Put some horror into your holidays with Archie’s ‘Happy Horror Days’ one-shot

Frank Tieri, Joe Eisma, Joanne Starer and more put the ‘ho, ho, ho’ into horror this December.

The Archie Horror line returns with a vengeance this fall, starting this week with Chilling Adventures Presents . . . Weirder Mysteries and continuing on into October with several new titles. But if you think you’ll be safe after Oct. 31, think again — Archie has announced Happy Horror Days, a one-shot holiday special that will add a bit of fright to your holiday festivities.

The one-shot will feature three stories, including a new Jughead: The Hunger tale by Frank Tieri and Joe Eisma, a Sheila Wu story by Joanne Starer and Butch Mapa, and a Sugar Plum story by Joe Corallo and Patrick Piazzalunga.

“In ”Twas the Night Before the Hunger,’ X-Mas turns into an X-Massacre when Jughead finds himself up against none other than a pissed off Krampus one fine Christmas morn. It’s a nice little tale of ho-ho-horror where we may see more than just Christmas cookies and hamburgers getting eaten,” Tieri said about his and Eisma’s story, which returns to the world where Jughead is a werewolf.

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‘Nubia: Real One’ wins an Ignyte Award

The DC graphic novel by L. L. McKinney and Robyn Smith was honored during an awards ceremony this past weekend.

L. L. McKinney and Robyn Smith, who re-imagined Wonder Woman’s sister in the YA graphic novel Nubia: Real One, have won a 2022 Ignyte Award.

The awards “celebrate the vibrancy and diversity of the current and future landscapes of science fiction, fantasy and horror by recognizing incredible feats in storytelling and outstanding efforts toward inclusivity of the genre.”

The creative team won in the “Best Comics Team” category. Other nominees this year included the creative teams on Abbot: 1973, Count, Shadow Life and Squad. Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler, which was adapted into a graphic novel by Damian Duffy and John Jennings, won the award last year.

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Eric Powell brings Albatross Funnybooks to Dark Horse

The creator of ‘The Goon’ will once again work with Dark Horse, this time on a new line of comics.

Eric Powell, the award-winning creator of The Goon, will return to Dark Horse to head up his own imprint where he’ll publish his own comics and those made by others.

The imprint is called, naturally, Albatross Funnybooks, the name of Powell’s publishing company that he’s been operating since 2002. Over the years Powell has not only published his own work, but also comics by Fabian Rangel Jr., Logan Faerber, Brendon Small, Rebecca Sugar and others. Dark Horse published The Goon starting in 2003 for 42 issues before it went on hiatus, then popped up again at Albatross.

“I couldn’t be happier to be returning to Dark Horse and bringing Albatross over as an imprint,” said Powell. “This partnership will allow me to focus more on what I want to be doing, making books. I’m very excited for what the future holds and the new opportunities to be found.”

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Dark Horse moves to Penguin Random House for direct market comics distribution

Dark Horse will move their comic shop distribution from Diamond to Penguin Random House starting next June.

Penguin Random House’s overall footprint in the direct market will grow again next year, as Dark Horse has announced plans to move their business to the growing comics distributor.

Dark Horse follows Marvel and IDW in moving away from their longtime distributor, Diamond, to partner with Penguin Random House Publisher Services.

“It’s an exciting time for the industry, and our move to Penguin Random House for direct market distribution comes after our successful partnership in bookstore distribution,” Dark Horse Founder and CEO Mike Richardson said. “Random House will help us expand our reach to retailers and fans around the globe.

Effective June 23 of next year, Penguin will handle distribution of Dark Horse’s newly published and backlist comic book periodicals, graphic novels, and manga to the Direct Market comic shops. Penguin was already the distributor of Dark Horse’s graphic novels to the book channel.

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Edward Sorel awarded the Reuben; Powell, Petersen + more win NCS awards

The National Cartoonist Society recognized cartoonists and artist across several categories this past weekend.

The National Cartoonist Society has named Edward Sorel as the 2021 Cartoonist of the Year, presenting him with their annual Reuben Award.

The Reuben, along with the annual NCS Divisional Awards, were announced over the weekend during the Reuben Awards gala dinner.

Sorel’s work has appeared in The Nation, New York Magazine, The Atlantic, The New York Times, Vanity Fair, Village Voice, National Lampoon, Fortune, Forbes, Time, Esquire and countless other publications. The 92-year-old artist’s memoir, Profusely Illustrated, was published last year.

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IDW’s final G.I. Joe comic features more than 300 characters on one of its covers

Larry Hama wraps up 40 years of writing a ‘Real American Hero.’ as IDW potentially sets a new world record for ‘most comic book characters on a single issue cover.’

