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See what the Smash Pages crew has been reading lately.
Welcome to What Are You Reading?, our weekly look at what the Smash Pages crew has been checking off their “to read” list lately. Let us know what you read this week in the comments or on social media.
Continue reading “What Are You Reading? | Where did the time go?”Check out recent news and announcements from DC, Marvel, IDW, Dark Horse and more.
Mail Call is a roundup of the announcements we’ve received from comics publishers in our mailboxes recently that we haven’t already covered. Hit the links for more information.
DC will celebrate milestone years for two characters in 2021, just like they’ve done for Batman, Superman and others over the last few years.
First up, on June 29, DC will release Green Arrow 80th Anniversary 100-Page Super Spectacular #1, celebrating the 80th anniversary of Oliver Queen, who debuted in More Fun Comics back in 1941.
The anthology will feature stories by Mike Grell, Jeff Lemire, Phil Hester, Otto Schmidt, Ben Percy, Tom Taylor, Devin Grayson, Stephanie Phillips, Mariko Tamaki, Ram V, Vita Ayala, Nicola Scott, Chris Mitten, Laura Braga, Max Fiumara and Brandon Thomas, among others. Expect appearances not only by Green Arrow, but also by Black Canary, Speedy, Red Arrow, Connor Hawke, Arsenal and more.
Then in October, Wonder Woman will take the spotlight on, naturally, Wonder Woman Day. DC has announced their plans for Wonder Woman’s 80th anniversary, which will include a 100-Page Super Spectacular of her own. They have not yet revealed details on the contents, but they did share the cover (above) by Yanick Paquette with colors by Nathan Fairbairn. Wonder Woman Day is Oct. 21.
Continue reading “Mail Call | DC celebrates 80 years of Wonder Woman, Green Arrow this year”The six-issue anthology series debuts in June.
Following in the footsteps of Superman and Batman, Wonder Woman has staked out her portion of the color wheel with Wonder Woman: Black & Gold.
The six-issue anthology series will feature stories by various creators, told in two colors — black and gold, “the color of her famous lasso.”
For the first issue, DC has recruited John Arcudi, Becky Cloonan, Amy Reeder and more to tell stories featuring the Amazon.
Continue reading “DC announces ‘Wonder Woman: Black & Gold’”The DC Digital First series set in the world of ‘Batman: The Animated Series’ continues in May.
DC Comics has announced that Batman: The Adventures Continue will return for a second season, by the creative team of Alan Burnett, Paul Dini, Ty Templeton and Monica Kubina.
Batman: The Adventures Continue launched last year as a DC Digital First title and is set in the world Burnett and Dini brought to life in the animated TV series Batman: The Animated Series. According to Burnett, the series is intended to “cover certain gaps in the original series, events that didn’t have a bearing on the series at the time, but now do.”
Continue reading “‘Batman: The Adventures Continue Season II’ brings in Court of Owls, Deadman”Pack appropriately.
James Tynion IV, Álvaro Martínez Bueno and Jordie Bellaire will bring original horror to DC’s Black Label imprint with The Nice House on the Lake, a new creator-owned, 12-issue series.
Tynion described it as a personal horror story to The Hollywood Reporter.
“Sometimes it helps to look at yourself from the least flattering angle, especially when you are dealing with horror,” Tynion told The Hollywood Reporter. “Horror is a genre that is all about taking about societal fears and personal fears. And this is me taking apart those fears in this book.”
Continue reading “Tynion + Martinez + Bellaire book a trip to ‘The Nice House on the Lake’”The five-issue series kicks off in June.
Aubrey Sitterson (No One Left to Fight, The Comic Book Story of Professional Wrestling) and Tony Gregori (Deuce of Hearts, Karma Police) are teaming up for a “hilarious, aggressively weird, and willfully vulgar” new comic from Dark Horse. They’re joined by colorist Lovern Kindzierski and letterer Taylor Esposito
“After the colossal success of No One Left to Fight, I knew we needed to follow it up with something entirely different,” said Sitterson. “That’s why Tony and I cooked up a book so vile, so raunchy, so utterly odious, that it’ll make your other comics turn yellow.”
Continue reading “Sitterson + Gregori tag-team on ‘The Worst Dudes’ at Dark Horse”Johnson-Cadwell returns to the mysterious world he created with Mike Mignola for the new story.
Warwick Johnson-Cadwell will return to the eerie, Victorian world he and Mike Mignola created in Mr. Higgins Comes Home and Our Encounters with Evil: Adventures of Professor J.T. Meinhardt and His Assistant Mr. Knox for a new graphic novel. Johnson-Cadwell will both write and draw Falconspeare, with letterer Clem Robins.
