Slugfest | Mary Jane officially becomes a superhero in ‘Amazing Spider-Man’ #31

Plus: News on the Witcher’s next comic series, White Widow, ‘Coda’ returns, Ram V and Filipe Andrade reunite, ‘Killer Queens’ is back, and more.

Slugfest is a roundup of cool announcements about projects coming to a shelf near you. Hit the links for more information.

Marvel has been teasing Mary Jane Watson’s new power set, most notably in the recent Mary Jane & Black Cat miniseries, but the longtime supporting character will put on a costume and go full superhero in Amazing Spider-Man #31.

The oversized issue will not only feature a story by the regular creative team of Zeb Wells and John Romita Jr., but also will include a story by Celeste Bronfman and Alba Glez that features Mary Jane suiting up to become Jackpot.

Here’s a look at her costume, designed by Humberto Ramos:

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The future’s gone to the dogs in ‘Scrapper’

Cliff Bleszinski, Alex De Campi and Sandy Jarrell tell the story of a stray dog who fights for justice in a post-apocalyptic domed city.

Video game designer Cliff Bleszinski, who helped bring games like Gears of War and Fortnite to life, is teaming up with Alex De Campi and Sandy Jarrell on a new comic series called Scrapper.

Image Comics will publish the science fiction series, which is about a stray dog living in a post-apocalyptic domed city

“As a lifelong fan of comics it’s an honor to actually create one with Alex,” said Bleszinski. “Scrapper comes from the heart; first, the loss of my Aussie Teddy and then finding puppy love again with our Pomsky Lady. I truly hope everyone enjoys this deeply personal work.”

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Alex de Campi + Erica Henderson show the dark side of fandom in ‘Parasocial’

The new graphic novel arrives in October.

Image Comics has announced a new graphic novel from the creative team of Dracula, Motherf**ker. Alex de Campi and Erica Henderson will team up again for Parasocial, a thriller about fandom, celebrity and the pandemic.

Parasocial is a twisted exploitation thriller that will leave you never feeling safe at a convention again. It’s a deep dive into all the things we’ve agreed not to talk about in modern fandom and celebrity… with an ending you’ll never see coming,” said De Campi. “Most importantly, it’s Erica’s most beautiful and strikingly innovative book yet. I’m just here to cover up some of her art with words.”

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Slugfest | DC’s Dark Crisis expands with additional tie-ins, one-shots

Check out recent announcements about ‘Batman Inc.,’ ‘Survival Street’ and more.

With Justice League: Road to Dark Crisis now available this week, DC has announced some additional tie-ins and specials associated with the event.

First come two new one-shots, starring the sons of Superman and Batman:

The Supersons are going on separate missions to stop Pariah’s attacks on the Multiverse! In October’s Dark Crisis: The Deadly Green #1, Jon Kent joins forces with Swamp Thing, John Constantine and more to explore the spread of the Great Darkness’s influence on the Multiverse and beyond. While in November’s Dark Crisis: The Dark Army #1, Damian Wayne, Doctor Light and a ragtag team of heroes cross enemy lines to steal control of the Dark Army from Pariah. But in the process uncover a secret about Doctor Light’s place in Crisis on Infinite Earths that rocks the future of the DCU! Creative talent teams for both issues will be announced at a later date.

They also announced that The Flash crossover issues will expand by an issue:

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Sunday Comics | Afghanistan, masks and killer bees

Check out recent comics by Jay Hosler, Alex de Campi, Christine Larsen, MariNaomi, B.J. Mendelson and more.

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 or on social media.

As the United States ends its occupation of Afghanistan, political cartoonist and The Nib founder Matt Bors looks back at the comics he created as a result of a trip he took to the country in 2010:

In August of 2010 I embarked on a month long trip through Afghanistan with fellow cartoonists Ted Rall and Steven Cloud. We traveled unembedded throughout the North of the country and in the capital of Kabul. It was the ninth year of the war and, at the time, the height of the Taliban insurgency and US troop presence.

The goal of the trip was to hear from Afghans directly, see the occupation for ourselves, and share those experience—through writing, comics, and photography. I captured a lot in sketchbooks and filed a series of comics through my syndicate where papers normally ran my political cartoons. The following comics are a series of vignettes on Afghanistan and represent some my earliest attempts at more realistic nonfiction comics. These originally ran online at Cartoon Movement, but appear to be lost to web decay, so I wanted to publish them again here—for posterity and for any insight they still hold.

You can see his comics here.

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Sunday Comics | Award winners, bizarre cowboys and the Scarlet Witch

Check out recent comics from Alex de Campi, Dan Piraro, Kevin C. Pyle and more.

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.

Comics writer/editor Alex de Campi declared Aug. 28 to be “Nice Day Wanda,” a day when only good things happen to Marvel’s Scarlet Witch. If you’re familiar with the Scarlet Witch’s comic book history, you know that things don’t always go well for her — she’s accidentally destroying the Avengers one day, eliminating mutants the next, finding out her kids aren’t real, watching her husband lose his feelings … #NiceDayWanda was long overdue. To celebrate, de Campi worked with several artist on short comics where “nothing bad happens to the Scarlet Witch.”

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Mail Call | Defend-ing the Hero Initiative, new ‘Bad Karma’ and more

Plus: News from DC, Image, Humble Bundle and more.

