Mail Call | ‘X-Men: Inferno’ teasers say ‘Trust No One’

Check out news, announcements and previews from DC, Marvel, Dark Horse, Image and more.

Mail Call is a roundup of the announcements we’ve received from comics publishers in our mailboxes recently that we haven’t already covered. Hit the links for more information.

Marvel has released three teasers for X-Men: Inferno, the upcoming X-Men crossover event that shares a name with a 1989 X-Men crossover event (not to be confused with The Trial of Magneto, another X-Men event that kicks off in August and also shares a name with a 1980s X-Men storyline.)

The teasers all build on the concept of trust, suggesting that you pretty much can’t trust anyone on Krakoa these days:

“An homage to the original house ads for 1989’s milestone X-Men crossover Inferno, Silva’s artwork presents all the major players of the upcoming saga and teases the day of reckoning that will soon be upon them,” Marvel.com says about the teasers. Inferno is written by Jonathan Hickman with artwork by Valerio Schiti, R.B. Silva and Stefano Caselli.

“I’m very excited that we’re finally getting to share with everyone the follow-up to House of X/Powers of X,” Hickman said. “The story is 160 pages over four issues drawn exquisitely by Valerio Schiti, R.B. Silva and Stefano Caselli. I cannot wait for people to read it.” 

Inferno #1 arrives Sept. 29.

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Smash Pages Q&A: Lynsey G. and Jayel Draco

The founders of Oneshi Press discuss their latest crowdfunding project for the comic ‘Pack.’

Lynsey G and Jayel Draco are the team behind Oneshi Press, which has published books like Tracy Queen, Mr. Guy and The Oneshi Press Comics Anthology. They’re currently crowdfunding the third issue of their series Pack.

It’s been nearly two years since the last issue of the comic, and during those two years a lot has changed and has forced them to reconsider some of the issues around the book, namely gentrification, the police, vigilantism and what that means. I spoke with the two to talk about how they’ve spent the past two years reaching out to people, rethinking the book and moving forward.

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Artists redraw early FF issues for comic’s 60th anniversary

Marvel’s ‘Fantastic Four Anniversary Tribute’ #1 will feature artists like Michael Allred and John Romita Jr. redrawing pages of ‘Fantastic Four’ #1 and ‘Fantastic Four Annual’ #3.

Like they did recently with Giant-Size X-Men and Captain America, Marvel is enlisting an impressive list of artists to redraw two key issues of Fantastic Four in celebration of the comic’s 60th birthday.

John Romita Jr., Walt Simonson, Sanford Greene, Daniel Warren Johnson, Paco Medina, Adam Hughes and Michael Allred are just a few of the artists who will each redraw a page of Fantastic Four #1 and Fantastic Four Annual #3, the wedding of Reed Richards and Sue Storm. Both comics were originally created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.

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Hell hath no fury like ‘The Heathens’

Cullen Bunn, Heath Amodio and Sami Kivelä team up for a new series from AfterShock Comics.

AfterShock Comics has announced a new project featuring souls escaping from Hell, and the powers that be sending the worst of the worst after them — The Heathens, led by pirate queen Ching Shih.

Co-writers Cullen Bunn and Heath Amodio, who together founded Hustle & Heart Films, are working with artist Sami Kivelä, colorist Jason Wordie and letterer Simon Bowland on the series. Shih’s team will include several other notorious historical figures helping her on her mission, including Wild West outlaw Billy the Kid, gangster Lucky Luciano and Russian con artist Sofia the Golden Hand.

“Anyone who is familiar with me as a creator knows I love historical figures and time periods,” Bunn said in his email newsletter. “They also know I love infusing stories featuring those characters and time periods with a healthy dose of the supernatural. Heath brought the seed of this idea to me, and I loved it from the jump. It has history, villains, even worse villains, supernatural worlds and redemption — everything that I could hope for in a book!”

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Smash Pages Q&A: Dave Roman on ‘Astronaut Academy: Splashdown’ and more

Creator and editor Dave Roman discusses the long-awaited third volume of his kids’ graphic novel series ‘Astronaut Academy,’ as well as his work editing First Second’s line of science and history comics.

Dave Roman’s Astronaut Academy has had a long history, but after the second book was published in 2013 by First Second Books, he thought he was done with the series. Neither went out of print, though, and the book kept selling and Roman kept doing school appearances where kids would ask, “When is the third book coming out?”

Well kids, the long wait is over, and the first two books have been re-released in full-color editions alongside a third volume titled Astronaut Academy: Splashdown. 

Besides his work as a cartoonist, Roman has also long been an editor, working at Nickelodeon Magazine for many years and currently working at First Second Books, where he oversees the History Comics and Science Comics series. We spoke recently about comics, editing, life and more.

