The Comics Super Blog!
Templer’s first solo graphic novel will debut as a webcomic in March.
Hannah Templer of Jem and the Holograms fame is creating her first graphic novel, Cosmoknights, which will be released first as a webcomic and then as a graphic novel by Top Shelf.
Top Shelf decribes it as “a thrilling galactic adventure set in a world where mech-suited warriors duel over the daughters of the aristocracy, and a fledgling resistance of lady knights aim to bring down the system from within.”
Continue reading “Hannah Templer’s ‘Cosmoknights’ lead the rebellion at Top Shelf”DC and Funko’s action figure line hits Target with a 100-page comic.
DC Comics and Target have teamed up to bring DC’s new action figure line, Primal Age, to comics. DC announced that the DC Primal Age 100-Page Giant is now available at Target, and can be found on end caps with the toys.
Continue reading “Primal Age invades Target with exclusive comic”The mysterious character from another reality will make his debut in April.
Before moving on to help found Image Comics, Rob Liefeld and Whilce Portacio left their mark on Marvel’s X-Men titles in the early 1990s. They worked on X-Force and Uncanny X-Men, respectively, and between them created or co-created iconic characters like Deadpool, Cable, Bishop and more.
Now the two creators are returning to the X-corner of the Marvel Universe with the introduction of Major X, a mysterious new character who is getting his own six-issue miniseries. The series will run bi-weekly from April through June. It’s written by Liefeld, who will share art duties with Portacio and Brent Peeples (Titans, New Super-Man).
Continue reading “Liefeld, Portacio return to the X-Men with ‘Major X’”Jim Aparo, Dave Stevens, June Tarpé Mills and Morrie Turner will be automatically inducted, while voters will choose four more from a field of 14.
Comic-Con International has announced this year’s nominees for the Eisner Hall of Fame. They include the four judges’ choices — who will be automatically inducted — and 14 other nominees, four of whom will be inducted based on voters’ choices.
The judges’ choices are Jim Aparo, who is probably best known for his work on various Batman titles, including Batman and the Outsiders; Dave Stevens, creator of the Rocketeer; June Tarpé Mills, the Golden Age creator of Miss Fury; and Morrie Turner, creator of the Wee Pals newspaper strip in the 1960s.
Continue reading “2019 Eisner Hall of Fame nominees announced”‘Flash” and ‘Swamp Thing’ join the line-up, with new material by Tim Seeley, Gail Simone and more.
DC Comics is adding two more titles to its slate of Walmart-exclusive comics, bringing the number from four to six. And they are renaming two existing ones.
The two new titles are Swamp Thing 100-Page Giant and Flash 100-Page Giant, and like the other titles in the line they will feature new stories packaged with reprints of previous stories. Justice League and Teen Titans, meanwhile, will get new names — the former becomes Wonder Woman, while the latter will shorten its name to Titans — no doubt to match the name of the show that can be found on DC’s streaming service.
Continue reading “DC adds two new Walmart titles, renames others”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:
Continue reading “Roger Langridge discusses projects both past and future”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.”
Continue reading “‘Sex’ returns as series of graphic novels”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.”
Continue reading “‘The Highwayman’ hits the road in May”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:
Continue reading “‘Section Zero’ returns at Image Comics”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.
Continue reading “Comics Lowdown: Batton Lash, Ron Smith pass away”
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.
Continue reading “DC Comics titles now available via comiXology Unlimited”
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.
