Author: JK Parkin

Lemire offers updates on ‘Inferior Five,’ ‘Family Tree’

Both series will debut this fall.

In his email newsletter, comics creator Jeff Lemire gave updates on two previously announced comic book projects this week.

“My long gestating project with the great PHIL HESTER, called FAMILY TREE, will finally launch in November from Image Comics,” Lemire said. “Phil is working on issue 3 as I write this and I’ve written seven scripts so far. Eric Gapstur will be joining us as the inker, and Ryan Cody will be coloring. Will Dennis is editing.”

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Pop goes the Deadpool in this SDCC exclusive

The Merc with a Mouth has a surprise for you in this fun toy, which will be released at Comic-Con this July.

Deadpool has been featured in some pretty fun Comic Con International exclusives in the past, like the Deadpool as Sheriff Woody LEGO figure and of course the Funko Pop! Chimichanga truck, but this might be my favorite.

At this year’s big CCI in San Diego, Entertainment Earth will sell a Deadpool Jack-in-the-Box:

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Hero and his sidekick clash in ‘Banjax’ #1 [Preview]

Rylend Grant and Fábio Alves team up on a new title from Action Lab Entertainment.

“Banjax” is my new favorite word. It’s a verb that, according to Merriam-Webster, means to “damage” or “ruin.” When it’s a noun, it means “A mess or undesirable situation made as a result of incompetence.” Finally, it’s also the title of a new comic from Action Lab Entertainment.

Aberrant writer Rylend Grant has teamed with artist Fábio Alves, colorist Edson Ferreira and letterer HdE for Banjax, “a dark and decidedly wicked superhero noir that pulls no punches, that suffers no fools, that repeatedly gets knocked down, but always gets back up again with a smile,” according to the press release.

Here’s the book’s description:

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Powell + Jensen team for ‘Two Dead’ this fall

New graphic novel from Gallery 13 explores crime and racism in the Deep South after World War II.

Van Jensen and Nate Powell will team up on a new graphic novel this fall for Simon & Shuster’s Gallery 13 imprint. Two Dead, according to Paste, is about “crime, conspiracy, racism and insanity in the post-World War II Deep South.”

“Van and I started collaborating on Two Dead before I began drawing the March trilogy, believe it or not, shifting focus over the years and evolving past its genre parameters,” Powell told Paste. “Finding the right approach for this story was in part thanks to those years re-imagining its format, scope, historical relationships, and how it speaks to the world of 2019. Along the way, each book I drew concurrently with Two Dead helped pave the way for its final form—Come Again allowed me to embrace the power of genre, just as March better equipped me to finding the personal focus within a larger historical context. I’m always eager to bring my home state to life through comics, and each book doubles as a love letter to Arkansas in all its contradictory beauty.”

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Sevy’s ‘biggest, boldest, craziest story’ ‘Triage’ coming in September

New series from Dark Horse features a nurse fighting for survival on a strange world.

Phillip Sevy of Tomb Raider and The House fame is set to debut his first creator-owned series from Dark Horse, Triage, later this year. The series features a nurse who wakes up on another world and has to work with two strangers to survive being hunted.

“For my first creator-owned book, I wanted to try and the deliver the biggest, boldest, and craziest story I could through the lens of one singular vision,” said Sevy in the press release. “In Triage, I wanted to go as big and as personal as possible. From writing to penciling to inking to coloring (with amazing letters by Frank Cvetkovic), I’ve been killing myself to deliver a story that is exciting, fun, audacious, and human. Evie has become one of my favorite characters I’ve got to work with. At its core, Triage is about discovering your identity amidst the chaos and enormities of the world around you.”

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Comics Lowdown: Stan Lee’s former manager’s legal troubles grow

Plus: Stolen comics, cease and desist letters, Ted Talks, Jesus and more.

Legal woes for Stan Lee’s former caretaker and manager, Keya Morgan, continue to grow. He has been arrested and appeared in court in Arizona to face the charge of being a fugitive of justice. And he is also being sued by Joan Celia Lee, Stan Lee’s daughter.

In May, Morgan was charged with felony counts of false imprisonment of an elder adult, theft, embezzlement, and forgery or fraud against an elder adult, according to the Los Angeles Superior Court. The LAPD has revealed some of the details on why they brought charges against him.

“Morgan removed Lee from his Hollywood Hills residence to a secured Beverly Hills condominium during the late night hours of June 8, 2018,” the Los Angeles Police Department said in a statement. “Morgan was using this tactic to further deceive Lee into believing he was in danger and needed to be moved from his home to a more secured condominium where Morgan had more control over Lee.”

The LAPD will eventually extradite Morgan to L.A. to face the charges.

