Month: June 2025

Slugfest | DC opens the ‘Book of El’ in their September solicitations

Plus: More ‘Batman,’ more ‘Bat-Man’ and a Zatanna-themed Halloween special!

Slugfest is a roundup of cool announcements about projects coming to a shelf near you. This edition focuses on DC’s September 2025 solicitations. Hit the links for more information.

There’s not a lot of new stuff I haven’t already covered in DC’s September solicitations, but for those looking for a round-up of what’s “new,” you’ve come to the right place. In addition to what I cover here, September will also bring the first issues of C.O.R.T.: Children of the Round Table and The Red Hood.

Let’s start with a Superman project by Phillip Kennedy Johnson and Scott Godlewski — Adventures of Superman: Book of El, which reunites the Future State: House of El team. The maxi-series was originally expected to begin earlier this year, but according to Johnson it was delayed so it could be timed to the release of the new Superman film.

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Robert Kirkman + Dan Mora take over ‘Transformers’ with #25

A new era for the Energon Universe title begins in October with an oversized issue.

Robert Kirkman, the founder of Skybound who briefly sat in the writer’s room for the Transformer films, is getting his chance to chronicle the adventures of the Autobots and Decepticons. After ushering in the Energon Universe era with Void Rivals, Kirkman and Superman artist Dan Mora will take over the ongoing Transformers title with issue #25 following Daniel Warren Johnson and Jorge Corona’s epic run.

Kirkman and Mora will join colorist Mike Spicer and letterer Rus Wooton in October with an oversized issue that celebrates the series’ second anniversary. The issue will also feature a second story written by Kirkman and drawn by Corona.

“Holy smokes, I’m writing a Transformers comic!” said Kirkman. “I’ve been so invested in this series since the beginning. I’ve marveled at what Daniel Warren Johnson and Jorge Corona have brought to some of my all-time favorite characters. When Daniel’s run came to an end, I could stand on the sidelines no more! I just had to get in the ring! It’s a tremendous honor to be a small part of the legacy of these amazing characters. This world has been a huge part of my life for as long as I can remember. I can’t wait for everyone to see what the legendary Dan Mora and I are cooking up!”

Here’s a look at issue #25’s main cover by David Nakayama:

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Nominees announced for the 2025 Russ Manning Award

The annual awards program recognizes the comic industry’s most promising newcomers and will be presented alongside the Eisner Awards in July at Comic-Con International.

Comic-Con International has announced the nominees for this year’s Russ Manning Most Promising Newcomer Award, which will be presented in July.

Named for the creator of Magnus, Robot Fighter, the award recognizes a new artist who “shows a superior knowledge and ability in the art of creating comics.”

Previous winners include Dave Stevens, Eleanor Davis, Jeff Smith, Marion Churchland, David Petersen, Tyler Crook, Dan Mora, Lorena Alvarez, Nate Simpson, Luana Vecchio and Zoe Thorogood. The Mushroom Knight creator Oliver Bly won the Manning Award last year.

Here are this year’s nominees:

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Guest Column | Meredith McClaren on ‘Meat Eaters,’ health, identity and transformation

In advance of her new graphic novel ‘Meat Eaters’ arriving in stores, the creator shares a personal essay about her health struggles and how they relate to her protagonist’s journey.

Today we welcome Hinges creator and Black Cloak artist Meredith McClaren to the blog, where she shares her deeply personal reflections on health, identity and transformation.

These themes also appear in Meat Eaters, her new graphic novel from Oni Press that arrives in stores July 7. It follows Ashley, a young woman looking to escape her stagnant small town life, but whose carefully laid plans are shattered when she wakes up one night covered in blood—and discovers she’s dead. As Ashley grapples with this shocking transformation and the changes happening within her, McClaren weaves a powerful story that resonates with her own experiences of unexpected life upheavals.

My thanks to the author for sharing this with us. It’s a wonderfully written essay with illustrations in the same style that I see on her Tumblr, which I recommend you follow if the essay resonates with you. You can also check out her travelogue on visiting Greece.

FUN TIMES
By Meredith McClaren
Author and Illustrator of MEAT EATERS

Your body will betray you.

(That’s a bummer of a starter sentence. Sorry. But stay with me, I have a point.)

Your body will betray you. It’s a universal human experience. I’m sorry. There’s no getting away from it. Some of us get there faster than others but we all eventually find ourselves in the unenviable position of feeling truly, utterly, devastatingly betrayed by our bodies.

For me it started with a tickle at the back of my throat that never went away.

I tried describing it to people. ‘You know how it feels when you suck in a big breath of cold air?’ It’s the way your throat feels tight. Constricted.

‘Sounds like asthma.’ One of my friends said.

