WALKING DEAD Creator’s THIEF OF THIEVES Gets New Writer

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Robert Kirkman, co-creator of The Walking Dead, has been working a lot in television lately, with the huge success of AMC’s adaptation of The Walking Dead.  But unlike a lot of comics writers who go into TV, Kirkman is coming back to his beloved field of sequential art with some tricks he picked up out in La-La Land and applying them with vigor.

Thief of Thieves, Kirkman’s most recent comics creation (and in this writer’s opinion, definitely his finest), is about a master thief who sets about retiring from the game, only to get pulled back in.  Kirkman, acting as a sort of executive producer, outlined the broad strokes of the series, and brought in young buck Nick Spencer to handle scripting duties on the first arc.  And now, continuing this collaborative scheme, writer James Asmus has been announced, via The Hollywood Reporter, as scripting the next arc.

Asmus is fairly new to the comics-writing scene, but says Kirkman, “”Once I dove in myself, I could clearly see that this guy had great things ahead of him. I’m flattered that he’s lending his talents to Thief of Thieves and I think fans of the series are really going to enjoy his work on it.”

As a big fan of Thief of Thieves, I think this is good news, despite a bit of reluctance.  I tend to enjoy extended runs by creative teams; after all, the best Daredevil stuff, for example, was achieved by such long-lasting teams as Miller and Janson or Bendis and Maleev.  But Kirkman has made it very clear that he is seeking to change what comics are capable of, and now that he has the ear of the general public, to bring more people into comics and elevate comics’ status in our popular culture to the lofty heights that movies and TV enjoy.  That’s a tall order to be sure, and though I have my doubts as to how successful this endeavor will be, my hat is certainly off to the guy for the attempt.

Any doubt in my mind that Asmus has the chops in his short career to take on this assignment are mostly laid to rest by his predecessor.  I took a pass on Nick Spencer’s Morning Glories, his first major series, since the tagline “Runaways meets Lost” did little to spark my interest.  I had been enjoying his work on such Marvel books as Iron Man 2.0 and Ultimate X-Men (or Ultimate Comics: X-Men, whichever you prefer), but it wasn’t until Thief of Thieves that I really sat up and took notice.  I’ve enjoyed Asmus’s work thus far, but it’s mostly been fill-ins or one-shots.  He took over Generation Hope in its final arc, but I think I still preferred Kieron Gillen’s writing on that late, lamented monthly.  Still and all, Thief of Thieves may be for him what it was for Nick Spencer, an opportunity to really shine.  So far, Kirkman has proved himself to be, if nothing else, a good eye for talent.  And given that Shawn Martinbrough will continue to draw the book, I find it hard to believe the book will fail me.