Three Count | Krakoa in pictures, Jinkies, Mermay

Here are three things to see, to buy and to view in comics this week.

Three Count spotlights, as the title suggests, three things from comics today. It’ll be three things with links, no more, no less. Hope you survive the experience.

  1. To View: Gerry Duggan’s Krakoa-era creator photos

It’s a pretty good time to be an X-Men fan. Not only is there the mega-popular X-Men ’97 animated series on Disney+ and a new Deadpool & Wolverine movie coming this summer, but there’s also a lot going on with Marvel’s merry mutants in the comics. As the Krakoa era ends in spectacular fashion, the From the Ashes era gets set to begin, and I’m not sure you could have the excitement of one without the game-changing nature of the other.

Gerry Duggan has been part of the Krakoa journey since the beginning, writing both Marauders and X-Men, as well as Iron Man, which seemed to find its way into the line at the end. In addition to being a writer, Duggan is also a photographer, and even crowdfunded a book of his photos a couple years back. In his Substack newsletter this week, he shared a collection of photos of his fellow creators he’s taken during the Krakoa journey, at retreats and other meet-ups, spanning several years and a pandemic. Outside of stalking them at bars during conventions, it’s rare that you get to see creators interacting like this … in meeting rooms and, yes, at bars.

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Dark Horse will collect Tom Siddell’s award-winning webcomic ‘Gunnerkrigg Court’

The first collection of the long-running comic arrives in November.

Tom Siddell’s Gunnerkrigg Court webcomic has been running since 2005 and is approaching its 100th chapter — so there’s no better time for Dark Horse to announce plans to collect it into an omnibus series.

The fantasy comic has been published by BOOM!’s Archaia imprint in the past, as well as by Titan in the UK. It has been nominated for numerous awards over the years, and in 2021 took home the award for best long-form webcomic at the NCS Divisional Awards. Dark Horse will collect the first two volumes “Orientation” and “Research,” into the first volume, which amounts to 586 pages of comics. They plan to release it both in softcover and as a limited edition hardcover.  

“Anyone with a taste for mystery, an eye for the fantastic and strange, The Court welcomes you,” Siddell said. “I’m really excited for readers, new and old, to get their hands on the best version of Gunnerkrigg, from a publisher whose work I’ve been enjoying for decades!”

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Saladin Ahmed + Martín Cóccolo bring Wolverine back to his roots in September

Part of the ‘X-Men: From the Ashes’ line, the new title kicks off in September.

Marvel has announced that Daredevil writer Saladin Ahmed and “Stormbreakers” artist Martín Cóccolo will helm the new Wolverine title that will launch in September as a part of the X-Men: From the Ashes initiative.

According to Marvel.com, Wolverine will “turn his back on humanity, mutantkind and the X-Men” in the new series following the end of Krakoa and the “Sabretooth War” storyline that will finish out his current title. Which seems counter to the fact that he’s one of the characters in Gail Simone and David Marquez’s Uncanny X-Men title.

In any event, the new series finds Logan in the Canadian wilderness, where he’s back with his wolfpack and being attacked by his most hated foes, one by one, at the bequest of some ancient villain that “has been bubbling under the surface of the Marvel Universe since the days of myth.”

“Logan is simultaneously a mythic hero, an abused animal, and a man of flesh, blood, and adamantium,” Ahmed said. “Our story is about what happens when these parts of him all pull in opposite directions – and threaten to rip Logan to pieces that won’t come back together again.”

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Bloodhunting 1 | A roundtable on Marvel’s vampire-infested summer event

The Smash Pages crew digs into the first issue of Marvel’s ‘Blood Hunt.’

Marvel’s next big event is here — Blood Hunt, a crossover series they’ve spent months building toward with announcements about tie-ins, miniseries and even a Red Band edition that features more blood.

The first issue came out last Wednesday, and just like Captain America is assembling a new team of Avengers to fight off the vampire hordes, we’ve assembled the Smash Pages team — myself, Shane Bailey and Tom Bondurant — to talk about the event. So here’s our first “Bloodhunting” roundtable, with more to come in the weeks ahead.

This time around we talk about Blood Hunt #1, as well as the Free Comic Book Day issue and another recent series that might have served as a prelude. Please note there are heavy duty SPOILERS in this discussion related to the story, so only enter if you dare.

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