Quick Hits | Whatever happened to ‘Tales from the Quarantine’?

Plus: A ‘Doonesbury’ controversy (maybe?), Image launches a retailer award, and a Seattle comic shop’s staff unionizes.

Crowdfunding | Broken Frontier has a lengthy article up where they talk with many of the creators involved with Tales from the Quarantine, a project spearheaded by Frazer Brown of Red Cabin Comics that was funded in the early days of the pandemic and was meant to raise money for the Hero Initiative and other charities. The anthology was supposed to feature comics by a long list of creators, including Ed Brubaker, Sean Phillips, Rachael Stott, Charlie Adlard, Jim Zub and Max Dunbar, among others. Almost four years after being funded, the anthology has yet to materialize in print, with many angry backers wanting to know what happened and creators left with little answers themselves.

“It was a damaging situation for our individual reputations,” said one of the anthology’s contributors, Lucy Sullivan. “The way the project was marketed suggested we were all complicit in its concept and production rather than, the reality, that we all gave our time and expertise for free in aid of charity. The only recourse was to publicly state this. Of course that put me on the blocked list, off the contributors’ emails and potentially amongst those threatened with police investigation. It was really quite stressful.”

Visit Broken Frontier to read more.

Comic strips | A former Iowa State Representative went to social media to question why this Sunday’s Doonesbury strip didn’t appear in any Gannett papers over the weekend. The strip in question featured a Florida teacher sharing facts about the Civil War, while one student questions if it is still legal for her to do so — a very real issue in the state.

But did Gannett actually remove the strip because of the content, as Cracked.com suggests? The Daily Cartoonist says another factor may be in play here — Gannett previously announced plans to limit the comic strips offered to their papers to a set 34, and Doonesbury isn’t on the list.

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Brisson + Manna send the Predator on ‘The Last Hunt’ next year

The new miniseries begins in February.

The Predator will hunt once again in a new miniseries by Ed Brisson and Francesco Manna next year.

Predator: The Last Hunt continues the story of Theta, a character Brisson co-created, as she continues on her “one-woman rampage across the spaceways to slay the deadly Yautja.” Theta appeared in the two Predator miniseries Marvel released last year under their 20th Century Studios imprint.

“I’m incredibly excited to be continuing my work on Predator,” Brisson said. “This is a book I love dearly. I’m proud of the work we’ve done in the past two volumes and think readers will be excited to see where we’re headed in this third volume. The stakes are higher than they’ve ever been.”

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BOOM! announces ‘The Displaced’ by Brisson + Casalanguida + Cunniffe

The story of a forgotten Canadian city kicks off next year.

A project that was almost writer Ed Brisson’s first published comics project will finally see the light of day, as BOOM! Studios has announced The Displaced, which is about a city that has vanished without a trace and that no one can remember.

Brisson is joined by artist Luca Casalanguida, colorist Dee Cunniffe and letterer Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou on the project, which kicks off in February.

The Displaced was almost my very first published work. About a year before Comeback was picked up by Shadowline/Image, I had pitched The Displaced and had interest from a publisher. However, after months of back-and-forth notes, the book ended up veering away from the book that I wanted to do, so we amicably parted ways. It was a tough call to make, but ultimately, the right one. This book is too dear to me, I didn’t want to lose that,” Brisson said in his email newsletter. “The concept sat in a digital drawer for years. I’d periodically take it out, blow off the dust, and work on it. Yet it always felt like there was a piece missing. At some point during 2022, that piece finally fell into place and I set out to pitch it again — the first time since that 2011 experience.”

Brisson has worked with BOOM! in the past, on titles like Cluster and The Last Contract, and The Displaced marks his return to the publisher for the first time in about seven years.

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Fall of X: Alpha Flight, Dark X-Men return + Nightcrawler becomes Spider-Man

Marvel reveals more details on several Fall of X tie-in titles launching this summer.

After teasing the tie-in titles for their upcoming Fall of X event at MegaCon earlier this month, Marvel has revealed more details on a number of the new series that will spring forth from Krakoa this summer.

Here’s a look at what’s been announced for August:

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‘Batman: The Brave and the Bold’ anthology lands in May

The first issue features stories by Tom King, Mitch Gerads, Dan Mora, Christopher Cantwell, Javier Rodríguez and more.

DC has revealed more details about the new Batman: Brave and the Bold series they announced back in November. The series will be an anthology, with not every story featuring Batman.

The comic takes its title from the series that ran from the 1950s until 1983, which started as an anthology title but eventually evolved into a Batman team-up title. It was replaced by Batman and the Outsiders, and the title has been dusted off for a couple of mini-series projects since then.

The first issue will have four stories:

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Slugfest | ‘Batman/Spawn’ gets an ‘inks only’ edition

Today’s round-up includes news and announcements on ‘Amazing Spider-Man,’ Brian Michael Bendis, Keanu Reeves, Shakespeare, ‘Star Trek: Deep Space Nine’ and more.

