Todd McFarlane has even more plans for expanding the Spawn Universe

The ‘New U’ titles will tackle different genres, including science fiction, true crime, fantasy and more.

Hey it’s Todd McFarlane Day — happy birthday to the creator of Spawn!

That seems like the perfect day to talk about McFarlane’s plan for growing the Spawn universe, as the shared universe he announced back in 2021 will expand with several “New U” titles this year, starting with Sam & Twitch Case Files next week.

Here’s the rundown …

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Doug Wagner + Daniel Hillyard return to the twisted world of ‘Plastic’

The prequel miniseries, ‘Death & Dolls,’ kicks off in June.

Doug Wagner and Daniel Hillyard’s Plastic gets a prequel this summer — Plastic: Death & Dolls. They’re joined on their journey into the world of serial killers and depravity by colorist Michelle Madsen and letterer Ed Dukeshire.

If you missed the first miniseries, it’s about a reformed serial killer, Edwyn, who tries to stay on the straight and narrow for the sake of his true love — a plastic doll named Virginia.

“Getting to spend some quality time with Edwyn again after… well, what seems like only yesterday, really, was just so much fun,” Hillyard said. “Who would have thought that a story about a serial killer in love with a blow-up sex doll would turn out to be so loved, and get a sequel to-boot. It’s a wild crazy ride, and I’m not just saying this, but you won’t want to miss the ending.”

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Return to the world of ‘Little Bird’ this summer in ‘Precious Metal’

Darcy Van Poelgeest  and Ian Bertram return to the world of their Eisner-Award-winning series from Image Comics.

Writer Darcy Van Poelgeest  and artist Ian Bertram will return to the world of their Eisner Award-winning comic series Little Bird in Precious Metal, a six-issue miniseries that launches in June from Image Comics.

Precious Metal has been the biggest, and most fulfilling, undertaking of my creative career,” said Van Poelgeest. “Returning to the world of Little Bird with Ian Bertram brought on a deeper collaboration than I thought possible, and the results are something transformative—for the work and myself. After nearly five years of immersion and experimentation, I’m thrilled to finally bring this monster of a book to readers worldwide.”

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Syzygy engages in ‘Self Help’ this summer

Owen King, Jesse Kellerman, Marianna Ignazzi and more bring this ‘California noir story’ to life.

Syzygy Publishing and Image Comics have announced Self Help, a new five-issue crime noir miniseries by novelists Owen King and Jesse Kellerman, artist Marianna Ignazzi, colorist Fabiana Mascolo and designer/letterer Ian Chagren.

Described as a “California noir story,” Self Help is “a surreal and colorful world populated with two-faced talk-show hosts, cheerful Finnish mobsters, bloodthirsty white supremacists, snide English butlers and panther-wielding Euro-trash assassins.” Sounds like fun!

“I couldn’t be more excited to be working with Jesse Kellerman on Self Help,” King said. “He’s one of my favorite novelists and one of my favorite people. We’re both incredibly lucky to have the brilliant Marianna Ignazzi bringing our sun-baked noir comedy to life.”

King is best known for his novels Sleeping Beauties, which he wrote with his father, Stephen King, and The Curator. Kellerman’s novels include The Genius and The Golem of Hollywood, while Ignazzi has worked on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and An Unkindness of Ravens for BOOM! Studios.

“Writing Self Help has been nonstop fun—and the credit for that goes to my amazing co-writer, Owen King,” Kellerman said. “This story is the product of two good friends cutting loose and letting our imaginations run wild. And we’re thrilled by the beautiful, stylish, vivid genius of Marianna Ignazzi. We can’t wait for you to get your hands on it.”

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Quick Hits | Nirvana Comics in Knoxville wins the first Image Select Retailer Award

Plus: News on Rob Liefeld, Scout Comics, G. Willow Wilson and the Robert E. Howard awards.

