Fantagraphics – SMASH PAGES

SDCC Slugfest | News from DC, 2000 AD, Fantagraphics + more

As San Diego Comic-Con looms, we round up news on the show, recent comic announcements and more. Plus: comics at the G1 Climax opener!

With the San Diego Comic-Con coming up on July 23-26, we have news and announcements dropping left and right, so here’s an attempt to keep up with it all. Hit the links for more info.

DC has unveiled its plans for San Diego Comic-Con, which includes a continuation of their decade-long plan to spotlight a different era of the company in their booth, building toward their 100th anniversary in 2035. Last year the spotlight fell on the 1940s, so, given how numbers work, this year will focus on the 1950s — the decade that brought us Supergirl, Legion of Super- Heroes, Barry Allen, Hal Jordan and MAD Magazine.

Their booth will feature a 1950s-style Daily Planet newsstand, and they plan to give away free copies of MAD Magazine #1 facsimile edition, based on the original that debuted in 1952.

Here’s a video DC released spotlighting the comics and characters of that decade:

Smash Pages Q&A | Katie Skelly on ‘Heaven’

The creator of ‘Nurse Nurse,’ ‘Maids and more talks about her newest graphic novel, the end of her “cool girls” era and what she’s planning next.

Katie Skelly has spent more than a decade creating stylish graphic novels centered on unforgettable women navigating worlds of horror, desire and mystery. From My Pretty Vampire and Operation Margarine to Nurse Nurse, Skelly has developed a visual style all her own, blending cute images with bold colors, emotional honesty and, at times, brutal violence.

Her latest graphic novel, Heaven, is her first in about six years, following 2020’s Maids. It arrives in stores today courtesy of Fantagraphics. The supernatural strip joint story follows Dolly, a young woman searching for purpose who is drawn to “Heaven,” a mysterious club on the outskirts of town.

Combining supernatural horror with themes of identity and belonging, Heaven also marks the end of an era for Skelly. As she recently revealed, it’s the final story she’ll tell featuring the “cool girl” protagonists who have defined much of her work over the past decade.

I spoke with Skelly about the origins of Heaven and why this graphic novel felt like the right place to close one creative chapter before beginning another.

Fantagraphics will publish ‘Requiem for Gaza’ by Chris Hedges + Joe Sacco

The graphic novel draws on interviews with 29 Palestinian families displaced from Gaza.

Fantagraphics has announced Requiem for Gaza, a new work of investigative graphic journalism by writer Chris Hedges and cartoonist Joe Sacco, that they’ll publish in October.

The two creators previously worked together on Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt, which chronicled what life in poverty in different parts of the United States was like, and was published in 2012.

Requiem for Gaza pulls from the duo’s time talking to families who had recently fled Gaza. In the spring of last year, Hedges, a former Middle East bureau chief for The New York Times, and Sacco, author of Palestine and Footnotes in Gaza, traveled to Cairo where they interviewed 29 Palestinian families. The resulting book chronicles the families’ experiences of displacement, loss and survival, detailing the horrors they faced, like forced evacuations, targeted killings, failed ceasefires, exile and the deprivation of living without adequate food, water or shelter.

SDCC Slugfest | ‘Knightfight,’ Bad Batch, ‘Marian Heretic’ + more

Plus: Terrorbytes! Youngblood! And a big sale from Fantagraphics!

Slugfest is a roundup of cool announcements about projects coming to a shelf near you. With the San Diego Comic-Con upon us, we have news and announcements dropping left and right, so here’s an attempt to keep up with it all. Hit the links for more information.

From the DC All In Panel earlier this week came news of a tie-in title for the big DC K.O. event that DC announced last week — and it involves a whole lot of fighting and a whole lot of Robins.

According to reports from the panel, Knightfight by Joshua Williamson and Dan Mora “explores Batman’s worst nightmare: what if the Robins all became Batmen in twisted alternate futures?”

Yes, Dan Mora is adding another book to his schedule, and still killing it:

Gilbert + Natalia Hernandez would like you to meet ‘Roy’

The new series by the father and daughter team will debut in August.

Gilbert Hernandez of Los Bros. Hernandez fame will team with another family member for a new comic series this summer — his daughter, Natalia.

The father-and-daughter duo are the creative behind Roy, a new series that will debut in April from Fantagraphics, publishers of the Hernandez Bros. long-running Love & Rockets (and other titles).

“Is there anything Roy can’t do? Of course not, he’s a comic book character, duh!” said Fantagraphics’ Eric Reynolds. “In the hands of a master like Gilbert Hernandez, anything is possible, and Roy is the perfect vehicle for his limitless imagination. The Hernandezes are America’s First Family of Comics, and that Roy #1 also welcomes Natalia Hernandez into the Love and Rockets fold makes the occasion extra special!”

SDCC Slugfest | Star Wars, DuckTales, Thundarr + more

Today’s round-up of SDCC and related news includes items on a Junkyard Joe action figure, new titles coming from Dynamite, a big sale by Fantagraphics and more.

Slugfest is a roundup of cool announcements about projects coming to a shelf near you. With the San Diego Comic Con in full force, this edition covers news from today I haven’t already covered, plus a few items from the lead-up to the show. Hit the links for more information.

