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Garth Ennis, Amanda Conner, Jimmy Palmiotti and Paul Jenkins are among the first wave of writers working on creator-owned projects for publishing startup AfterShock Comics.

According to Deadline, they're joined by Justin Jordan, Frank Barbiere and Marguerite Bennett. Neil Gaiman, Jim Starlin, Amy Chu and Brian Stelfreeze have also signed on for the company's first short-story anthology.

Mike Marts left his job as executive editor at Marvel in April to help Caliber Comics veteran Joe Pruett launch AfterShock.

“When we launched AfterShock, our mission was to attract the best comic book creators in the business, and we’re beyond excited to develop original projects with these industry leaders,” Marts, the company's editor-in-chief, said in a statement. “But it’s only the beginning.”

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Do you have a vision of where you’d like to take Heavy Metal?

I have a very distinct vision. With Heavy Metal, I’m doing the same thing I do when I’m asked to “revamp” a character like Superman or Wonder Woman; I dig back to the roots, figure out what makes the idea tick, then try to build my own “definitive” take on the material. Heavy Metal was the comic you graduated to when you got bored with superhero books, so I’m digging deep into all the other books and artists that inspired me as a teenager — the cosmic head comics of Jim Starlin and Bryan Talbot; the drawings of Guido Crepax, Esteban Maroto and Jose Gonzalez; New English Library’s Dracula magazine; New Wave science fiction — all the little tributaries and streams that, at least for me, fed visually and conceptually into the mighty river that is Heavy Metal. I’m paying a lot more attention to my wife Kristan’s ubeatable collection of industrial metal records. I want to get more musicians into the magazine and also more women. Beyond that swirling cloud of influences and initial thoughts, I can certainly promise more science fiction and more sex!

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