Dark Horse will publish ‘Transplants’ this fall

Dave Collard, Domenico Carbone and team combine organ donation and superheroes in a new graphic novel.

Dark Horse Comics has announced Transplants, a graphic novel by TV writer Dave Collard (Family Guy, Chickenhare and the Hamster of Darkness), with art by Domenico Carbone, colorist Josh Rodriguez and letterer Frank Cvetkovic.

“The idea for this graphic novel came, like all great ideas, while I was standing in line at the DMV,” said Collard. “When I checked the box on my license renewal, consenting to be an organ donor, I thought, ‘I feel bad for the poor sap who gets my very near-sighted eyes.’ And that led (naturally) to the questions, ‘Hey, what if Superman was an organ donor? And what if this square-jawed white dude had his powers transferred to a group of people who traditionally haven’t had power?’ All of a sudden, I finally had my way into telling a superhero story. With Transplants, I’m trying to deconstruct the superhero genre a little while placing it in the ongoing national debate about power and privilege. I hope you like it. But if you don’t, blame the Department of Motor Vehicles.”

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Preview: ‘Nervosa’ by Hayley Gold searches for hope amid disordered eating and the health care system

Check out a preview of the new graphic novel from Street Noise Books.

Courtesy of Street Noise Books, we’re pleased to share this preview of Nervosa, the new graphic novel from Hayley Gold.

Named for the eating disorder known as anorexia nervosa, the graphic memoir details Gold’s personal experience not only with the disease, but with navigating a health care system that seems “disinterested in the very patients it is supposed to treat.” I was impressed with the use of color in Nervosa, which is effective in its sparseness. Fans of Gold’s Letters to Margaret will note she uses a crossword puzzle in one of the sequences.

Nervosa is available now. You can check out the cover, a preview and the description from the publisher below.

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Marvel + Abrams team up for team-ups

Cartoonist Mike Maihack has two ‘Mighty Marvel Team-Up’ graphic novels in the works.

Marvel and Abrams’ partnership will continue in June and next January with the release of two Mighty Marvel Team-Up graphic novels, both written and drawn by cartoonist Mike Maihack.

Spider-Man: Animals Assemble! will arrive in stores on June 13, and features Spider-Man helping out the Avengers by pet-sitting for them. It’ll feature appearances by Redwing, Lucky the Pizza Dog, Captain Marvel’s cat Chewie, Throg and more.

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‘Gender Queer’ once again tops the ALA’s list of most challenged books for 2022

For the second year in a row, a record number of books were challenged in libraries and schools.

Gender Queer, Maia Kobabe’s touching graphic novel memoir about gender identity, topped the American Library Association’s list of most challenged books for 2022. It’s the second year in a row that Gender Queer has landed in the No. 1 spot.

The ALA’s annual top 10 list of the most challenged books expanded to 13 for 2022, which saw a record number of 1,269 book challenges for 2,571 unique titles (many challenges include more than one book). Most of the targeted books in the top 13 were written by or about members of the LGBTQIA+ community and people of color.

“By releasing the list of Top 10 Most Challenged Books each year, ALA recognizes all of the brave authors whose work challenges readers with stories that disrupt the status quo and offer fresh perspectives on tough issues,” said ALA President Lessa Kanani’opua Pelayo-Lozada. “The list also illustrates how frequently stories by or about LGBTQ+ persons, people of color, and lived experiences are being targeted by censors. Closing our eyes to the reality portrayed in these stories will not make life’s challenges disappear. Books give us courage and help us understand each other.”

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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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