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Plus: Batman Beyond, more Birdking, Thor vs. M.O.D.O.K., the return of ‘Fire Power,’ Hellfire Gala fashion and more.
Slugfest is a roundup of cool announcements about projects coming to a shelf near you. Hit the links for more information.
Sergio Aragonés and Mark Evanier will reunite for Groo: In the Wild, a new miniseries that kicks off in July.
The duo is joined by letterer Stan Sakai and colorist Carrie Strachan for a story that sees the barbarian and his dog looking for food. Things go downhill from there, in typical Groo fashion.
Continue reading “Slugfest | Groo goes wild in a new miniseries”Plus: ‘Duckman’ creator Everett Peck passes away, and news on ‘The Dark Knight Returns,’ Grant Morrison and more.
Awards | Danica Novgorodoff has received the Yoto Kate Greenaway medal — “the UK’s longest running and best-loved book awards for children and young people” — for her graphic novel adaptation of Jason Reynolds’ novel Long Way Down. According to the press release, it’s the first time since 1973 that a graphic novel has received the prize. The book features hundreds of “stunning” watercolors depicting the decision that 15-year-old Will must make when his brother is shot.
“Long Way Down is a book that asks us to empathise with a character who is planning to harm another person, and endanger his own life, out of grief and revenge,” Novgorodoff said in a statement. “He’s in a complicated, difficult situation, and he needs to make a very hard decision. Through the illustrations, I wanted to show this emotional torment, to make his internal feelings come alive on the page. The book doesn’t preach, but it asks readers, ‘What do you feel, and what would you do?'”
Continue reading “Quick Hits | Danica Novgorodoff receives the Yoto Kate Greenaway medal”Check out recent online comics by Karen Moy, June Brigman, Dave McKean, Ryan Bodenheim 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.
So have you been following the Mary Worth drama online? Those aren’t words I ever expected to type, but here we are.
If you aren’t familiar with Mary Worth, it’s a long-running, soap opera-style newspaper comic strip. And “long-running” is no joke; it’s been consistently appearing in newspapers and now online since 1938. And it’s origins go back even further than that, to a strip called Apple Mary that started in 1934. So kudos to the creators, Karen Moy and June Brigman, because here we are in 2022, some 80 years later, and the strip is getting all sorts of attention, kind of akin to Days Of Our Lives having Marlena get possessed by the Devil again.
(And yes, June Brigman, the co-creator of Marvel’s Power Pack and all-around awesome comics artist, is the artist of Mary Worth. Alex spoke to her about the comic Captain Ginger back in 2019).
So the attention the strip is getting centers on a character named Wilbur, who I’ve seen described as “miserable,” a “dingdong” and “a giant mayonnaise sandwich” online. Ryan Bradford, who writes for San Diego CityBeat and Vice, wrote about the last few months worth of strips on Substack, where he talks about how Wilbur is dating Estelle but hates her cat, so he kept making death threats against it. Eventually Estelle broke up with Wilbur, but eventually they got back together, and Wilbur proposed to Estelle while on a cruise. That’s where the story really gets interesting.
[SPOILERS WARNING for recent Mary Worth strips, something else I never thought I’d type]
Continue reading “Sunday Comics | Where there’s a Wilbur …”The OGN will be available in a standard edition and as a limited edition hardcover.
Dark Horse will publish Raptor: A Sokol Graphic Novel by Dave McKean next year.
McKean is the award-winning artist who worked on Batman: Arkham Asylum Violent Cases, Signal to Noise and Cages, and provided the covers for The Sandman. More recently he worked on Black Dog: The Dreams of Paul Nash and founded the record label Feral Records.
Continue reading “Dark Horse will publish Dave McKean’s ‘Raptor’ next summer”Plus: “Olivia Jaimes” speaks, Bill Maher doubles down on his comic book comments, a comic convention apologizes for giving ‘Saga’ to kids, and much more!
Abrams has abandoned plans to publish A Suicide Bomber Sits in the Library by Jack Gantos and Dave McKean following online criticism and controversy. The book is about a young boy who plans to blow up a library, but he changes his mind when he sees how captivated the people inside are with their reading.
An open letter to Abrams from the Asian Author Alliance, signed by more than 1,000 writers, teachers and readers, reads: “The simple fact is that today, the biggest terrorist threat in the United States is white supremacy. In publishing A Suicide Bomber Sits in the Library, Abrams is willfully fear-mongering and spreading harmful stereotypes in a failed attempt to show the power of story.”
McKean responded to some of the controversy on Twitter: “The premise of the book is that a boy uses his mind and faith to decide for himself that violence is not the right course or action.” The book was due to be published next May.
