Dan Mishkin, who co-created and wrote the fondly-remembered Blue Devil and Amethyst Princess of Gemworld for DC Comics back in the early eighties, has a new series from Speakeasy called Spellgame, which is an intriguing little fantasy series set in Las Vegas. Mishkin talked about it here.

It's always hard to tell whether a series will be good based only on the first issue (though you can almost always tell whether it will be bad from just a few pages), but after reading only the initial installment I'm planning on coming back for more, and I recommend picking up the first issue, at least. Speakeasy, who also publish the admirable Rocketo, may have another hit on their hands. And a super-sweet Darwyn Cooke cover can't hurt.

I'm a mite perplexed, though. Mishkin is clearly the creator of the property, but the indicia introduces some confusion. The book is copyrighted by an outfit called Hawke Studios. According to this interview with Hawke Studios's Adam Fortier, who is also the head of Speakeasy, Spellgame is one of three creator-owned books being produced by the studio. But in this interview, the book's editor, Chris Stone, in saying that there was never a question of Mishkin moving on when other "creative changes" were made to the book, suggests that there could be a question of Mishkin moving on, which wouldn't be possible if it were a creator-owned title. Hmm...