Slugfest | Groo goes wild in a new miniseries

Plus: Batman Beyond, more Birdking, Thor vs. M.O.D.O.K., the return of ‘Fire Power,’ Hellfire Gala fashion and more.

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

Sergio Aragonés and Mark Evanier will reunite for Groo: In the Wild, a new miniseries that kicks off in July.

The duo is joined by letterer Stan Sakai and colorist Carrie Strachan for a story that sees the barbarian and his dog looking for food. Things go downhill from there, in typical Groo fashion.

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Dark Horse will publish ‘Monster Born’ this fall

Steve Niles, Shannon Eric Denton and Tom Mandrake team up for a new horror graphic novel.

Dark Horse has announced the first title they’ll release from Monster Forge, the production company founded by horror writers Steve Niles and Shannon Eric Denton. Dark Horse announced at the New York Comic Con plans to publish “an exciting new line” of projects from Monster Forge.

Niles and Denton are joined by artist Tom Mandrake on the project, known for his work on The Spectre, Grimjack, Swamp Thing and more.

Monster Born will introduce Amanda Lam, who was kidnapped as a child and grows up to become a monster hunter.

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Top Shelf announces ‘Lisa Cheese and Ghost Guitar: Attack of the Snack’ by Kevin Alvir

The graphic novel tells the story of a ‘sweet unicorn girl’ trying to make a name for herself as a folk singer.

Top Shelf will publish Lisa Cheese and Ghost Guitar: Attack of the Snack, the debut graphic novel by Kevin Alvir, this fall.

Alvir is a cartoonist, musician and educator whose work has been featured in Funny or Die, Blackbook, Brooklyn Mag, Edible, The Neu Jorker, Paul Ryan Magazine; on records for acts such as Gabe Liedman, Nicole Yun, Essex Green, Holy Tunics and Pains of Being Pure at Heart; and on TV screens for Will Ferrell and for High Maintenance on HBO.

“I started drawing Lisa Cheese comics in my lined notebook at one of my jobs, as an outlet for my feelings about starting out in the workplace,” Alvir said. “In recent years, I returned to this character with a new understanding of the world, and she grew into this bombastic Jack Kirby level superhero, in my own ridiculous way. I hope readers can see themselves in Lisa and be inspired to interact with a heavy world with a light heart.”

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Andre Frattino will tell Tom Petty’s ‘origin story’ in a new graphic novel

University Press of Florida will publish ‘Tom Petty’s Dreamville: A Graphic Novel’ in September.

University Press of Florida will publish Tom Petty’s Dreamville: A Graphic Novel by Andre Frattino, the creator of A Land Remembered: A Graphic Novel and Tokyo Rose: Zero Hour.

The biographical graphic novel will tell the story of the early life of the late singer, whose legendary musical career produced such hits as American Girl, Free Falling and Mary Jane’s Last Dance (which isn’t about Spider-Man). Petty grew up in Gainesville, Florida in the 1970s, and Frattino interviewed several of Petty’s friends and fellow musicians to put the story together.

“Tom Petty’s origin story felt like a road trip adventure, with our hero encountering many pitfalls and peaks on his journey to discover himself and his music,” Frattino said. “It was unlike any rock star origin story I had ever heard, and it happened in my own backyard! It wasn’t so much an interest to me to tell this story…as it was a dream.”

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Exclusive: ‘Black Cat Social Club’ preview and trailer

The new graphic novel by Christopher Painter, Bob Quinn and more will arrive from Humanoids on April 25.

Today we have an exclusive first look at the trailer for Black Cat Social Club, fresh twist on the story of musicians selling their soul to the devil, coming out on April 25 from Humanoids. Take a look:

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Slugfest | ‘Summer of Symbiotes’ leads to ‘Death of the Venomverse’

Plus: Marvel Artist’s Editions, Dark Horse graphic novels, Spider-Verse, variant covers and more!

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

Marvel has revealed more details and a teaser image for Summer of Symbiotes, something they teased last October along with several other events for 2023. It’s less of a single-story crossover and more of a moniker they are using to describe a whole bunch of different symbiote-themed series, miniseries and events.

While many of the events teased on the image we’ve heard of before, like Carnage Reigns and Extreme Venomverse, there is one new one listed — Death of the Venomverse, which echoes the Death of the Spiderverse storyline we’re seeing in Spider-Man.

Here’s the description from Marvel:

It’s all leading to this! The epic adventures above are spiraling towards an explosive destination, and not all of your favorite symbiotes will survive the journey. The Carnage symbiote is more bloodthirsty than ever and heads to the multiverse for its greatest killing spree yet. But what is it after? Find out more when this upcoming limited series is announced at the Marvel Comics: Spider-Man & the Venomverse Panel at C2E2 2023!

C2E2 is coming up this weekend. Here’s the full teaser image:

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Berger Books will adapt the opera ‘The Emperor of Atlantis’

Electronic Frontier Foundation Director of Investigations Dave Maass and artist Patrick Lay will bring to life a story written by two concentration camp prisoners.