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Can’t Wait for Comics | Suicide Squad takes aim at theaters — and comics

This week brings new comics from Brian Azzarello, Alex Maleev, Tim Seeley, Scott Kolins, Al Ewing, Joe Bennett, Cullen Bunn, Mark Russell, Mike Deodato Jr., Curt Pires, Jaime Hernandez 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.

Check out a few 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.

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What Are You Reading? | Sometimes what is lost can still be found

The Smash Pages crew shares what they’ve been reading lately, including ‘Amazing Fantasy,’ ‘Star Trek: Year Five,’ ‘The Legend of Auntie Po,’ ‘Bloom County’ and more.

Welcome to What Are You Reading?, our (cough, cough) weekly (cough, cough) look at what the Smash Pages crew has been checking off their “to read” list lately. Ok, so it’s been a little more than just a week since we last shared what we’ve been reading, but we’re back now, locked and loaded with all kinds of comic reviews just for you.

Let us know what you’ve been reading lately in the comments or on social media.

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Smash Pages Playlist: Happy Spider-Man Day

Take a look, overhead: Smash Pages presents your 2021 Spider-Man playlist.

According to the calendar, today is Spider-Man Day, based on the cover date of Amazing Fantasy #15, which saw the debut of Peter Parker as Spider-Man. Now if you ask some folks, Spider-Man Day should technically fall in either May or June, when the comic was actually published back in 1962, but we’ll go with the socially acceptable Aug. 1 — because who wants to argue with what’s trending on Twitter?

In any event, Happy Spider-Man Day; in honor of the wall-crawler, we’ve put together a playlist of songs that pay tribute to Stan Lee and Steve Ditko’s most famous creation. Enjoy, and let us know if we missed any of your favorite Spider-tunes in the comments below.

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Legendary Comics will never reprint ‘Holy Terror’

The publisher says the book “has not been reprinted since the initial publication and will never be reprinted by Legendary Comics.”

When Frank Miller’s 2011 graphic novel Holy Terror was published in 2011, Wired’s Spencer Ackerman called it “a screed against Islam, completely uninterested in any nuance or empathy toward 1.2 billion people he conflates with a few murderous conspiracy theorists.” Now the book is back in the news, and publisher Legendary Comics told Smash Pages they will never reprint it.

A spokesperson for Legendary gave Smash Pages the following statement:

The graphic novel was published in 2011 by a prior Comics group. It has not been reprinted since the initial publication and will never be reprinted by Legendary Comics.

Smash Pages reached out to Legendary after Zainab Akhtar of Shortbox announced she would not attend the Thought Bubble Comics Festival in Leeds, UK, because Miller was scheduled to be a guest there. 

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AdHouse Books announces ‘Comrade Kill’ for October

Patrick Sparrow’s new graphic novel is (likely) the last project ever from AdHouse.

When Chris Pitzer announced he was shutting down AdHouse Books earlier this month, he mentioned that he still had one more release for October. That release is Comrade Kill, a new graphic novel from Patrick Sparrow.

“A cold war super soldier accidentally wakes from a cryogenic freeze long after the war has ended to find out his existence is now meaningless,” the description reads. “Being too dumb to reconcile this, he goes out into the wild to satisfy a pointless mission objective that no one asked him to do.”

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Several of Kurt Busiek’s creator-owned series are coming to digital

‘Astro City,’ ‘Arrowsmith,’ ‘Shockrockets’ and more are coming to comiXology Aug. 4, courtesy of Image Comics.

Several comic series written by Kurt Busiek over the last few decades are coming to digital courtesy of Image Comics, including collaborations with Stuart Immonen, Brent Anderson, Carlos Pacheco and more.

The titles will be added to comiXology on Aug. 4, followed by Apple Books and Google Play at a later date.

“I’m thrilled to be consolidating my creator-owned books at Image,” said Busiek. “Readers have been asking us to make these stories available again, so we’re glad to have them all together at last, and in great company with the rest of the Image line. This is just the beginning, too—there’ll be new material coming as well, but that’ll be another announcement for another day.”

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Nominees announced for the 2021 British Fantasy Awards

‘Die,’ ‘The Magic Fish,’ ‘Rivers of London’ and more make the shortlist as determined by the British Fantasy Society.

The British Fantasy Society has announced the nominees for the 2021 British Fantasy Awards, which recognize fantasy and horror literature across a range of categories, including the “Best Comic/Graphic Novel” category.

The winners will be announced at FantasyCon in September.

The nominees for each category were chosen by a vote of the BFS membership, attendees of the previous FantasyCon and attendees of the upcoming FantasyCon. Copies of the shortlisted items are then requested and the juries consider them all before deciding upon a winner. Jurors for the comics category include Rebecca Gault, Alicia Fitton, Edward Partridge, Michele Howe and Hannah Barton.

Congratulations to this year’s nominees:

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