Image will publish ‘Drawing Blood’ as a 12-issue series

Originally crowdfunded as a graphic novel, the series fictionalizes Kevin Eastman’s life as a comics creator.

Drawing Blood, the semi-autobiographical tale of Kevin Eastman’s rise in the comics world that was successfully crowdfunded on Kickstarter back in 2017, is coming to Image Comics as a 12-issue maxi-series in April.

“The completely fictional true stories of Shane ‘Books’ Bookman sums it up the best,” said Eastman. “Set squarely in our collective world of Comics, part autobiographical, part tall tails and legends, I wanted a fictional character we could really put through the paces. Drawing Blood is all that and a basket of kittens…”

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Venom faces the Purple Man in Michelinie + Sandoval’s ‘Venom: Separation Anxiety’

The retro miniseries kicks off in May.

Venom co-creator David Michelinie returns to the character again this year for another miniseries set during Venom’s early days.

Venom: Separation Anxiety by Michelinie and Death of the Venomverse artist Gerardo Sandoval will feature Eddie Brock encountering the Purple Man, who uses his powers to steal Brock’s symbiote and become “The King in Purple.”

“I’m always delighted to write a new Venom story in a retro background,” Michelinie said. “With ‘Separation Anxiety’ as the required theme, the problem became how to do something that’s already been done—have Eddie Brock separated from his symbiote ‘other.’ So I thought, what if there was a deeply creepy villain with a decidedly bloodthirsty agenda who was able to take bits of Eddie’s symbiote away every time the two touched, with that enemy slowly growing stronger as Venom slowly grew weaker? And that was the nugget that became ‘The King In Purple.'”

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Fawkes + Fuso impose a ‘Sanction’ on Mad Cave Studios

Set in the USSR in 1987, the crime story will see two detectives discover a body on New Year’s Day.

Ray Fawkes of In the Flood and Justice League Dark fame will team with Wyrd artist Antonio Fuso for Sanction, a new Soviet-era crime story coming from Mad Cave Studios in May.

They are joined by Dave Sharpe on colors and letterer Emilio Lecce on the project, which Fawkes said is “the gritty, high-impact, never-seen-this-before crime book I’ve always wanted to write.”

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Quick Hits | Rest in peace, José Delbo

Plus: Amy Chu, Rob Liefeld, Frank Johnson and what the heck is going on with Cadence Comic Art?

José María Del Bó, known professionally as José Delbo, passed away at the age of 90 yesterday. The news was reported on social media by his grandson.

The Argentine comics artist career began in the 1940s as a teenager, with a science fiction tale that appeared Carlos Clemen’s Suspenso title. He left Argentina in the 1960s, migrating first to Brazil and then to the United States in 1965. He worked for Charlton, Dell and Gold Key, contributing art to many of their TV adaptations, including The Brady Bunch, Gentle Ben, The Monkees, Ripley’s Believe It Or Not and Yellow Submarine.

In the late 1960s, he began drawing comics for DC, working on Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen, World’s Finest, Batman Family and Wonder Woman, which he drew for about five years in the late 1970s. From there he moved to Marvel, where he worked on their popular Transformers comic, as well as ThunderCats, Captain Planet and the Planeteers and NFL SuperPro. He also worked on The Phantom and the Superman comic strips.

Together he and writer Simon Furman created Brute Force, a short-lived Marvel series that was intended to be a toy line, but that never came to pass. The series was revived a couple years ago as an Infinity Comics title.

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Young + Corona dig up ‘Ain’t No Grave’ in May

The ‘Middlewest’ team reunites for an Old West tale.

One of my favorite creative teams is back with a new miniseries named after one of my favorite Johnny Cash songs.

Skottie Young and Jorge Corona, the award-winning team behind The Me You Love In The Dark and Middlewest, will reunite on Ain’t No Grave, a Western arriving from Image Comics in May. Young’s frequent collaborators, colorist Jean-Francois Beaulieu and letterer Nate Piekos, round out the creative team.

“I tapped into that darker side of my imagination to write Ryder’s story,” Young said on Substack. “The journey of a person who has lived a not so great life but was changed by three hearts. Her man’s, her child’s and her own. This story explores the length one will go to not lose their home after years of not knowing what that word really meant. What would you do when something, or someone threatens to take you away from all you hold dear? Ryder knows.”

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Preview | Take a look at Lonnie Mann’s debut graphic novel ‘Gaytheist: Coming Out of My Orthodox Childhood’

Check out a preview of the new graphic novel from Street Noise Books.

Courtesy of Street Noise Books, we’re pleased to share a preview of Gaytheist: Coming Out of My Orthodox Childhood by Lonnie Mann.

This autobiographical graphic novel details Mann’s childhood in an Orthodox Jewish community where “being gay is a sin and an abomination.” As Mann gets older, he realizes he’s gay and must come to terms with what that means for his relationship with his family and his religion, as well as his own identity and happiness. Mann originally published his story on Tapas, where it was nominated for an Ignatz Award last year.

Gaytheist arrives in stores this week. You can find more information from the publisher as well as the preview pages below.

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Image Comics will publish Sabir Pirzada’s ‘Dandelion’

The graphic novel anthology will include stories drawn by Martín Morazzo, Vanesa R. Del Rey, Eric Koda and more.

Ms. Marvel writer Sabir Pirzada has a new project coming from Image Comics this summer — Dandelion, an anthology graphic novel featuring “climate crisis-infused tales” drawn by several different artists.

