attached to the media of the release.

THIN LIZZY-Waiting for An Alibi (vinyl single, 1979, Vertigo)

One of the earliest examples in the liner notes.

MOTORHEAD-Another Perfect Day (1983, Bronze)

Found in the liner notes of the vinyl.

ANTHRAX-Spreading The Disease (1985, Megaforce)

Anthrax dabbles in a career-long connection to comics and comic culture. The original vinyl insert.

HELLOWEEN-Future World (Noise, 1987)

Helloween pays tribute to the Judge Dredd character on this picture-disc single.

ANTHRAX-I Am The Law (Island, 1987)

While the art not directly connected with the Judge Comic, Anthrax also paid tribute to the popular series, on this single.

X-JAPAN-Vanishing Vision (Extasy Records, 1988)

The first 100o copies of the original pressing came with a lyric sheet in comic form. Not pictured.

Various Artists (Entombed) King Kong split (King Kong Records, 1993)

A second, lesser known Entombed / comic production. Part of the liner notes of this 3-way vinyl, split featuring Entombed’s A-side, cover of Sticky Finger’s State Of Emergency’.

DOOMSDAY-Doomsday (Indie, 1995)

This short-lived American band was one of the first, if not the first to use a comic character on their album cover. In this case it is Evil Ernie from the Chaos! Comics roster.

ICED EARTH-The Dark Saga (Century Media, 1996)

One of the most famous Metal/comic album covers. Featuring Todd McFarlane’s Spawn character.

ICED EARTH-Days Of Purgatory (Century Media, 1997)

For the second year and second release in a row, Iced Earth used a comic character on the cover. This time it is Purgatori, a character in the Chaos! Comics roster.

OLD MAN’S CHILD-Ill Natured Spiritual Invasion (Century Media, 1998)

The cover character is Chris Verwimps’ comic character, Odoric, from the 1996 series, Wall Of Doom.

IMPIOUS-Holy Murder Masquerade (Metal Blade, 2007)

The lyrics for this concept album in the booklet were in comic book form.

Iron Maiden (201o, EMI)

Pair of very rare, promo, media-only, comic book art vinyl singles.

MESMERIZE-King Of Terror (Burn Productions, 2012)

This lesser known Italian Power Metal band released a cross-over single to commemorate the 50th anniversary (1962-2012) of the popular Italian comic character called Diabolik.

BRUCE DICKINSON-Afterglow of Ragnarok (BMG, 2023)

The vinyl single had a sneak peak insert of the Mandrake project/ comic book.

APPENDIX D-KISS

Kiss is by far the band with the most comics, bar none. There is a Wikipedia page and a few fan websites that list the over 100 Kiss comics licensed to publishers like Image, Dark Horse, IDW, Dynamite and more. I won’t duplicate their work but I did create this section dedicated exclusively to Kiss comics to hit a few highlights. Only first issues or collections are pictured and there are dozens of cover variants.

1977 (Marvel)

1990 (Revolutionary comics)

1997 (Image Comics)

Psycho Circus series. 31 issues.

2002 (Darkhorse)

Ran for 13 issues from 2002-2004

2007 (Platinum)

Kiss 4k series. Ran six issues and another four digital only.

2009 (Harper Design)

Massive collection of most (but not all) Kiss comics to that point. Hardcover, 1280 pages!

2011 (Archie comics)

Weird but fun. 4 issues.

2012 (IDW)

Eight issues to date.

2013 (IDW)

A bizarre triple crossover; band, comic, movie! Better than one might expect.

2013 (IDW)

Kiss solo series. 4 issues.

2013 (IDW)

Kiss as children. The mind boggles. 4 issues

2016 (Dynamite)

Dynamite acquired the rights. Flagship series.

2017 (Dynamite)

4 issues Demon spin-off.

2017 (Dynamite)

Another crossover!

2017 (Dynamite)

This five issue mini series expanded on the story of The Elder and the album of the same name.

2018 (Dynamite)

Kiss meets Ash and the Army Of Darkness. Another movie, comic, band triple cross over that ran five issues. I included a few cover variants cuz I like them all!

2019 (Dynamite)

Kiss as zombies. At least five issues so far.

Phantom Obsession (Dynamite)

Five issue mini series.

APPENDIX E (Misc)

This short section is about stand-alone comics, unique items, and other weirdness. These comics are about Hard Rock/ Heavy Metal but not always or necessarily about any real or existing band.