Slugfest is a roundup of cool announcements about projects coming to a shelf near you. Hit the links for more information.
The annual San Diego Comic-Con will kick off later this week, and publishers have been releasing announcements in the lead-up to the event. We’re also in the middle of monthly solicitation time, where publishers are revealing what’s coming out in October. In an effort to keep up with all the madness, here’s a round up of recent announcements as we prepare for the big show.
Let’s start with a Marvel teaser for something coming late in 2025, Ultimate Endgame. Readers of Marvel’s Ultimate titles know that the clock is ticking on the return of the Maker, a.k.a. the Reed Richards from the original Ultimate Universe, and Marvel teases his return with a nod to the Marvel Cinematic Universe:
While we’re only getting a teaser for now, Marvel says they’ll reveal more in San Diego during the Marvel Comics: Ultimate Universe panel this coming Saturday with Jonathan Hickman, Deniz Camp and more.
Horror isn’t just for Halloween these days, and with that in mind, Ahoy Comics has announced via BoingBoing and their excellent newsletter a new one-shot titled Thanksgiving. This “black comedy using the most American of holidays as a metaphor for what our nation is in danger of becoming” is by Second Coming writer Mark Russell and Howl artist Mauricet. It promises to be gory and bloody, and will arrive in stores Oct. 22.
Speaking of horror and holidays, BOOM! Studios keeps things traditional with another edition of Hello Halloween, a Halloween-themed issue of their Hello Darkness anthology. This year’s edition will include stories by R.L. Stine, Carola Borelli, Robert Hack, Megan Hutchison, Shawn Patrick Boyd, Elijah Henry and more. It also comes out Oct. 22 and will have multiple covers, including the two shown above by Drew Rausch and Jeremy Bastian.
Cult of the Lamb, the cozy cult game sensation, proved to be a big hit for Oni Press when they adapted it into comics. This October writer Alex Paknadel and artist Troy Little return to twisted world of the video game with Cult of the Lamb: Schism Special. Peach Momoko did the main cover, while Little provides a variant, both shown above.
Dynamite Entertainment has announced the return of Die!namite, their zombie crossover miniseries that has brought together Red Sonja, Peter Cannon, Evil Dead, Vampirella and other characters for zombie-filled mayhem. Fred Van Lente returns to write the miniseries, joined by artist Marco Finnegan. The zombie virus this time is targeting males, leaving Vampirella, Purgatori, Miss Fury and more to fight them off.
“So excited to bring this brand-new take on the Dynamite — and DIE!NAMITE — mythos to the stands,” said writer Fred Van Lente. “It hit me that it’d be interesting to mix the pulp, sci-fi elements of these characters in with the zombie virus, and since there are so many strong female protagonists, it’d be a fun twist on the typical zombie story if the disease was gender-based. Women can’t become zombies, but they can become lunch, so it’s up to Vampirella, Dejah Thoris and friends to save mankind — literally!”
The first issue of Die!namite: Blood Red arrives in October with covers by EJ Su, David Cousens, Will Robson and Godtail.
Dynamite will also release another ThunderCats special. ThunderCats Lost writer Ed Brisson is joined by artist Alice Leclert on Pumyra, which features the leader of the characters who have been appearing in Lost.
“Charting Pumyra’s path from healer to leader in ThunderCats: Lost has been an absolute joy,” said writer Ed Brisson. “Having the chance to delve into her past — something that hasn’t been done in her 40-year history — to show readers just how resilient this character is, is something I’m very excited about. This is one of the most personal stories I’ve written for ThunderCats.”
Clayton Henry, Sebastian Piriz, Robert Quinn and Will Robson provide the covers for the special, which lands in October.
Appropriately, Matthew Dow Smith’s The October Girl will arrive from Mad Cave Studios in October. Smith started the project years ago as one of Monkeybrain’s digital releases, and it’s about a young woman whose ordinary life working at a coffee shop is thrown into chaos when her childhood imaginary friend, Barnaby, shows up in the alley behind her place of employment.
“The October Girl is a very special project for me. It’s a story I’ve wanted to tell for more than 30 years, and now, thanks to Mad Cave/Maverick, I finally can,” Dow Smith said. “I’ve spent the last 30 years drawing people in tights fighting each other, and as much fun as that can be, my head was full of people in long coats and skeleton trees and strange little creatures. There just wasn’t a place for the kinds of stories I wanted to tell. But now, with a growing audience for comics outside of tights and capes, I could finally let all these things out of my head.”
It comes out Oct. 21.
Mad Cave Studios will bring Lee Loughridge and Mack Chater’s Midstate to print in December. Released digitally by Comixology Originals last year, the “slow-burn supernatural noir” is about a former small town psychic who teams with a local cop after his dreams of people disappearing start to come true.