Comics Lowdown is back!

Your roundup of essential comics news is back, with an Angoulême update, cussin’ Stan Lee and more!

Big publishing news: Bertelsmann, the parent company of Penguin Random House, announced the day before Thanksgiving that it will buy Simon & Schuster. This will affect graphic novels and manga in a big way, because PRH and S&S distribute a LOT of graphic novels and manga.

In a series of Tweets, Ed Chavez sketches out what the manga landscape will look like, and why it matters. ICv2 lists all their comics/distribution clients; keep in mind that this is in addition to the graphic novels the companies themselves publish under a variety of imprints: Random House has RH Graphics and Pantheon (which publishes the works of Chris Ware and other literary graphic novels), and S&S has Gallery 13 and, just announced, two new lines of graphic novels for young readers.

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Sunday’s Doonesbury strip featured a crossword puzzle designed by Trudeau’s son

Ross Trudeau took over his dad’s comic strip for a day to present a fun crossword puzzle about ‘Doonesbury.’

Doonesbury readers probably noticed this past Sunday that their regular strip was taken over by a crossword puzzle. Did the strip become too controversial and get replaced? Not at all. The crossword was actually the work of Doonesbury creator Garry Trudeau’s son, Ross

“Full disclosure: Garry Trudeau and I lived together for the first 18 years of my life,” Ross wrote on his website, Rossword Puzzles, where he regularly shares the crossword puzzles he designs. “The puzzle features 18 Doonesbury character answers, so this one is for the real ‘toon-heads.”

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