Falconspeare will feature Professor J.T. Meinhardt, Mr. Knox and Ms. Mary Van Sloan, who appeared in the previous volumes, as they investigate the disappearance of their friend fellow monster hunter, James Falconspeare.
“Evil lurks among dark shadows and in many forms. The vampire, the werewolf, monsters of all kinds,” said Johnson-Cadwell. “We need a particular kind of hero to thwart these evils, and Professor J.T. Meinhardt, Mr. Knox, and Ms. Mary Van Sloan are just those heroes. A cryptic correspondence sets them on a mysterious path which will lead them to diabolic danger and grim reality where evil may lie. Diabolic evil is revealed in grim reality, and an ultimate sacrifice is demanded. Their encounters with evil continue.”
Continue reading “Warwick Johnson-Cadwell will write and draw ‘Falconspeare’ graphic novel”The Avengers reassemble to battle the Squadron Supreme in the finale of the event.
Marvel has announced that their upcoming Heroes Reborn event will come to an end in June with Heroes Return #1, where the reassembled Avengers will battle the Squadron Supreme in “a glorious Super Hero slugfest that will shake the Marvel Universe to its core.”
The name of the one-shot is appropriate, as readers of the 1990s Heroes Reborn event may remember. In 1996, Rob Liefeld and Jim Lee took over four Marvel titles — Avengers, Captain America, Iron Man and Fantastic Four — and moved these characters to an alternate Earth/timeline. Eventually the heroes were “rescued” from this other Earth in a miniseries titled Heroes Reborn: The Return. And when each of the four titles were relaunched as part of the regular Marvel continuity, it was under the banner “Heroes Return.”
Continue reading “‘Heroes Reborn’ will wrap up in ‘Heroes Return’ #1”The writer of ‘Urban Animals,’ ‘Luther Strode’ and many other comics discusses the second season of the comiXology title, world-building, writing a digital title and more.
Justin Jordan is the writer behind comics series like The Strange Talent of Luther Strode, Dead Body Road, Reaver, Spread, Strayer and many others. He writes the Webtoon series Urban Animals, which is wrapping up its third season now. He wrote the upcoming Summoner’s War: Legacy comic launching in April.
Meanwhile the second season of his series with artist Tyasseta, Breaklands, is coming out on comiXology now, with the fifth and final issue out March 23. The first season has just been collected into a trade collection from Dark Horse Comics.
We spoke about the appeal of post-apocalyptic fiction, his approach to world-building, writing for digital vs. print, and more.
Continue reading “Smash Pages Q&A: Justin Jordan on ‘Breaklands’”The one-shot will feature stories about Batwoman, Poison Ivy & Harley Quinn, Midnighter, Dreamer and more.
DC today announced DC Pride, a one-shot anthology featuring stories about LGBTQIA+ characters that will arrive during Pride Month. They also announced a series of Pride-themed variant covers for several of their titles, including the just-announced Crush & Lobo series.
The one-shot will also feature the comics debut of Dreamer, a trans woman character who appears on The CW’s Supergirl program. The story is written by Nicole Maines, who plays Dreamer on the show.
Continue reading “DC announces one-shot anthology to celebrate Pride Month”Mariko Tamaki and Amancay Nahuelpan bring together Lobo and Crush for some family bonding time.
DC Comics has announced Crush & Lobo, a new eight-issue miniseries written by Mariko Tamaki with art by Amancay Nahuelpan. The series will feature the Main Man and his daughter, Crush, spinning out of her adventures in Teen Titans.
The series will debut during Pride Month, and is one of several DC titles featuring a Pride Month variant cover.
Continue reading “DC announces ‘Crush & Lobo’ miniseries”The new ‘Whodunnit?’ series starts in June.
Six former sidekicks of a terrible TV will team to solve his murder in The Six Sidekicks of Trigger Keaton, by Kyle Starks and Chris Schweizer, who previously worked together on Mars Attacks! The new series from Image Comics/Skybound will start in June.
“I’m so excited to be working with Skybound again on another great action-comedy series,” said Starks. “This time I get to do it with my best friend, America’s best kept cartoonist secret and three-time Eisner nominee Chris Schweizer. Chris came to me and suggested the remarkable title which we crafted into the tale of six former kid TV sidekicks trying to solve the murder of their awful human TV mentor. Sort of like Knives Out meets Once Upon A Time In Hollywood? If there are two things I love to write, it’s charming dummies and action, and this book is full of both plus rising stakes, escalating nonsense and a lot of fun. Comics should be fun, so we made a fun one!”
Continue reading “Starks + Schweizer head to Hollywood for ‘The Six Sidekicks of Trigger Keaton’”
