Smash Pages Q&A: Erica Schultz

The writer and instructor discusses the new ‘Legacy of Mandrake the Magician,’ her work at The Kubert School and more.

Mandrake the Magician was one of the great classic adventure strips. Created by Lee Falk, who also created The Phantom, the strip ran from 1934 until 2013 and told of a stage magician and hypnotist who also traveled the world fighting criminals and occasionally supernatural forces.

The comic strip ended in 2013, but now has a new life in comic books in the new series Legacy of Mandrake the Magician. The new series from Red 5 Comics and StoneBot Comics launches next week; it’s about a young teenager named Mandy who’s trying to figure out her own talents and her own relationship to the original Mandrake.

The writer behind the comic is Erica Schultz, who readers might know from her work on comics like Forgotten Home, M3, Xena and Charmed. She’s also an instructor at The Kubert School and was kind enough to answer a few questions about what’s essential about the character, what elements needed updating and why Mandy has a secret identity.

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‘Goblin’ coming from Grissom + Perkins next year

The middle grade graphic novel will be published by Dark Horse.

Eric Grissom and Will Perkins, the creators of Gregory Suicide, will team up once again for a new middle grade graphic novel, Goblin.

The story’s about a goblin named Rikt who embarks on a journey of loss, self-discovery and sacrifice. Dark Horse will publish it next summer.

“Time and time again, from folklore to video games, goblins have been seen as an enemy to be overcome, a monster a ‘hero must defeat,” said Grissom. “With Goblin, I wanted to tell a story that flipped that idea. Not every monster is a villain, and not every person that looks like a hero acts like one. We set out to make the world of Goblin a wonderful, mysterious place, and I can’t wait for readers to get lost within it.”

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Maestro returns in January for another miniseries

Peter David and Javier Pina tell more stories of the Hulk’s evil, future self.

Peter David will once again dive into the futuristic dystopia created by the Hulk in Maestro: War & Pax. This time he’s joined by artist Javier Pina to tell the story of the Hulk’s futuristic, evil alter-ego, who was introduced in the landmark Future Imperfect miniseries.

“I am thrilled that, 20 years after I created him, the Maestro still intrigues people so much that the first series garnered the sort of success that demanded a follow-up,” David told Marvel.com. “As long as folks want to keep reading about him, I’m happy to keep giving them stories.”

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Michel Fiffe returns to self-publishing ‘Copra’

Image Comics will still release collected editions of the comic.

Michel Fiffe will once again self-publish his popular Copra series, starting with issues #38 and #39. Both are available for pre-order via his Etsy shop.

After self-publishing Copra for 31 issues, Fiffe moved the comic to Image Comics last year. The publisher released collections of all the previous issues, as well as six single issues, which were re-numbered. Fiffe is picking up with the previous numbering with the new issues.

“Snapping back into legacy numbering. Original paper stock was called in. Copra Press has reopened its doors,” Fiffe said on Twitter. He also noted that digital editions will be released around the time the physical issues become available.

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Dark Horse to publish Lesniewski’s ‘Static’ in 2021

Lesniewski will write and draw the horror/science fiction graphic novel.

Following the news that Matt Lesniewski will work with writer Matt Kindt on the miniseries Crimson Flower, Dark Horse has announced plans to publish an original graphic novel from Lesniewski title Static.

The Eisner-nominated creator of The Freak will write and draw the OGN, with Carlos Badilla providing colors.

“Before ever writing or drawing a thing, I had been thinking about the idea for this story for several years,” Lesniewski said. “It went through many different iterations, but the core idea never went away: a character who one day realized their life had passed them by, leaving them ‘stuck’ in place all this time with no idea how to break from the cycle they’ve been in all these years. Hence, the title Static. Ironically, this story would sometimes leave my mind, but it always came back, never really going anywhere.”

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Can’t Wait for Comics | Bold new directions

New comics arriving this week include Batman, Fantastic Four, new Tank Girl, Madam Satan and more.

We are back with a look at what’s arriving in comic shops, bookstores and on digital this week.

If you’re wondering what to get this week, check out a few recommendations below. ComicList has this week’s list of new comics arriving in stores, and the comiXology new releases page for what’s available digitally.

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Smash Pages Q&A: Chuck Brown

The co-creator of ‘Bitter Root’ and ‘On the Stump’ discusses both projects, his background, the Harlem Renaissance and more.

