Broken Frontier

Brothers Joshua and Jonathan Luna seemed to spring from nowhere last year with their eight-part ULTRA series from Image Comics. The unconventional look at the lives of super-heroines garnered impressive sales and glowing reviews. With the series set to wrap up in March, you might wonder what the Lunas will be doing for an encore.

The answer is GIRLS, a brand new twelve-part series debuting from Image in May.

This time around, the Lunas tell the tale of an average guy named Ethan Daniels who's never had much luck with women. Until he meets an unnamed mystery girl, that is. And this girl, he soon discovers, is no ordinary girl. Like most women, she holds secrets beyond his understanding. But in this case, those secrets might end up impacting not just Ethan's future, but that of the whole world. Along the way, Ethan learns much about himself and his own approach to the opposite sex.

The story takes place in the fictional, rural setting of Pennystown, USA. Completely immersed in Mother Nature, life is beautiful and serene in this sleepy little town, but it's long overdue for a wake up call.

Joshua Luna, who writes the book and co-plots with his brother Jonathan (who illustrates the book), describes GIRLS as  "a horror/thriller, wrapped in a love story, snuggled in a mystery, sprinkled with comedy."

According to Jonathan, fans of ULTRA will be happy to see that the Luna's trademark relationship-driven storytelling is intact this time around, but he also notes that GIRLS will have a different feel than ULTRA.

"In a sense, GIRLS is the total opposite of ULTRA," says Jonathan.  "The hero is a guy, it's set in a rural town as opposed to the metropolitan Spring City.  And I think we're going to get a little bit darker with this one--ULTRA hinted at some of the darkness welling up in our heads."

Joshua wants it made clear that the book should appeal to the female readership that has so far embraced ULTRA.

"The positive feedback from the female audience really touched us during the course of ULTRA," he says.  "We feel incredibly fortunate to have such awesome supporters (male and female), and that's something we'll always value immensely.  So, although GIRLS is told from a male's POV and contains controversial issues, we hope the readers stick with it and enjoy the ride."

Image Executvie Directot Eric Stephenson has been a huge supporter of the Lunas from day one, and is excited to see the brothers return to Image for their second go round.

"Jonathan and Joshua Luna are nothing short of amazing," says Stephenson. "They're constantly setting new challenges for themselves and are in no way content to merely repeat what they've done with ULTRA. It's the same quality and the same commitment, but a totally different concept. More and more, our feeling here at Image is that our job is to create NEW comics, and we couldn't be more pleased to have artists like the Luna Brothers creating new series like GIRLS."

GIRLS is solicited in the upcoming March issue of Diamond PREVIEWS, and will hit stands on May 25.