Comics Lowdown | S. Clay Wilson passes away

Plus: ‘Brzrkr’ orders, ‘Immortal Hulk’ #43, Stan Lee, John Porcellino and more!

Underground cartoonist S. Clay Wilson, creator of the Checkered Demon, Captain Pissgums and his Pervert Pirates, and numerous other transgressive characters, all of whom he wedged into his signature hyper-detailed panels, has died at the age of 79. Wilson grew up in Nebraska and eventually moved to San Francisco, where he was a contributor to Zap Comics and an integral part of the underground comix scene. He suffered a traumatic brain injury in 2008 and the condition worsened in 2010.

Brian Cronin sums up his life and career at CBR, but if you really want to get your heart broken, read this 2010 interview with Wilson’s sister about his early work and how the brain injury affected him. And for a fuller appreciation of his art and thought, here’s a Comics Journal interview that was done shortly before his injury.

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Zdarsky + Mendonca + Angiolini take the Justice League on a ‘Last Ride’

The DC Digital First miniseries starts in April.

Chip Zdarsky, Miguel Mendonça and Enrica Eren Angiolini will explore what happens after the Justice League breaks up in Justice League: Last Ride, a DC Digital First series coming in April.

After an “unthinkable tragedy,” the League split up, but the universe’s greatest murder trial pulls them back together. “It’s about the Justice League being cut down at their height, about hard decisions and friendship,” Zdarsky said in his email newsletter. “They’re brought together for the universe’s greatest murder trial in the hopes that they can create a universe that no longer needs a Justice League.”

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Can’t Wait for Comics | ‘Radiant Black,’ John Porcellino and ‘Orcs!’

See what new comics and graphic novels arrive in stores this week.

Welcome to Can’t Wait for Comics, your guide each week to what comics are arriving in comic book stores, bookstores and on digital.

Check out a few recommendations below, or visit ComicList for this week’s full list of new comics arriving in stores, and the comiXology new releases page for what’s available digitally.

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What Are You Reading? | ‘Fear Case,’ ‘We Are Robin’ and more

See what the Smash Pages crew has been reading lately.


Welcome to What Are You Reading?, our weekly look at what the Smash Pages crew has been checking off their “to read” list lately. And this week’s list included everything from King in Black tie-ins to Nellie Bly.

Let us know what you read this week in the comments or on social media.

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Sunday Comics | A round-up from Hourly Comics Day

Cartoonists dedicated last Monday to making and posting new comics every hour; check out the results of their hard work.

Here’s a round up of some of the best comics we’ve seen online recently. If we missed something, let us know in the comments below.

Every February comics artists wake up and just start drawing for #HourlyComicsDay, where cartoonists commit to making and posting a comic every hour for a day — or whatever frequency they chose. Most hourly comics typically fall into the “autobiography” category, as participants detail their day in comics form, but some will share fictional stories as well.

The official Hourly Comics Day was last Monday, and I thought I’d dedicate this edition of Sunday Comics to spotlighting some of them (with a big thanks to Brigid Alverson for sharing a long list of the ones she found).

So here we go:

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Holt + Schall team for new sf miniseries ‘Made in Korea’

The six-issue series will debut in May.

Jeremy Holt and George Schall will explore what family means in a world of artificial intelligence in Made in Korea, a six-issue miniseries coming from Image Comics in May.

“As an identical triplet and Korean adoptee, I wanted to explore my own self-exploration of identity through the lens of science fiction,” said Holt. “I think anyone that is looking for a new take on an artificial intelligence story will thoroughly enjoy what George and I have crafted.”

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DC’s Future State will continue with ‘Future State: Gotham’

Joshua Williamson, Dennis Culver, and Giannis Milonogiannis will continue the story of the Red Hood, the Magistrate and more in May.

DC has announced that at least one of the time periods and plot lines introduced last month during their Future State event will continue past the end of the event. If you’ve been enjoying the Magistrate story running through the Batman titles, you’ll be happy to know that the story will continue in Future State: Gotham in May.