While imprisoned at the Terezín concentration camp in Czechoslovakia by Hitler’s Nazi regime in 1943, Peter Kien and Viktor Ullmann wrote Der Kaiser von Atlantis, or The Emperor of Atlantis, a one-act opera that they never got to see performed. Now Dark Horse’s Berger Books will adapt the story into a graphic novel by Electronic Frontier Foundation Director of Investigations Dave Maass and artist Patrick Lay.

Death Strikes: The Emperor of Atlantis will also feature character designs by Ezra Rose and lettering by Richard Bruning. In addition to adapting the opera, the graphic novel will also feature an historical essay on the opera’s creators, as well as Kien’s artwork and photographs.

“Written in a concentration camp, Peter Kien and Viktor Ullmann’s opera is the truest form of artistic resistance, a middle finger to the Nazis and all authoritarians across history,” Maass said. “By adapting this fierce, genre-blending satire, we hope to introduce this nearly lost masterpiece to new audiences–and to challenge the tyrants of today.”

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Nicole Goux flies solo in the horror graphic novel ‘Pet Peeves’

Check out a preview of the new graphic novel from Avery Hill, which arrives in stores in May.

Nicole Goux has built a name for herself both as an independent force with comics like F*ck Off Squad and as a mainstream success with comics and graphic novels from DC Comics, Dark Horse, IDW and Simon & Schuster. Her latest graphic novel, Pet Peeves, started as an exercise in just creating something for herself, but has grown to be much more than that.

Pet Peeves was meant to be a break from big projects at big companies,” Goux said. “It was a chance to stretch my writing muscles and to tell a story with no edits, no one telling me what do. Honestly, it was supposed to be much shorter than it is, just a quick story to refresh and re-inspire me between jobs, but I found that the story I wanted to tell needed more space and it grew into the full book that it is today.”

Pet Peeves is described as a horror graphic novel about a woman whose life is slowly being stolen away by “more sinister (though adorable) canine forces,” AKA the stray dog she adopts. Any puppy owner can probably identify with that statement. Courtesy of publisher Avery Hill, we’re pleased to present a preview of Pet Peeves, which arrives in stores at the end of May.

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Dark Horse will publish ‘The Unlikely Story of Felix and Macabber’ this fall

Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou and Juni Ba team on the all-ages graphic novel.

Acclaimed letterer Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou will write (and letter!) the new graphic novel The Unlikely Story of Felix and Macabber, joined by Juni Ba (Djeliya, Monkey Meat) as the artist and colorist. Dark Horse will publish the all-ages graphic novel this October.

“With Felix and Macabber, Juni and I wanted to explore the idea of doing whatever it takes to become something great,” the writer said. “Who are the role models that people look up to? And how do the pressures on your own life change the way we understand those role models? Which all sounds quite serious, but it’s also a great excuse to let Juni’s imagination loose on these wonderful weird monster designs and big, bombastic fight sequences – which he’s a master at. We’re really excited about readers meeting our cast of monster-characters, from the big guy himself to his arch-nemesis, to the big dog that lives in a cave and creates knights-in-armor from his own saliva. Yep. You’re going to love it.”

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Alex de Campi + Erica Henderson show the dark side of fandom in ‘Parasocial’

The new graphic novel arrives in October.

Image Comics has announced a new graphic novel from the creative team of Dracula, Motherf**ker. Alex de Campi and Erica Henderson will team up again for Parasocial, a thriller about fandom, celebrity and the pandemic.

Parasocial is a twisted exploitation thriller that will leave you never feeling safe at a convention again. It’s a deep dive into all the things we’ve agreed not to talk about in modern fandom and celebrity… with an ending you’ll never see coming,” said De Campi. “Most importantly, it’s Erica’s most beautiful and strikingly innovative book yet. I’m just here to cover up some of her art with words.”

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Fantagraphics will publish a new Daniel Clowes graphic novel this fall

The creator of ‘Ghost World’ and ‘Wilson’ returns to comics with ‘Monica’ later this year.

Fantagraphics has announced a new project by Daniel Clowes that will arrive in stores this fall — Monica, the life story of a woman that the publisher describes as “mysterious, uncategorizable and quintessentially Clowesian.”

The award-winning creator of Ghost World, The Death-Ray, Wilson, Patience and more took about six years to finish the new project, which will no doubt be one of this year’s biggest releases.

“Daniel Clowes had already created what might well be my favorite body of work in the medium’s history,” said Fantagraphics’ Eric Reynolds. “But Monica raises his own bar even higher, as both a writer of fiction and as a cartoonist. It’s a masterpiece that is both utterly Clowes and unlike anything else I’ve ever read.”

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Oeming + Santos go gonzo in conspiracy-filled ‘Project Monarch’

The new graphic novel arrives from Dark Horse in September.

Michael Avon Oeming (Powers) and Victor Santos (Polar) are pulling out all the stops in their new graphic novel Project Monarch — a story that will involve fake moon landings, the Illuminati, child stars turned assassins and a film that can control minds.

It sounds bonkers and like a lot of fun.

“This story was born in a time when we needed to deal with uncertainty everyday,” said Santos. “So this is a book about embracing chaos and living nonetheless, and I can’t imagine a better partner for this crazy trip than Mike Oeming.”

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