Author: JK Parkin

Jason Loo + Sergio Dávila’s ‘Werewolf by Night’ spins out of ‘Blood Hunt’

The ‘Red Band’ title will be aimed at mature audiences.

Jack Russell will play his part in this summer’s Blood Hunt event, but that’s only the beginning for the character.

Werewolf by Night: Blood Hunt writer Jason Lee will team with Sergio Dávila on a new Werewolf by Night ongoing series, which Marvel says will be in the same “Red Band” format they’re using for the more mature version of Blood Hunt — aka the one with the blood’n’guts that’ll come bagged with a warning. Each issue will be “labeled with a Parental Advisory and polybagged to keep those weak of heart from experiencing its intensity,” so, y’know, Little Timmy, stay away. This IS your daddy’s comic.

“Our team is delivering a very metal, monster comic and we’re not holding back,” Loo said. “I’m both shocked and impressed at myself for conjuring up these gruesome scenes from the dark recesses of my mind, then seeing them come to life with every gory detail thanks to penciler Sergio Dávila and inker JP Mayer, as our editors keep giving us the thumbs up of approval. This is literally our smash room in a Red Band comic.”

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James Tynion IV, Álvaro Martínez Bueno, Jordie Bellaire reunite for ‘The Nice House by the Sea’

The award-winning team behind ‘The Nice House on the Lake’ return for more end-of-the-world shenanigans.

The award-winning team behind The Nice House on the Lake returns in July with another house, another cast and more end-of-the-world drama in The Nice House by the Sea.

James Tynion IV, Álvaro Martínez Bueno, Jordie Bellaire and Andworld Design reunite for the story of Max, a woman who invites several “titans of industry” to her house by the ocean as the human race is being eradicated.

“The people in this house do not like each other,” Tynion said. “They don’t want to spend time with each other. There have been some weak bonds that have formed over time, but none of them are particularly affectionate toward each other. This is a house of strangers and tension much more than a house of friendship, and we’re going to see the way that guilt, boredom and loneliness has twisted each of them.”

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Quick Hits | Rest in peace, Jeffrey Veregge

Plus: news on Robert Beerbohm, layoffs at Marvel, Source Point Press, Scott Dunbier, Joshua Cotter, Earth-2 Comics and more.

Jeffrey Veregge, the award-winning Native American artist and writer whose work appeared in Marvel’s Voices: Indigenous Voices, on comics covers and at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian, has passed away at the age of 50. Zack Davisson shared the news on social media late last week, while Jeffrey’s wife Christina confirmed it and said he died of a heart attack after a long battle with lupus.

“For 1025 days he fought lupus like the superhero we knew him to be,” her post reads. “The strength, faith, determination and courage he showed while being in the hospital for a total of 925 days was an inspiration to us all. He fought so hard for his family and his 3 children who were his absolute pride and joy. He will be missed more than words can express. This world was a better place because of him.”

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Can’t Wait for Wednesday | The Roxxon Age of Comics begins

Check out new comics and graphic novels arriving this week by Al Ewing, Greg Land, Tom Taylor, Zac Thompson, Nicola Izzo, Joshua Williamson, Rafa Sandoval, Scott Snyder, Jamal Igle, Stefano Cardoselli, Tini Howard, Freddt Carrasco, Box Brown, Peter and Maria Hoey, and more.

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

This week a new publisher, Roxxon, joins the comics fray and introduces their own version of Thor, which I’m sure will have us all saying “This is fine.” Meanwhile, Nightwing hits a big milestone, Dudley Datson comes to print, Marvel’s Micronauts gets collected and BOOM! promises to Blow (us) Away.

I’ve pulled out some of the highlights 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 always check with your comics retailer for the final word on availability.

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Slugfest | X-Men, Terminator, ‘Galaxy of Madness’ + more

Today’s round-up includes news and announcements on ‘Life of Wolverine,’ Gatchaman, the Energon Universe, ‘Cyberpunk 2077’ and more.

