Month: July 2024

SDCC | Dark Horse rolls a 20, picks up Dungeons & Dragons + Magic: The Gathering licenses

New titles are expected from the partnership next summer.

Dark Horse Comics and Wizards of the Coast have announced that Dark Horse will publish comics, graphic novels and art books based on Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: The Gathering. They plan to release the first titles as part of the deal next summer.

“If you’d told my 12-year-old self I’d get to work with incredible writers and artists to craft comics for Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: The Gathering, alongside such thoughtful and creative stewards of these licenses, I wouldn’t have believed you,” said Dark Horse senior editor Spencer Cushing. “The opportunity to work with Wizards of the Coast is a dream come true.”

Dark Horse joins a list of publishers who brought Dungeons & Dragons to comics since the late 1980s, when DC worked with TSR, its original owners, to create comics based on Dragonlance, the Forgotten Realms, Spelljammers and more. IDW has had the license since 2010, publishing a wide range of titles base don the role-playing game and even working with Dark Horse on a Stranger Things crossover.

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Nominees announced for the 2024 Ignyte Awards

‘Whisper of the Woods, ‘Brooms’ and more have been recognized this year in the comics category.

The nominees have been announced for the annual Ignyte Awards, which “celebrate the vibrancy and diversity of the current and future landscapes of science fiction, fantasy and horror by recognizing incredible feats in storytelling and outstanding efforts toward inclusivity of the genre.”

While the awards cut across several genres of fiction, they also include an “Outstanding Comics Team” category. Previous winners in that category include Where Black Stars Rise by Marie Enger and Nadia Shammas, Nubia: Real One by L. L. McKinney and Robyn Smith, and These Savage Shores by Ram V, Sumit Kumar, Vitorio Astone, Aditya Bidikar and Tim Daniel.

The awards are sponsored by FIYAH Literary Magazine, which focuses on Black speculative fiction, and the winners are typically announced in conjunction with FIYAHCON.

Congratulations to this year’s nominees:

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SDCC | BOOM! recruits actual Power Rangers to work on a Power Rangers anthology

David Yost, Walter Jones, Steve Cardenas and more will contribute stories about the Power Rangers they’ve played on screen.

BOOM! Studios will release an anthology of Power Rangers stories written by former Power Rangers in October.

Power Rangers: Across the Morphin Grid will feature stories written by David Yost, Walter Jones, Steve Cardenas, Mat Groom, Nakia Burrise, JD Sutphin and Meghan Camerana, with art by Paulina Ganucheau, Tango, Patrick Mulholland, Domo Stanton, Anand Ramcheron and more.

“I’m so excited that BOOM! Studios is expanding the Morphin Grid Anthology, and it looks like I’m next on the list! I’ve had the great privilege in the past to briefly work with BOOM! about Rocky and his background. But now to have the opportunity to create and collab and tell my own story is just a dream come true for me,” said Cardenas, who played Rocky DeSantos, the second Red Ranger on Mighty Moprhin Power Rangers. “I hope you enjoy what Mat and I came up with as a part of this new chapter!”

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Cavan Scott + Paul Fry show VHS horror movies some love in ‘Night of the Slashers’

Magma Comix will publish the first issue in October.

Cavan Scott and Paul Fry will pay tribute to their horror movie-filled childhoods in Night of the Slashers, a miniseries coming from Magma Comix this fall.

The comic is a “love letter” to slasher movies, particular the kind you could rent from a video store and watch on videotape back in the day.

“As you can probably tell from the title, Night of the Slashers is a love letter to slasher movies, an obsession that began when I saw my first serial killer (Halloween 2 on a dodgy VHS at my friend’s 12th birthday party) and has now been passed onto my daughter,” Scott said. “It was only a matter of time before I came up with my own walking nightmare in the mold of Michael, Jason or Jason, but when I met artist Paul Fry and immediately bonded over horror movies, it soon became clear that one wasn’t enough. If we were going to write a slasher, we wanted an entire town of masked knife-wielding killers. This series has everything we love in slasher movies! Victims, you can’t wait to see sliced ‘n’ diced, larger-than-life monsters, gallons of blood and gruesome deaths galore. No one is safe in The Night of the Slashers. No one at all.” 