This six-issue debut story arc will be co-written by Joshua Williamson and Dennis Culver, with art by Giannis Milonogiannis and covers by Yasmine Putri and James Stokoe. It’ll focus on Jason Todd, aka the Red Hood, has turned on the rest of the Batman family and now hunts masked heroes for the Magistrate, the mercenary force that has taken over Gotham. It will also be “rendered in stark, black and white tones,” according to the press release.

Future State: Gotham pulls from ALL the Future State Bat-Books,” Williamson said on Twitter. “It’s going to surprise you. Be sure to read Dark Detective #4 and the Red Hood back-up as that is a massive prelude to this new series coming in May!”

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Marvel announces five ‘Heroes Reborn’ one-shots

Peter Parker, Magneto, Baron Zemo, the Imperial Guard and more join in on the alternate reality event.

Marvel has announced that the upcoming Heroes Reborn event miniseries will be accompanied by five one-shots that take place in this new world created by the Phoenix — one where the Avengers never formed.

They’ll feature characters and themes that should be familiar to readers of both Marvel and DC; with the Squadron Supreme being the Marvel universe equivalent of the Justice League, it’s not surprising that some of these one-shots get a little “meta” in their homages.

They are:

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Russell + Izaakse team for ‘Fantastic Four: Life Story’

The six-issue miniseries will tell the story of the Fantastic Four across 60 years.

Following in the footsteps of Spider-Man: Life Story, Marvel has recruited Mark Russell and Sean Izaakse for Fantastic Four: Life Story. Each issue of the six-issue miniseries will be set in a subsequent decade, starting with the 1960s, and tell the story of the life of the Fantastic Four against the historical backdrop of each decade.

“What I’ve always loved about the Fantastic Four is how it reduces the cosmic struggle of human survival to the scale of a family squabble while treating personal relationships as a matter of truly galactic importance,” Russell said. “Weaving their story and their world into our story and what’s happened in our world over the last sixty years was an important reminder to me of how smart it is to approach life like that.”

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‘Wonder Girl’ will debut in May from DC

The Future State Wonder Woman becomes the present-state Wonder Girl in May.

DC stated before that they had more plans for Yara Flor, the breakout star of DC’s Future State: Wonder Woman title, and now they’ve made it official — The new Wonder Girl title will kick off in May, written and drawn by Joelle Jones.

Jones will be joined by colorist Jordie Bellaire and letterer Clayton Cowles.

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‘Mister Miracle’ miniseries breaks free in May

Shilo Norman will take the spotlight in a six-issue series from Brandon Easton and Valentine De Landro.

Shilo Norman, the Mister Miracle currently appearing in two of DC’s Future State Superman titles, will get his own miniseries in May. Brandon Easton and Valentine De Landro, who worked on the Mister Miracle story in Superman: Worlds of War, are also working on the miniseries.

“This series functions as a de facto origin story and a reintroduction of Shilo Norman,” said Easton. “Fico and I have a fantastic opportunity to establish him as a major hero in the DC pantheon, while making him a more complex character.”

Shilo Norman was introduced in the early 1970s in the pages of Mister Miracle by Jack Kirby. He became a protege of Scott Free, the original Mister Miracle, and appeared in the Seven Soldiers events series written by Grant Morrison.

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Smash Pages Q&A: Sal Abbinanti on ‘The Hostage’

The creator of ‘Atomika’ returns with a new Kickstarter project that’s been 10 years in the making.

Sal Abbinanti might be familiar to comics readers for his series Atomika, but even those who read that series will be surprised by his artwork in the new graphic novel The Hostage, which is being crowdfunded now.

Abbinanti has been drawing the book on and off for years, but it has its roots in a trip he took to Brazil decades ago. Since then he couldn’t get the image out of his head of homeless children living just around the corner from the bright, colorful tourist district of Rio. In The Hostage, he found a story and an aesthetic that allowed him to tell the story in a way that is unsettling and unsentimental.

For the campaign, Abbinanti enlisted a number of friends to draw work for stretch goals, but the star is what Abbinanti was able to achieve in the pages. He was kind enough to talk about The Hostage, its road to publication and his crowdfunding campaign.

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