Can’t Wait for Comics | Jon Kent flies solo, Stoneheart debuts and what the heck happened to Peter and Mary Jane?

New comics and graphic novels arrive this week by Zeb Wells, John Romita Jr., Tom Taylor, Clayton Henry, Emma Kubert, John Ridley, Kami Garcia, Gabriel Picolo, K. O’Neill and more.

Welcome to Can’t Wait for Comics, your guide to what comics are arriving in comic book stores, bookstores and on digital.

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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IDW reincarnates ‘Dungeons & Dragons’ cartoon as a comic book miniseries

David M. Booher, Sam Maggs and George Kambadais will revive the 1980s animated series.

Hank, Diana, Bobby, Uni and the rest of the party from the 1983 Dungeons & Dragons Saturday morning cartoon will return in Dungeons & Dragons: Saturday Morning Adventures from IDW next year.

The four-issue miniseries by David M. Booher, Sam Maggs and George Kambadais celebrates the 40th anniversary of the animated program, which ran for three seasons from 1983-1985. In it, six regular kids were transported into the world of Dungeons & Dragons, where they fought Venger and his evil forces, received guidance from the mysterious Dungeon Master and tried to find a way back home.

“As a lifelong D&D fan, it is an absolute dream to get to work reviving a childhood classic,” Maggs said. “It’s been such a blast working with IDW and the fine folks at Wizards of the Coast to home in on what made the Dungeons & Dragons Saturday morning cartoon such a cult favorite. Setting these characters up for a whole new run of stories has truly been a career highlight, and I hope fans will love seeing Uni (well…all our cool kids, but especially Uni) back in action as much as I do!”

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Slugfest | Have a very ‘Criminal’ Christmas

Catch up on recent news and announcements on Criminal, Dragon Age, Blue Beetle, Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur, Prism Stalker and more.

Slugfest is a roundup of cool announcements about projects coming to a shelf near you from comics creators, publishers and more.

Image Comics is serving up a Christmas treat for Criminal fans in the pages of their Image! 30th anniversary anthology. Creators Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips have created a Christmas story starring Teeg Lawless in a take-off of Charles Dickens’ classic A Christmas Carol.

“I’ve been wanting to do a Christmas-themed Criminal story since we first started the book,” said Brubaker. “So, Sean and I had a blast returning to that world for ‘Teeg’s Christmas Carol.’ Twelve pages of bad dad Christmases and history lessons.”

Phillips drew the cover, which features a cigarette puffing, Santa-hat wearing Teeg:

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Ostertag + Bouma roll a natural 20 on ‘Dungeon Club: Roll Call’

The new graphic novel will arrive in stores this December.

Molly Knox Ostertag and Xanthe Bouma have collaborated on a new graphic novel called Dungeons & Dragons: Dungeon Club: Roll Call that will be released in December by HarperCollins. As the title suggests, it’s tie-in to the popular tabletop role-playing game.

“It’s been a joy to make – I started LARPing and playing D&D in high school, and those forms of roleplaying became a way for me to make friends and explore parts of myself,” Ostertag said on Substack. “The first time I said, ‘I’m a lesbian’ was as Sir Aurelia the paladin. This book is about the friendships that form when you tell stories together, the way a fantasy campaign can mimic real life, and the excruciating agony of the dungeon crawl that is middle school. It’s written by me and drawn by Xanthe, which is truly the honor of a lifetime.”

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Can’t Wait for Comics | Titan, Power Rangers, Punchline and more

New comics arrive this week from James Tynion IV, Sam Johns, Mirka Andolfo, Jesse Lonergan, Chris Gooch, François Vigneault and more.

We are back with a look at what’s arriving in comic shops, bookstores and on digital this week.

If you’re wondering what to get this week, check out a few recommendations below. ComicList has this week’s list of new comics arriving in stores, and the comiXology new releases page for what’s available digitally.

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Fund Me Monday | ‘Thomas River,’ the return of Skullkickers and more

Check out recent projects from Jim Zub, Edwin Huang, Doug Wagner, Brian Stelfreeze, Iron Circus Comics 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, Big Cartel 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’s a good thing to do, now more than ever.

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

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Cullen Bunn digs down into ‘Deepest Catacombs’

The webcomic will debut on his Patreon the week of Aug. 9.

Cullen Bunn will channel those one-page advertisements for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game that used to run in 1980s comics with Deepest Catacombs, a new webcomic he’s launching via his Patreon. He’ll work with different artists for each one-page installment, which together will form a 24-page comic.