Mail Call is a roundup of the announcements we’ve received from publishers in our mailboxes recently. Hit the links for more information.

DC Comics has announced a change in the variant covers for the upcoming The Dreaming: Waking Hours #1. The cover shown below, by Yanick Paquette and Nathan Fairbairn, will replace one from Bill Sienkiewicz that they first showed us in May.

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Fund Me Monday: Madi, Orbital Knights and more

Support creators by crowdfunding efforts by The Nib, Alex de Campi, Duncan Jones, Giannis Milonogiannis and more.

Crowdfunding continues to serve as a viable method for creators to fund their creative endeavors, as comic-related projects flourish on sites like Kickstarter, Patreon and IndieGoGo. The internet also allows creators to sell their creations direct to fans, through sites like Gumroad, Etsy and of course their own websites. If you’re looking to buy something from or support a creator directly, you’ve come to the right place. And that is a good thing to do, now more than ever.

Send any suggestions of your own to jkparkin@yahoo.com.

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Smash Page Q&A: Alex de Campi

The prolific creator pulls no punches as she discusses her brand-new Panel Syndicate comic, ‘Bad Karma,’ and a whole lot more.

Alex de Campi made a splash writing the 2005 miniseries Smoke and ever since then, she’s been a creator who’s been hard to pin down. Some of that is simply because she’s so prolific. De Campi is a writer who’s worked on My Little Pony and Judge Dredd, Josie and the Pussycats in Space and two Archie vs Predator series. She’s created series like Grindhouse, Kat & Mouse and Agent Boo, comics like Mayday and Bad Girls, Bankshot and Semiautomagic. She created the digital comic Valentine and wrote, edited and lettered the Image Comics anthology Twisted Romance

One theme that has run through much of her work is responsibility. De Campi does not write moralistic stories, but many of them revolve around people taking responsibility for who they are for what they’ve done, only to be forced to understand that doing the right thing is often harder than they ever considered. Omar famously said in The Wire, “a man’s gotta have a code,” and so many of de Campi’s characters live similarly. Or finally make a stand and choose to live by a code, only to find that decision often becomes their undoing. Ethan and Sully in Bad Karma did not return from war better and stronger and more successful, but when they learn that someone is on death row for an assassination they carried out, they decide to do something about it. Their road trip and what follows are dark, funny, incisive and some of the best work de Campi has ever written.

Bad Karma from de Campi, Ryan Howe and Dee Cunniffe launches on Panel Syndicate today, with a new chapter coming out next month.

I joked with de Campi that she’s always working on a dozen different projects, and this year is an especially busy one for her. She’s editing and working on the comics anthology True War Stories, she’s collaborating with Erica Henderson on Dracula, Mother f**ker! and she’s writing Madi, a collaboration with filmmaker Duncan Jones that she can’t talk much about, all of which come out this fall. Meanwhile she’s serializing a graphic novel on Patreon, and her debut novel The Scottish Boy comes out the beginning of June from Unbound.

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de Campi + Henderson sink their fangs into ‘Dracula, Motherf**ker’

Do you bite your mother with that mouth?

Alex de Campi and Erica Henderson head to California and Austria for a “psychological horror story” called Dracula, Motherf**ker this fall.

The graphic novel with the naughty title will tell a story across two timelines — 1889 Vienna and L.A. circa 1974 — in an action-filled take on the popular Bram Stoker character.

“Most people who know my work are aware that I love pulp/exploitation cinema so me doing a book called Dracula, Motherf**ker shouldn’t really surprise anyone,” said de Campi. “Another thing I wanted to bring to this pulp fantasia was a sensibility from horror anime, with its love of transformation and of the noncorporeal, to push the element of man-as-monster in directions specifically suited to sequential art. Things like the abstract portrayal of Alucard (or Pride in FMA: Brotherhood), and the use of Superflat art in Madoka Magica were tremendously inspirational in this book, especially as that use of flatness dovetails nicely with the work of Gustav Klimt in with the book’s 1889 prologue, and with late-1960s pop art and the psychedelic liquid-light projections of the Joshua Light Show.”

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Space Jam: de Campi + Neogi launch Josie and the Pussycats into space

The comiXology Originals series will debut this Wednesday.

Josie and the Pussycats are going where no … pussycat has gone before — outer space. ComiXology and Archie Comics have teamed up for a new digital series by writer Alex de Campi with art by Devaki Neogi.

Josie and the Pussycats in Space debuts this Wednesday as part of the comiXology Originals line.

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Smash Pages Q&A: Alejandra Gutiérrez on ‘Twisted Romance’

The comics creator and designer discusses her work with Alex de Campi on the Image Comics anthology, how she came into comics and more.

Alejandra Gutiérrez has been posting comics and illustrations online for a while now on Twitter and Instagram in addition to her published art and covers. She’s shown a sense of design and fashion, a willingness to play with layout. Some of that may come from her background in design, but she’s clearly interested in multimedia, in playing with how people read the page and finding ways to tweak that.

Gutiérrez may wear her influences on her sleeve, but she’s also moved past simply imitating them and is clearly coming into her own. She’s drawing “Twinkle and Star” in Twisted Romance #2 written by Alex de Campi and so I asked her about how she came to comics and why she signed on to draw romance.

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