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SDCC | It’s Christmas in July (and August, and September …) in ‘Christmas 365’

Mikey Way, Jonathan Rivera and Piotr Kowalski get jolly in a new miniseries coming from Dark Horse this December.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Comic-Con, as a few hours before the big event starts, Dark Horse has announced Christmas 365, a four-issue miniseries by Mikey Way, Jonathan Rivera and Piotr Kowalski.

“Like most kids growing up, I never wanted Christmas to end,” Way said. “When it’s over, you’re left having to wait an entire year for that magical feeling to return. I would often fantasize…what if it never had to end? That very thought was what sparked this story. But as the saying goes, is too much of a good thing not so good?”

Way is the bassist for My Chemical Romance, where his bandmate, brother and fellow comics writer, Gerard Way, is the lead singer. He’s also written Collapser for DC Comics. Rivera worked on Cave Carson Has a Cybernetic Eye, part of Gerard Way’s Young Animal imprint a few years back. Kowalski, meanwhile, is the artist of Where Monsters Lie and its upcoming sequel; the graphic novel Skinner, which came out this week; and a whole lot more. The creative team is rounded out by Brad Simpson on colors and Joshua Reed on letters.

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SDCC | Comixology Originals announce ‘Groupies’ by Helen Mullane + Tula Lotay

“Our story is a blood-soaked and acid-drenched journey into the heart of darkness …”

Superstate writer Helen Mullane and Somna co-creator Tula Lotay will turn it up to 11 in Groupies, a five-issue miniseries about sex, drugs and the “true cost of rock’n’roll.”

The supernatural tale set in a world of parties and excess will arrive in October from Comixology Originals.

“I’ve always been fascinated by the lives of groupies,” Mullane said. “The daring fashion, devil-may-care lifestyle, and the girls’ determination, getting their kicks despite most people’s censure and judgement. It’s a world of glamour and darkness, where some people have their wildest dreams come true, while others are chewed up and spat out. Our story is a blood-soaked and acid-drenched journey into the heart of darkness, where most people are out for what they can get. But just because the girls are living in a world that sees them as disposable, doesn’t make them any less extraordinary.” 

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SDCC | Dynamite announces the creative team for their ‘Terminator’ comic

Declan Shalvey and Luke Sparrow team up for tales of time-traveling mayhem.

Dynamite has announced a creative team and a release date for their Terminator comic. Writer Declan Shalvey and artist Luke Sparrow will team up to tell stories that spin out of the plot for the original film but take things in a new direction, with “mostly done-in-one” stories involving killer robots and time travel.

“The approach of this series is new situations, new dilemmas in each issue. Mostly done-in-one stories, but as the series progresses there may be some recognizable faces…” Shalvey said. “We’re going for a more stripped-down, pulpy approach to the book. As innovative and groundbreaking as the first film was, it was also grounded in its environment, being noirish and moody as hell. An unstoppable force is coming to kill you — that’s the element of the franchise I want to lean into.”

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Hell is for children: Cullen Bunn + Joe Bocardo bring ‘Hexiles’ to Mad Cave Studios

A very personal horror story rises from the depths of the underworld this October.

Horror master Cullen Bunn will team with Night Walkers artist Joe Bocardo on The Hexiles, a new series about six children who find out their true lineage just in time for their father’s demonic debtors to come calling.

Mad Cave Studios will publish The Hexiles beginning in October.

“The Hexiles is a dark tale about destiny, cursed inheritances and people bound by blood… lots of blood,” said Bocardo. “A horror story that found refuge in a cave of madmen, where they love comics and work with true professionalism, and created by Cullen, a diabolical mind capable of turning the worst nightmares into words and convincing you to stay and live in them. As an artist, I couldn’t ask for a better team.”

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Nominees announced for the 2024 Ringo Awards

The awards will be presented during the Baltimore Comic-Con on Sept. 21.

The nominees for the 2024 Ringo Awards have been announced, marking the eighth year for the awards program named for the late Mike Wieringo, the artist of Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, Tellos and more who died in 2007.

Nominees were chosen by fans, along with a panel of judges, and the awards period included any materials published in 2023. The awards presentation will take place at The Baltimore Comic-Con on Sept. 21.

