Tag: comic books

The first volume of ‘The Hunger and the Dusk’ is $1.99 on Comixology today

Catch up on G. Willow Wilson and Chris Wildgoose’s epic fantasy before the second arc begins next month.

Last year award-winning writer G. Willow Wilson teamed up with artist Chris Wildgoose on The Hunger and the Dusk, a “high fantasy tour de force,” as the marketing billed it, and they weren’t lying. The series featured a dying world inhabited by humans and orcs who were once mortal enemies, but had to put their differences aside to face a powerfully brutal ancient race called the Vangol that threatened them both.

If that sounds intriguing, then this is your lucky week: not only has IDW released the first six issues — book one — as a trade paperback, but its available for the low price of $1.99 right now on Comixology.

And it comes at an opportune time, because next month will bring the the first issue of Book Two.

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Mad Cave Studios launches their 2024 Talent Search

Entries are due by the end of August.

Mad Cave Studios has announced their 2024 Talent Search, which they’ve conducted for the past seven years. Previous winners have gone on to work with Mad Cave and other publishers, including Anthony Cleveland, Jay Sandlin, David Hazan, Shane Connery Volk and many more.

The type of talent they’re looking for changes every year; up until 2022, they were looking for writers and artists, but that year they expanded it to include colorists and letterers. This year they are doubling the number of winners in each category, as they are looking for two writers, two illustrators, two colorists and two letterers to work on upcoming projects.

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Celebrate 50 years of Deathlok with Denys Cowan, Justina Ireland, Christopher Priest + more

‘Deathlok 50th Anniversary Special’ arrives in September.

Marvel will celebrate 50 years of Deathlok this September with a special that will include contributions from Christopher Priest, Justina Ireland, Denys Cowan, Dale Eaglesham, Matthew Waite, Luke Ross and more.

“I’m always excited and humbled to write anything in the Marvel universe, but Deathlok as a character is especially important to me because as a U.S. Army veteran, his origin story really resonates in a horrifying way,” Ireland said. “So I’m excited to dig into the emotional core of what makes Deathlok so unique, while also having some fun.”

Ireland, the writer of Dread Nation, Deathless Divide, Ophie’s Ghosts and several Star Wars books, served as an Arabic linguistics expert in the U.S. Army. In addition to writing, she works as a supervisor in logistics for the Department of the Navy.

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There’s a demon in the White House in ‘The Exorcism at 1600 Penn’

Hannah Rose May + Vanesa Del Rey’s new IDW title arrives this October, just in time for election season.

IDW returns to its horror roots this October with The Exorcism at 1600 Penn, a four-issue miniseries by writer Hannah Rose May, artist Vanesa Del Rey, colorist Jordie Bellaire and letterer Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou.

The series is about the first woman president of the United States and the demons she must contend with when she and her family move into the White House. Literal demons, just for clarification.

“As someone who has always loved horror, I wanted to tell a story that let me play with the genre’s tropes but in a setting we haven’t seen before,” Rose May said. “The White House is arguably the most famous house in the world and I thought it would be fun to use it as a location to set an exorcism. At its core, this is a story about family and faith, but it also addresses the intensity of the 24/7 news cycle, the noise of social media and the expectations put upon the First Family.”

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Slugfest | BOOM! celebrates 25 years of ‘Farscape’

Plus: ‘Life,’ ‘Remote Space,’ Fantagraphics’ fall schedule, Minecraft, Dog Man and more.

Slugfest is a roundup of cool announcements about projects coming to a shelf near you. Hit the links for more information.

Farscape, the Australian-American science fiction television series created by Rockne O’Bannon and the Jim Henson Company that ran on SciFi, will return to comics in August courtesy of BOOM! Studios, who published the previous Farscape series.

The 25th anniversary special one-shot will be the first Farscape comic published since 2010, and it’ll feature stories by  Keith R.A. DeCandido, who wrote many of BOOM!’s previous Farscape comics, along with Jackson Lanzing & Collin Kelly, Sarah Gailey, Sina Grace and more.

