Author: JK Parkin

Can’t Wait for Wednesday | ‘Scarlett’ debuts; an ‘X-Men’ era ends; ‘Barda’ goes hard + more

Check out new comics and graphic novels arriving this week by Kelly Thompson, Marco Ferrari, Josie Campbell, Pablo M. Collar, Alex Paknadel, Troy Little, Gerry Duggan, Garry Brown, Tom Waltz, Juan Jose Ryp, Deniz Camp, Juan Frigeri, Ngozi Ukazu, Tony McMillen 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 a pretty packed week for comics, with a new entry in the Energon Universe saga, an ending to the Krakoa era of the X-Men, a prelude to a new dawn for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and a YA take on Big Barda that looks incredible. And that’s only scratching the surface!

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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Vancouver Comic Arts Festival apologizes for banning a Jewish artist from future festivals

Following the controversy where the festival banned Miriam Libicki, a “vast majority” of the board has resigned.

The Vancouver Comic Arts Festival has issued an apology on social media after coming under scrutiny for an earlier statement about banning cartoonist Miriam Libicki, creator of the autobiographical comic Jobnik! and a contributor to the 2020 Eisner Award nominee But I Live, from attending future shows.

Libicki, a citizen of both the United States and Israel who currently lives in Canada, served in the Israeli military — which is mandatory for all Israeli citizens over the age of 18*. Since then, Libicki has recounted her experiences in the military in her comic Jobnik! and also contributed to But I Live, a collection of nonfiction comics that draw from the experiences of Holocaust survivors.

Libicki has been a regular attendee of the festival since its inception in 2012, and at the 2022 show, she was met with protestors who “caused a scene” because of her prior military experience, according to a post from her husband, Mike Yoshioka. After missing the deadline for the 2023 show, he said she applied to return in 2024 but was rejected by the show’s organizers, which led to a meeting. According to Yoshioka, Libicki agreed not to display issues of Jobnik! or Toward A Hot Jew, a collection of graphic essays published by Fantagraphics in 2016. She would only feature But I Live.

“In recent years, I have been working closely with Holocaust survivors to tell their own stories,” Libicki told The Canadian Jewish News. “I consider this urgent and timely work. The award-winning anthology of Holocaust memoirs, But I Live, was the only graphic novel I was selling at VanCAF 2024.”

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You can preorder a copy of the DC Comics Style Guide by José Luis García-López

The most famous style guide in comics history will be released to the public for the first time this August.

An internal style guide for DC’s characters created by the legendary José Luis García-López is getting a high-end release that’s going to make a lot of comics fans happy.

Standards Manual, a publisher that crowdfunds and releases “artifacts of design history,” like a book of old New York subway maps and The NASA Graphics Standards Manual, has teamed with Warner Bros. Discovery Global Consumer Products to release the DC Comics Style Guide from 1982. The 384-page manual, which will include an introduction by former DC publisher Paul Levitz, is available to preorder now on their website.

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Quick Hits | Idaho graduate offers her superintendent a banned graphic novel while accepting her diploma

Plus: Tom Luth, Bram Stoker Awards, Broom Hilda and the Ernie Bushmiller Society.

One of this year’s high school graduates from the Idaho Fine Arts Academy tried to hand her superintendent a copy of the graphic novel adaptation of The Handmaid’s Tale, a book that was removed from her school’s library earlier in the year.

The ABC affiliate KVUE reports that Annabelle Jenkins, one of 44 seniors to walk at the graduation, brought the book with her and tried to give it to Superintendent Derek Bub as she went on stage to accept her diploma. Bub would not accept the copy of the book, so Jenkins then dropped it at his feet.

Jenkins, a volunteer at her local library and a lifelong reader, said an argument between a teacher and the school librarian brought the book to her attention. “It was over the graphic novel The Handmaid’s Tale and I was just so shocked because I had never seen school staff behave that way in a school setting,” she said.

The book ended up being contested and removed from West Ada school shelves.

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Jeph Loeb + Tim Sale’s most beloved Batman story gets a sequel in September

Loeb will team with Eduardo Risso, Klaus Janson and more for ‘The Last Halloween.’