“Every year, the Ringo Awards jurors have the difficult task of ‘picking their favorite child’, so to speak,” said Marc Nathan, Baltimore Comic-Con promoter. “It is always a challenge to determine what makes the cut and what doesn’t, but as you can see from the final ballot, our jury’s hard work paid off and, with the inclusion of the public votes, we have an outstanding representation of some of comics’ best works from 2023. Creators should make their way to the voting site now and make sure your peers do the same!”

Congratulations to this year’s nominees:

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Tim Seeley + Stefano Caselli will pay tribute to Jason Pearson with ‘Hack/Slash: Body Bags’

The crossover series by the original ‘Hack/Slash’ team begins in October.

The original Hack/Slash creative team of Tim Seeley and artist Stefano Caselli are re-teaming for a crossover series that brings together Cassie Hack and Jason Pearson’s Body Bags characters. The four-issue miniseries will begin in October.

Body Bags was originally published by Dark Horse and later moved to 12-Gauge Comics. The series starred two assassins, Mack Delgado, aka Clownface, and his daughter, Panda. Pearson passed away in December of 2022.

Seeley said he was a big fan of Body Bags, and he reached out to Keven Gardner, publisher of 12-Gauge Comics, about doing a crossover to honor Pearson’s creation.

“Tim reached out a little over a year ago via our mutual friend, Cully Hamner, one of Jason’s former studio mates at Gaijin Studios, with the idea to do this crossover,” said Keven Gardner, publisher of 12-Gauge Comics. “To be honest, before talking with Tim, my initial reaction was, ‘Probably not.’ This was about six months after Jason’s passing, his mom was in the middle of settling his estate—it just wasn’t something on her radar or mine. But, after I spoke with Tim it was immediately clear that he was a huge fan of Body Bags, that Jason’s work had been a strong influence on him, and that this was something he and Stefano really wanted to do. We talked about possible ideas, and I could see how this could be something special.”

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‘The John Constantine of the Archie Universe’: Cullen Bunn + Dan Schoening summon another ‘Salem’ one-shot

Ben Galvan, Matt Herms and Jack Morelli round out the team for ‘The Nine Lives of Salem.’

Salem, Sabrina the Teenage Witch’s familiar, advisor and feline friend, will get a second shot at a solo story in October’s The Nine Lives of Salem. The Archie Horror one-shot will reunite Cullen Bunn and Dan Schoening, who worked on 2022’s Chilling Adventures of Salem, and add artist Ben Galvan into the mix.

While the previous one-shot saw Salem defending local stray animals from an evil magic user, this time he’ll be facing his fellow four-legged creatures “in a series of magical battles culminating in a new direction for Sabrina’s once-cuddly confidante.”

“We’re setting our fiendish feline up as an occult investigator of sorts, the John Constantine of the Archie Universe,” Bunn said. “And, make no mistake, even with a cat as the protagonist, these stand-alone stories are dark and horror-filled. You can grab a copy and delight in the terror we’re unleashing in these pages.”

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SDCC | Def Leppard + Vault Comics team for a graphic novel named after the band’s iconic album ‘Hysteria’

Def Leppard’s Phil Collen teams with Eliot Rahal and Alex Schlitz on the story of the world’s most dangerous guitar.

Vault Comics is no stranger to working with musicians, having released Deathstalker with Guns’n’Roses’ Slash and the upcoming Dying Inside with Fall Out Boy’s Pete Wentz. Now, through their Headshell imprint, they’ve announced a new graphic novel that shares a name with one of the best-selling albums of all time, Hysteria.

Co-written by Def Leppard guitarist Phil Collen and The Cursed Library scribe Eliot Rahal, the graphic novel will feature artwork by Alex Schlitz, colorist Fabi Marques and letterer Andworld Design.

“Blending music and comics together like this is an incredible and insane dream, and I could not be more thrilled by the work Eliot, Alex and Vault have put into Hysteria. It has been a joy and one hell of a ride. I know fans are going to love it,” Collen said. 

The graphic novel will not only feature Def Leppard, but will introduce a band called Darkside, whose frontwoman inherits a guitar that promises her fame — but it comes with a price.

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