Month: September 2019

New ‘The Dark Knight Returns’ one-shot coming from Miller, Grampa, Bellaire

‘Dark Knight Returns: The Golden Child’ shows ‘the next generation of heroes in action.’

DC Comics has announced a new one-shot set in Frank Miller‘s Dark Knight Returns universe, Dark Knight Returns: The Golden Child. Miller will be joined by artists Rafael Grampá and Jordie Bellaire in the follow-up to 2015’s Dark Knight III: Master Race.

According to the press release, the story takes place three years after the events of Master Race, where Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Carrie Kelley and Lara Kent overcame the renegade priest Quar and his cult of Kandorian fanatics in their bid to convert humanity into worshipping them as gods. During this interim, Lara has spent time learning about what it means to be human, while Carrie has grown into her role as Gotham City’s new protector, Batwoman.

 “The Dark Knight Returns story began with its heroes getting older,” said Miller. “Now we’re seeing the next generation of heroes in action, and Rafael was the obvious choice for me to usher in these heroes that are vigorous, untested and loaded with promise. I think that Jonathan Kent in particular will surprise everybody with his unforeseen abilities and impossible mind.”

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‘Harrow County’ returns in new story set during World War II

Cullen Bunn and Tyler Crook are joined by artist Naomi Franquiz as they journey back to Harrow County.

Cullen Bunn and Tyler Crook‘s Harrow County series may have wrapped up in 2018, but that doesn’t mean they’re done with the world they created. Tales from Harrow County: Death’s Choir, a miniseries that follows the events of the series, will kick off in December.

Written by Bunn and Crook, the miniseries will be drawn by Naomi Franquiz, who also provides the cover for the first issue:

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Comics Lowdown: Rio mayor arrives too late to seize ‘Avengers’ comic

Plus: Lynda Barry, ‘Cathy,’ Brian Hibbs and more.

Censorship: The Mayor of Rio de Janeiro, Marcello Crivella, sent a team of law enforcement agents to the International Book Fair in his city to confiscate any and all copies of Avengers: The Children’s Crusade, on the grounds that it shows a same-sex kiss. The mayor was concerned that it was “sexual content for minors” and would lead the children of Rio de Janeiro astray, but the joke was on him: The comic had sold out by the time his officers got there. The festival organizers took him to court and won an injunction against any further seizures or attempts to pull the festival’s permit, but the ruling was partly overturned the next day. “We will always continue to defend the family,” said the mayor, an Evangelical preacher, who apparently found a drawing of a kiss to be a more pressing matter than the fact that 40% of Brazilian children live in poverty.

Late-breaking addendum: Despite Crivello’s admonition that “Books like this need to be wrapped in black sealed plastic with a content warning displayed on the outside,” the daily newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo put the image on its front page.

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Smash Pages Q&A: Jorge J. Santos, Jr.

The writer and assistant professor discusses his book ‘Graphic Memories of the Civil Rights Movement.’

Jorge J. Santos, Jr. is the author of the new book Graphic Memories of the Civil Rights Movement: Reframing History in Comics, which was recently published by the University of Texas Press. The Assistant Professor at the College of the Holy Cross in Massachusetts has been a longtime comics reader, but never made comics the subject of his scholarship in college and graduate school and only recently has been examining comics.

His book, which is an important and thoughtful work which has far-reaching impacts beyond the world of comics studies, is about rethinking the legacy and meaning of the Civil Rights movement. Santos looks at five graphic novels and considers the X-Men series in an effort to look at how collective memory is constructed and the ways that comics can be particularly useful in retelling and re-contextualizing history.

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‘Breaklands’ debuts on comiXology this week

Justin Jordan, Tyasseta, Sarah Stern and Rachel Deering team on a post-apocalyptic miniseries.

The comiXology Originals line will expand in September with four new titles, starting first with Breaklands by Justin Jordan, Tyasseta, Sarah Stern and Rachel Deering.

The five-issue series is set 150 years in the future in a world where everyone has powers except Kasa Fain, who is desperate to find her recently kidnapped brother.

“We wanted to do a book about what would happen if a lot of people suddenly got a lot of power,” Jordan said. “It was important that the world didn’t look like what readers have seen in traditional post apocalypse stories which, generally, ends up deserts and barren landscapes. Instead,the environment has had a chance to bounce back. And there’s plenty of high action, colorful new cultures and weird creatures.”

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Prepare for ‘A Radical Shift in Gravity’ this fall

Watch the world float away in Kate Glasheen and Nick Tapalansky’s upcoming graphic novel from Top Shelf.

What happens when gravity starts to disappear? Find out this fall, as Top Shelf Comix will release A Radical Shift in Gravity by Kate Glasheen and Nick Tapalansky this November.

“Against the wondrous backdrop of massive planetary transformation, this stunning watercolor graphic novel explores one family’s struggle to stay grounded,” Top Shelf says about the new project. Tapalansky is the writer of Awakening from BOOM! Studios and Cast No Shadow from First Second. Glasheen’s credits include Hybrid Bastards! from Archaia and her crowdfunded, self-published graphic novel Bandage: A Diary of Sorts.

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DC reveals more Jim Lee art from ‘Legion of Super-Heroes: Millennium’

DC’s publisher teams up with longtime collaborators Scott Williams and Alex Sinclair on new pages for the project.

With the first issue of Legion of Super-Heroes: Millennium arriving this Wednesday, DC Comics has released some additional preview pages by the art team of Jim Lee, Scott Williams and Alex Sinclair.

The trio of artists have worked together many times in the past, going back to the pre-DC Wildstorm days, and on titles like All-Star Batman and Robin, Batman: Hush and Superman. This time around, they’re working with writer Brian Michael Bendis as one of several art teams contributing to the two-issue miniseries.

It’s a collaboration that’s been in the works even before Bendis made the jump to DC from Marvel, as the writer told Entertainment Weekly that several years ago, he received a note from Lee asking if he’d like to work on Legion with him.

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