Bunn, Colak hunt for an ‘Unholy Grail’ at AfterShock

Comic will tell the story of “the gospel of Arthur’s bloody rise to power and his unholy reign.”

Cullen Bunn will bring his unique brand of horror to Camelot as he and artist Mirko Colak team up for Unholy Grail, coming in July from AfterShock Comics.

“I’ve been fascinated by Arthurian legends since I discovered T. H. White’s ‘The Once and Future King’ as a kid,” Bunn writes on his website. “From that point on, I wanted to explore every variation of the story, from Thomas Malory’s work to the movie ‘Excalibur’ to the comic ‘Camelot 3000.’ One of the things that intrigued me was how there are so many interpretations of the epic — as should be the case with all great myths — and so many different takes on the story. At some point, years ago, I started to wonder what the Arthurian legend might look like if they were written as a horror story. I thought about it so much, I guess, that I started dreaming about it. I woke from one of those dreams and scribbled the sentence ‘The demon, who had no name in his own tongue, but would come to be called Merlin by mortals, uncoiled its serpentine body and slithered out of the shadows.’ That was over 20 years ago, but I still have the notebook where I first pondered the concept.”

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Retrofit/Big Planet announces Spring line and new Kickstarter

Retrofit Comics has just announced a Kickstarter to fund their spring line. Here’s the lineup:

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‘Classic’ Archie returns by Dan Parent and Ty Templeton

‘Your Pal Archie’ launches in July.

With reboot Archie, zombie Archie and CW Archie all going strong, longtime fans of the character might have been wondering if they’d ever see the classic Dan DeCarlo/Bob Montana version of the character in comic books again. Fear not; Archie Comics announced today a new series, My Pal Archie, by Dan Parent and Ty Templeton, that brings back the Archie you remember … mostly.

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IDW to publish ‘younger reader’ Star Wars comics

‘Star Wars Adventures’ launches this fall.

Coming out of the big Star Wars Celebration event that happened in Orlando last week, IDW Publishing has announced they’ve obtained the license to “create and publish new Star Wars comic books aimed at younger readers.” The first title is expected in the Fall, just in time for all the hype that’ll build for the release of Star Wars: The Last Jedi.

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Smash Pages Q&A: David Pepose on ‘Spencer & Locke,’ gritty crime and imaginary friends

“What if this imaginary friend wasn’t so benign?”

Debuting in comic shops tomorrow, David Pepose and Jorge Santiago Jr.’s Spencer & Locke imagines a world where Calvin and Hobbes went on to join the police force and take down bad guys. But when Sophie Jenkins — you remember Susie, right? — turns up dead in back alley, well … that’s where the story begins.

Published by Action Labs Entertainment, Spencer & Locke is a four-issue miniseries written by Pepose, whose name comics fans might recognize from his reviews at Newsarama, with art by Santiago (Curse of the Eel), colorist Jasen Smith and letterer Colin Bell.

On the eve of the book’s debut, I spoke with Pepose about the secret origins of the project.

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Janson and Raimondi conjure up ‘Sacred Creatures’ in July

Image Comics shares more details and a Frank Miller cover for the supernatural conspiracy title.

Image Comics took the opportunity at Emerald City Comicon last month to drop a ton of announcements about upcoming comics and projects — one of those being a new supernatural series, Sacred Creatures, by Pablo Raimondi and Klaus Janson.

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‘This One Summer,’ ‘Drama’ top list of most banned books of 2016

‘Big Hard Sex Criminals’ also among the most challenged books, according to the American Library Association.

Mariko and Jillian Tamaki’s This One Summer and Raina Telgemeier’s Drama topped the list of 2016’s most challenged books, according to the American Library Association. Matt Fraction and Chip Zdarsky’s Big Hard Sex Criminals also landed in the top 10 as the seventh most challenged book of 2016.

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Make Mine Mini: Kraftwerk saves the world

The indy comics festival MoCCA took place last weekend, and as usual, it was a glorious event, with lots of great people and great comics. Here are three minicomics that I picked up that I particularly enjoyed. You can view or purchase each one at the link in the title.

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Immortal brothers unite in Valiant’s ‘The Tale of the Green Knight’

Fred Van Lente, Cary Nord and Clayton Henry head back into Valiant’s past with Immortal Brothers: The Tale of the Green Knight, a tale featuring Armstrong, the Eternal Warrior and Ivar, Timewalker in King Arthur’s court.

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Dalrymple’s ‘Pop Gun War: Chain Letter’ collected this June

The latest chapter of Farel Dalrymple‘s Pop Gun War saga recently wrapped up in the last issue of Image’s Island anthology, and now the publisher plans to release a collection of it in June.

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Usagi Yojimbo meets the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles again this summer

IDW will publish a one-shot featuring Stan Sakai’s famous ronin rabbit encountering the current rendition of the Turtles.

Stan Sakai’s Usagi Yojimbo will once again team with Eastman and Laird’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in a new one-shot, coming from IDW Publishing and Dark Horse Comics this summer.

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Peter Milligan and Tess Fowler team on first Black Crown title

‘Kid Lobotomy,’ the first comic from Shelly Bond’s new imprint at IDW, debuts in October.

At WonderCon on Friday, IDW announced the first title for Shelly Bond’s new Black Crown imprint — Kid Lobotomy by Peter Milligan and Tess Fowler.

As announced earlier this month, Black Crown is a new line of connected, creator-owned comics, spearheaded by the former Vertigo editor and published by IDW. “Black Crown” refers not only to the creator-owned imprint, but also a pub that anchors a mysterious street that connects each comic.

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