Author: JK Parkin

Roger Langridge discusses projects both past and future

Fans of his ‘Thor: The Mighty Avenger’ book will like this post.

Roger Langridge of Popeye, Criminy, Fred the Clown, Muppets and Snarked fame shared a “looking forward, looking back” post on his blog earlier this month, which includes details on his 2019 projects.

In addition to more Fred the Clown and a Popeye Sunday strip celebrating the character’s 90th anniversary, Langridge shared a reference to one of his former projects: his awesome, prematurely canceled Thor: The Mighty Avenger series with artist Chris Samnee. No, the 2010 series isn’t coming back, but maybe this is the next best thing:

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‘Sex’ returns as series of graphic novels

Joe Casey and Piotr Kowalski’s salacious superhero story returns in April.

Two years may seem like a long time to wait for Sex, but no doubt creators Joe Casey and Piotr Kowalski will make it worth the wait.

Image Comics announced today that the popular, provocative superhero series Sex will return in April in a graphic novel format. Originally Sex, which launched in 2013, was released as a monthly comic, but Casey announced in the series’ final issue two years ago plans to migrate away from the “grind of the monthly issue” and instead only release collected editions.

“It’s been a long time coming, but Kowalski and I are primed and pumped to return to the sordid world of Sex,” Casey said in a press release. “This volume definitely takes things to another level of salaciousness. And we’re just getting started taking this new format out for a spin.”

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‘The Highwayman’ hits the road in May

Koren Shadmi’s latest rolls into town this spring from Top Shelf.

Top Shelf will publish The Highwayman, a new graphic novel by Love Addict and The Abaddon creator Koren Shadmi, this May.

The science fiction tale features a loner, The Highwayman, who “travels through the vastness of North America searching for the source of his condition” — immortality. “Bound to the road and at the mercy of whomever will give him a ride, he encounters people who reflect the rapidly changing world around him,” the publisher said in a statement. “Moving through centuries of change, he watches humanity’s precarious trajectory towards an unknown future.”

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‘Section Zero’ returns at Image Comics

Karl Kesel and Tom Grummett’s Gorilla Comics title will finally conclude in comic book form.

It’s been 20 years, but Image Comics is declassifying the adventures of Tom Grummett and Karl Kesel’s Section Zero. One of the original Gorilla Comics titles will return to comic book form thanks to Image Comics.

“Ever since 2000, Tom and I have constantly tried to bring Section Zero back,” Kesel said in a press release. “Almost two decades later, we finally found a way to finish what we’d begun. The cherry on top is seeing the book return to where it all started—Image Comics.”

The series will be published by Image/Shadowline Comics this April. Here’s Grummett’s cover for the first issue:

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Comics Lowdown: Batton Lash, Ron Smith pass away

Plus: News on Grant Morrison, Tintin, Stan Lee and more.

Batton Lash, the creator of the long-running comic-strip-turned-comic-book Wolff and Byrd, Counselors of the Macabre (later re-titled Supernatural Law) passed away Jan. 12 at the age of 65 from brain cancer.

Lash’s comics career began in the late 1970s when Wolff and Byrd began running as a weekly comic strip in The Brooklyn Paper and then later in The National Law Journal. In the 1990s, he and his wife, Jackie Estrada, formed Exhibit A Press, which began publishing Wolff and Byrd comics under the title Supernatural Law. It later migrated to the web. His other works included writing the Archie Meets The Punisher crossover as well as Bongo Comics’ Radioactive Man book, which received an Eisner Award in 2002. He also collaborated with James Hudnall on Obama Nation, a conservative political comic strip that appeared on one of Andrew Breitbart’s websites.

Many of the creators and industry professionals who knew Lash have started to share their remembrances, including Heidi MacDonald and Rob Salkowitz. The Comics Reporter has a round-up of more of them.

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DC Comics titles now available via comiXology Unlimited

DC Comics joins up with comiXology and Amazon to offer select titles on their ‘all you can eat’ subscription plans.

