Barbalien Emerges!

Does the name "Barbalien" ring a bell at all?

It appeared again today in a Bleeding Cool article about an upcoming Dark Horse comic book by writer Jeff Lemire entitled Black Hammer. Here's what that's about:

The series follows the former heroes of Spiral City — Abraham Slam, Golden Gail, Colonel Weird, Madame Dragonfly and Barbalien – as they work to escape from the small farming town they’ve been trapped in for a decade.

The article displayed a number of variant covers drawn by Lemire himself, including one which featured that very character.  That's the one below.

This idea had been conceived in 2007 or so and eventually scheduled for a late 2014 release. However the artist suffered an illness, causing significant delays. But it's apparently on its way now.

There is no blatant, or even subtle, Canadian content as such. But reading about Barbalien again recently raised an eyebrow. That was the name of the character that Lemire was going to use in the second volume of True Patriot. When asked, in late 2013, by Comic Book Resources what he would bring to the True Patriot table, Lemire provided the following teaser:

My contribution will involve a new superhero I'm creating called Barbalien. He's -- well, he's an alien barbarian. He crash landed on Earth in the '60s and posed as an RCMP officer by day, fighting crime in the north by night -- sort of a mash up between Dudley Do-Right, Martian Manhunter and Conan.

Judging from the rather neat "Who's Who" style fact sheet below, there isn't much cause to think that the RCMP portion of that is still in play, but who knows? There is nothing to definitively identify Spiral City, or the farming town the characters are trapped in, as American either from the small sampling of preview material I've seen. Maybe Lemire will sneak in some Canadian goodness.

Jeff Lemire's "Barbalien" to appear in True Patriot 2

The Kickstarter Campaign for the second volume of True Patriot, launched earlier today, revealed a couple of surprises.

Most of "Crew Patriot" are returnees, for which I'm grateful because I was hoping that the adventures of the characters if the first volume would continue.  But there have been a couple of additions to the roster.

New patriots joining us this time around include Paul Rivoche (Mister X) and Jeff Lemire (Sweet Tooth)!

That cracks me up a bit.  Lemire is working on that Justice League of America book, too (soon to be Justice League Canada, at least for a while).

No knock though; I know the people responsible for the campaign can't very well list every single credit for each creator.  It must have been hard to pick a single one for each individual.  Here is Paul Rivoche's line-up and Lemire's is right here.

This project is getting some good buzz early (and is already about 25% funded in less than a day, as I write this).  Comic Book Resources interviewed Lemire and J. Torres (Family Dynamic.  Huh...And a bunch other stuff.  It really IS hard to pick just one) about the project and Lemire revealed some details about his plans for both True Patriot and JLC.  Read that after the boss Grey Owl image below.

Jeff, why did you agree to be part of "True Patriot 2," and what will your contribution be?

Jeff Lemire: I loved the first volume, and I'm a huge fan of all the cartoonists and creators involved. Also, anyone who reads my work knows I'm a proud Canadian boy, so I couldn't resist.

My contribution will involve a new superhero I'm creating called Barbalien. He's -- well, he's an alien barbarian. He crash landed on Earth in the '60s and posed as an RCMP officer by day, fighting crime in the north by night -- sort of a mash up between Dudley Do-Right, Martian Manhunter and Conan.

You write a lot of superhero stories already for DC, and when you take over JLA next spring it will be (temporarily) retitled "Justice League of Canada" due to some roster additions from the Great White North. Why is it important to include Canadian characters in this lineup, and what makes them special?

Lemire: Well, like I said, I'm a proud Canadian. I love my country. It's a complex, diverse and beautiful place. And I love to reflect our identity in my work whenever I can. Adam Strange will be re-imagined as a Canadian, but I will also be creating a new teenaged superhero from Northern Ontario who is Cree.

I really wanted to create a character that reflects our First Nations, an often-overlooked part of the Canadian identity. And I wanted to create a character that wasn't just a stereotypical First Nations character as well.

I'll be going up to two remote Northern Ontario communities, Moose Factory and Attawapiskak, later this month to visit the local schools and talk to the kids about comics and drawing. I'll also be involving the kids in the creation of this new character. Details on that should be coming soon...

Read the full interview here.