If reading this post is the first time you are hearing the name of Jonathan Hickman, then you should remember this moment. You are about to "meet" for the first time one of the best new writers in comics in a very long time. Imagine being introduced to the works of Alan Moore or Neil Gaiman for the first time. This is the type of feeling that you get when you read your first Hickman book, and discover this new voice in comics that is SO bright and SO unique that he deserves a much better moniker than "The next (fill in the blank)".



Jonathan Hickman is not just a great and innovative writer, he is also a super accomplished artist, illustrator and most of all designer. When you open the first pages of a Hickman-drawn book, you realize this is going to be special because it looks like NOTHING you have ever seen in comics. Hickman has a huge bag of tricks, including graphs, mono-colored line art, blocks of text, web page designs, and comic book art that has hints of Travis Charest and has an impressive negative space usage, reminiscent of Sin City-days Frank Miller and Eduardo Risso's 100 Bullets work, and the "design elements" that Brian Wood is known for. Each project has its own "VIBE" that is unique to itself and to the writer/artist who produced it. Even on projects where Hickman relinquishes the art duties to other artists (such as Red Mass for Mars and Transhuman), you can still totally feel the "Hickman" design structure and style.



But the most important thing about Hickman's work is his ability to create truely unique and diverse works of comic book fiction every single time he creates a new project. From the "Domestic Terrorism against the Media" of Nightly News, to the "Revisionist, alternate history through time travel" of Pax Romana, to the "Race for Human mutation through the eyes of a Documentary" of Transhuman, every Hickman book is a unique piece of work, never before tried in the world of comics.

Hickman fans are still few but they are very vocal and they are growing in numbers every day. Next week, when his first Marvel work, Secret Warriors, comes out, the greater comic book audiences will discover Jonathan Hickman for the first time. Next week will be a TRULY special week because of this, and I can't wait for it to happen.