Can’t Wait for Comics | ‘Spider-Boy’ debuts as ‘The Gotham War’ concludes

Check out new comics and graphic novels arriving this week by Dan Slott, Paco Medina, Chip Zdarsky, Tini Howard, Mike Hawthorne, Adriano Di Benedetto, Roz Chast, Josh Bayer, Kevin Huizenga 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 is an extra-large week, with several compelling graphic novels and collections arriving just in time for your holiday shopping needs.

I’ve pulled out some of the highlights below, but for the complete list of everything you might find at your local comic shop and on digital this week, you’ll want to check out one or more of the following:

As a reminder, things can change and what you find on the above lists may differ from what’s actually arriving in your local shop. So always check with your comics retailer for the final word on availability.

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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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Can’t Wait for Comics | 1,000 issues of Batman, Tony Stark suits up again and more

New comics and graphic novels arrive this week from Chip Zdarsky, Ramon Perez, Christopher Cantwell, CAFU, Max Bemis, Gerard Way, Kurt Vonnegut, Sarah Mirk, Tenacious D and more.

We are back again with a look at what’s arriving in comic shops, bookstores and on digital this week. And it’s a very packed week, for both comics and graphic novels.

If you’re wondering what to get this week, check out a few recommendations below. You can check out Comic List to see what’s arriving in your local shop, and the comiXology new releases page for what’s available digitally.

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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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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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