But I wasn’t coughing. Yet. It was just a tickle. And it was always there.

The coughing came later. Over months. Over a year. Just one or two. A day. Everyday. Then it was a couple of times a day. Every time I woke up. Every time I went to bed. Sometimes an extra one somewhere in the middle.

It wasn’t until a friend’s wedding that I really reconciled that there was a problem. And I couldn’t really ignore it anymore. 

‘You cough a lot.’ My Dad said.

‘I know.’ I said.

Destination wedding in Flagstaff. A higher elevation. I was coughing. And I knew it wasn’t just the thinner air.

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Exclusive Preview | ‘Playtime: The Post-It Note Drawings’

Aron Wiesenfeld’s new book is currently up on Kickstarter.

Acclaimed painter and Eisner-nominated artist Aron Wiesenfeld is bringing his unique talents to a unique medium — post-it note drawings.

The artist’s latest project, Playtime: The Post-It Note Drawings, is a complete collection of his ink drawings on Post-it notes and is now up on Kickstarter.

“It’s always good to put limitations on yourself,” Wiesenfeld said. “In this series I only allowed myself to use black pens on a 3×3-inch square of yellow paper. It became a challenge to see if I could capture some of the key elements I love in large oil paintings: mood, atmosphere, time of day, weather conditions, character, and story.  I wasn’t always successful, but was often pleasantly surprised with the results anyway.  When you see your lines blown up, every quiver of the hand is captured there.  No falseness, or flourishes of style are even possible, it’s just too small for any of that.  The results always felt ‘real’ to me. One of my heroes is Gustave Doré, who, constrained by the printing limitations of his time, was able to tell visual stories that felt like paintings, but limited to only using black and white engraving lines.”

You can check out an exclusive preview from the book below, and you’ll find more information about the book on Kickstarter.

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Guest Q&A | Melissa Chan + Badiucao on ‘You Must Take Part in Revolution’

The graphic novel from Street Noise Books is a near-future dystopian story about technology, authoritarian governments and fighting for freedom.

Today we’re pleased to present a guest interview with Melissa Chan and Badiucao, creators of You Must Take Part in Revolution, conducted by Street Noise Books publisher Liz Frances.

If you’re not familiar with the graphic novel, it features a near-future dystopian story about technology, authoritarian government and the lengths that one will go to in the fight for freedom. The graphic novel is available now.

by Liz Frances

Melissa and Badiucao, this is your first graphic novel! What made you two decide that you should go from journalism and political cartoons to making a graphic novel — why this format?

Melissa: I’d been a journalist for almost two decades — writing articles and also as a correspondent for broadcast and video reports. It started to feel as if whatever I reported on didn’t really matter — that so much of it was reaching audiences who kind of agreed with me already about human rights and democracy. I’ve enjoyed graphic novels over the years, and it kind of dawned on me that this was the book I’d always wanted to write.

Badiucao: Yeap, graphic novels take serious topics like human rights and geopolitics and make them more accessible to groups who might not know the subjects well. I’d always want to break through the circles of my usual readers and speak to younger groups who are comics readers, gamers — basically to leverage the power of pop culture. You know that famous “tank man” from the Tiananmen Square student protests? How about making figures like that as cool and as popular as Spider-Man!

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Can’t Wait for Wednesday | Get a crash course on the DCU in ‘New History of the DC Universe’

Plus: Lazarus returns! Ultramega finale! And Shaky Kane lights a ‘Magick Lantern’!

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

I’ve pulled out some of the highlights for this week 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 check with your retailer to see what’s arriving at their shop this week.

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Dark Horse announces their first ‘Dungeons & Dragons’ title

The Fallbacks jump from prose to comics this fall.

After announcing last year they partnered up with Wizards of the Coast to make comics based on the very popular Dungeons & Dragons tabletop role-playing game, Dark Horse has announced their first D&D title — Dungeons & Dragons: The Fallbacks.

The four-issue miniseries features characters from Jaleigh Johnson’s prose novels — including Tessalynde the rogue, Cazrin the wizard, Baldric the cleric and Lark the bard. It’s by the team of Greg Pak the writer, Wilton Santos the artist, Edvan Alves the inker, Raul Angulo the colorist and Nate Piekos the letterer.

“When I read the Jaleigh Johnson prose novel where the Fallbacks first appeared, my primary takeaway, which is also my highest praise, was that it felt like an actual D&D campaign I might play with my funniest, most subversive, and biggest-hearted friends,” Pak said. “We’re bringing that vibe to full-color glory on the comics page with incredible interior art by Wilton Santos, Edvan Alves, and Raul Angulo, sharp letters by Nate Piekos, and glorious covers by a slew of artists including Marguerite Sauvage. Can’t wait for y’all to join the campaign!”

