Category: Creators

Hickman plans to leave X-Men after ‘Inferno’

The architect of the Krakoa era of the X-titles will move on to something new for Marvel after ‘Inferno.’

After relaunching the X-Men titles back in 2019 and writing some of the books over the course of the last two years, Jonathan Hickman told Entertainment Weekly that the upcoming Inferno will be his last X-book for now.

Hickman said that wasn’t his plan initially, but came about because of how well the current storyline has been received by the creators he’s been working with .

“Oh, plans have changed entirely,” Hickman told EW. “When I pitched the X-Men story I wanted to do, I pitched a very big, very broad, three-act, three-event narrative, the first of which was House of X. And while this loosely worked as a three-year plan, I told Marvel upfront that I honestly had no idea how long the first part would last because there were a lot of interesting ideas that I had seeded that other creators would want to play with, and so, we left this rather open-ended. I was also pretty clear with all the writers that came into the office what the initial, three-act plan was so no one would be surprised when it was time for the line to pivot.”

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Bendis moves his Jinxworld titles to Dark Horse

The line of titles that includes ‘Pearl,’ ‘Cover’ and the upcoming ‘Joy Operations’ moves from DC to the Oregon-based publisher.

After stints at Image Comics, Marvel and DC Comics in recent years, Brian Michael Bendis’ Jinxworld line of creator-owned titles now has a new home at Dark Horse Comics.

The deal will include a new title, Joy Operations, which Bendis will write and artist Stephen Byrne (Wonder Twins) will draw. Many of the Jinxworld titles published by DC over the last few years, including Pearl and Cover, will also move to Dark Horse. THR said Bendis also has plans to release new editions of previous titles, like Powers, through the publisher. Bendis’ exclusive contract with DC, Jinxworld’s previous publisher, ended earlier this year.

“I am so proud to call Dark Horse Comics home! From Dark Horse Presents all the way up to Black Hammer, Dark Horse has been at the forefront of the kind of creator-owned comics I personally adore and aspire to. This partnership has been brewing for a very long time,” Bendis said in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter. “Mike Richardson, Daniel Chabon and everyone else at Dark Horse has welcomed us with open arms and it’s very exciting to start rolling out our brand-new epics like Joy Operations and reintroduce you to some of our classic Jinxworld titles like Powers, Torso and Jinx. Any of my friends will tell you I wished those books were published by Dark Horse back when we first made them. To the future!”

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Danny DeVito returns to the Penguin — in the pages of a comic

The actor will write a new story featuring the character he played in ‘Batman Returns’ for the upcoming ‘Gotham City Villains Anniversary Giant’ anthology.

Actor Danny DeVito brought the Penguin to life on screen in the film Batman Returns, and now almost 30 years later he’s returning to the character — in the pages of DC’s Gotham City Villains Anniversary Giant.

DeVito will write a Penguin story for the anthology, which also features contributions from Wes Craig, G. Willow Wilson, Phillip Kennedy Johnson, Joshua Williamson, Stephanie Phillips, Dan Watters, Mairghread Scott, Dan Mora, Emma Rios, Riccardo Federici, Max Raynor, Max Fiumara, Skylar Patridge, Ariela Kristantina, Khary Randolph, Jill Thompson, Christian Ward and Gabriel Walta.

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Nick Spencer’s run on ‘Amazing Spider-Man’ will end with issue #74

The 80-page issue will include artwork by Mark Bagley, Patrick Gleason and more.

Writer Nick Spencer’s final issue of Amazing Spider-Man will be September’s issue #74 — or, if you’re using “legacy” numbering, issue #875.

For his final, 80-page issue, Spencer will work with Patrick Gleason, Mark Bagley, Marcelo Ferreira and other artists who have drawn his run over the last three years. Gleason did the cover art:

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Rob Liefeld quits the upcoming ‘Mighty Crusaders’ revival at Archie

Archie still plans to release the first issue in June as originally planned, but with a new writer providing the script.

Comics creator Rob Liefeld has left the Mighty Crusaders revival project, which was announced last December. He left because he said a key plot point was revealed on a variant cover created by Tone Rodriguez for Camelot Books and Comics.

“When the key plot point/element is revealed on a retail variant cover – it’s probably time to exit the stage on this one…. like seriously?” Liefeld wrote on Facebook earlier this month. He said he found out about the cover when Rodriguez tagged him in a Facebook post about it.

He later added in another post: “So, earlier this week I posted to one of my groups how I’m trying to keep all the contents of one of my upcoming projects under wraps. I want the reveals and the twists to be fresh and happen organically. I love the story and art and was trying to protect it as best I can. And I had succeeded in doing so. The cover with the big twist being publicly shared as I’m walking out the door to a farewell party for friends was like the big gut punch. All the wind goes out of the sails and the enthusiasm with it. It’s this practice … that needs better management. Everyone is trying to one up the other guy because the shelf life on these comics is so small. Publishers need to do better.

Archie followed up today by announcing that The Mighty Crusaders: The Shield #1 will still be released on June 30, as previously announced, using the artwork that Liefeld already turned in. They said that a new writer would be brought in to script Liefeld’s pages.

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Cartoonists put the spotlight on Autism Awareness Month

Participants are posting personal comics about autism throughout April.

April is Autism Awareness Month, and more than 30 cartoonists are raising awareness around autism and neurodiversity in a series of comic strips posted under the hashtag #ASDComicTakeover on Twitter.

Rebecca Ollerton, a.k.a. Bex, is spearheading the effort. She regularly makes comics about these topics.

