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Various News: Kickstarter Project Starts for Bruno Sammartino Comic, Bully Ray Reminisces on Summerslam, and Behind the Scenes on WWE Story Time

August 19, 2018 | Posted by Jeffrey Harris

Inverse Press has started a new Kickstarter project for a planned comic book based on the life of late WWE Hall of Famer Bruno Sammartino. You can read more details on the project below.

About

Bruno Sammartino – one of the all-time greats in the storied history of professional wrestling – and, sadly, one of many crushing losses we fans and the wrestling industry have suffered in 2018…

Before his untimely passing, Bruno approached us about preserving his legacy in comic book form and completed interviews with writer and wrestling historian, John Crowther. From those in-depth discussions with the man himself, John crafted scripts for the comics.

THE COMIC

Now, illustrated by Marvel & DC Comics veteran Rich Perotta, Bruno Sammartino is the authorized comic biography of perhaps the most renowned professional wrestler in the history of the industry. Holder of the WWWF Heavyweight Title for unparalleled runs from 1963-1971 and from 1973-1976, Bruno was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2013 and claims a string of simply amazing sell-outs of the famous Madison Square Garden in New York City in the 1970’s.

This comic series tells all those stories, but many more, including his family’s plight in, and escape from, fascist Italy during the second World War and the barriers Bruno faced upon arriving to the United States and the ways he used body-building, weight-lifting, and wrestling to overcome them! Oh, yes, and there was that time he wrestled an orangutan…

Our 20-page comic, Bruno Sammartino 1, is the first of five issues in standard comic format (6.625″ x 10.25″). This campaign allows you to reserve just the first issue (already completed) or subscribe to the full series, either digitally or in print (Kickstarter-Exclusive or Standard cover options)!

THE CREATORS

John E. Crowther

John is the writer and creator of Rochelle, which debuted as Rochelle: The Teen Cockroach #0 with AC Comics in March 2015, and is currently an ongoing series with Antarctic Press, having debuted to great reviews in August 2016. He has authored each installment of the growing line of authorized wrestling comics published by Squared Circle Comics, including The Killer Bees, Hacksaw Jim Duggan, and The Genius Lanny Poffo.

Rich Perotta

Starting as an intern for the X-Men office in 1993, Rich soon became a staff artist and then a freelance inker for Marvel with a dash of Dark Horse and Crusade Entertainment thrown in for good measure. Rich inked for Marvel for roughly ten years. In 2004, he took a break from comics and in 2010, re-entered the comic industry working for DC Comics inking titles Booster Gold and The Ray limited series. Rich is now pencilling and inking independent titles such as Mice & Man, Magma-Man for Source Point Press and the Scales of Time one-shot and Scissor Sisters series for INVERSE PRESS. Rich currently resides in New York City.

Vito Potenza

Born in Mola di Bari (BA) – Italy in 1983, Vito attended and graduated at International School of Comics – Rome [2005-2008] and subsequently worked as illustrator/comics artist for The First Place and Edizioni Master [2005-2012]. He then moved on to be illustrator and storyboard artist for Video Explainers [2013-today] and has worked from July 2016 as colorist for Inverse Press.

– WWE Hall of Famer Bully Ray posted the following tweet getting nostalgic about Summerslam.

– WWE released a behind the scenes video for WWE Story Time. The show returns for its third season tonight on the WWE Network after Summerslam. Here’s the video.