Nirvana Comics in Knoxville, Tennessee has won Image Comics’ inaugural Image Select Retailer Award. The winner was announced this weekend at the Emerald City Comic Con during an event hosted by Lunar Distribution.

Images Comics announced the award last month as a way to recognize retailers “that are going above and beyond to serve their customers, expand readership and grow a healthier marketplace.” Customers were able to vote for their favorite store via an online form.

“This is such a huge honor,” said Grant and Jasmine Mitchell, co-owners of the store. “Thank you Image Comics for all you’ve done to help the comic shop industry. Thank you to all our customers who nominated us. Your support and friendship is why we do this everyday. The best is yet to come!”

According to Image, the shop was in the top tier of most nominations by sheer volume from “happy customers eager to pay it forward to the store they love.” They’ll receive several prizes from Image, including a commemorative medallion and their choice of a comic with a gold foil exclusive variant cover branded with their store logo.

“The response to this award was phenomenal with thousands of nominations submitted in just a few days,” said Alex Cox, director of direct market sales at Image Comics. “Reading that many testimonials from people praising their local comic shops was a great reminder of how amazing the comics community can be, and Nirvana Comics stood out as a prime example of a store that truly values their customers, and makes new fans every day.”

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Gillen + Wijngard + Cowles bring ‘The Power Fantasy’ to life in August

The new series about superpowered beings will be published by Image Comics.

Kieron Gillen, Caspar Wijngaard and Clayton Cowles will present “the eternal fight against fighting” in the new series The Power Fantasy, coming in August from Image Comics.

The series will feature six superpowered people, with “superpowered” being described as having the destructive power of America’s nuclear arsenal. So for the good of the world, it’s important that they never come into conflict.

“This is very much the new big swing book,” Gillen said on social media. “I think you’ll love it.”

Here’s the teaser:

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Michael Walsh will bring ‘Frankenstein’ to comics in August

Skybound announces a third miniseries featuring the classic Universal Monsters.

Skybound has announced a third miniseries in their Universal Monsters line-up, as Michael Walsh will write and draw a miniseries featuring Frankenstein.

Each of the four issues will tell the story behind one of the body parts used to create Frankenstein in the original film — which seems like the perfect approach from the creator and artist of The Silver Coin, an anthology series that follows a cursed coin into different horror stories.

“The story of Dr. Frankenstein and his poor, misunderstood monster is one of the most recognizable and influential horror tales ever told… It’s also one of my favorites,” Walsh said. “The original 1931 film from Universal Pictures is a continuing inspiration for my art and storytelling, so, as you can imagine, I was honored to be able to play in that sandbox. Trying to tell an original story while staying true to the canon of that film was an exciting yet daunting prospect. It’s been some of the most fun I’ve had making comic books, and I know that fans of Frankenstein and horror will have a blast experiencing these characters and iconic scenes like never before.” 

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Quick Hits | Whatever happened to ‘Tales from the Quarantine’?

Plus: A ‘Doonesbury’ controversy (maybe?), Image launches a retailer award, and a Seattle comic shop’s staff unionizes.

Crowdfunding | Broken Frontier has a lengthy article up where they talk with many of the creators involved with Tales from the Quarantine, a project spearheaded by Frazer Brown of Red Cabin Comics that was funded in the early days of the pandemic and was meant to raise money for the Hero Initiative and other charities. The anthology was supposed to feature comics by a long list of creators, including Ed Brubaker, Sean Phillips, Rachael Stott, Charlie Adlard, Jim Zub and Max Dunbar, among others. Almost four years after being funded, the anthology has yet to materialize in print, with many angry backers wanting to know what happened and creators left with little answers themselves.

“It was a damaging situation for our individual reputations,” said one of the anthology’s contributors, Lucy Sullivan. “The way the project was marketed suggested we were all complicit in its concept and production rather than, the reality, that we all gave our time and expertise for free in aid of charity. The only recourse was to publicly state this. Of course that put me on the blocked list, off the contributors’ emails and potentially amongst those threatened with police investigation. It was really quite stressful.”

