Kiss (comics)

Comic books have been an integral and popular part of the American rock group Kiss' merchandising since 1977, beginning with their appearance in Marvel Comics' Howard the Duck #12. Over their career of nearly four decades, Kiss has licensed their name to "more than 3,000 product(s) . . . to become nearly a one-billion-dollar brand."

Licensed Kiss stories and adventures have been published by Marvel Comics, Image Comics, Dark Horse Comics, Platinum Studios, Archie Comics, and IDW Publishing; unlicensed stories have been published by Revolutionary Comics, among others. Ironically, according to frontman Gene Simmons, all the band members except himself "hate comic books."

KISS's first comic book appearance was in issue #12 of Marvel's Howard the Duck in May 1977, titled "Mind Mush!". The group also appeared in issue #13 of the series, titled "Rock, Roll Over and Writhe!".

In 1977 Marvel Comics published a magazine-format full-color comic book, titled A Marvel Comics Super Special!: Kiss presenting the band KISS as superheroes. It was the first in the Marvel Comics Super Special series which featured other musicians such as The Beatles. Blood from each band member was drawn by a registered nurse, witnessed by a notary public, and poured into the vats of red ink used for printing the comic at Marvel's Borden Ink plant in Depew, New York. Marvel also published a second KISS comic magazine, issue #5 in the Super Special series, in 1978, with much less fanfare.

In 1995 Marvel printed a trade paperback issue compiling issue #1 and #5 of the Super Special series, titled KISS Klassics. A year later Marvel released the magazine KISSnation, which featured interviews and photographs concerning the band's reunion and subsequent Alive/Worldwide Tour. KISSnation also came with the KISS Meets the X-Men comic.

Ever since the phenomenon created around the first Kiss comic in 1977, many unlicensed comics featuring the Kiss characters have been published. The most notable of these were published by Revolutionary Comics, known for their titles Rock N' Roll Comics and Hard Rock Comics. Although Revolutionary's comics were not sanctioned by Kiss or the group's lawyers, Gene Simmons was especially vocal in his support of the company, seen wearing a Hard Rock Comics T-shirt in videos for Alive III and on the back cover of the album itself. Both Simmons and Stanley granted interviews for the Revolutionary Kiss comics, and the same Hard Rock Comics creative team also did the comic bio section of Kiss' own KISStory hardcover book, as well as a comic adaptation of The Elder which has so far only been published in Metal Edge Magazine.

In 1997 Image began printing the first officially licensed non-Marvel Kiss comic, Todd McFarlane's Kiss: Psycho Circus. It lasted for 31 issues and was compiled into four trade paperback issues. The series was based on a tour theme that Kiss were working on at the time, and spawned five magazines that focused on the comic series. Wizard also printed a special edition magazine detailing the characters that appeared throughout the comic series. The series was completed in the year 2000.

Dark Horse Comics began the next Kiss comic series, simply titled Kiss, in 2002, with X-Men writer Joe Casey. The series lasted for unnamed 13 issues, with each issue having a variant photograph cover (with the exception of issues #1 and #7 which each had a third variant cover) and was compiled into four trade paperback issues. Dark Horse completed the Kiss series in 2004.