Slugfest is a roundup of cool announcements about projects coming to a shelf near you that we haven’t otherwise covered. Hit the links for more information.

Marvel has revealed the cover and more details on the highly anticipated new X-Men title by Jed MacKay and Ryan Stegman, which is part of the bigger X-Men: From the Ashes line that follows the end of the current Krakoa era.

The new title will feature Cyclops leading a team that handle “explosive mutant-specific issues without restrain,” with the first threat being “an existential new enemy that rises out of the remains of Orchis.”

Both MacKay and Stegman are happy to be here.

“Taking on the X-Men is always a daunting prospect, but I’m extremely psyched to take this team of mutants back into the world with Ryan,” MacKay said. 

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Past TMNT creators return to celebrate 40 years of Turtles

The oversized one-shot ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: 40th Anniversary Comics Celebration’ will arrive in July.

IDW has revealed more details on another project that ties into the 40th anniversary of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles — the aptly titled Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: 40th Anniversary Comics Celebration.

The 70-page special will include contributions from creators who have worked on the Turtles across their 40-year history, including Jim Lawson, Sophie Campbell, Freddie E. Williams II and more. Co-creators Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird drew the main cover, while Eastman will also have a story in the one-shot.

“Having a childhood dream – in my case, to write and draw comics for a living – is one thing. To then actually spending every minute of the next 40 years doing it is a whole other matter altogether – humbling is the first word that comes to mind,” Eastman said. “My co-creation of TMNT with the amazing Peter Laird has been the driving force of living that dream, and working with a number of really talented writers and artists along the way has made, and still makes, the journey the greatest shared experience I never imaged and could not be more grateful for.”

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Sunday Comics | Let’s ‘Runaway to the Stars’

Check out webcomics by Jay Eaton, Joe Poland, Nicholas Gurewitch, Campbell Whyte and more.

Here’s a round up of some of the best and most interesting comics we’ve seen online recently. If we missed something, let us know in the comments below.

Jay Eaton has been working on Runaway to the Stars for quite awhile now, posting pages on Patreon and Tumblr, but now they’ve gone and gotten a shiny new comics website.

“Runaway to the Stars is a worldbuilding project that I’ve been working on for over a decade,” Eaton said. “It started as an excuse to design some aliens and throw all my science fiction thoughts in the same vat, and eventually a book started to grow out of it like a fungus. If this comic intrigues you, there’s tons of additional artwork, writing and short comics that can be found on my perpetual work-in-progress Neocities website and my ancient tumblr blog. There is quite a rabbit hole to go down, if you don’t mind some bespoke coding jank.”

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Old Man Donald: Marvel + Disney announce ‘What if…? Donald Duck Became Wolverine’

Writer Luca Barbieri and artist Giada Perissinotto reimagine Duckburg as a superhero wasteland.

At first I thought these were just variant covers or maybe an April Fool’s Day joke that someone forgot to post, but no, this is a real comic — Disney and Marvel will release Marvel & Disney: What if…? Donald Duck Became Wolverine #1 this summer.

And I think that the greatest part of this announcement isn’t that it’s a Donald Duck/Wolverine mash-up — it’s that it’s a Donald Duck/Old Man Logan mash-up, featuring characters like Mickey-Hawkeye, Goofy-Hulk and Pete-Skull, who turns Duckburg into a wasteland. It’s by two acclaimed Italian comics creators — writer Luca Barbieri and artist Giada Perissinotto

“Donald Duck and Wolverine are two characters that seem almost impossible to make coexist, but in fact they possess very similar personality: they are both hot-tempered and unlucky, but in adversity they do not lose heart and always show that they have a big heart,” Barbieri said. “Once this point was focused, writing the story turned out to be easy and fun!”

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Ms. Marvel, Laura Kinney + more star in the revived ‘NYX’

Marvel resurrects an early 2000s title by the creative team of Collin Kelly, Jackson Lanzing and Francesco Mortarino.

Marvel is reviving an old title for a new run as part of the X-Men: From the Ashes publishing initiative.