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Matt Bors retires his weekly political comic strip; will still run ‘The Nib’

Bors will turn his attention to creating fiction comics and longer-form nonfiction comics.

After almost two decades, cartoonist and The Nib founder Matt Bors has announced he’s retiring from his weekly political comic. His comic on background checks that ran at the end of March will be his last regular political cartoon.

He plans to continue running The Nib, the award-winning webcomics site that features political and nonfiction comics on a daily basis by a variety of artists. He also said he plans to do more nonfiction comics, including comic interviews, for the site. And he’s preparing pitches for fiction comics as well.

“So I will be staying busy, as always,” he said in his announcement post. “Something had to give in my life to make room for other things and, frankly, it was an easy decision. I’ve drawn political cartoons every week since I was 19 and feel like I have said everything I can say, often a few times over. I know this may be disappointing to longtime readers, but my creative desires pull me in another direction, one where I hope to create more work on par with what I’ve done in this field. I also owe it to both The Nib’s readers and creators to keep the publication going as long as possible.”

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Watch Elsa Charretier deconstruct a ‘Hawkeye’ panel in a new YouTube series

The new series will delve into the comic book process every Friday.

The Infinite Loop creative team of Elsa Charretier and Pierrick Colinet have launched a new YouTube series, with the intent to “share their love of the medium and their professional knowledge of the field with comic book fans and aspiring creators.” The first episode went live yesterday.

“I’ve long deconstructed, studied and obsessed over the work of my peers; partly to elevate my art, partly because I can never get enough comics and graphic novels,” Charretier said. “Our YouTube channel is the latest offspring born out of that obsession and an exciting way to share our studies, professional tips, and love for sequential storytelling with everyone tuning in.”

Check it out below, as Charretier examines one of David Aja’s panels from Hawkeye:

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John Romita Jr. returns to Marvel later this year

The artist returns to the place where he started his career almost 50 years ago.

After almost seven years working for Marvel’s distinguished competition, John Romita Jr. will return to the House of Ideas later this year.

Marvel announced the return on their website today, noting that Romita will begin working in the Marvel Universe again in July.

“I have been very fortunate more than a few times in my life, and now I can add this latest event to that list. I have returned to Marvel, the company that I started my career in, and I couldn’t be more thrilled!” said Romita in a statement. “I am literally, at this very moment, working on my next big Marvel project, and it’s a blast!!! I am JUST as excited as I was when I first started, and I will do my best to let the work show that again. I hope fans will see that too!”

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Matt Kindt jumps into the controversial world of NFTs with a new ‘Mind MGMT’ story

The one-of-a-kind story will go to the highest bidder of an NFT auction.

Creator Matt Kindt is exploring the world of non-fungible tokens with Mind MGMT: The Artifact, a full-length comic that’s currently up for auction on the NFT auction website OpenSea.

Non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, have been making headlines recently; they’re a type of code that acts sort of as a unique certificate of authenticity for a digital piece of art, tied to bitcoin and block chain technologies. The Verge, Bankrate and NPR have Q&A’s up on what NFTs are and how they’re being used right now in the art world.

“I wanted to create an original Mind MGMT comic book narrative that would explore the nature of belief and the value of ideas and their intangible nature as a way of exploring the idea of NFTs,” said Kindt. “The best way to explore this idea was for the actual story – the Mind MGMT narrative – to become what it is about. This story is written as a Mind MGMT espionage narrative – an agent sent on a mission to retrieve a priceless artifact. There are secret codes, monk-ninjas. LOTS of monk-ninjas and a teenage immortal intent on stealing this priceless artifact. It is both a real apple…and a drawing of an apple.”

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Rest in Peace, Steve Lightle

The comics creator who worked on Legion of Super-Heroes, Classic X-Men, Doom Patrol and more passed away from heart failure today.

Steve Lightle, an artist whose work appeared in Doom Patrol, Legion of Super-Heroes, Marvel Comics Presents and Classic X-Men, passed away this morning. He was 61.

His son, Matthew, posted on Lightle’s Facebook page that his father died of a cardiac arrest. His wife, colorist Marianne Lightle, followed that with a heartbreaking post where she said Lightle had tested positive for COVID, which led to heart failure.

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Looking Back | Speaking out

Allegations of harassment and sexual misconduct mired the comics industry in the summer of 2020.

We continue our series that looks back at the biggest comics industry news trends of 2020. Watch for more posts all this week.

In the midst of the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic and the countless protests in the United States following the murder of George Floyd in Minnesota this past summer, a wave of allegations against comics creators and industry figures became public. These allegations ranged from abuse to harassment to other forms of sexual misconduct. Many brave people stepped forward to tell their stories and share what happened to them over the course of several weeks in June.

The comics industry isn’t unique in this regards; at the same time that the allegations against comics pros occurred, the professional wrestling industry was going through what was dubbed the Speaking Out movement. And both follow the bigger #MeToo movement that began to go viral back in 2017, which revealed the bad behavior by many entertainment industry figures (as well as politicians, captains of industry and, well, just about every other industry out there).

And in comics, harassment has, unfortunately, been part of the landscape for decades. In more recent years high-profile industry figures like Eddie Berganza and Brian Wood have been accused and subsequently lost work as a result, so to say that this is “new” would be inaccurate.

What seemed to set 2020 apart, however, was the number of allegations that occurred in such a short amount of time. Some were industry figures who had previously been accused, while others were newly revealed.

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