Allred + Milligan’s ‘X-Cellent’ debuts in February

The X-Statix team returns to the Marvel universe to confront a new team of mutants taking their spotlight.

The creative team behind one of Marvel’s most creative and fun comics from the early 2000s will reunite in February for The X-Cellent.

Writer Peter Milligan and artists Michael and Laura Allred, whose run on X-Force and X-Statix introduced us to Doop, Anarchist, Mister Sensitive, Vivisector, U-Go Girl, Dead Girl and many others (most of whom ended up dead), will return to Marvel for the new series.

“I’m thoroughly X-Statix to be working with Mike and Laura Allred again,” Milligan told Marvel.com. “And it’s been truly X-CELLENT to discover that we’ve lost none of our alchemical fizz in conjuring up this new comic, this new title, this new beginning: The X-Cellent!”

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Can’t Wait for Comics | Prepare for Halloween with a look at this week’s spooky comics

Check out new comics and graphic novels coming out this week by James Tynion IV, Matthew Rosenberg, Eddy Barrows, Jeph Loeb, Tim Sale, Mike Mignola and more.

Welcome to Can’t Wait for Comics, your guide to what comics are arriving in comic book stores, bookstores and on digital this week. And this week things get spookier than normal — so spooky, in fact, with so many horror-themed comics, that I’m doing two editions of Can’t Wait for Wednesday — this super scary one and a regular, not-so-scary one coming tomorrow.

Check out the spin-tingling highlights below, or visit Diamond’s website for this week’s almost complete list of new comics arriving in stores. You can visit Lunar Distribution’s home page to see DC’s releases and the comiXology new releases page for what’s available digitally.

I should also add that the list of what is actually arriving at your local shop can vary from what’s on anyone’s official website for a myriad of reasons — so always check with your comics retailer for the final word on availability.

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Image will publish Juni Ba’s ‘Monkey Meat’

The five-issue miniseries begins in January.

Juni Ba, creator of the wonderful Djeliya from TKO Studios, will return to shelves in January with Monkey Meat, a five-issue-miniseries coming from Image Comics.

The five issues will feature “connected one-shot stories” set in a new fantasy setting — an island run by the Monkey Meat Company.

“Monkey Meat is a passion project born of wanting for us all to poke fun at how dystopian the world is,” said Ba. “It’s fun and colorful but most of all aims to be cathartic, and bring you great cartooning!”

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New graphic novel will cover NY State Senator Julia Salazar’s first year in office

The 27-year-old democratic socialist was the youngest woman ever elected to New York’s state senate.

Following in the (large) footprints left by March and They Called Us Enemy, Top Shelf will publish Radical: My Year with a Socialist Senator by Sofia Warren next year.

The graphic novel will chronicle Warren’s time with Julia Salazar, the 27-year-old democratic socialist who became the youngest woman to ever be elected to New York’s state senate in 2018. Warren was embedded with Salazar’s staff during her first year in office.

“So much of this experience was a surprise to me,” said Warren, “that for their entire first legislative session, Julia and her staff let me be in the room; that ‘the room’ was just as often a food court, or a senior center, or a march in the middle of a blizzard; that they were as open with me about their frustrations as they were about their victories; and that I — an introverted, cynical millennial living through the Trump presidency — could leave the experience so motivated and inspired. I hope that readers leave this book feeling the same.”

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Mad Cave announces their 2021 talent search winners

Eight new creators have been chosen by the publisher in their fourth annual competition.

Mad Cave Studios has announced the winners of their annual talent search competition, which is going on four years now. The winners were announced on Friday during Mad Cave Studios Showcase 4.0, which was broadcast on Twitch.

“We received a wealth of submissions from many talented creators and regrettably could only select a few to help usher in the next phase of Mad Cave,” Mad Cave said in the their statement announcing the winners. “The Mad Cave Studios Talent Search has created a supportive community of dedicated comic book lovers that leaves us feeling excited for the future of the medium, and we want to thank each creator who put everything they have into their respective submission.”

Previous winners of the competition include Shane Connery Volk and David Hazan, who went on to create the Mad Cave title Nottingham. A sequel has been announced for next year. The winners of the 2020 competition helped create the upcoming Grimm Tales From the Cave, a horror anthology that arrives in stores next week.

Here are the eight creators who won, who I’m sure you’ll be hearing about more in the future:

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Winners announced for the 2021 Ringo Awards

The winners were announced in a ceremony that was livestreamed from the Baltimore Comic-Con this weekend.

The winners for the 2021 Ringo Awards were announced last night at the Baltimore Comic-Con, marking the fifth year for the awards program named for artist Mike Wieringo, who passed away in 2007.

Nominees were chosen by fans, along with a panel of judges that included retailer and online host Amy Dallen, Teaching Graphic Novels author Dr. Katie Monnin, podcaster/broadcast journalist John Siuntres, cartoonist Steenz and artist Brain Stelfreeze.

In addition the Ringos, a few other awards were presented during last night’s ceremony:

  • Artist Gene Ha was presented the Hero Initiative’s Dick Giordano Humanitarian Award.
  • Marvel’s Joe Quesada received the Hero Initiative Lifetime Achievement Award.
  • The Mike Wieringo Spirit Award, which is voted on by the professional jury as well as three additional, perennial jurors: Matt Wieringo, Todd Dezago, and Mark Waid, went to Folklords by Matt Kindt and Matt Smith.