NYX by writers Collin Kelly and Jackson Lanzing and artist Francesco Mortarino will debut this summer alongside X-Force, Phoenix and the three X-Men titles that follow the end of the Krakoa era. NYX will focus on five young mutants — Kamala Khan, Laura Kinney, Anole, Prodigy and Sophie Cuckoo — as they navigate living as young mutants on the Lower East Side of New York City.

“This is the kind of book we came to Marvel to create,” Kelly shared. “When the Hivemind first formed, Collin and I bonded over books like Runaways, Young Avengers and the original NYX—stories that showcased that tense, wonderful place where the mundane world and marvels collided. And no book has embodied that more in recent years than Ms. Marvel—Kamala Khan is one of the most definitive protagonists in the Marvel canon and we’re deeply honored to be inheriting the character from Iman [Vellani] and Sabir [Pirzada], while chronicling a whole new phase in her growth as a young adult.”

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Nominees announced for the 20th annual Doug Wright Awards

Deni Loubert and Maurice Vellekoop will be inducted into the Giants of the North: The Canadian Cartooning Hall of Fame.

The nominees have been announced for the 20th annual Doug Wright Awards, which honor “the best work and most promising talent in Canadian comics.”

First Second, Conundrum Press, and Drawn & Quarterly all received multiple nominations for books they published

In addition to this year’s nominees, the Doug Wright committee also announced this year’s inductees for the Giants of the North: The Canadian Cartooning Hall of Fame: Deni Loubert, founder of Renegade Press and co-founder of Aardvark-Vanaheim, and Maurice Vellekoop, the cartoonist and fashion designer whose comics and illustrations have appeared in Time, GQ, Cosmopolitan, The New Yorker, Madamoiselle and many other magazines, as well as in the graphic novels The World of Gloria Badcock, A Nut at the Opera and I’m So Glad We Had This Time Together.

Nominees were selected from entries of books published in the 2023 calendar year. The short list and winners were chosen by a panel of three judges for each category. Each winner will receive a small cash prize, and the winner of The Nipper will be awarded a week-long stay at the Valleyview Artist Retreat in Caledon, Ontario.

And here are this year’s nominees …

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Rest in peace, Trina Robbins

The influential comics creator and pioneer has passed away at the age of 85.

“Trina wears her wampum beads
She fills her drawing book with line
Sewing lace on widows’ weeds
And filigree on leaf and vine
Vine and leaf are filigree
And her coat’s a secondhand one
Trimmed with antique luxury
She is a lady of the canyon”

–Joni Mitchell, Ladies of the Canyon

Trina Robbins, a comics creator, historian, advocate and pioneering figure in the underground comix movement — and, yes, the “Trina” Joni Mitchell sang about in 1970 — passed away yesterday at the age of 85.

Her death was first reported by her daughter on social media last night, followed by tributes and obituaries by her fans, fellow artists and news outlets, including The New York Times and Forbes. Forbes reported that Robbins passed away following a stroke that left her hospitalized earlier this year.

“Not only was she a legendary creator of comics, she was also one of comics’ greatest historians and researchers, and a guiding light to countless girls and women who had a hard time believing there was space for them in this art form,” Gail Simone said in a remembrance of her “hero, friend and mentor.”

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Jeff Lemire + BOOM! tease something new for this fall

“… as both a comics fan and a creator, I have been craving longer format stories again.”

BOOM! Studios has announced that Jeff Lemire, creator of Sweet Tooth, Essex County, Fishflies, The Nobody and many other comics and graphic novels, will launch a new ongoing series at the publisher this fall.

Lemire will both write and draw the new title. No title or artwork was shared, beyond the “Eye of Providence” sketch shown above.

“For a while now I have felt like the ‘ongoing series’ in comics is a dying breed,” Lemire said. “I’m guilty of this myself, having put out a lot of shorter projects over the last several years. But as both a comics fan and a creator, I have been craving longer format stories again. Series like the classic Vertigo monthlies that would drive me to the comic shops every week when I was younger.”

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