ComiXology Unlimited just got a nice bump in content, as the digital comics company announced today via press release that select DC Comics will now be available via their “all you can eat” subscription model. They’ll also be available via Amazon’s Kindle Prime and Prime Reading services.

“We are thrilled to now include an incredible selection of DC’s vast library of Super Heroes and DC Vertigo titles as part of comiXology Unlimited, Kindle Unlimited, and Prime Reading, bringing an even bigger benefit to all our subscription members” said comiXology CEO and Co-Founder David Steinberger in the release. “With the addition of DC and DC Vertigo titles we’re providing more convenience and a great opportunity for readers to discover and explore some of the best stories comics have to offer at no additional cost to their current Prime, Kindle Unlimited or comiXology Unlimited subscription.”

comiXology Unlimited launched in 2016 and offers unlimited reading of about 20,000 comic titles for $5.99 per month. It offers titles from Marvel, Image Comics, IDW Publishing, Dark Horse and many others, but DC Comics has been a holdout until now. DC’s own DC Universe service, which launched last year, also includes a buffet of comics in addition to streaming TV shows and movies.

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Comics Lowdown: Tom King’s CIA service

Plus: ‘The Arrival’ selected for Hong Kong’s first ‘One City, One Book’ campaign, the obituary Marie Severin should have received, Kelly Sue DeConnick, Phoebe Gloeckner, Diamond Gem awards and more best-of-2018 lists!

Happy New Year from the Smash Pages staff! Coming back from the holiday break, let’s ring out the old and ring in the new with today’s collection of comic book news links.

Let’s start with a weird one: Last week Abhay Khosla, comics critic and past Superman writer, posted about his attempts to confirm with the CIA that Batman and Heroes in Crisis writer Tom King used to work for them. The topic of King’s former employer frequently comes up in interviews related to his Batman work (not to mention King’s Vertigo series The Sheriff of Babylon), and Khosla questioned whether any reporters who interviewed King about it had ever confirmed it. So Khosla sent the CIA a letter back in 2016 asking for confirmation, and the response he received from the agency was inconclusive.

This exchange occurred in 2016, and why Khosla decided to go public with it now isn’t clear. The point of Khosla’s post doesn’t seem to be to call out King as a liar (he starts his post by saying, “I don’t think this is really a story about Tom King”) but is more of a statement about entertainment journalism and fact-checking. He points out similar situations where a past DC writer, Micah Wright, lied about being in the armed services, as well as current Marvel editor-in-chief C.B. Cebulski pretending to be Japanese early in his career.

The problem isn’t in asking the question — it’s posting about it without an answer or actually asking King about it. Like verifying facts, that’s also journalism 101. After the post went live, King was quick to respond on Twitter, showing proof that he was, indeed, in the CIA. Bleeding Cool, The Comics Reporter and Nick Hanover have more commentary on this.

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Comic creators share their #spidersona

Joe Quinones, Tony Moore, Dave Johnson and more share their interpretations of the popular meme that spun out of ‘Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse.’

Since Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse hit theaters last month, fans of the film have been sharing their #spidersona on social media. These creations often imagine the artist as a Spider-character.

Many pros have gotten in on the fun as well; here’s a collection of a few we’ve noticed. You can check out more — many, many more! — on Twitter and Instagram.

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Black Crown uncovers ‘Eve Stranger’ from Barnett + Bond

New series from the IDW imprint features an amnesiac-for-hire.

IDW’s Black Crown imprint heads undercover for their latest limited series — Eve Stranger, the story of “a formidable young woman with unnatural abilities and a repeatedly wiped memory, available to the highest bidder under the threat of exploding nanobombs in her bloodstream.” Kind of like AEon Flux meets the Suicide Squad.

“Imagine if you were the best in the world at pretty much everything. Super-spy. Assassin. International rescue. The jobs nobody else can — or is willing to — take on. Now imagine if you couldn’t even remember that you saved the world last week, and that you have to do it all again today… or you’ll die. Welcome to the world of Eve Stranger,” said co-creator and writer David Barnett.