“It’s been a grand undertaking to gather some of the industry’s hottest artists, and build a shared continuity where they could take inspiration from one another in illustrating a wide range of genres that all add up to a larger world of speculative fiction with a mystery unfolding in the background: who is the founder of the Dandelion ship?” Pirzada said. “We are excited to present a unique reading experience as can only exist in an anthology graphic novel format.”

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Can’t Wait for Comics | Love & ThunderCats

New comics and graphic novels arrive this week by Declan Shalvey, Drew Moss, Zoe Tunnell, Dani Pendergast, Bryan Hill, Stefano Caselli, Ram V, Chris Claremont, Amy Jo Johnson, Marguerite Abouet, Clement Oubrerie and more.

Welcome to Can’t Wait for Comics, your guide to what comics are arriving in comic book stores, bookstores and on digital. February, the official Month of Love™, is here, and with it come several Valentine’s Day specials. This week also brings the launch of ThunderCats, which reportedly has almost 200K in pre-orders. ThunderCats ho!

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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Sunday Comics | ‘Beetle Moses’ arrives on Comics Kingdom

Check out recent webcomics by Harris Fishman, Coleman Engle, Kay King and more.

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

Beetle Moses, the quirky comic strip featuring a lot of animals and pop culture references by Harris Fishman, has debuted on Comics Kingdom.

If you aren’t familiar with Beetle Moses, well, you probably are, as it’s one of those strips that’s done well on social media and probably went across your feed at some point without you realizing it. It’s typically three stacked panels, so already it looks like a meme from the get go.

Fishman spoke with Canvas Rebel about it just a few weeks ago, and this quote resonated with me: I make webcomics, which as a medium have the benefit of being shareable since they are built for social media. Comics are an interesting artistic medium because it feels like they are often overlooked by creators of fine art, and also not respected as an art form by casual consumers. People who love comics know that neither of these mentalities are true, and that the world of comics is endlessly rich and saturated with incredible writers and artists. Webcomics fall into an even less respected niche, and there is some blame to go around. There’s a lot of same-y looking styles thanks to trends in oversimplification over the last decade. Webcomics are still a very new medium, and they differ slightly from printed comics in a few ways. Webcomic creators are still feeling out the ground floor to see exactly where webcomics can go. I think in some ways this freed me as a webcomic artist, since I had a few viral hits early on that broke the typical conventions of the contemporary “scene”. A lot of casual viewers still look at my social media accounts as a “meme page” and don’t consider that I’m one guy actually drawing these things. But that doesn’t discourage me at all. In fact, I think there are some amazing fine artists who would grow both on socials, and in their own creative journey by trying their hands at comics.

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That time Doctor Octopus was a Japanese schoolgirl is coming to America

Marvel and Viz announce three new manga projects that will arrive in stores later this year.

One of the most famous (and maybe infamous, depending on who you talk to) Spider-Man stories saw his arch enemy Doctor Octopus cleverly switch minds with Peter Parker and take over his life. But what if, instead of trying to prove he was the “Superior” Spider-Man, he actually ended up in the body of a middle schooler in Japan?

That’s kind of the premise of Spider-Man: Octo-Girl, Vol. 1, announced last week by Marvel and Viz Media. Created by Hideyuki Furuhashi and Betten Court of My Hero Academia: Vigilantes fame, it will join a remastered version of the 1990s X-Men Manga on store shelves this fall.

Here are more details on both, along with a Deadpool: Samurai coloring book:

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Canto returns at Dark Horse to search for ‘A Place Like Home’

David M. Booher and Drew Zucker’s clockwork hero returns in a third miniseries.

David M. Booher and Drew Zucker’s Canto found a new home at Dark Horse last year, when the publisher announced plans to release new printings of the first two volumes that were previously published by IDW.

But the tiny clockwork hero’s adventures don’t end there — Dark Horse has announced Canto: A Place Like Home, a new six-issue miniseries by Booher and Zucker that will debut in June.  Joined by colorist Vittorio Astone and letterer Andworld Design, Booher and Zucker will bring Canto’s battle against the Shrouded Man to a conclusion in the series.

“We’ve always known where this story was headed,” Zucker said. “But it still feels surreal to have finally made it. When we set out on CANTO’s adventure I’m not sure we could have predicted how life changing it would be both professionally and personally. It has been a genuine pleasure to not only tell CANTO’s story, but share it with all of the readers who have come on this adventure with us. I couldn’t be more excited to bring The Shrouded Man Saga to a close with our amazing creative partners and the team at Dark Horse Comics.”

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‘Ahsoka’ comes to comics this summer

Rodney Barnes, Steven Cummings and Georges Jeanty will bring Anakin Skywalker’s former apprentice to the printed page.

Marvel has announced plans to bring Ahsoka to comics in an eight-issue miniseries by Rodney Barnes, Steven Cummings and Georges Jeanty.

Much like the recent Mandalorian and Obi-Wan comics, this one sounds like it’ll be another straight-up adaptation of the Ahsoka Disney+ show, versus a new story. Played by Rosario Dawson, the show brought the popular character from The Clone Wars animated series to live action, along with characters from Star Wars: Rebels and Admiral Thrawn, who first debuted in the books by Timothy Zahn.

“It is truly an honor to be adapting Ahsoka,” Barnes told StarWars.com. “The character is the essence of classic Star Wars: layered, complex and fun! I hope the fans enjoy this adaptation as much as the series it’s adapted from.”

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