Reggie gets the ‘New Riverdale’ treatment in December

Tom DeFalco and Sandy Jarrell bring Archie’s favorite nemesis back to his own comic in “Reggie & Me.”

Following the relaunches of Archie, Jughead, and Betty & Veronica by the likes of Mark Waid, Fiona Staples, Chip Zdarsky, Adam Hughes and others, Archie Comics has announced that everyone’s favorite scamp, Reggie, will get the “new Riverdale” treatment in December.

Tom DeFalco, who wrote the final issue of the traditional Archie title, will write the new series, titled Reggie & Me. He’s joined by artist Sandy Jarrell, whose previous work includes DC Bombshells, Batman ’66 and Meteor Men. Kelly Fitzpatrick and Jack Morelli round out the creative team.

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A D4VE we can believe in

Ryan Ferrier and Valentin Ramon send their robotic war hero on the campaign trail.

Back in 2014, the up-and-coming digital comics imprint Monkeybrain made me believe in funny robot comics again with the publication of D4VE. Created by Ryan Ferrier and Valentin Ramon, the comic told the story of what happens to a robot war hero after the robots conquer everything — spoiler’s alert: they get a crappy desk job, go through a divorce and deal with a lot of the &*!%$# us regular humans might deal with on a daily basis. Until they get the chance to become a war hero again.

Following up on the original miniseries and its sequel, IDW Publishing has announced a third miniseries — D4VEOCRACY, which details what happens when the war hero decides to run for president.

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Walden, Beaton, Hanawalt and more take home Ignatz Awards

Annual awards presented Saturday night at the Small Press Expo in Maryland.

Tillie Walden, Kate Beaton, Lisa Hanawalt, Noah Van Sciver, Meredith Gran, Carolyn Nowak and Sam Bosma all took home bricks last night from the Small Press Expo’s annual Ignatz Awards ceremony.

Walden actually took home two bricks: one for outstanding artist on The End of Summer and one for promising new talent on I Love This Part.

Named after the brick-throwing mouse from Krazy Kat, the awards are selected by a jury of five creators and voted on by attendees of the show. This year’s jury included Tony Breed, Summer Pierre, Keiler Roberts, C. Spike Trotman and J.T. Yost.

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Koyama Press debuts on comiXology

‘Blobby Boys,’ ‘Drinking at the Movies,’ ‘Fata Morgana’ and more now available via the digital comics service.

Just in time for the annual Small Press Expo, 12 titles from Koyama Press debuted on comiXology this weekend, including material from Chris Eliopoulos, Julia Wertz, Britt Wilson and Jon Vermilyea.

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Watch the trailer for Tom Gauld’s ‘Mooncop’

A cop hunts for a lost dog on the moon in the new graphic novel from Drawn & Quarterly.

Drawn & Quarterly’s 2016 Free Comic Book Day offering sent Tom Gauld’s Mooncop to the top of my “most anticipated fall releases” list, and as of now we’re only a week away before it drops. With that in mind, here are a couple of items to whet the appetite. First, our old friend Graeme McMillan spoke with Gauld for Wired and shared five reasons Mooncop will be your new favorite graphic novel. In the piece, Gauld explains where the idea came from in the first place:

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Quoted: Colleen Doran on fan fiction

The creator of “A Distant Soil” not only encourages readers to create fan fiction featuring her characters, she also says she does it herself.

“There is an A Distant Soil fanfic site that sometimes links updates to the A Distant Soil webpage. I’ve been asked if I am OK with this. I am not only OK with this, I fully support not-for-sale fan activity. If you want to make fanfic and fanart of my work and link it from the FB page or the website, you are welcome to do so. I not only got my start in comics doing fanfic, but when trying to break through a creative block fairly recently, sat down and worked on some myself, posted it anonymously, and it got me through that creative block like a charm.”

—A Distant Soil creator, renowned artist and fan fiction writer Colleen Doran

Superman and the Cure for Cancer

Everyone knows someone affected by cancer. Even Superman. But maybe he can do something about it.

Writer/artist Stephen Sonneveld has released Superman vs. Cancer, a 70-page webcomic where the Man of Steel goes to any length to finally stop this pervasive and all too common disease.

Obviously this is not an official DC Comics release. Described as “for portfolio purposes only,” Superman vs. Cancer is clearly not pretending to be canon, but its use of not only Superman’s mythology and the larger DC Universe contributes to a story that is emotionally resonant and affecting, even disarming.

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Tragically Hip frontman Gord Downie & Jeff Lemire tells story of the mistreatment of Canadian Indigenous children

The story of a 12-year old boy who died from hunger and exposure is the subject of a new project spearheaded by the Tragically Hip’s Gord Downie with comic writer and illustrator Jeff Lemire. This multi-media production is a mix of poems, music, a graphic novel and animated film.

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Barbiere and Santos aim for the heart with “Violent Love”

The creators of “Five Ghosts” and “Polar” team up for the tale of two notorious bank robbers who fall in love.

I named an island in my D&D campaign after Frank J. Barbiere. I was creating it around the time that his Five Ghosts series, with artist Chris Mooneyham, hit the high seas for a storyline, and since the island had pirates on it, “Barbiere” made a fun name and actually fit really well. Now I’m thinking I need to add a town on it called “Santos” run by two thieves who fell for each other.

Why, you ask? (Or even if you didn’t, because you aren’t one of the three other people in the universe who cares about my D&D adventures …) Because Frank J. Barbiere and Victor Santos (Polar) are teaming up for a brand-new comic, Violent Love. The main characters, Daisy Jane and Rock Bradley, are two of the most notorious bank robbers in the American Southwest — and then they fell in love.

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Interview | 5 Minutes with Emi Gennis

The creator talks about her SPX debut from last year, “Baseline Boulevard,” and more in an interview from last year’s show.

Emi Gennis does short comics on fascinating topics, usually quirky stories from history. I first discovered her work when I picked up her minicomic on trepanation (warning: includes graphic images of people drilling holes in their skulls) at TCAF last year. Her other work includes The Radium Girls, about women who were exposed to radium while working in a watch factory in the 1930s; and Franz Reichelt: The Flying Tailor, the story of a man who invented a parachute suit and died testing it on himself. The latter is one of Gennis’s comic adaptations of stories from Wikipedia’s list of unusual deaths.

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Artists #WakeUpAndDraw for Jack Kirby’s birthday

To celebrate the 99th birthday of the King, artists are drawing his creation to benefit the Hero Initiative.

Today would have been comic book legend Jack Kirby’s 99th birthday, and to celebrate artists from all over the world are waking up to draw various Kirby creations — everyone from the Thing to OMAC to Fin Fang Foom. Many of the drawings are also being auctioned off to benefit the Hero Initiative.

Here are a few of them … you can find more by following the #WakeUpAndDraw hashtag on Twitter and other social media, or check out our Tumblr, where I’ll be posting others I see throughout the day.

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Remember that time when Stephen King wrote a Batman story?

“Batman and Robin Have an Altercation” offers a different take on the Dark Knight.

NPR’s new Too Hot for Radio podcast does, and they enlisted Avatar actor Stephen Lang to read it in their first episode.

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