Lady Death - Publication History

Publication History

Lady Death was originally published by Chaos Comics and remains one of the best examples of the bad girl titles that took the American comic book industry by storm during the late 1990s. The earliest issues of Lady Death were written by Brian Pulido and illustrated by the late Steven Hughes. Lady Death was originally conceived as a violent anti-hero, but subsequent iterations have toned down the more controversial aspects of the character.

At first, Lady Death was extremely popular and sold strongly. In a recent interview, Brian Pulido revealed that the high point of Lady Death's popularity was in August 1995, when Chaos comics sold approximately $980,000 worth of Lady Death merchandise in a single month. However, sales declined rapidly in the later half of the decade due to broader changes in the comic book industry. By the middle of 2001, it was obvious to industry observers that Chaos Comics was in serious financial trouble.

In August 2002, Chaos! Comics filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy and the intellectual property rights to Lady Death were sold to CrossGen Entertainment. Brian Pulido continued to work on Lady Death for Crossgen, creating a new series titled Medieval Lady Death that was released in February 2003. This version of Lady Death made substantial changes to the character in an attempt to capture a larger mainstream audience.

Despite Medieval Lady Death enjoying reasonable sales, CrossGen Entertainment ran into financial difficulties of its own and filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on June 18, 2004 in Tampa, Florida. During the bankruptcy proceedings, the rights to Lady Death were sold to Avatar Press. The other Chaos! Comics properties were sold to Tales of Wonder.

In 2004, a feature-length animated motion picture based upon the original version of Lady Death was released. Produced by ADV films, the Lady Death animated feature premiered at Comic-Con International in San Diego on July 23, 2004. The film received horrendous reviews and was not a major financial success.

In July 2005, Avatar Press unveiled a new version of Lady Death. Both Medieval Lady Death as well as the Classic Lady Death were published in separate series. Brian Pulido wrote both series, which featured art by several Avatar Press artists, including Juan Jose Ryp, Daniel HDR, Richard Ortiz, Ron Adrian, Di Amorin and Gabriel Guzman.

In April 2010, Avatar Press announced that it would create a separate company called Boundless to publish the character beginning later that year. Brian Pulido and Mike Wolfer will be writing the new ongoing series. The character was ranked 39th in Comics Buyer's Guide's "100 Sexiest Women in Comics" list.