2020 has been a big year for Chuck Brown. Bitter Root, the Image series he makes with David Walker and Sanford Greene, wrapped up its second story arc and received an Eisner Award for “Best Continuing Comics Series.” Brown also launched On the Stump, a new series from Image Comics.

Since it first came out, Bitter Root has been acclaimed as one of the best American comics in recent years, but for Brown its the culmination of many years’ work, and a long friendship and collaboration with Sanford Greene. The two have worked together on different projects like Rotten Apple at Dark Horse and 1000 on Webtoon. That’s in addition to Brown’s other comics work including The Quiet Kind, Godstorm: Hercules Payne and Trenchcoats, Cigarettes and Shotguns.

Bitter Root: Rage and Redemption, the second volume of the series, is out this week. And the first week of November sees the release of the collection of On the Stump. Brown and I spoke recently about his career, these two different books, and using history as setting and subject.

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Comics Lowdown | UCS will no longer distribute DC Comics starting in January

Plus: News on Terrific Production, Archie Comics, Rebellion, L.A. Comic-Con and more.

Distributors: UCS Comics Distributors, one of the two comics distributors that began working with DC Comics during the COVID-19 industry shutdown earlier this year, has told retailers they will no longer distribute DC’s books as of January 2021. Their accounts will be serviced by Lunar Distribution, the other distributor for DC that came into being during the pandemic. UCS was formed by retailer Midtown Comics, while Lunar was formed by Discount Comic Book Service.

So is UCS going away? Not according to the email they sent to retailers, which you can read over at The Beat. It says “UCS is not closing. We will be offering other exciting items that stores can use!” So it’ll be interesting to see what they offer in the future. John Jackson Miller has additional commentary.

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Kindt + Lesniewski tackle folk tales + conspiracies in ‘Crimson Flower’

The four-issue miniseries starts in January.

Dark Horse Comics has announced a new series, Crimson Flower, coming from Matt Kindt, Matt Lesniewski and Bill Crabtree.

The four-issue miniseries will follow a woman who uses folk tales to cope with the loss of her family during a home invasion. But as she plots her revenge, she discovers a government plot to use folk tales to turn children into super assassins.

“‘Cold blooded Russian assassins?’ We’ve seen that before. But assassins trained using Slavic folktales as a brainwashing device? That’s something new that really needed a unique visual style,” Kindt said. “When I saw Matt Lesniewski’s book The Freak (nominated for an Eisner) I knew he was going to do something like we’ve never seen before. Our collaboration was alchemy – turning this book into a brutal, heartbreaking, psychedelic journey of a woman intent on revenge-killing every assassin that ruined her life.”

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2020 Prism Award winners announced

The awards recognize, promote and celebrate diversity and excellence in the field of queer comics.

The winners of the fourth annual Prism Awards were announced over the weekend as part of the virtual Queer Comics Expo hosted by the Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco. The awards ceremony and other content from the expo can be found on the CAM’s YouTube channel.

The awards are presented to comic works by queer authors and stories that promote the growing body of diverse, powerful, innovative, positive or challenging representations of LGBTQAI+ characters in fiction or nonfiction comics. The goal is to recognize, promote and celebrate diversity and excellence in the field of queer comics. Finalists and recipients were voted on by diverse panels of comics professionals, educators, librarians, journalists and writers, which can be found here.

Congratulations to all the winners, who are in bold below:

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What Are You Reading? | ‘Amazing Spider-Man,’ ‘The Vain’ and more

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 reading lately.

Let us know what you read this week in the comments or on social media.

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Sunday Comics | ‘Amelia Shadows,’ 24-Hour Comics and more

Check out recent comics by Matthew Dow Smith, Noelle Stevenson, Melanie Gillman, Keith Knight and more.

Here’s a round up of some of the best comics we’ve seen online recently. If we missed something, let us know in the comments below.

We kick off this week with a new comic from Matthew Dow Smith, who created and posted the comic Johnny Chaos on Twitter earlier this year after the pandemic hit. Alex Dueben spoke with Smith back in July about getting work done during the pandemic; like a lot of other creators, when pens went down at various publishers, Smith started working on his own comics.

This newest, Amelia Shadows, can be found on Tumblr, or, if you’d like to see it a day early, it’s on his Patreon as well (along with a lot of other cool stuff).

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