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Bloodhunting 2 | Tie-ins, heel turns and plot complications

The Smash Pages crew sinks their fangs into the second issue of Marvel’s ‘Blood Hunt,’ as well as some of the crossover issues.

Marvel’s Blood Hunt crossover is in full swing, with a second issue, several crossover issues and a few tie-in miniseries hitting shelves over the last few weeks.

Once again, the Smash Pages team — myself, Shane Bailey and Tom Bondurant — has come together to talk about the event, with our second “Bloodhunting” roundtable. You can read our thoughts on the first issue here.

This time around we talk about Blood Hunt #2, as well as crossover issues featuring Spider-Man, the Avengers, Doctor Strange, the Blood Hunters and Dracula. Please note there are blood-soaked SPOILERS in this discussion related to the story, so only enter if you dare — or if you’re in your astral form, and are thus protected from all things spoiler-y. I’m pretty sure that’s how it works.

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Dan DiDio + Jim Calafiore revive ‘Defenders of the Earth’ at Mad Cave Studios

The eight-issue series featuring Flash Gordon, the Phantom and more will launch in August.

As part of their revival plans for Flash Gordon, Mad Cave Studios has announced the creative team for Defenders of the Earth, an eight-issue series based on the animated TV show. Former DC Publisher and current Frank Miller Presents publisher Dan DiDio will write the series, with Jim Calafiore of Exiles, Secret Six and Leaving Megalopolis fame on art.

Defenders of the Earth ran for 65 episodes back in the mid-1980s, and featured Flash Gordon teaming up with other King Features comic-strip characters to battle Ming the Merciless. Flash, The Phantom, Mandrake the Magician and Lothar, Mandrake’s assistant, were joined by their children as they, um, defended the Earth.

“As a fan of the original animated series, I was excited by the opportunity to work on this title,” said DiDio. “I’m hoping to build on some of the show’s classic elements and move them in new directions while exploring the personalities and lives of the characters that make the series great. One of the best aspects of the series was finding a way to unite the show’s four disparate, iconic stars following the end of their war with Ming. What sets it apart from other books featuring Flash Gordon, Mandrake, The Phantom, and Lothar is the added generational aspect of the story—that’s the fun part of writing. The father/son relationships of Flash and Rick, and Lothar and LJ; the father/daughter relationship of The Phantom and Jenna; and the mentor/protege relationship of Mandrake and Kshin are really the heart of the story. What makes and breaks these families is key to saving the world from a new and more deadly challenge.”

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Kyle Higgins, Alec Siegel + Rod Reis return to the world of ‘C.O.W.L.’

‘C.O.W.L.: 1964′ will launch in August and will tie into Higgins’ larger Massive-verse line of titles.

Kyle Higgins, Alec Siegel and Rod Reis will reunite 10 years later for C.O.W.L.: 1964, a three-issue miniseries that begins later this summer.

C.O.W.L., which has officially joined the Massive-verse titles overseen by Higgins, first launched in 2014. Set in the 1960s, the comic centers on the Chicago Organized Workers League, the world’s first super-hero labor union, which battled super villains, organized crime and eventually their own faltering public image. The previous series has been collected into two volumes.

“Returning to C.O.W.L. is very special for me,” said Higgins. “The series’ origins date back to my college thesis film, The League, and before that to the short story I wrote that got me into film school. It’s something that’s been with both Alec and myself for a long time. When Alec, Rod and I started this book In 2014, the idea of building it to be a part of a something larger wasn’t something that we thought we would ever be able to do. Now, as we come back to finish the core story, we’ll also be setting the stage for the future of C.O.W.L. and in some ways, The Massive-Verse.”

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John Arcudi + Savannah Finley bring ‘Convert’ to Image Comics

The miniseries kicks off in August.

