Avatar Press is a relatively small Comic Book company founded in 1996, which is famous for its horror comics. To change this image, Avatar would open its doors to a number of established writers and offered them an opportunity to publish creator-owned comics without any content restrictions whatsoever. Said writers included Frank Miller, Alan Moore, Garth Ennis, and Warren Ellis.
In 2010, they founded the Boundless Comics imprint that was originally created to publish Lady Death comics but, since 2015, is now used for publishing more graphic works using repurposed characters and properties such as Webwitch, Hellina (formally of Lightning Comics), and The Ravening.
And they have apparently vanished off the face of the Earth
. Their last publication was in 2019, leaving many of their comics then in progress unfinished.
Avatar also operates the news site Bleeding Cool, while Comic Cavalcade serves as their official storefront. These sites continue to update, despite the comic publisher no longer being active.
Avatar series and graphic novels include:
- Absolution
- Anna Mercury
- Apparat Singles Group
- Black Gas
- Black Summer
- Caliban
- Caligula
- Cinema Purgatorio
- Crécy
- The Chronicles of Wormwood
- Crossed
- Disenchanted (2013)
- Doktor Sleepless
- The Extinction Parade
- Frank Miller's RoboCop
- Friday the 13th
- FreakAngels
- Ferals
- God Is Dead
- Gravel
- Ignition City
- Lady Death
- Mercury Heat
- Neonomicon
- No Hero
- Providence
- Shi: Poisoned Paradise
- Snowman
- Stitched
- Supergod
- Switchblade Honey
- Über
- The Unfunnies
- Wolfskin
Most of Avatar's books generally have these tropes:
- Bad Girl Comic: Avatar's original specialty. They created the Boundless Comics imprint specifically to publish these.
- Brand Name Takeover: Avatar has published so many Ellis and Ennis titles, you'd be forgiven for thinking it was their company.
- Fanservice: Unless Ellis or Ennis is writing, then it quickly becomes Fan Disservice.
- Gorn: The horror titles are full of it, especially in the various alternative covers. Even writers not usually known for extreme splatter like Kieron Gillen and Alan Moore tend to go for full-throttle ultraviolence in their Avatar work.
- Variant Cover: They are known for producing multiple alternate covers for almost every serial issue they publish. In particular, each series has its own variant cover for each issue based on an appropriate theme, such as Torture Porn for Crossed, aircraft Nose Art for War Stories, and in-universe propaganda posters for Über.