You can find the replay of the event’s livestream on YouTube. The rest of the winners are:

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Ryall + Wood will launch Syzygy Publishing in January with ‘Joe Hill’s Rain’ adaptation

The imprint will publish and distribute comics through Image Comics.

World of Syxygy Publishing , the new initiative from Zombies vs Robots creators Chris Ryall and Ashley Wood, will kick off next year with an comic book adaptation of Joe Hill’s short story “Rain.”

Image Comics will publish the five-issue miniseries by the creative team of writer David M. Booher, artist Zoe Thorogood, colorist Chris O’Halloran and letterer Shawn Lee.

“You couldn’t ask for a better inaugural creative team and story with which to kick of Syzygy,” Ryall said in a press statement given to Screen Rant. “David, Zoe, and Chris all bring such immense skill and storytelling acumen to this project, and what they’ve done with Joe Hill’s gripping story is somehow both gorgeous and terrible to behold. Syzygy is defined as ‘the configuration of celestial bodies in a gravitational system and the added benefit and utter thrill to me is that Image Comics is Rain’s gravitational center. We have long admired how Image has expanded and enhanced this industry, and it’s as exciting to see that ‘i’ on our cover as it is the names of the creators involved.”

Last year Ryall left his position as president, publisher and chief creative officer of IDW Publishing to start his own publishing initiative with Wood — although he’s still involved with some IDW titles, like Hill’s Locke & Key.

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Kindt + Jenkins deliver the chills in ‘Apache Delivery Service’

The horror miniseries begins in January.

Matt Kindt, Tyler Jenkins and Hilary Jenkins, who created Dark Horse’s history-spanning Fear Case, will venture into the jungles of Vietnam for their next miniseries from the publisher, Apache Delivery Service.

The horror story involves the search for Nazi gold during the Vietnam War — which, rumor has it, is guarded by witches. Kindt said the story is “easily the most unsettling story I’ve written and for-sure the creepiest art I’ve seen Tyler and Hilary come up with.”

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Watch Wonder Woman’s induction into the Comic-Con Museum Character Hall of Fame

Marie Javins, Becky Cloonan, Liam Sharp and many other comics creators talk about Wonder Woman’s impact on pop culture and the world.

The Comic-Con Museum today inducted Wonder Woman into their Character Hall of Fame, following in the footsteps of Batman and Pac-Man.

The occasion was marked with a video on the Comic-Con Museum’s YouTube channel that featured appearances by Marie Javins, Liam Sharp, Nicola Scott, Trina Robbins, Phil Jimenez, Becky Cloonan, Michael Conrad, Gal Gadot, Helen Mirren, Lynda Carter, Patty Jenkins, the Teen Titans and many more.

You can watch it below:

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Marvel will celebrate 200 issues of Black Panther in January

John Ridley and Juann Cabal send T’Challa to Mars to visit his ex-wife Storm in the oversized issue.

Marvel’s latest Black Panther series will only reach issue #3 in January, but if you add up all his previous series, you get 200 issues — so Marvel’s celebrating with an oversized issue.

The comic is already pretty special, as it’s the third issue of the new series by Academy Award-winning screenwriter John Ridley and artist Juann Cabal. Ridley follows Ta-Nehisi Coates on the title and promises the comic will be a “hybrid espionage-Super Hero thriller, but at its core, it’s a love story.”

The cover to the first issue teased an appearance by Storm, and she’s front and center on issue #200:

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Comics Lowdown | DC FanDome triples its viewership

Plus: New graphic novels from the Mayo Clinic, the Andrew Carnegie Awards and more!

Viewership for last weekend’s DC FanDome tripled this year to 66 million views worldwide, according to DC. The event was available in multiple languages in more than 220 countries.

“With triple the fan traffic of last year, DC FanDome 2021 exceeded all of our expectations,” said Ann Sarnoff, Chair and CEO, WarnerMedia Studios and Networks, in a press release about the event. “We continue to innovate across the company in service of our fans, and I cannot overstate the creativity and hard work that went into this highly curated, global digital event. We gave fans what they wanted – the very best of all things DC – and their engagement and response have been fantastic. We’re as excited as they are to deliver on all the great content DC FanDome highlighted.” 

It was also a popular topic on social media, with “DC FanDome” trending at No. 1 on Twitter for eight hours in the U.S. and in the top 50 in 53 countries around the world. In addition to new Batman trailers and gold boots for The CW’s Flash, FanDome also revealed several bits of comic news, including the return of Blood Syndicate, a Wonder Woman-centric crossover event and a new Monkey Prince series.

DC will hold another virtual event today at 4 p.m. Pacific as Wonder Woman is inducted into the Comic-Con Museum Character Hall of Fame.

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Smash Pages Q&A: Casey Gilly

The writer of ‘My Little Pony: Generations’ and ‘Buffy the Last Vampire Slayer’ talks about both projects, writing licensed comics, creating new ponies and more.

Casey Gilly has been busy in the past couple years, writing comics that ranged from a short in the anthology You Died (drawn by Raina Telgemeier) to Star Wars Adventures. This fall, she’s launching two big, high-profile and very different projects.

IDW’s long-running My Little Pony series just ended, and Gilly and Michela Cacciatore team up for the five-issue miniseries My Little Pony: Generations, the first of which is out this week. It brings together the Friendship is Magic ponies with the Generation 1 ponies, along with some new characters. Then in December, BOOM! Studios launches the four-issue miniseries Buffy the Last Vampire Slayer with artist Joe Jaro, which features Buffy Summers in her 50s in a near future that — well, Gilly will explain that and more.

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