Veteran comics writer John Arcudi will return this summer with a new miniseries drawn by Savannah Finley. Convert is a science fiction story about a science officer who is stranded on an alien planet, where he’s haunted by his dead crew.

The writer of B.P.R.D., Major Bummer and more said the new series is a “more intimate” approach to science fiction for him.

“Convert was maybe my first opportunity to write a science fiction story the way I wanted to, meaning something more personal, more intimate—while at the the same time more fantastic—than what I’m used to seeing in the genre,” Arcudi said. “My hope is that this human element in the comic will connect with readers.”

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Jacket required: Steve Orlando + friends return to Avengers Mansion for ‘Avengers Assemble’

The second ‘Avengers’ title will feature some old classics and some new faces.

Avengers old and new will assemble under the leadership of Steve Rogers in Avengers Assemble, which launches in September.

Scarlet Witch and The Scale Trade writer Steve Orlando will work with several different artists on the series, including Cory Smith, Scot Eaton, Marcelo Ferreira and more, with Smith drawing the first issue.

As for the premise, it follows the current Avengers storyline that’s running during Blood Hunt, which has Captain America assembling a ragtag team to battle vampires while the primary Avengers team goes up against Blade and his minions. Steve Rogers will also head up this new team, which will include several classic Avengers, like Wonder Man, Hercules, She-Hulk, Hawkeye, Wasp and Photon, along with some more obscure Avengers like Shang Chi and Lightning, plus two new faces to the team — former New Warriors leader Night Thrasher and Power Pack’s Lightspeed.

“This is a great time to assemble!” Orlando shared. “Avengers Assemble is bringing a murderer’s row of classic Avengers back to the Mansion, and classic comics storytelling is coming with it! A team of icons and new recruits alike, but heavy on the icons! And in every issue, a barnburner of an entire story packed into 20 pages!”

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Dark Horse will collect the 2000 miniseries ‘Space Circus’ this December

The hardcover will feature some of the final art colored by Tom Luth, who passed away last month.

Dark Horse Comics has announced a collection of Space Circus by the Groo the Wanderer creative team of Mark Evanier, Sergio Aragones, Tom Luth and Stan Sakai.

The miniseries was originally released in 2000 but was never collected. Dark Horse will release the 112-page story as a hardcover this December. It features a new cover by Aragones and Luth, which could be the final piece of art that Luth worked on. The longtime colorist of Groo the Wanderer, The Badger, Usagi Yojimbo and more passed away last month from an apparent heart attack, according to Evanier.

“The last thing he colored for Sergio — and I suspect for anyone — was the cover to a forthcoming collection of our 2000 mini-series, Space Circus,” Evanier wrote on his blog in May. “Tom colored the original series back then and he colored a wonderful wrap-around cover that you’ll see on the book when it’s released later this year.”

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Jeph Loeb + Tim Sale’s most beloved Batman story gets a sequel in September

Loeb will team with Eduardo Risso, Klaus Janson and more for ‘The Last Halloween.’

Prior to his death, Tim Sale was working with his frequent collaborator Jeph Loeb on a sequel to their career-defining Batman maxi-series, The Long Halloween. That sequel will continue on, according to DC, who officially announced The Last Halloween at MCM London last month.

Loeb will write the 10-issue series and will be joined by a different artist on each issue, starting with 100 Bullets artist Eduardo Risso. Klaus Janson, known for his work on books like Batman: The Dark Knight Returns and Daredevil, will draw the second issue, while Mark Chiarello, the former art director for DC, will draw the third issue. They’ll be joined by letterer Richard Starkings, who worked on the original series, and colorist Dave Stewart.

“Batman The Long Halloween: The Last Halloween is Tim Sale’s parting gift to me,” Loeb said. “Tim and I had already decided to tell this last chapter following Batman: The Long Halloween Special, which will serve as the prologue to this 10-part action-packed mystery.”

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