Read Kevin Conroy’s ‘DC Pride’ story for free

Conroy, who passed away yesterday from cancer, shared his secret origin in the story drawn by J Bone.

One of the highlights of the DC Pride anthology special that came out earlier this year was an autobiographical story written by Batman: The Animated Series voice actor Kevin Conroy. Drawn by J Bone and lettered by Aditya Bidikar, the moving story was about Conroy’s life prior to becoming the voice of Batman and the abuse he suffered as a gay man in Hollywood, and how he channeled those experiences into bringing the character to life.

Conroy passed away at the age of 66 yesterday after a short battle with cancer. In his honor, DC has released not only Conroy’s “Finding Batman” story, but also the entire 2022 DC Pride anthology. You can read it on the DC Universe Infinite website.

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Slugfest | Harley Quinn, San Starros and more from NYCC

Check out a round-up of recent announcements about ‘Batman,’ Jonathan Hickman, ‘West of Sundown’ and more.

Slugfest is a roundup of cool announcements about projects coming to a shelf near you from comics creators, publishers and more. Some of these are from this weekend’s New York Comic Con, while some are from before. Hit the links for more information.

DC held a panel focused on the Batman titles yesterday during New York Comic Con, revealing some new artwork and one new project — Multiversity: Harley Screws Up the DCU. It’s by Frank Tieri and Logan Faerber, both of whom have worked on the character before.

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NYCC: Joe Quesada is back at DC drawing Batman covers

The former Marvel editor in chief returns to the company where he got his start.

At New York Comic Con today, DC Publisher and CCO Jim Lee welcomed a special guest during his Jim Lee & Friends Panel — Joe Quesada, the longtime Marvel executive who left the House of Ideas earlier this year to pursue other projects.

Apparently one of those projects will be drawing variant covers for Batman. DC revealed two of them at the panel:

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DC announces ‘Lazarus Planet’ event at New York Comic Con

Mark Waid will oversee an event that spins out of the upcoming ‘Batman vs. Robin’ series.

DC has announced a new crossover coming next year, Lazarus Planet, that spins out of Mark Waid’s work on both World’s Finest and the upcoming Batman vs. Robin series.

Lazarus Planet, a series of seven one-shots, will see the DC Universe “rocked to its core” as “dangerous and transformative chemicals” are released into the atmosphere, causing some ordinary humans to develop super powers and already empowered metahumans to find their abilities have changed. It’s chaos, baby!

NOTE: This story contains some spoilers for the upcoming Batman vs. Robin, which hasn’t even started yet.

Here’s the teaser art, which features Batman and Robin, as well as Power Girl, Poison Ivy, Cyborg and the Monkey Prince:

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‘Batman: Gotham Knights’ video game gets a prequel comic

‘Gilded City’ follows a mysterious virus that turns Gotham’s citizens into maniacs.

During Comic-Con today DC announced a prequel comic for their upcoming video game, Batman: Gotham Knights. Subtitled Gilded City, the comic is written by Evan Narcisse with art by ABEL.

The game features Nightwing, Red Hood, Batgirl and Robin in a Batman-less Gotham City. And following in the footsteps of the recent Batman crossover with Fortnite, each issue of the six-issue series will feature a code for in-game items.

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Lee, McFarlane + Capullo reunite at SDCC to announce Batman/Spawn

The first crossover in more than 25 years between the two characters will arrive in December.

DC’s “Jim Lee & Friends” panel at San Diego Comic-Con brought a lot of interesting news and some surprise special guests — not the least of which was Todd McFarlane, Lee’s former Image Comics partner.

Along with artist Greg Capullo — who has a long history with both Batman and Spawn — they announced a new Batman/Spawn crossover project.

Batman/Spawn #1, a 48-page one-shot, will arrive in shops Dec. 13. Unfortunately they haven’t shared any artwork from it, but I’m sure that’s coming soon.

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King + Hester tell ‘the definitive origin’ of Gotham City this Fall

‘Gotham City: Year One’ will take place two generations before Batman arrived.