With G.I. Joe set to leave IDW for, um, somewhere else at the end of the year, IDW is pulling out all the stops on their big finale for the line. Their last comic, G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero #300, will arrive in stores in November, featuring a story by longtime G.I. Joe scribe Larry Hama, with art by SL Gallant, inks by Maria Keane, colors by J. Brown and letters by Neil Uyetake.

“I handed in the plot to G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero #300, which is the final issue of the series for IDW, with a mix of sadness and amazement. Sad, that a storyline I began in 1982 is coming to an end, and amazement that it has lasted this long,” Hama said.

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Can’t Wait for Comics | ‘Creepshow’ digs itself back up for a new comics run

Plus: Vanish! X-Terminators! Crashing! Big Ethel Energy! And celebrate 30 years of Harley Quinn and 40 years of the New Mutants!

Welcome to Can’t Wait for Comics, your guide to what comics are arriving in comic book stores, bookstores and on digital.

I’ve pulled out some of the highlights below, but for the complete list of everything you might find at your local comic shop and on digital this week, you’ll want to check out one or more of the following:

As a reminder, things can change and what you find on the above lists may differ from what’s actually arriving in your local shop. So always check with your comics retailer for the final word on availability.

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Smash Pages Q&A | Mike Dawson

The creator of ‘Troop 142,’ ‘Angie Bongiolatti’ and more discusses the second book in his ‘The Fifth Quarter’ series.

Mike Dawson is the Ignatz Award-winning cartoonist of books including Freddie & Me, Troop 142 and Angie Bongiolatti. He’s a comics essayist whose work has been in Slate, The Nib and many other publications, some of which were collected into his 2016 book Rules for Dating My Daughter. Dawson also contributed a comic to the Rutgers University Press anthology New Jersey Fan Club.

Recently he’s been making The Fifth Quarter, a series of middle grade graphic novels about basketball – something which he admits came as a shock to him, having hated sports when he was younger, but having come to appreciate the game when his daughter started playing. The second book in the series, Hard Court, is out now from First Second Books, and I spoke with Dawson about the series, what it has in common with his earlier books, and finding a way to make personal work.

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‘The Girl from the Sea’ wins a British Fantasy Award

The awards recognize fantasy and horror lit across a variety of categories.

The Girl from the Sea by Molly Knox Ostertag and published by Graphix has won a British Fantasy Award in the Best Comic/Graphic Novel category.

The British Fantasy Awards recognize fantasy and horror literature across a range of categories, including the “Best Comic/Graphic Novel” category. You can see the complete list of winners across all categories on the British Fantasy Awards website.

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Wagner + Dark Horse will release a Master’s Edition of his early Grendel work

Wagner has redrawn and expanded ‘Devil by the Deed,’ the introductory story of Hunter Rose.

In honor of the 40th anniversary of his much-beloved, long-running comic Grendel, Matt Wagner and Dark Horse will release a “Master’s Edition” of “Devil by the Deed,” the introductory story of Hunter Rose that originally appeared as a back-up in Mage.

The project was announced at the Grendel 40th Anniversary Panel at the Rose City Comic Con earlier this month.

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Sunday Comics | An AI-generated comic about conservation and the apocalypse

Check out comics from T. Kingfisher, Katie Skelly and Ben Fleuter.

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

T. Kingfisher, aka Ursula Vernon, is a multiple award-winning author and comics creator, whose books include The Hollow Places, The Twisted Ones, A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking and many more. She’s also the creator of the award-winning webcomic Digger.

Her most recent work, though, is A Different Aftermath, a comic she posted to Twitter that she made with the help of th Midjourney AI. When I first scrolled by the post and saw the artwork, I never would have guessed it was AI generated, and the story itself is very lovely — it’s about what happened to the wildlife, like bees and such, after the collapse of society.

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King + Fornés + Stewart tell you how to get to ‘Danger Street’ in December

The DC Black Label miniseries will bring back concepts from the 1970s series ‘DC First Issue Special.’

The creative team behind DC’s Rorschach series will reunite in December for Danger Street, a new DC Black Label miniseries featuring a variety of DC characters in a “deeply layered crime drama.”

Tom King, Jorge Fornés and Dave Stewart are pulling their line-up for this one from an obscure 1970s title, DC First Issue Special. This was an oddball series where every issue was a first issue, introducing a brand new concept or re-imaging a dormant one that, conceivably, could then be spun off into its own series (although that only happened in a couple of cases).

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