Joe the Barbarian is an eight-issue comic book limited series written by Grant Morrison and drawn by Sean Murphy. It was published in 2010-2011 by Vertigo Comics. Morrison has discussed the inspiration behind the series: I was obsessed with fantasy books when I was a young teenager – Tolkien, Alan Garner, Susan Cooper, Robert E. Howard, Michael Moorcock, Stephen Donaldson…. anything I could get my hands on. I even wrote two big swords-and-sorcery novels back then, but I'd never done a fantasy comic book before and it seemed like an interesting challenge to do a real proper kind of "Lord of Rings", "Alice in Wonderland" all-ages story for today. The first issue was released in January 2010 (cover dated March 2010). Source: Wikipedia (en)