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Sarah Gaydos named editor-in-chief for Oni Press

After joining Oni last April as editorial director of licensed publishing, Gaydos will now oversee Oni’s entire line.

Oni Press has named Sarah Gaydos as its new editor-in-chief, a role that’s been vacant at the publisher since James Lucas Jones was named publisher a year ago.

Gaydos joined Oni Press last April as editorial director of licensed publishing, taking on titles like Rick and Morty. Before that, she worked at IDW and for DC’s Wildstorm imprint.

“In less than a year, Sarah has had a profound effect on Oni Press,” Jones said in a press release. “Her taste is impeccable and broad. Her network of colleagues both love and respect her. Her dedication to comics and the people who create them is virtually unmatched. There is no other person better suited to lead our editorial team and oversee the creation of amazing new comics for all types of readers.”

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Smash Pages’ favorite comics of 2018

See what the Smash Pages’ staff enjoyed reading this past year.

With 2018 winding down, Smash Pages’ contributors take a look back at some of their favorite comics of the year, from Hey Kiddo and Spectacular Spider-Man #310 to Wet Moon and The Secret Voice.

Brigid Alverson

Silver Spoon, by Hiromu Arakawa (Yen Press)
Arakawa is best known as the creator of Fullmetal Alchemist, but you couldn’t get any farther from that series than Silver Spoon, a comedy about a city boy who goes to agricultural school in rural Hokkaido. Yuugo Hachiken worked hard and did everything he was told, but he still didn’t get into an elite high school, so he takes what he thinks is the easy way out by going to a school that’s not academically focused—or so he thinks. In fact, the students at Ooezo Agricultural High School are very knowledgeable in their fields, but those fields are things like genetics and animal husbandry. The rubber really hits the road in the practical lessons, though, and Hachiken quickly realizes he is out of his depth when it comes to herding chickens, riding a horse, or fetching a stray calf. There’s a lot of city mouse-country mouse comedy in this series, but it’s also a fascinating look at where our food comes from (at least in Japan), and the different agricultural models espoused by different farmers. In fact, like Hachiken’s classmates, this book is very smart and sophisticated in addition to being endlessly entertaining.

Meal, by Blue Delliquanti and Soleil Ho (Iron Circus)
The idea of eating bugs may elicit an “Eeeww” from most people, but Delliquanti and Ho go beyond the ick factor in this romance about an insect cuisine enthusiast and a chef who wants to start a new restaurant based on the dishes of her youth—dishes that include ants, grasshoppers, and tarantulas. There’s a love story woven in there as well. Yarrow has just moved to a new city in hopes of getting a job in the kitchen of Chandra Flores, insect chef extraordinaire, who is about to launch a new restaurant. Milani, her neighbor, is friendly and helpful but the two have a little trouble making it click. At the same time, Chandra suspects that Yarrow is only into insect cuisine because it’s sensational, while to her, it’s part of her heritage. There’s a lot in this slim volume: Love, food, bugs, and bugs that are food, and the creators even include a couple of recipes at the end of the book.

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Comics Lowdown: Eric M. Esquivel fired from ‘Nightwing,’ ‘Border Town’ cancelled

Plus: Free Comics Book Day, George Freeman, Marie Javins and more!

Although it wasn’t yet announced, DC Comics has said Eric M. Esquivel will no longer co-write Nightwing. The news that Esquivel was writing the book was to be revealed today in DC’s January solicitations.

The news follows the cancellation of Border Town, a well-reviewed series Esquivel wrote with artists Ramon Villalobos and Tamra Bonvillain. Both Villalobos and Bonvillain announced on social media they had quit the title after allegations of sexual abuse against Esquivel became public. In a piece titled “X, my experience with my abuser,” toy designer Cynthia Naugle detailed a history of abuse by a co-worker at a comic shop, who has since been identified as Esquivel.

Neither DC Comics nor Vertigo have commented directly on the abuse allegations. Esquivel, who had changed his Twitter account to private following the allegations, has now made it public again and posted several tweets in response. At Book Riot, writer S.W. Sondheimer says she will no longer cover Vertigo titles as a result of their silence on the matter.

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