Quick Hits | Remembering Tim Sale

Plus: News on Comixology, Mark Russell, Michael Allred, Tillie Walden, TCAF, Jerry Craft and Ric Flair!

Passings | Via Tim Sale’s Twitter account comes word that the 66-year-old artist died of kidney failure.

“He was sick for years and was even in the hospital since May 24. He was a private person and never wanted to worry all of you, but his death was neither preventable or unexpected. Tim was a wonderful man and simply didn’t want to cause any unnecessary stress to his friends and fans,” the statement says.

Many have posted remembrances of the Long Halloween artist since his death last week. At The Comics Journal, Joseph McCabe posts an in-depth obituary. Augie De Blieck looks back at several of Sale’s comics, including Batman: The Long Halloween. And artist Elsa Charretier shares a post on Substack titled “I wouldn’t be drawing comics if not for Tim Sale.”

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Mad Cave announces ‘Lower Your Sights’ line-up

The charity anthology to benefit children impacted by the Russian invasion of Ukraine arrives in September.

Mad Cave Studios has recruited a solid list of comics creators for their upcoming charity anthology, Lower Your Sights, including Matt Kindt, Jim Zub, Richard Pace, Justin Greenwood and Liana Kangas, among many others.

The book will raise money for the Voices of Children Foundation, a nonprofit seeking to help children affected by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. And several Ukraine creators will be featured in the collection.

“We’re incredibly proud to highlight industry greats, indie darlings, rising stars, and, most importantly, numerous Ukrainian creators,” said Mad Cave Studios Editor Chas! Pangburn. “Watching the industry come together to tell these powerful and poignant tales is a great reminder that the pen really is mightier than the sword.”

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Slugfest | Lemire + Sorrentino’s ‘Ten Thousand Black Feathers’ takes flight in September

A round-up of recent comics news and announcements from Marvel, Skybound, Image, Aftershock and more.

Jeff Lemire and Andrea Sorrentino kicked off their shared universe The Bone Orchard Mythos earlier this month with the original graphic novel The Passageway, and they plan to continue the story later this year with the miniseries Ten Thousand Black Feathers.

“The Passageway introduces readers to the Bone Orchard and now with Ten Thousand Black Feathers we dig in and really start to explore this new universe,” said Lemire. “This is a story of friendship, coming of age and imagination that is equal parts horrific, mysterious and heart wrenching.”

Image announced the first issue of the miniseries will hit stores on Sept. 14 and also shared a preview:

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Smash Pages Q&A | Marika McCoola and Aatmaja Pandya

The creators of the young-adult graphic novel ‘Slip’ discuss childhood trauma, teaching art, magical realism and more.

Slip is the story of Jade, a teenager at a summer art program dealing with her best friend’s attempted suicide. It’s a difficult story about mental health, and understanding our emotions and the ways that our relationships with people change over time. Like the book’s visual style, the narrative manages to fit in with a lot of other typical YA books while finding ways to transcend expectations. It’s a moving book that’s very honest about grief and addressing complications emotions, and about what it means to be an artist.

Marika McCoola is an artist and teacher who made a splash by writing the graphic novel Baba Yaga’s Assistant, which was nominated for an Eisner Award. Slip is Aatmaja Pandya’s debut graphic novel, but the artist has been making comics for years, contributing to anthologies including Chainmail Bikini, Power and Magic, and Elements: Fire, in addition to her comic Phantom, which was originally published by Shortbox, and the webcomic Travelogue. The two have been friends for many years and we spoke recently about how the book came together, working with clay, and fantasy.

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Gaiman, Buckingham, Aaron, Carey + more will contribute to ‘Miracleman’ #0

Marvel celebrates 40 years of Miracleman and promises more news about the character is coming.

To celebrate the 40th anniversary of Miracleman, Marvel has announced Miracleman #0, a one-shot anthology that will feature stories by Neil Gaiman, Mark Buckingham, Jason Aaron, Michael Carey, Ty Templeton, Ryan Stegman and more.

Gaiman and Buckingham, whose previous work on Miracleman back when it was published by Eclipse Comics was cut short, “will deliver an exciting prelude to their upcoming new chapter of Miracleman.” Marvel also promises more Miracleman news will be coming later this week.

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Brown + Prenzy reunite for ‘Flawed’

The six-issue miniseries will debut from Image Comics in September.

Writer Chuck Brown and artist Prenzy, the creative team behind the Image series On The Stump, reunite for a new “ultra-violent, high-octane” story titled Flawed. They’re joined by letterer Becca Carey.

The new series is set in the “Kafkaesque” city of Setham and features a psychiatrist named Gem Ezz being pursued by an immortal serial killer. “The city of Setham holds many different strange tales and Gem Ezz’s story is only the beginning” said Brown.

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Second ‘Clementine’ graphic novel will shamble into stores in October

Tillie Walden continues the story of the popular Walking Dead video game character this fall.

With the first volume of the graphic novel Clementine hitting stores today, Skybound has announced that the second volume will arrive from Image Comics in October.