Tom King, Phil Hester, Eric Gapstur, Jordie Bellaire and Clayton Cowles will tell the story of Gotham City, pre-Batman, in Gotham City: Year One.

DC decribes the six-issue miniseries as “the definitive origin of Gotham City: how it became the cesspool of violence and corruption it is today, and how it harbored and then unleashed the sin that led to the rise of the Dark Knight.” It will feature P.I. Slam Bradley and the kidnapping of Helen Wayne.

“Having written a ton of Batman comics,” said King, “I can say it’s incredibly rare to write books like this, where you can add something large and essential to the mythos of the Dark Knight, as Scott did with Court of Owls or Grant did with the introduction of Damian or Frank did with, well, everything he touched. In Gotham City Year One, Phil and I will take you to a noir drenched past, where the secrets that made Gotham become Gotham, the sins that made Batman become Batman are finally and violently revealed.”

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What Are You Reading? | ‘Hakim’s Odyssey,’ ‘Batman,’ ‘Public Domain’ and more

See what the Smash Pages crew has been reading lately.

Welcome to What Are You Reading?, our look at what the Smash Pages crew has been checking off their “to read” list lately. Today’s reviews include two comics from Chip Zdarsky, Bootblack, Beware the Eye of Odin, Dark Crisis and more.

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

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Can’t Wait for Comics | A new era of ‘Batman’ begins

New comics and graphic novels arrive this week from Chip Zdarsky, Jorge Jimenez, Liam Sharp, Matt Kindt, Farel Dalrymple, Skottie Young, Humberto Ramos, Rachel Smythe, Sam Beck and more.

Happy Fourth of July — or Happy Monday, depending on where you are in the world — and welcome to Can’t Wait for Comics, your guide to what comics are arriving in comic book stores, bookstores and on digital. This week sees Chip Zdarsky and Jorge Jimenez take over Batman, and Strange Academy and The Joker come to an end. And let’s not forget the white-hot Lore Olympus, as the popular Webtoon jumps to print for its second collection.

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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Waid + Asrar team for ‘Batman vs. Robin’ this fall

The event series will run for five issues beginning in September.

If things have seemed tense between Batman and Robin lately, well … as the saying goes, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

With a post that exclaims “The Bat is out of the bag!” artist Mahmud Asrar reveals that he’s working on a new Batman vs. Robin event series with writer Mark Waid and colorist Nathan Fairbairn.

“BATMAN vs ROBIN is a five part event by Mark Waid and I coming this fall from DC Comics to shake things up for Bruce’s world,” the artist said on both Tumblr and Twitter.

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Batman villains steal the spotlight in ‘One Bad Day’ one-shots

Tom King, Mitch Gerads, G. Willow Wilson, Jamie McKelvie and more tell new stories about Riddler, Catwoman, Bane and more.

DC Comics spent the day on social media revealing a series of eight one-shots starring Batman’s villains by a variety of comics’ finest.

The 64-page one-shots will feature The Riddler, Two-Face, The Penguin, Mr. Freeze, Catwoman, Bane, Clayface and Ra’s al Ghul, by the likes of Tom King, Mitch Gerads, John Ridley and more. They’ll be released monthly starting in August.

Here’s a rundown of who is doing what, along with cover art for six of the projects:

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Guest Column: Jarrett J. Krosoczka on his early influences

The creator of ‘Hey, Kiddo’ and the ‘Lunch Lady’ series shares his love for Batman, the X-Men, Gummi Bears and more.

Before becoming an award-winning cartoonist and the author of Hey, Kiddo, the Lunch Lady series and other books, Jarrett J. Krosoczka was a fan, wearing his love for the Smurfs, Gummi Bear, X-Men and more on the sleeve of his Batman T-shirt.

Now, with the re-release of the Lunch Lady series as two collected editions, we’re happy to present this guest essay from Krosoczka about those early influences on his work and the escape they provided for him as child.

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