Julia Mata’s ‘Crisis!’ coming from D+Q in 2024

Drawn and Quarterly have announced that they’ve acquired the first graphic novel from the New York-based creator.

Drawn and Quarterly has announced that they’ve acquired Julia Mata‘s debut graphic novel, Crisis!, with plans to publish it in 2024.

Mata is one-third of Spicy Mango Comics, along with Daisy Ruiz and Rachelle Hall. They are a New York-based small-press imprint that’s been releasing comics, prints, apparel and other items from all three creators, including Mata’s Crisis! zines.

“Julia’s characters—Dania and Mayra—are complex and layered and filled with possibility. I love watching their friendship come to life in all its realness,” D+Q Senior Editor Tracy Hurren said in a blog post. “Crisis! does one of my favorite things: it captures young women living messy, complicated, busy lives and coming out stronger. It’s fiction at its best.” 

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Floating World Comics will publish E.S. Glenn’s ‘Unsmooth 2: BUM’ this fall

The prequel to his 2020 graphic novel arrives in September.

The New Yorker cartoonist E.S. Glenn will follow up his 2020 graphic novel, Unsmooth, with its prequel, Unsmooth 2: BUM, in September. And if the preview pages that Floating World Comics provided are any indication, we’re all in for a treat.

Described as “a poetic journey through the human condition,” the graphic novel is populated by poets, prisoners, assassins and artists, and even the author himself. It takes place before the story from the first volume, which focused on a fictional portrayal of E. S. Glenn himself as an artist who entered the criminal underground, and became a petty thief and an assassin.

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Can’t Wait for Comics | DC celebrates Pride Month; ‘Ant’ returns; 80 years of Archie

Check out new comics this week from N.K. Jemisin, Jamal Campbell, Matthew Rosenberg, Jason Aaron, Erica D’Urso, Fred Van Lente, Dan Parent, Kyle Starks, Chris Schweizer and more.

Welcome to Can’t Wait for Comics, your guide to what comics are arriving in comic book stores, bookstores and on digital this week. This week brings new comics and graphic novels from Marvel, DC, Dark Horse, AfterShock Comics, Viz and more.

Check out a few highlights below, or visit Diamond’s website for this week’s almost complete list of new comics arriving in stores — you can visit Lunar Distribution’s home page to see DC’s release — and the comiXology new releases page for what’s available digitally.

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DC announces ‘Shazam! Thundercrack’ by Yehudi Mercado

The new graphic novel is set during the ‘Shazam!’ movie timeline.

Yehudi Mercado will write and draw Shazam! Thundercrack, a new graphic novel aimed at younger readers that will arrive in June 2022.

The graphic novel is set during the timeline of the Shazam! movie, as Billy Batson joins the Fawcett Tigers’ football team and learns to be a team player, while continuing his superhero training.

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Vault Comics’ Wonderbound imprint reveals its 2022 titles

Vault Comics’ young adult line announces new graphic novels by Colleen Coover, Paul Tobin, Michael Moreci and more.

Wonderbound, the middle grade/young adult-focused imprint of Vault Comics, has announced their 2022 line-up of graphic novels.

The slate of nine graphic novels includes new work by Agnes Garbowska, Shea Fontana, Colleen Coover, Paul Tobin, Galaad, Sam Beck, Michael Moreci, Brian Middleton and more. It also includes several sequels to works Wonderbound will publish later this year, when their first graphic novels debut in the fall, like Verse and Wrassle Castle.

“One of our goals with Wonderbound Year 2 was to present a wide range of genre graphic novels for young readers, but what blew me away was how each of these books also showed the depth of what genre stories can be for this age group,” said Wonderbound Managing Editor Rebecca Taylor. “I have laughed loudly and cried openly while watching pages come in on every single one of our 2022 titles. The sincerity and imagination at work in this slate–whether in a story about time traveling knights, orphaned detectives, or maniacal snowmen–is truly stunning, and I cannot wait for young readers to dive in!”

Here’s the complete list:

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Mail Call | Green Lantern Tai Pham returns in a new graphic novel next year

A round-up of recent announcements from DC, Marvel, IDW, Image, Diamond 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.

Tai Pham, the Green Lantern that debuted in the pages of the Green Lantern: Legacy graphic novel, will return in 2022 in Green Lantern: Alliance.

Pham’s adventures will once again be told by Minh Lê and artist Andie Tong, as he once again comes face-to-face with his nemesis, Xander Griffin, but this time he’ll have some help from a new Kid Flash.

