Archie announces ‘Chilling Adventures in Sorcery’ for November

The anthology will feature the return of Madam Satan and other horror stories by a variety of creators.

Archie Comics has announced a new anthology, Chilling Adventures in Sorcery, that will make its debut in November.

Jamie L. Rotante, who became senior director of editorial for Archie earlier this year, is overseeing the anthology, which is described as an expansion of last year’s Madam Satan one-shot.

“This horror anthology is the perfect love letter to both classic Archie tales and the more modern stories,” said Rotante. “The genre lends itself to have a timeless appeal to audiences and I believe that plays a factor into the excitement for Archie horror comics.”

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‘Vader’s Castle’ strikes back: Cavan Scott revisits ‘Star Wars’ horror

The 5-issue mini-series will run weekly with art by Francesco Francavilla, Derek Charm, Robert Hack and more

Now an annual Halloween tradition reminiscent of the beloved Bart Simpson’s Treehouse of Horror, IDW’s haunting look at Star Wars returns this September for the fourth year in a row. Get ready for zombie droids, giant Wookies and maybe Jedi ghosts that go bump in the night.

Writer Cavan Scott is back to helm the weekly mini-series Star Wars Adventures: Ghosts of Vader’s Castle with a murderer’s row of artists. Joining him will be artists Francesco Francavilla, Derek Charm, Megan Levens, Robert Hack, Chris Fenoglio and others, along with editor Heather Antos. Scott’s Star Wars bonafides run deep. He’s the author of the Star Wars: Adventures in Wild Space novels and one of the architects of Lucasfilm’s The High Republic publishing initiative.

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Smash Pages Q&A | Chip Mosher on ‘Blacking Out,’ bande dessinée and billboards

The writer of ‘Left on Mission’ returns with a new comic that’s currently up on Kickstarter.

As the Head of Content for comiXology Originals, Chip Mosher already has a pretty great day job, working with creators to bring original content to the digital comics provider.

But before working there and for his previous employer, BOOM! Studios, he wanted to write comics, and in fact wrote Left on Mission, with artist Francesco Francavilla, which was published by BOOM! before he joined them to handle marketing.

Now, more than a decade later, he’s returned to the creative side and has written something new, Blacking Out, featuring artwork by Peter Krause, Giulia Brusco and Ed Dukeshire. It’s currently up on Kickstarter, where it blew past its modest $500 goal in the first 8 minutes of the campaign.

I spoke with Mosher at length about the new project, what inspired the format, how he’s promoting it and more.

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IDW returns to ‘Vader’s Castle’ for more spooky Star Wars

Cavan Scott and six artists put the spotlight on Star Wars villains this October.

IDW Publishing is heading back to the castle for more chilling Star Wars tales featuring some of the galaxy’s best villains.

Star Wars Adventures: Return to Vader’s Castle is a five-part series that will run in October, featuring writer Cavan Scott and six different artists.

“I am over the moon to be returning to Vader’s Castle for another helping of Halloween horror from a galaxy, far, far away. And what better way to celebrate the scariest time of the year than by focusing on the villains of the Star Wars saga?” says Scott. “The response to our last visit to Mustafar was phenomenal, and I hope fans will join us once again, embracing the dark side in the company of Sith, warlords, and crazed Imperial scientists.”

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Comic creators share their #spidersona

Joe Quinones, Tony Moore, Dave Johnson and more share their interpretations of the popular meme that spun out of ‘Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse.’

Since Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse hit theaters last month, fans of the film have been sharing their #spidersona on social media. These creations often imagine the artist as a Spider-character.

Many pros have gotten in on the fun as well; here’s a collection of a few we’ve noticed. You can check out more — many, many more! — on Twitter and Instagram.

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‘Star Wars Adventures’ get creepy with ‘Tales from Vader’s Castle’

Fear leads to the dark side as a host of horror descends on the Star Wars universe.

IDW is heading to the even darker side with a new miniseries that combines Star Wars with “campfire ghost stories” — Star Wars Adventures: Tales from Vader’s Castle.

The five-part series will run for five weeks in October (of course!) and will feature stories by Cavan Scott, Derek Charm, Kelley Jones, Chris Fenoglio, Corin Howell, Robert Hack and Charles Paul Wilson III, and covers by Francesco Francavilla (again, I say, of course!)

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Francesco Francavilla celebrates Black History Month

The comics creator shares portraits of Jack Johnson, Alice Coachman and many more.

In honor of Black History Month, artist Francesco Francavilla has been sharing portraits he’s done of various Black athletes, including Jack Johnson, Wally Triplett and Alice Coachman. He’s been sharing them on both his Tumblr and his Twitter feeds.

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Inktober spotlight: Francesco Francavilla’s movie monsters

The artist tackles Beetlejuice, Darkman and more, just in time for Halloween.

October is not only the scariest month, but it’s also Inktober, where artists from all over the world create a different ink drawing every day of the month. While the official Inktober site provides a list of “prompts” to help inspire artists, many of them choose their own themes.

With many comic artists are participating this year — you can find a lot of them on Twitter or Tumblr using the #inktober hashtag, and we’ve been posting a bunch on our own Tumblr — we thought we’d spotlight a few of the “can’t miss” ones we’ve seen so far.

Artist Francesco Francavilla is no stranger to horror, having worked on Archie Comics’ flagship horror title Afterlife with Archie. The artist celebrates both Halloween and Inktober with a series of sketches of movie monsters, from classics like the Bride of Frankenstein to more modern horrors like Beetlejuice. Check out some of them below, and you can see more of them on Twitter.

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Huizenga, Harkham and more contribute to New York Times Magazine’s all-comics issue

Tillie Walden, Francesco Francavilla, David Mazzuchelli, Tom Gauld help turn New York news stories into compelling comics.

The New York Times Magazine has posted their very first all-comics issue, which features cartoonists turning stories that came through the NYT Metro desk into comic strips.

Tom Gauld, Sammy Harkham, Tillie Walden, Francesco Francavilla, David Mazzuchelli and several others contributed strips, while Kevin Huizenga provided the introductory strip that explains the concept. You can view all the strips by going here.

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Comic industry pays tribute to David Bowie

News of David Bowie’s passing brought an outpouring of tributes from many who were creatively influenced and admire the pop future legend, including those in the comic industry. Bowie’s eccentric life attracted a diversity of comic industry pros who celebrated his life in their own way.

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2016: Year of the (Black) Beetle?

Francesco Francavilla takes to Twitter to tease the return of ‘The Black Beetle,’ his well-regarded pulp comic from Dark Horse.

Our long, national nightmare may soon be over, as creator Francesco Francavilla teased on Twitter the return of The Black Beetle. Francavilla posted an image of the pulp hero with the hashtags #TheYearOfTheBeetle and #BlackBeetleReturns.

The Black Beetle originally appeared on Francavilla’s website back in 2009, then Dark Horse brought him to comic shops in 2013. Their first miniseries, Black Beetle: No Way Out, received many accolades (including an Eisner nomination for best miniseries) and appeared on several “best of the year” lists. But a second miniseries, “Necrologue,” was scheduled but never made it out of the gate. But it looks like that might be changing this year:

No word yet on when the excellent series will return, but we’ll keep our eyes peeled for it.

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