The first full day of the San Diego Comic-Con brought plenty of news and tiodbits from comic publishers, following a very busy couple of weeks for comic news. It’s hard to believe a week has already passed since DC’s All In announcement. But here we are! So let’s jump in.

We ‘ll start with some Star Wars comic news, which these days spans multiple publishers. Lucasfilm hosted a publishing panel today that covered several upcoming releases, including the Battle of Jakku comic coming from Marvel this fall. Today’s panel also brought the news that phase 3 of the Star Wars: The High Republic will come to a close next year, and Cavan Scott and Marika Cresta will help wrap it up at Marvel with a comic titled Fear of the Jedi:

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.

Quick Hits | Rest in peace, Jeffrey Veregge

Plus: news on Robert Beerbohm, layoffs at Marvel, Source Point Press, Scott Dunbier, Joshua Cotter, Earth-2 Comics and more.

Jeffrey Veregge, the award-winning Native American artist and writer whose work appeared in Marvel’s Voices: Indigenous Voices, on comics covers and at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian, has passed away at the age of 50. Zack Davisson shared the news on social media late last week, while Jeffrey’s wife Christina confirmed it and said he died of a heart attack after a long battle with lupus.

“For 1025 days he fought lupus like the superhero we knew him to be,” her post reads. “The strength, faith, determination and courage he showed while being in the hospital for a total of 925 days was an inspiration to us all. He fought so hard for his family and his 3 children who were his absolute pride and joy. He will be missed more than words can express. This world was a better place because of him.”

Fantagraphics will release Joe Matt’s final issue of ‘Peepshow’ this summer

The new issue will arrive almost 17 years after issue #14 was released.

Fantagraphics has announced plans to release Peepshow #15, the final issue in the series by late cartoonist Joe Matt.

Matt passed away unexpectedly last year before finishing the issue after a 17-year gap since issue #14 was released. With only four pages of art left to be inked, Fantagraphics enlisted cartoonist Chester Brown to finish the issue.

“Peepshow is amongst the great bodies of autobiographical work in the history of comics,” said Eric Reynolds, VP and Co-publisher of Fantagraphics. “I’m grateful to Joe’s friends, and to Joe’s family, who have come together to put his final work out into the world where it belongs.”

Ed Piskor gallery showing ‘indefinitely postponed’ after misconduct allegations

Multiple women have accused the creator of ‘Hip Hop Family Tree’ of inappropriate behavior, including grooming an underage artist.

A planned exhibit of Ed Piskor’s artwork from Hip Hop Family Tree has been “indefinitely postponed,” according to the Pittsburgh City Paper, following allegations of misconduct that were revealed this past weekend.

The exhibit was scheduled to begin in April at the 707 Penn Gallery in Pittsburgh and would have run through August.

“The Pittsburgh Cultural Trust learned yesterday of allegations of misconduct made by an individual against artist Ed Piskor, whose work was scheduled to be on exhibition at 707 Penn Gallery starting April 6, 2024,” a spokesperson for the Trust told Pittsburgh City Paper. “The Trust takes the allegations very seriously and has decided to postpone the exhibition indefinitely.”

Both Hip Hop Family Tree and Piskor’s Red Room were published by Fantagraphics. When Smash Pages reached out to the publisher, they shared this statement: “Fantagraphics has no future projects in the works with Ed Piskor.”

Sunday Comics | Joe Sacco’s ‘The War on Gaza’

Check out recent online comics by Joe Latham, Jordan Bolton, Tonci Zonjic 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.

One of cartoonist Joe Sacco’s earliest works was Palestine, a nonfiction graphic novel about the two months he spent in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in the early 1990s. During that time, he interviewed hundreds of Palestinians and Israelis about their daily lives and the ongoing plight of the Palestinians.

The current conflict between Israel and Hamas has brought renewed interest in Palestine and Sacco’s work in general, and as a result, his publisher has announced not only a reissue of the original graphic novel, but also a series of webcomics that are currently running on The Comics Journal website.

“The demand for Palestine has skyrocketed following the horrific events of Oct. 7 and Israel’s brutal response, indicating a yearning for understanding from readers all over the world,” said Gary Groth, president and co-founder of Fantagraphics. “We hope that the reissue of Palestine and the new series of graphic commentary ‘The War on Gaza’ will help awaken the world to the plight of the Palestinian people and illuminate the political context of the Israel-Palestinian conflict. Sadly, as Amira Hass makes clear in her new Afterword, Joe Sacco’s deeply empathetic account of the Gazan people is even more relevant today than at any time since its original publication.”

Peter Bagge returns to ‘Hate’ this summer

Buddy and the gang return to comics in the four-issue miniseries ‘Hate Revisited.’

Hate creator Peter Bagge will return to the legendary series this summer for Hate Revisited, which catches up with Buddy and the gang in the present day.

While Hate detailed the trials and tribulations of life in grunge-era Seattle, the new miniseries will add “a layer of emotional gravitas as Buddy and Lisa and co. are confronted with the consequences of some of their youthful indiscretions.” It’ll contain flashbacks to the 1980s and 1990s, showing the cast in both timeframes.

“While it was suggested to me that I revisit the old Hate cast, once I got started on it, I was more than happy with the results,” Bagge said. “This stuff writes itself! I’m also glad I decided to split it between the present day as well as flashbacks to the ’80s and ’90s. This was especially true with Stinky. I forgot what a loose cannon that character was!”

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