Prior to his death, Tim Sale was working with his frequent collaborator Jeph Loeb on a sequel to their career-defining Batman maxi-series, The Long Halloween. That sequel will continue on, according to DC, who officially announced The Last Halloween at MCM London last month.

Loeb will write the 10-issue series and will be joined by a different artist on each issue, starting with 100 Bullets artist Eduardo Risso. Klaus Janson, known for his work on books like Batman: The Dark Knight Returns and Daredevil, will draw the second issue, while Mark Chiarello, the former art director for DC, will draw the third issue. They’ll be joined by letterer Richard Starkings, who worked on the original series, and colorist Dave Stewart.

“Batman The Long Halloween: The Last Halloween is Tim Sale’s parting gift to me,” Loeb said. “Tim and I had already decided to tell this last chapter following Batman: The Long Halloween Special, which will serve as the prologue to this 10-part action-packed mystery.”

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He-Man + the Ninja Turtles cross over in September

Find out what chaos occurs when Skeletor teams up with Shredder in ‘Masters of the Universe/Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles of Grayskull.’

Two titans of the toy shelves will collide in September as the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and the Masters of the Universe meet in comic book form for the first time.

I mean, I think it’s the first time? Given how often the Turtles have crossed over with other properties, it seems odd to say that. There have been action figure crossovers in the past, but I believe this is the first time Dark Horse and IDW have brought the two together in comics.

The series’ creative team includes talent from each side, with He-Man scribe Tim Seeley writing the crossover, and Freddie Williams II, who drew the various Turtles’ crossover series with Batman, drawing this one as well. They are joined by colorist Andrew Dalhouse with letters by AndWorld Design

“As inevitable as a meet up between He-Man and the Turtles has felt, it took some time getting done! And now that it’s here, I have a huge pile of newly purchased figures, and a bunch of pages for what is one of the most awesome comics I’ve ever gotten to work on,” said Seeley. “To say Freddie and I approached this Dark Horse series with some screaming-our-heads-off-style enthusiasm is underselling it a bit. I can’t wait until you get to read this.”

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Tim Bird incorporates his mother’s paintings into the stunning ‘Adrift on a Painted Sea’

Check out our exclusive preview of the new graphic novel, which Avery Hill is currently funding through Kickstarter.

Courtesy of Avery Hill Publishing, we’re happy to present a preview of Adrift on a Painted Sea, a new graphic novel by Tim Bird that also features the paintings of his mother Sue Bird. It’s currently up on Kickstarter, with a campaign that runs through June 21.

Bird is an award-winning illustrator and comic artist based in Winchester, England; his graphic novel From the City to the Sea a British Comic Award in 2015. He’s published a number of comics through Avery Hill, including The Great North Wood and Infrastructure, but this latest one may be his most personal work yet.

Adrift on a Painted Sea is about the life of Bird’s mother, who passed away during the height of COVID. She was an amateur painter who created countless works of art — botanical art, landscapes, still lifes and painting of the sea. She never sold her paintings, but would give them away to family and friends, and hang them in her own home. Bird has brilliantly combined his own comics work with her paintings to capture her life, and also showcase her incredible work.

You can find our preview below, along with more information on the graphic novel.

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Chip Zdarsky sets up at DSTLRY for a four-book deal

The first miniseries, ‘Time Waits,’ is co-written by David Brothers and features artwork by Marcus To.

Over the past several months we’ve seen DSTLRY roll out miniseries after miniseries from their founding creators, all spinning out of their first anthology, The Devil’s Cut. But with their announcements for August, we’re starting to see them branch out from that list, starting with The Missionary by Ryan Stegman and Jason Howard, and now Time Waits by co-writers Chip Zdarsky and David Brothers, artists Marcus To and Matt Wilson, and letterer Ariana Maher.

TBH I was surprised that Zdarsky was not on the list of DSTLRY’s founding creators, back when they rolled out the new company. Zdarsky worked with founders Chip Mosher and David Steinberger during their time at Comixology, even garnering an Eisner Award for Afterlift, his comic with artist Jason Loo. But this week’s announcement shares that he has a four-book deal with them at DSTLRY.