Released under the new Skybound Comet banner — an imprint for young adult and middle grade graphic novels — Clementine features the character made popular in the Telltale Walking Dead games, in new stories written and drawn by On a Sunbeam creator Tillie Walden.

“We couldn’t be more proud of the work Tillie did on Clementine Book One,” said Alex Antone, Senior Editor at Skybound, “And in Book Two, Tillie takes Clementine’s story to even greater heights with a new heart-pounding and heart-wrenching adventure about finding family, embracing love and growing up in the darkest of times.” 

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Three Count | Black Phoenix, Backstory, System Error

Check out three crowdfunding campaigns on the newly launched Crowdfundr platform.

To Support: A bunch of stuff on the new crowdfunding site Crowdfundr

Crowdfundr is a brand-new crowdfunding site that just launched recently and is already hosting several comics and comics-related crowdfunding campaigns. It can be used for other things, of course, like music and film, but who cares about that stuff — there’s comics to be had! Comics!

“Our goal is for Crowdfundr to be the most creator-friendly crowdfunding platform,” said ConnectionPoint President David Barach. “That’s why we offer it for free and include other creator friendly features like being able to roll a campaign over into a store and include more reward choices for supporters. We also have special features for indie publishers and studios to collaborate with their creators and run concurrent campaigns. I think creators are going to be pleasantly surprised at the ways we support them, now and with future enhancements, toward sustainable and continuous crowdfunding for their work.”

I thought I’d dedicate this edition of Three Things to highlighting some of the cool stuff that’s up on the new site now:

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Burnham + Lattie get animated for a new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles title

‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Saturday Morning Adventures’ kicks off in September.

IDW heads back to a world of cereal bowls and catchy theme songs for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Saturday Morning Adventures, a “faithful new comic book inspired by the classic cartoon.” Erik Burnham (G.I. Joe Saturday Morning Adventures) and Tim Lattie (Ghostbusters) will team for the cowabunga-inducing adventures of everyone’s favorite indie comic turned TV sensation.

“I’m no stranger to writing the TMNT for IDW, but this is different,” said Burnham. “The version of the Turtles that exploded onto TV screens in 1987 was the version that I first met, and it brought me a lot of joy…and getting to play in this particular corner of the sandbox has built upon that joy! Humor, action, and plenty of high concepts were packed into each episode, and we’re following that path. I’m not sure if anyone in comics is having as much fun as Tim Lattie and I are with these done-in-one stories!”

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Queue up for ‘Dark Ride’ by Williamson + Bressan

The ‘Birthright’ team reunites for a four-issue miniseries set in a horrific amusement park.

I was reading this Rolling Stone article about adult Disney fans being seen as a “plague upon society” when the press release for a new series called Dark Ride hit my inbox. Dark Ride is a new title coming from Skybound this fall by the Birthright team of Joshua Williamson and Andrei Bressan that “introduces readers to The Scariest Place on Earth.” And they don’t mean a Disney World filled with Disneybounding adults or Purple Wall selfie-takers.

“Two of my biggest obsessions have always been HORROR…and AMUSEMENT PARKS. So, I had to find a way to combine them into something new. It’s a dream book I’ve been working on for a LONG time and it’s been awesome to finally pull it together with Andrei and the whole Birthright team!” said Williamson. “It’s great to get back to horror after Nailbiter ended, and here we dive into some new themes with horror: What is scary in today’s world? How can you create something scary when every day we’re living in a horror show? Those are the themes I wanted to explore with DARK RIDE. Amusement Parks are meant to be a place of FUN…but here we really bring the HORROR.” 

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Titan Comics will publish new Conan comics starting next year

Titan and Heroic Signatures announce they are teaming up for new comics featuring Conan and other Robert E. Howard characters.

Titan Comics and Heroic Signatures have announced that Titan will publish comics featuring Conan the Barbarian and other Robert E. Howard characters starting next year.

Titan and Heroic plan to launch a new Conan the Barbarian ongoing series in May of 2023, along with miniseries featuring “Robert E. Howard’s rich tapestry of iconic heroes.” The deal also includes the Conan omnibus program that Marvel was publishing.

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Smash Pages Q&A | ‘The Woman in the Woods’ interview

The editors of the latest ‘Cautionary Fables and Fairy Tales’ book discuss how the project came together and how the stories were chosen for the anthology.

Iron Circus has been publishing the Cautionary Fables and Fairy Tales series, which collects folk tales from around the world and retells them in comics form for younger readers, for the past few years. Under series editors Kel McDonald and Kate Ashwin, the series has managed the incredible feat of being that rare series which contains the work of so many different artists telling stories for younger readers that is visually and stylistically exciting and just fascinating to read. 

The fifth book in the series, The Woman in the Woods and Other North American Stories, takes on the continent of North America, or Turtle Island, as it’s known to many Native and Indigenous communities. To curate the book, they are joined by artist and editor Alina Pete, who drew the book’s cover and drew one of the stories. The three are incredibly busy, but they were kind enough to join me on Zoom recently to talk about the book.

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