Slugfest is a roundup of cool announcements about projects coming to a shelf near you from comics creators, publishers and more. Most of this edition includes all those end-of-the-year announcements I missed because I was on vacation. Hit the links for more information.

DC and Todd McFarlane have announced Batman/Spawn Unplugged, an uncolored and unlettered version of the recent crossover comic by Todd McFarlane and Greg Capullo.

“It’s always exciting whenever us artists can present our work in as unfiltered a manner as possible,” said McFarlane. “This book will let you see the true skill of how Greg Capullo does his masterful storytelling… and every line that we both put down.”

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Clownhunter takes the spotlight in a ‘Secret Files’ one-shot this summer

The Gotham vigilante is on a collision course with Punchline in a story by Ed Brisson and Rosi Kämpe.

Clownhunter will hunt again in Batman Secret Files: Clownhunter by Ed Brisson and Rosi Kämpe, which arrives in August. The one-shot follows the previously announced Secret Files issues that will focus on The Signal and the Huntress, who get the spotlight in July.

The comic will mark Brisson’s first work for DC in six years, while it will be the first for Kämpe, who draws the Unknown Lands webcomic on Tapas.

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Mail Call | The Avengers brace for ‘World War She-Hulk’

Plus: More news and announcements from Marvel, DC, Dark Horse, AfterShock, Top Cow, Skybound and more!

Mail Call is a roundup of the announcements we’ve received from comics publishers in our mailboxes recently that we haven’t already covered. Hit the links for more information.

Marvel is dusting off a classic event title for an upcoming Avengers storyline — “World War She-Hulk,” which references the popular “World War Hulk” story from 2007.

The new storyline will find She-Hulk declared a global menace, so the Winter Guard decides to bring her in.

“When the Russian Winter Guard invade Avengers Mountain to arrest She-Hulk, it sets off a global espionage adventure that takes us from the notorious assassin training academy of the Red Room to an undersea kingdom on the verge of violent revolution,” said writer Jason Aaron. “Along the way, traitors will fall, regimes will crumble and the dark evolution of Jennifer Walters will reach its bloody red crescendo, all as we build toward the epic events of Avengers #50.”

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‘Heroes Reborn’ in June spotlights Nighthawk, Power Princess, ‘Night-Gwen’ and ‘Murder Hornet’

Marvel’s event miniseries continues in June with more issues and one-shots about a world where the Avengers never assembled.

Marvel has revealed more details about their Heroes Reborn plans for June, including what to expect in the miniseries as well as from several one-shots.

You might remember that Heroes Reborn is an event miniseries coming from Marvel that spins out of Jason Aaron’s work on Avengers. It’ll run for seven issues, with several tie-in one-shots to support it. Jason Aaron is writing the main series, with different artist doing each issue. The first four issues will be drawn by Ed McGuinness, Dale Keown, Federico Vicentini and James Stokoe.

And the story, essentially, falls into the “continuity has been screwed up and now someone needs to fix it” genre, kind of like House of M and Age of Apocalypse. In this new reality, the Avengers never assembled, and the void they left was filled by the Squadron Supreme. Blade is the only Avenger who seems to remember how things should be.

June will bring issues #5-7 of the miniseries, which, like the first four, will have connecting covers:

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Marvel announces new ‘X-Men’ titles, creative teams in San Diego

The ‘Dawn of X’ brings six new titles featuring Marvel’s merry mutants.

Jonathan Hickman’s run on the X-Men starts with House of X and Powers of X, but what happens after that?

In San Diego this weekend, Marvel revealed the details of what the X-titles would look like after these two miniseries end, announcing six titles and their creative teams. The titles will kick off in October and November.

House of X and Powers of X lay the groundwork for a whole new world of X-Men stories for years to come, and the Dawn of X books are the promise of that new world come to life,” X-Men Senior Editor Jordan D. White told Marvel.com. “They are the start of the new era that will change how we think of the X-Men and the kinds of stories we tell with them. It all begins here.”

The titles are:

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Ghost Rider(s) blaze into a new series this fall

Ed Brisson and Aaron Kuder bring Danny Ketch and Johnny Blaze together for a new title.

Danny Ketch and Johnny Blaze will once again helm their own title, as Marvel prepares to launch Beware the Ghost Rider in October.

For some bonkers reason, Johnny Blaze is currently the king of Hell in the Marvel universe, so the role of Earth’s Spirit of Vengeance falls back to Danny Ketch. Ed Brisson and Aaron Kuder will team up on the new title.

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‘Contagion’ infects Marvel’s street-level heroes in October

Weekly series pits Luke Cage, Iron Fist, Jessica Jones, The Thing and more against a new threat.

Ed Brisson will team up with five different artists in October for a five-part weekly series called Contagion. In it, a new threat will require the attention of Luke Cage, Iron Fist, Cloak and Dagger, the Thing, Moon Knight and other street-level heroes.

Joining Brisson on the project are Roge Antonio, Stephen Segovia, Mack Chater, Damian Couciero and Adam Gorham. Juan Jose Ryp drew the covers, which you can see below.

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