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2019 Russ Manning Award nominees announced

Annual award for the ‘Most Promising Newcomer’ comic artist will be presented during the Eisner Awards in July at Comic-Con International.

The nominees have been announced for the 2019 Russ Manning Most Promising Newcomer Award, named for the creator of Magnus, Robot Fighter and illustrator of the Tarzan and Star Wars comic strips.

Presented annually since 1982, the award recognizes an artist who, early in his or her career, “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 and Anne Szabla.

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Role play as a role player in the ‘Die’ RPG

Kieron Gillen and Stephanie Hans’ comic about role-playing games naturally gets its own RPG.

If you’ve been Die-ing (sorry) to play the role-playing game at the center of Kieron Gillen and the amazing Stephanie Hans‘ Die comic book, you are now in luck — a beta version of the Die RPG is now available on the Die website.

The materials include a manual, character sheets and additional gamemaster materials, with something called the “Arcana” — “weird stuff and supplementary material” — coming with the next arc of the comic.

“It’s a somewhat meta RPG which is designed to let a group of players make their own version of the first arc of Die,” Gillen said in his email newsletter. “It’s about Die the situation rather than the specifics of Die. As in, you generate a group of real world people, who then sit down to play a role-playing game, before getting dragged into a fantasy world. Yes, it’s a little Meta. One of the playtesters described it as a manual of how to make your own Kieron Gillen-esque story, which I quite like. There’s a lot of me trying to explain how stories work, and how DIE works specifically. That means I suspect some of it will be interesting to folks who have no interest in RPGs at all. There are also at least three funny jokes.”

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Waid, Osajyefo + Briones ignite the H1 universe [Preview]

Check out a preview of ‘Ignited #1,’ which debuts June 5.

It’s a ballsy thing to do, kicking off your new superhero universe with a first issue that barely features any costumed superheroes. That’s one of the things I admired about Ignited #1.

Last October French comics publisher Humanoids, which has brought comics like Metabarons, Technopriests and The Incal, among many others, to America over the past 20 years announced their intention to launch a shared universe that would kick off with three monthly titles — Ignited being the flagship. They announced an impressive amount of talent behind this new universe, including Waid and Osajyefo, as well as John Cassaday, Yanick Paquette and Carla Speed McNeil.

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Tommi Parrish, Blue Delliquanti + Kazimir Lee win Lambda Literary Awards

‘The Lie and How We Told It,’ ‘Miles & Honesty in SCFSX!’ were both recognized in New York last night.

The 31st annual Lambda Literary Awards, which honor LGBTQ writing across 24 categories, were presented last night in New York City.

The Lie and How We Told It by Tommi Parrish took home the award in the LGBTQ Graphic Novel category. Published by Fantagraphics, the graphic novel is about two formerly close friends trying “to salvage whatever is left of their decaying relationship.”

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Celebrate International (Interstellar?) Dinosaur Month with ‘Alien Bones’

Chris “Doc” Wyatt and Chris Grine team up for a new graphic novel from 1First Comics.

Did other planets have dinosaurs? Chris “Doc” Wyatt and Chris Grine will explore that question in October in Alien Bones, a new graphic novel coming from 1First Comics.

Coinciding with International Dinosaur Month, Alien Bones features a boy and his paleontologist father exploring the galaxy and looking for the fossils of extinct alien dinosaurs. But when his dad disappears inside the ruins of an alien city, 10-year-old Liam teams up with his pet dinosaur and a robot to save him.

“The idea of Alien Bones came from wanting to thrill my son with an adventure out in the universe,” Wyatt said. “I can admit that astronomy can sometimes seem dry and boring in the classroom, so I wanted to find a way to encourage my kid to think about the cosmos as an exciting place to explore and discover. He was interested, at the time, in dinosaurs—a lot of kids go through a dinosaur phase, and my son was no different. So, I thought: ‘What about kids having adventures with dinosaurs in space?'”

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‘The Pride’ returns this week from comiXology Originals

Second season of the LGBTQ+ super hero series debuts June 5.

“There’s still so much left to say with The Pride too, so don’t worry. The Pride is far from over,” Writer Joe Glass told Alex Dueben last year. And just in time for Pride Month, we now know the details on when they’ll return.

The LGBTQ+ super hero series makes its triumphant return from comiXology this Wednesday as part of their Originals line. The Pride Season Two is a new six-issue series written by Glass and illustrated by Cem Iroz, with colors by Mark Dale and letters by Mike Stock.

“I began The Pride because I want to tell stories where queer characters and stories are not only told through metaphor, analogy and subtext, but are open, accessible and show a diversity of life not usually seen in the medium,” Glass said in a press release.

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