Comic book creators Kyle Starks and Ryan Browne join the Capes and Tights Podcast for Episode 174 on July 3, 2024. To prepare for the conversation, we have compiled eight comics by Starks and Browne you should read.
Kyle Starks is a three-time Eisner nominated comic creator from Southern Indiana. He is likely best known as the longest tenured writer and occasional artist for Oni Press Rick and Morty comic and the hit series Peacemaker Tries Hard for DC Comics. He was nominated for Eisners for Sexcastle, Rock Candy Mountain and I Hate This Place for best humor publication.
He has also worked on Skybound’s Assassin Nation with Erica Henderson, 6 Sidekicks Of Trigger Keaton with Chris Schweizer, Marvel Comics Marvel Unleashed, DC comics Harley Quinn: Black White and Redder, Dynamite Comics Mars Attacks with Schweizer and Oni Press Dead of Winter and many more. Kyle is currently working on Pine and Merrimac from BOOM! Studios, with Karate Prom coming this summer from First Second!
Ryan Browne is a Harvey Award winning comic book writer and artist from Chicago, Illinois. Browne is the creator of God Hates Astronauts as well as the co-creator and artist of Curse Words and Eight Billion Genies.
Together Browne and Starks are working on From the World of Minor Threats: Barfly at Dark Horse.
Peacemaker Tries Hard (DC) // Kyle Starks
Having earned his release from the Suicide Squad, Peacemaker wants to try to do normal superhero stuff for a change. Unfortunately everyone, including the bad guys, thinks he sucks at superhero stuff. But when busting up a terrorist ring introduces Christopher Smith to the cutest puppy to ever walk (awkwardly) on four legs, he finds the unconditional love he’s been de nied his whole life…until the dog is kidnapped by a super-villain with some very un-super-heroic plans for Peacemaker’s brand of ultraviolence. Will he help an unstable criminal steal the world’s most valuable–and dangerous– DNA? Honestly, Christopher’s pretty lonely, so it probably just depends on how nicely they ask…
Eight Billion Genies (Image) // Ryan Browne
If you had one wish…what would you wish for? What if everyone else on the planet had one wish too? That’s Eight Billion Genies.
Eight seconds after magical genies grant every person on earth one wish, the world is transformed forever…and that’s just the beginning!
From #1 New York Times-bestselling author Charles Soule (Undiscovered Country, Light of the Jedi) and superstar artist Ryan Browne (Curse Words, God Hates Astronauts) comes the most thought-provoking, hilarious, terrifying, and emotional ride of the year.
Where Monsters Lie (Dark Horse) // Kyle Starks
Haven’t you always wondered what slasher monsters-the masked home invasion family, the mindless un-killable monster, the serial killer trapped in a doll-what they do for those couple of years in-between their murder sprees? They’re at Wilmhurst-a gated community in the middle of nowhere where they relax-or try to-until they get the call to go out and kill again. Connor Hayes survived his first slasher in summer camp. A handful of years later he barely escaped a psychopath who built torture puzzles for his victims. Since then he’s been training and planning for running into these creatures again. He’s a respected special agent. And now he knows where the monsters lie and he’s planning for war.
God Hates Astronauts (Image) // Ryan Browne
God Hates Astronauts follows the story of a group of incompetent, small-minded, super powered narcissists called “The Power Persons Five” who are hired by NASA to stop all farmers from launching themselves into space in homemade rocket ships. Unfortunately, for NASA, this goal is scarcely even addressed and the book focuses more on extramarital affairs, bank-robbing owls, big gross swollen heads, ghost cow heads, olde tyme boxers, tigers eating cheeseburgers in the Crab Nebula, buffalo judges and tons of aggressive swearing.
Not so much a superhero book as it is a parody of basically everything and a celebration of weird that is jam-packed with references to RoboCop and Die Hard.
I Hate This Place (Image) // Kyle Starks
After inheriting a farmhouse, Trudy and Gabby are ready to start the next chapter of their lives together… except it’s already home to a mysterious force that’s attracted ghosts, aliens, and all kinds of supernatural beings for decades.
Now, Gabby and Trudy must play by the “house rules” in order to survive living amongst the most frightening creatures on Earth.
Curse Words (Image) // Ryan Browne
A wizard has appeared in present-day New York! His name is Wizord, and he’s here to save us all from dark magical forces bent on our destruction. He’s the best wizard of all time! Or… he’s not, and he’s lying to everyone, and secretly is the dark magical force, but wants to hang out in our world for a while because it’s so much nicer than the hellhole he comes from.
Marvel Unleashed (Marvel) // Kyle Starks
Justice…has teeth! When Kraven the Hunter abducts the teleporting hound Lockjaw at the same time as a local scientist mixed up with A.I.M. goes missing, it’s up to Throg the Frog of Thunder, Redwing the Falcon, Chewie the catlike Flerken, Lucky the Pizza Dog, Bats the Ghost Dog and their scrappy new ally, D-Dog to save the day! But there’s more to this case than meets the eye, and something infernal lurks in the shadows. Can feathers, fangs and claws stand against one of the deadliest foes in the Marvel Universe? Or will these Pet Avengers be made to suffer their worst nightmares? Prepare yourself for heartbreak, because not everyone is making it out of this one!
From the World of Minor Threats: Barfly (Dark Horse)
Spinning out of the world of the hit Minor Threats superhero series by Patton Oswalt, Jordan Blum, and Scott Hepburn comes a new tale of costumed underdogs—featuring a low-level henchman without a leader to serve.
The Lower Lair bar is home to all sorts of supervillains, lowlifes, and scumbags… but only one of them has to puke digestive fluids onto his food to eat. $#!%eater, the humanoid mutant fly is a loser, a lifelong minion who lives to serve his criminal master. But what happens to a henchman when he no longer has anyone left to hench for?
Comic book legends Kyle Starks and Ryan Browne present the heartwarming, feel good, coming-of-age story about an insect monster-man searching for his identity amongst the criminal underworld of Twilight City. A grimy punk rock odyssey that answers the question “How much $#!% can one lackey eat before he says NO MORE?!”
