Day: June 3, 2024

Can’t Wait for Wednesday | ‘Scarlett’ debuts; an ‘X-Men’ era ends; ‘Barda’ goes hard + more

Check out new comics and graphic novels arriving this week by Kelly Thompson, Marco Ferrari, Josie Campbell, Pablo M. Collar, Alex Paknadel, Troy Little, Gerry Duggan, Garry Brown, Tom Waltz, Juan Jose Ryp, Deniz Camp, Juan Frigeri, Ngozi Ukazu, Tony McMillen and more.

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

This a pretty packed week for comics, with a new entry in the Energon Universe saga, an ending to the Krakoa era of the X-Men, a prelude to a new dawn for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and a YA take on Big Barda that looks incredible. And that’s only scratching the surface!

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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Vancouver Comic Arts Festival apologizes for banning a Jewish artist from future festivals

Following the controversy where the festival banned Miriam Libicki, a “vast majority” of the board has resigned.

The Vancouver Comic Arts Festival has issued an apology on social media after coming under scrutiny for an earlier statement about banning cartoonist Miriam Libicki, creator of the autobiographical comic Jobnik! and a contributor to the 2020 Eisner Award nominee But I Live, from attending future shows.

Libicki, a citizen of both the United States and Israel who currently lives in Canada, served in the Israeli military — which is mandatory for all Israeli citizens over the age of 18*. Since then, Libicki has recounted her experiences in the military in her comic Jobnik! and also contributed to But I Live, a collection of nonfiction comics that draw from the experiences of Holocaust survivors.

Libicki has been a regular attendee of the festival since its inception in 2012, and at the 2022 show, she was met with protestors who “caused a scene” because of her prior military experience, according to a post from her husband, Mike Yoshioka. After missing the deadline for the 2023 show, he said she applied to return in 2024 but was rejected by the show’s organizers, which led to a meeting. According to Yoshioka, Libicki agreed not to display issues of Jobnik! or Toward A Hot Jew, a collection of graphic essays published by Fantagraphics in 2016. She would only feature But I Live.

“In recent years, I have been working closely with Holocaust survivors to tell their own stories,” Libicki told The Canadian Jewish News. “I consider this urgent and timely work. The award-winning anthology of Holocaust memoirs, But I Live, was the only graphic novel I was selling at VanCAF 2024.”

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You can preorder a copy of the DC Comics Style Guide by José Luis García-López

The most famous style guide in comics history will be released to the public for the first time this August.

An internal style guide for DC’s characters created by the legendary José Luis García-López is getting a high-end release that’s going to make a lot of comics fans happy.

Standards Manual, a publisher that crowdfunds and releases “artifacts of design history,” like a book of old New York subway maps and The NASA Graphics Standards Manual, has teamed with Warner Bros. Discovery Global Consumer Products to release the DC Comics Style Guide from 1982. The 384-page manual, which will include an introduction by former DC publisher Paul Levitz, is available to preorder now on their website.

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Quick Hits | Idaho graduate offers her superintendent a banned graphic novel while accepting her diploma

Plus: Tom Luth, Bram Stoker Awards, Broom Hilda and the Ernie Bushmiller Society.

One of this year’s high school graduates from the Idaho Fine Arts Academy tried to hand her superintendent a copy of the graphic novel adaptation of The Handmaid’s Tale, a book that was removed from her school’s library earlier in the year.

The ABC affiliate KVUE reports that Annabelle Jenkins, one of 44 seniors to walk at the graduation, brought the book with her and tried to give it to Superintendent Derek Bub as she went on stage to accept her diploma. Bub would not accept the copy of the book, so Jenkins then dropped it at his feet.

Jenkins, a volunteer at her local library and a lifelong reader, said an argument between a teacher and the school librarian brought the book to her attention. “It was over the graphic novel The Handmaid’s Tale and I was just so shocked because I had never seen school staff behave that way in a school setting,” she said.

The book ended up being contested and removed from West Ada school shelves.

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