Comics Lowdown: Artist OK with defacement of Zunar mural

Also: Moto Hagio returns to the Poe saga, Tini Howard and Gilbert Hernandez talk ‘Assassinistas,’ and Annie Koyama looks back at her first decade as a comics publisher

Someone has defaced a mural of the Malaysian cartoonist Zunar—but the artist who created the mural is OK with that. “I don’t see it as ruined but as a response, and it does not matter to me who is responding,” said Bibichun, the artist. “It’s in the public domain and it’s for members of the public to consume in their own way.” The mural depicted Zunar with his mouth covered by the flag of UMNO, the dominant political party of Malaysia (and therefore a frequent target of Zunar’s cartoon). Recently, an unknown man painted the flag black. “The piece was a response to the suppression of Zunar’s exhibition at the Penang Literary Festival last year,” said Bibichun. “I’m surprised it took Umno supporters such a long time to respond.” Zunar recently canceled a planned exhibit of his work out of concern that it, too, would be attacked.

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Check out a bunch of covers from upcoming Black Crown titles

Artwork for ‘Assassinistas,’ ‘Kid Lobotomy’ and more revealed at Comic-Con International in San Diego.

Yesterday in San Diego Shelly Bond announced three more titles that’ll launch in a few months from her Black Crown imprint at IDW Publishing, joining the already-announced Kid Lobotomy. If you’re curious what those titles will look like, wonder no more and check out some art below.

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Shelly Bond’s Black Crown expands with three more titles

New comics by Tini Howard, Gilbert Hernadez, David Barnett and Martin Simmonds, plus an anthology, set to debut after ‘Kid Lobotomy.’

When Shelly Bond’s Black Crown comics line was announced earlier this year, we were told “Black Crown” not only referred to the line’s name, but also to a pub that would anchor this shared, creator-owned universe. In April we found out that Kid Lobotomy will be the first Black Crown title, and now we know three more that will join it at the bar:

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