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‘Cosmoknights’ webcomic returns June 4

Hannah Templer’s ‘epic lesbian-gladiators-in-space adventure’ returns to the web next week, with another graphic novel planned for 2022.

Hannah Templer’s Cosmoknights will return to the web next week, while Top Shelf plans to collect the second volume into a graphic novel next year.

The first volume, which was recently nominated for Nutmeg Award, introduced a universe where “mech-suited warriors duel over the daughters of the aristocracy, and a fledgling resistance of lady knights aim to bring down the system from within.”

Templer has also revealed the cover for the second volume:

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Melo + Cavia compose a ‘Ballad for Sophie’

Top Shelf will release the graphic novel this September.

Top Shelf will publish Ballad for Sophie, a new music-themed graphic novel by Filipe Melo and Juan Cavia in September.

Melo, a Portuguese musician, award-winning film director and comic book writer, teams with his frequent artistic partner for this new graphic novel about a musician who tells his life story to a journalist in a story that spans the 20th century.

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Green Lantern Jessica Cruz breaks out into her own young adult OGN

‘Unearthed: A Jessica Cruz Story’ will arrive in September from DC Comics.

DC has revealed more details and some preview pages from the upcoming Unearthed: A Jessica Cruz Story, part of their graphic novel line aimed at young adults.

The story will retell the origin of Cruz as she deals with xenophobia in her hometown, Coast City. The graphic novel is written by Lilliam Rivera (Never Look Back) and drawn by illustrator Steph C.

“I’ve always been fascinated by origin stories and I’m so glad I got to write one for Green Lantern’s Latinx superhero, Jessica Cruz. Unearthed is a story of an everyday high school teenager who strives to make her parents proud. It’s also a story about immigration and how Jessica navigates debilitating anxiety while trying to keep her family together,” said Rivera. “Mexican artist Steph C.’s illustrations not only beautifully capture this struggle; she’s created stunning otherworldly realms that will leave readers breathless. I can’t wait for fans to see a side of Jessica Cruz never before seen.”

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Can’t Wait for Comics | Return to Future State Gotham; X-Corp opens for business; Lee Lei’s ‘Stone Fruit’ debuts

New comics and graphic novels arrive this week from Jason Aaron, Dale Keown, Lee Lai, Aminder Dhaliwal, Matt Lesniewski, Mike Mignola, Declan Shalvey and more.

Welcome to Can’t Wait for Comics, your guide to what comics are arriving in comic book stores, bookstores and on digital this week. This week brings new comics and graphic novels from Marvel, DC, Fantagraphics, Image, AfterShock, Drawn and Quarterly, and more.

Check out a few highlights below, or visit ComicList for this week’s full list of new comics arriving in stores, and the comiXology new releases page for what’s available digitally.

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Jeff Smith returns with a crowdfunding campaign for ‘Tuki: Fight for Fire’

The creator of ‘Bone’ and ‘RASL’ is crowdfunding two volumes of his latest project.

Jeff Smith, creator of one of the best-ever kid’s comics of all time, Bone, and the science fiction romp RASL, is crowdfunding his next project — the resurrected Tuki: Fight for Fire.

As longtime fans of the creator know, Tuki started life as a webcomic back in 2013. It grew from Smith’s love of fantastic heroes of pulp fiction, mythical lost realms and human evolution.

“I’ve always been fascinated by evolution,” Smith writes on the project’s Kickstarter page. “I visited Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania, the famous archaeological site occupied by many early humans over time. Standing down amongst the rocks and dirt, looking up at the swaying trees above the gorge, I had a vision of multiple human species walking around and interacting with each other. It was almost like seeing an echo of something that really happened.”

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‘Guantanamo Voices’ wins the 2021 Lynd Ward Graphic Novel Prize

The anthology details stories told to Sarah Mirk by the prisoners, lawyers, officials and others connected to the notorious prison.

Guantanamo Voices: True Accounts from the World’s Most Infamous Prison, the graphic novel anthology that tells the stories of several veterans, prisoners, lawyers and government officials with connections to Guantanamo Bay prison, has won the 2021 Lynd Ward Graphic Novel Prize.

The prize is awarded by Penn State University Libraries and the winner is chosen by a jury. Sarah Mirk wrote and edited the graphic novel, and worked with a variety of artists on the different stories it contains, including Nomi Kane, Hazel Newlevant, Gerardo Alba, Alexandra Beguez, Omar Khouri, Maki Naro, Jeremy Nguyen, Tracy Chahwan, Kane Lynch, Kasia Babis and Chelsea Saunders.

According to the write-up, jurors said Guantanamo Voices provides a “nuanced” look at the prison and the American judicial system:

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