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The Laphams return with ‘Good as Dead’ this fall

David and Maria Lapham reveal ‘how far a small town will go to keep its secrets’ in a new crime comic coming from Skybound this September.

Legendary Stray Bullets creator David Lapham has a new series, Good as Dead, launching at Skybound this fall with co-writer Maria Lapham and colorist Dee Cunniffe. The story was co-created by Chris Black, creator and showrunner of the Apple+ show Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, and Skybound CEO David Alpert.

“I can’t tell you how excited Maria and I are about this book coming out,” said David Lapham. “Chris Black and David Alpert provided us with their initial concept and outline and generously gave us the room and edict to ‘do our thing.’ And we went for it. It’s both completely what you’d expect from us based on our Stray Bullets work and at the same time, it’s unlike anything we’ve ever done before, combining elements of the surreal, science fiction, conspiracy, horror and, of course, classic noir.”   

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Exclusive | Check out Lane Lloyd’s variant cover for ‘Toxic Crusaders’ #2

The five-issue miniseries will feature the Toxic Avenger and other characters from the 1990s animated series.

Courtesy of the fine folks at Ahoy Comics, we are pleased to debut Lane Lloyd’s variant cover for The Toxic Crusaders #2, which will arrive in stores in October.

The five-issue miniseries will debut in September and is written by Matt Bors, former editor of The Nib and current writer of The Toxic Avenger Comics. He’s joined by artist Tristan Wright on the series, which will feature the Toxic Avenger teaming up with several other mutants who appeared in the Toxic Crusaders animated series back in the 1990s, including No-Zone, Junkyard, Major Disaster and the all-new character Fungirl.

Lloyd has drawn many comics and covers for Oni Press, Ahoy, Image Comics, Legendary and more, and I’ll point you to Someone’s Died at Adventure Mountain, his current project that’s up on Kickstarter.

“In the aftermath of the chemical spill that created Toxie, other mutants arose — and they have united to wage war against an alien conspiracy,” Bors said. “We are taking everything from the original Toxic Crusaders cartoon —gross mutations, evil aliens, and over-the-top ecological action — to bring readers a must-read mutant monthly.”

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Tom Taylor + Daniele Di Nicuolo explore Arthurian legends in a new series at DC

‘C.O.R.T.: Children of the Round Table’ will kick off in September.

Now this is interesting — DC has announced a new series by Tom Taylor and Daniele Di Nicuolo, and it doesn’t involve Batman, Superman or any of their existing characters. C.O.R.T.: Children of the Round Table draws from the legend of King Arthur, and Taylor called it “the first original IP in periodical form at DC Comics.”

I’m guessing he meant that it was his first original IP at DC, because DC has published things like Cinder and Ashe, Watchmen and Camelot 3000 in the past, which were also original stories set outside the regular DC Universe. But it’s not something we see on the regular these days.

The new series will introduce “an elite force known as the Camelot Corps,” which has “protected ancient secrets, waiting for the day when these myths are needed by the world. That day is today.” Colorist Rain Beredo and letterer Wes Abbott round out the creative team.

“Like King Arthur asleep in a mountain, waiting for the day he will wake, CORT has been in my mind, and in my drafts folder, for a long time,” said Taylor. “These brave young heroes will finally rise, and I couldn’t imagine anything more perfect than to partner with Daniele Di Nicuolo and DC Comics to bring them to the world. DC has some of the greatest heroic teams on the planet, like the Justice League and the Titans. Now a new team of champions is coming to take on a tyrant: the Children of the Round Table.”

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‘Blue Falcon and Dynomutt’ will make waves at Dynamite this fall

The animated duo from the 1970s will find new life in a series by Jimmy Palmiotti and Pasquale Qualano.

I was just lamenting over the fact that Dynamite seemed to be stuck in distribution hell as the largest comic company that hadn’t announced their post-Diamond plans. But today brought news that they have indeed signed up with Lunar Distribution, which is good to hear — that means their upcoming Blue Falcon & Dynomutt comic will make it to comic shops.

This dynamic duo first appeared on television screens in the 1970s alongside another Hanna-Barbera canine, Scooby Doo. The two animated programs often crossed over as part of the The Scooby-Doo/Dynomutt Hour, as the Batman-esque superhero and his robot dog fought criminals like Mr. Hyde, The Gimmick and the talking worm known as The Worm. Only 20 episodes of their show wwere produced, but they did make many cameos and appearances in Scooby Doo, on Laff-A-Lympics and many other cartoons, as well as the more recent film Scoob!

The creative team for the comic series include writer Jimmy Palmiotti and artist Pasquale Qualano, while Lucio Parrillo provides the cover for the first issue:

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