Rosarium Publishing has announced The Adventures of Lion Man, a graphic novel that will include both old and new stories about an early Black superhero, Lion Man. The graphic novel includes the very first Lion Man comic, which ran in 1947, and three new stories, two written by John Jennings, who won a 2018 Eisner Award for his adaptation of Octavia Butler’s Kindred, and one by Bill Campbell and Yvette Lisa Ndlovu; David Brame is the artist for all three. Brame and Jennings collaborated on the Eisner-nominated After the Rain, an adaptation of Nnedi Okorafor’s short story “On the Road” (see “Abrams ComicArts Fall List”).
The graphic novel also includes a bonus comic featuring Fantomah, created by Fletcher Hanks as the “Mystery Woman of the Jungle” and first appearing in Jungle Comics #2. The new Fantomah comic, by Damian Duffy (Jennings’ collaborator on Kindred) and Brame, reinvents her as a modern-day wrestler in a supernatural federation.
Other extras include pin-up art of Fantomah and other public-domain superheroes by an array of well known artists including Ben Passmore, Ezra Claytan Daniels, Joel Christian Gill, and Nate Powell, and a historical introduction by Prof. Michael Dando. The Adventures of Lion Man will be published on June 17, 2025, as a 124-page paperback with an MSRP of $17.95.
Created by writer Orrin C. Evans and his artist brother, George J. Evans Jr., Lion Man was a college-educated American who was sent to the Gold Coast region of Africa to guard the world’s largest uranium deposit, which lies underneath a mountain. The comic ran in All-Negro Comics, a groundbreaking anthology that was published in 1947 and lasted for just one issue, possibly because suppliers refused to sell paper for a comic created by and for Black people. Evans was inducted into the Eisner Awards Hall of Fame in 2014 (see “The 2014 Eisner Nominees”), and the 2023 release All-Negro Comics 75th Anniversary Edition won a 2024 Eisner Award for Best Archival Collection/Project – Comic Books.
Source: ICV2