“When I was a kid, I absolutely loved the D&D ads that ran in my favorite comics,” Bunn said. “These were one-page comic strips that introduced a band of heroes—Grimslade, Valerius, Saren and Indel—who were adventuring into a dungeon in search of treasure. They met up with werewolves and goblins and green slime and dragons. The story continued from strip to strip, and I was always eager to see what would come next. Sometimes, I was more excited about the ads than the actual comics!”

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Natural 20: ‘Stranger Things’ to cross over with ‘Dungeons & Dragons’

Jim Zub, Jody Houser, Diego Galindo, Michele Assarasakorn and Nate Piekos will descend into the depths of licensed comics.

Writer Jim Zub shares the news that he’s working with Jody Houser on Stranger Things and Dungeons & Dragons, a new four-issue mini-series being co-published by Dark Horse Comics and IDW, who have the respective comics licenses for the two properties.

They’ll be working with the art team of Diego Galindo, Michele Assarasakorn and Nate Piekos. The announcement was made during Wizards of the Coast’s D&D Live 2020 online event.

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Goth Jumanji: Gillen + Hans team for new series ‘Die’

Fantasy gets real this December from Image Comics.

Kieron Gillen and Stephanie Hans, who previously worked together on Marvel’s Journey into Mystery, are rolling the dice on a new comic this December called “Die.” Clayton Clowes will letter the project.

“Stephanie and I have been wanting to work together forever – Journey Into Mystery 645 is one of my favourite things I’ve ever done, and this comes straight from there,” Gillen said in his weekly email newsletter. “The Earth needs a fantasy world created by Stephanie Hans, and I had to enable it.”

The story revolves around a group of teens who regularly play tabletop role-playing games. One night they mysteriously disappear, only to reappear two years later. Actually, forget my explanation — you can read this for yourself on this lovely, handy teaser the team put together:

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C2E2: ‘Rick & Morty,’ ‘Dungeons & Dragons’ cross over this summer

Patrick Rothfuss, Jim Zub and Troy Little bring the two properties together in a four-issue limited series.

The stars of Adult Swim’s popular Rick and Morty will enter the world of Dungeons & Dragons this summer in a comic book crossover by Patrick Rothfuss, Jim Zub and Troy Little.

At this weekend’s C2E2 convention in Chicago, IDW Publishing and Oni Press, who respectively publish the D&D and R&M comic books, announced the four-issue comic book series, which will debut in August.

“I love Rick and Morty with a powerful love, and I’ve played D&D since the fifth grade,” Rothfuss said in the press release. “So when they approached me about writing a story with both of them together? That’s some serious you-got-chocolate-in-my-peanut butter $#!& right there. I’m in. I’m all the way in. I’m gettin’ that chocolate all up in the peanut butter. Like, deep in. All the way in. It’s going to be sticky and delicious.”

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IDW announces ‘Jem and the Holograms’ anthology series

Kate Leth, Tana Ford, Sophie Campbell and more lined up to contribute stories.

IDW Publishing has announced a new anthology series set in the world of Jem and the Holograms. The series will feature rotating creatives teams and two stories in each issue, starting with Kate Leth, Tana Ford and original Jem and the Holograms artist Sophie Campbell.

“Sophie, along with series regular writer Kelly Thompson, took the classic Jem and the Holograms concept, and reimagined it for a new generation of Jem fans,” said Sarah Gaydos, IDW Group Editor, in a press release. “Now, with Dimensions, the floodgates have been opened for creators new to Jem to come play in Kelly and Sophie’s arena for an all-star jam session.”

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Sunday Comics: Dungeons & Dragons and factory closings

Check out new comics by Ted Closson, Sam Wallman and more.

Every Sunday, we round up the best comics we’ve seen online in the past week. If we missed something, let us know in the comments below.

Rise of the Dungeon Master: Gary Gygax and the Birth of D&D

This isn’t a complete comic, just an excerpt of the full-length graphic novel Rise of the Dungeon Master: Gary Gygax and the Birth of D&D, but it’s a satisfying piece of the story that stands well on its own. It’s basically the origin story of Dungeons & Dragons, showing Gygax developing the idea, testing it on friends and family, and self-publishing it after being turned down by a major game company. The story, which is told in second person (as if Gygax was a D&D player himself) is based on an article by David Kushner than ran in 2008 in Wired, and Koren Shadmi is the artist.

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