“I’m really excited to work with the DSTLRY crew again, who helped usher in Afterlift and The All-Nighter over at Comixology,” Zdarsky said in his newsletter. “So excited in fact that this is just the first of FOUR PROJECTS that I’m doing with them! I’ve got an incredible lineup of creators working with me on everything and can’t wait for all of it to be out in the world.”

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Slugfest | Wolverine seeks ‘Revenge’ in Marvel’s August solicitations

We run through Marvel’s August solicitations, which include Venom War, Phases of the Moon Knight, Blood Hunters and more.

Slugfest is a roundup of cool announcements about projects coming to a shelf near you, with this edition focusing on Marvel’s August 2024 announcements. Hit the links for more information.

Marvel’s solicitations for August landed late last week, right before the long weekend here in the U.S. (which I made even longer!) so let’s catch up on all the new stuff they plan to release in the last month of the summer. Just like I did with DC, I’ll hit the titles I haven’t previously covered. You can read about Spider-Society, the Iron Fist 50th anniversary anthology, Storm joining the Avengers and Rob Liefeld’s final Deadpool comic elsewhere on the site.

Now let’s get to it …

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Dark Horse returns to ‘Survival Street’ this fall

A second miniseries by James Asmus, Jim Festante, Abylay Kussainov, Ellie Wright and Taylor Esposito begins in September.

Survival Street, the 2022 miniseries that turned the puppets of Sesame Street into freedom fighters, will reload another round this fall.

The original creative team of James Asmus, Jim Festante, Abylay Kussainov, Ellie Wright and Taylor Esposito reunites for Survival Street: The Radical Left, a four-issue miniseries coming from Dark Horse Comics. The satire will feature “battles against A.I., soulless kids’ entertainment, American colonialism and much more.”

“James and I have always been drawn to satire because you can take a really big, really complex issue and use humor to make it accessible,” Festante said. “When it’s not grounded in something you see every day (like anthropomorphic puppets), it’s easier to step back and say, ‘Wow, that’s pretty messed up – how can I address or fix that?’ We wanted people who don’t usually read comics to be excited for Survival Street. I imagine the sets of our little Venn diagram involve an awareness of politics, love of puppets and a desire for catharsis in a world where tech bros pump out AI-driven nonsense for kids whose only goal is to keep little eyes glued to a screen.”

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Ryan Stegman + Jason Howard raise some hell at DSTLRY with ‘The Missionary’

The three-issue series begins in September.

Ryan Stegman’s summer is heating up — in addition to drawing a brand-new X-Men title that’s coming this summer, he’s also writing The Missionary, a new series from DSTLRY featuring artwork by Jason Howard.

The three-issue series is about a down-on-his-luck religious man who decides to accept possession instead of resisting it — forming an unconventional partnership with the demon he’s now sharing a body with.

“Jason and I are having a hell of a time grappling with eternal questions of ethics and spirituality, but we’re also making The Missionary as exciting as possible,” Stegman said. “Jason is doing the work of his career, and I can’t wait for you to see these tortured souls on their missions of damnation.”

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‘The Masked Macher’ hits the ring this fall

Dark Horse enters the squared circle this summer for a new pro wrestling comedy by David A. Goodman, Gonzalo Duarte, Alex Andrés and Mauro Mantella.

Dark Horse Comics will ring the bell for a new pro wrestling comedy series by The Orville executive producer and writer David A. Goodman, co-writer Gonzalo Duarte, artist Alex Andrés and letterer Mauro Mantella. The Masked Macher “showcases the comedic story of a would-be actor entering the very different world of professional wrestling.”

As the cover states, “Macher” is Yiddish for “Big Shot,” or someone who can produce a lot of money. That’s what aspiring actor Tony Hollywood wants to be, but circumstances send him down a different path — to the squared circle.

“The Masked Macher is trying to do a lot,” Goodman said. “First, it’s a comedic portrayal of how people make their way in show business. ‘Macher’ if you don’t know, is Yiddish for ‘big shot,’ which is all Tony wants to be. But the story is also about nostalgia, how we can look back and long for a time that really wasn’t all that pleasant. And on top of all that, we’re trying to make the whole thing funny and exciting.”

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