Codename: Knockout is the title of a comic book

Comic book

A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...

 series

Ongoing series

The term "ongoing series" is used in contrast to limited series , a one shot , a graphic novel, or a trade paperback...

 published by the Vertigo imprint of DC Comics

DC Comics

DC Comics, Inc. is one of the largest and most successful companies operating in the market for American comic books and related media. It is the publishing unit of DC Entertainment a company of Warner Bros. Entertainment, which itself is owned by Time Warner...

 for 24 issues (numbered #0-23) between June 2001

2001 in comics

-Year overall:* Marvel Comics withdraws from the Comics Code Authority and established its own rating system for its publications.- January :* January 23: Fred Ray, Superman's primary cover artist of the 1940s, passes away at age 80.- September :...

 and June 2003

2003 in comics

-January:* January 2: Kid Colt artist Jack Keller dies at age 80.- April :* Action Comics #800: Double-sized anniversary issue, "A Hero's Journey," by Joe Kelly, Pascual Ferry, and Duncan Rouleau...

. It was created by writer Robert Rodi

Robert Rodi

Robert Rodi is an American novelist, playwright, comic book writer, essayist, and performance artist.-Biography:...

 and artist Louis Small, Jr.

The title was a "mature readers" comedy

Comedy

Comedy , as a popular meaning, is any humorous discourse or work generally intended to amuse by creating laughter, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy. This must be carefully distinguished from its academic definition, namely the comic theatre, whose Western origins are found in...

 series featuring absurdist espionage

Espionage

Espionage or spying involves an individual obtaining information that is considered secret or confidential without the permission of the holder of the information. Espionage is inherently clandestine, lest the legitimate holder of the information change plans or take other countermeasures once it...

 plots and artwork heavily inspired by the good girl art

Good girl art

Good girl art is found in drawings or paintings which feature a strong emphasis on attractive women no matter what the subject or situation. GGA was most commonly featured in comic books, pulp magazines and crime fiction...

 of the 1950s and '60s.

Publication history

Rodi wrote each issue of the title. Small left the series after #5 and was replaced by an assortment of artists including Amanda Conner

Amanda Conner

Amanda Conner is an Irish-American comic book artist and commercial art illustrator. She began her career in the late 1980s for Archie Comics and Marvel Comics, before moving on to contribute work for Claypool Comics' Soulsearchers and Company and Harris Comics' Vampirella in the 1990s...

 (#6,9,13,14), Yanick Paquette

Yanick Paquette

Yanick Paquette is a Canadian penciller in North American comics. He has worked for Antarctic Press, Topps, Marvel and DC Comics and since 1994.-Career:...

 (#7,8,10,11,12), Phil Jimenez

Phil Jimenez

Phil Jimenez is an American comic book writer, artist and penciller, known for his work as writer/artist on Wonder Woman from 2000 to 2003, as one of the five pencilers of the 2005-2006 miniseries Infinite Crisis, and his collaborations with writer Grant Morrison on New X-Men and The...

 (#12), Ed Benes

Ed Benes

José Edilbenes Bezerra is a Brazilian comic book artist, better known by his pen name of Ed Benes...

 (#15-18), Mark A. Robinson (#19, 20) and John Lucas

John Lucas (comics)

John Lucas is an American comic book inker and penciller, whose style has been compared with that of Russ Heath and Jack Kirby.-Biography:A prolific freelance contributor to both DC and Marvel Comics, Lucas has also produced a great deal of small press work, as well as "Valkyries" for 2000 AD....

 (#21-23).

Each issue had a painted cover, and many were by high profile comic book artists including Joe Chiodo

Joe Chiodo

Joe Chiodo is an artist and colorist who has worked in the comics industry. He has been recognized for his work with a nomination for the Comics Buyer's Guide Favorite Colorist Award in 1997 , and in 1998 under his own name.-Biography:Chiodo was born on January 22, 1958, the youngest of four boys...

, J.G. Jones, Phil Noto, Brian Stelfreeze

Brian Stelfreeze

Brian Stelfreeze is an American comic book artist. Stelfreeze, an accomplished painter, penciller, inker and colorist, has worked for nearly every major American comic book publisher and is one of the original members of Atlanta's Gaijin Studios, a prominent breeding ground for some of comics' most...

, J. Scott Campbell

J. Scott Campbell

Jeffrey Scott Campbell is an American comic book artist. He has had several pen names, including "Jeff Scott", but is best known as J. Scott Campbell...

, and Jim Lee

Jim Lee

Jim Lee is a Korean-American comic book artist, writer, editor and publisher. He first broke into the industry in 1987 as an artist for Marvel Comics, illustrating titles such as Alpha Flight and Punisher War Journal, before gaining a great deal of popularity on The Uncanny X-Men...

.

The title was first conceived under editor Axel Alonso

Axel Alonso

Axel Alonso is American comic book creator, known primarily as an editor at DC Comics from 1994–2000, and at Marvel Comics from 2000 to the present. At DC, he edited a number of books published under their Vertigo line, such as Doom Patrol, Animal Man, Hellblazer, Preacher and 100 Bullets...

, though Tony Bedard

Tony Bedard

Antony "Tony" J. L. Bedard is a writer and editor who has worked in the comic book industry from the early '90s through the present. He is best known for his work at CrossGen Comics, where he was under exclusive contract, and for his run writing Marvel Comics X-Men spin-off Exiles.-Career:Tony...

 went on to edit the first 6 issues; Bedard was succeeded by Will Dennis who edited the title until its cancellation.

Plot summary

The premise of the series was to follow the adventures of buxom blonde Angela St. Grace (the "Codename: Knockout" of the title) a secret agent

Secret Agent

Secret Agent is a British film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, loosely based on two stories in Ashenden: Or the British Agent by W. Somerset Maugham. The film starred John Gielgud, Peter Lorre, Madeleine Carroll, and Robert Young...

 and operative for the "G.O.O.D." (Global Organization for the Obliteration of Dastardliness) organization as she battled the nefarious agents of "E.V.I.L." (Extralegal Vendors of Iniquity and Licentiousness).

She is assisted by her partner Go Go Fiasco, a young, handsome, gay fellow agent and by her mother Celeste St. Grace, the leader of the G.O.O.D. organization.

Collected editions

Part of the series has been collected into a trade paperback

Trade paperback (comics)

In comics, a trade paperback is a collection of stories originally published in comic books, reprinted in book format, usually capturing one story arc from a single title or a series of stories with a connected story arc or common theme from one or more titles...

:

• Codename: Knockout: The Devil You Say (160 pages, DC Comics, May 2010, ISBN 1-4012-2798-8, Titan Books
  Titan Books
  Titan Publishing Group is an independently owned publishing company, established in 1981. It is based at offices in London, England's Bankside area. The Books Division has two main areas of publishing: film & TV tie-ins/cinema reference books; and graphic novels and comics reference/art titles. The...
  
  , August 2010, ISBN 1848568789)

Film

In 2001, Louis Small, Jr. reported that Warner Bros.

Warner Bros.

Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...

had picked up the option to adapt the series into film.