Visit Broken Frontier to read more.

Comic strips | A former Iowa State Representative went to social media to question why this Sunday’s Doonesbury strip didn’t appear in any Gannett papers over the weekend. The strip in question featured a Florida teacher sharing facts about the Civil War, while one student questions if it is still legal for her to do so — a very real issue in the state.

But did Gannett actually remove the strip because of the content, as Cracked.com suggests? The Daily Cartoonist says another factor may be in play here — Gannett previously announced plans to limit the comic strips offered to their papers to a set 34, and Doonesbury isn’t on the list.

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Casey + Fry’s ‘Blood Squad Seven’ kicks off in May

The new series will “explore ’90s superteam dynamics through a contemporary lens.”

Joe Casey and Paul Fry will dig through the bones of 1990s comics nostalgia in Blood Squad Seven, a new series that spins out of Casey’s recent work on Dutch.

“This might be the biggest thing I’ve ever done in my 20-plus years working with Image Comics,” Casey said. “To play in this sandbox is the most fun I’ve ever had writing in a shared universe. This series is much more than a modern deconstruction of what it meant to be a superhero in the ’90s. Paul and I are building on that past to find our way into the future.”

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Image announces a sequel to Zdarsky, Anka + Wilson’s ‘The White Trees’

The trio of creators returns to the fantasy world they created with ‘The Whisper Queen,’ which begins in May.

Back in 2019, Chip Zdarsky, Kris Anka and Matt Wilson introduced the fantasy world of Blacksand in the two-issue Image Comics miniseries The White Trees. They’ll return to that world in The Whisper Queen, a three-issue miniseries that begins in May.

The White Trees is the best project I’ve ever been involved in, thanks to the gorgeous work by Kris and Matt,” Zdarsky said. “We always knew there were more stories to tell in the world of Blacksand, so getting the gang back together for another wild, action-filled adventure was a no-brainer. It’s years in the making, and I hope everyone is ready to find out what happened next in The Whisper Queen!”

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Brubaker + Phillips explore the ’80s ‘Satanic Panic’ in ‘Houses of the Unholy’

The graphic novel will arrive in stores in August.

Image Comics has announced the next graphic novel coming from the award-winning team of Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips, arguably comics’ greatest creative team right now. Houses of the Unholy will explore the “Satanic Panic” craze of the 1980s, which involved conspiracy theories that grew from unsubstantiated cases of Satanic ritual abuse.

Houses of the Unholy is something I’ve been describing as Satanic Panic Noir. It’s somewhere in-between a creepy horror story and a fucked-up noir, and directly tied to the Satanic Panic craze of the ’80s,” said Brubaker. “The book really speaks to my obsessions with cult horror, and plays with the demonic tropes of classic horror from Hammer to Carpenter to Stephen King. The fear that was everywhere back then has clearly resurfaced, and that made me want to dive back into those dark waters and try to find a Brubaker-Phillips take on noir and horror at the same time.”

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Lewis + Barravecchia prepare for ‘blood-splattered’ conquest in ‘Bear Pirate Viking Queen’

The three-issue high-fantasy miniseries begins in May.

Sean Lewis will team up with artist/painter  Jonathan Marks Barravecchia for “a blood-splattered story of conquest.” Bear Pirate Viking Queen, coming from Image Comics this May, is billed as a high fantasy story, and from what I can tell, it does not feature a bear who is also a queen, pirate and viking at the same time (although I’ll be pleasantly surprised if that is, indeed, the case).

Lewis said he was inspired by an Alan Moore/Eddie Campbell classic when creating the story.

“I always wanted to make something that hit me like From Hell the first time I read it,” said Lewis. “Something with historical scope, something with a really uncompromised visual beauty, and something that felt BIG. Jonathan’s work is incredible. The story is one I am incredibly proud of. We are shooting for ‘canon’ with this one.”

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