Live Through This: ‘Royal City’ homages ’90s alternative album covers

Jeff Lemire recruits Jeffrey Brown, Emi Lenox, Nate Powell and more to pay tribute to album covers by Weezer, Hole and more.

The second story arc for Jeff Lemire’s excellent Royal City will take the Pike family back to the early 1990s, and to help set the mood, Lemire has enlisted a bunch of great artists to draw music album tribute covers.

“This new arc takes a major shift as the story jumps back to the year 1993 and we follow the last week in the life of Tommy Pike!” Lemire wrote on his blog. “Meet the Pike siblings when they were all just teenagers in the 90’s and the tragedy that will come to haunt their family is still in the future.”

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Comics Lowdown: Comic-Con to Stay in San Diego

Plus: Udon to publish Daigo manga, another comics shop is robbed, a comics professor quits his job

It’s official: Comic-Con International will remain in San Diego for now, resisting the blandishments of other cities such as Los Angeles and Anaheim, which have been trying to woo it away. San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer announced on June 30 that the city has signed a three-year deal with Comic-Con that will last through 2021; the current contract ends after next year’s show. Faulconer made a pitch for expanding the convention center, something that has been talked about for years now; the City Council recently refused his request to put a special tax on the November ballot to fund an expansion. Con-goers get a bit of a break in this new contract, though: The last contract held all hotel rooms to their 2016 prices for the duration, and the new one only allows a 4% increase over the 2018 price over the subsequent three years.

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New site, The Pushpin, offers prints by comic artists

Featured artists include Ryan North, Kate Beaton, Johnnie Christmas, Michael Cho, Jeff Lemire, Chip Zdarsky and more.

If your walls crave some comic art love, The Pushpin has your hookup. The new site is selling giclée prints featuring artwork by Kate Beaton, Johnnie Christmas, Michael Cho, Jeff Lemire, Sarah Lazarovic, Christian Northeast and many more. In addition, they’re selling Pushpin Originals, which are exclusive prints by Kagan McLeod, Ryan North and Chip Zdarsky — including Zdarsky’s humorous “Solar System” print.

“Science is more important than ever. And even more important than science, is letting people know how much you love science,” Zdarsky said about his Pushpin Original. ”So I wanted to create a poster that could convey to your houseguests that you’d be perfectly at home retweeting Neil deGrasse Tyson, or that you read National Geographic magazines as a kid. My highly informative information graphic on THE SOLAR SYSTEM™ does just that.”

Science teachers may have some issues with it:

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Image announces everything and the kitchen sink at ECCC

New projects from Ales Kot, Joe Casey, Joe Keatinge, Declan Shalvey, Matt Wagner, Jeff Lemire, Phil Hester and more announced at Emerald City Comic Con.

For the past few years Image Comics has held an Image Expo, which is kind of their own mini-convention where they feature creators and make announcements. Since they ended up skipping it this year (it’ll be back in 2018) they used their Thursday panel at the Emerald City Comic Con to unleash a huge slew of comic book announcements.

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Kindt, Powell, Nguyen and more join Lemire on ‘Black Hammer’ annual

Dark Horse Comics will publish “Black Hammer Giant-Sized Annual” in January.

Black Hammer, Jeff Lemire and Dean Ormston’s comic about superheroes stuck outside their realities after a multiversal crisis, will get the annual treatment next year.

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Tragically Hip frontman Gord Downie & Jeff Lemire tells story of the mistreatment of Canadian Indigenous children

The story of a 12-year old boy who died from hunger and exposure is the subject of a new project spearheaded by the Tragically Hip’s Gord Downie with comic writer and illustrator Jeff Lemire. This multi-media production is a mix of poems, music, a graphic novel and animated film.

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Quoted: Jeff Lemire on his work process, what makes him happy

The writer of Black Hammer, Bloodshot, Thanos and many other titles provides a look into how he gets all his work done — and why he loves it.

Jeff Lemire, writer of Black Hammer, Old Man Logan, Bloodshot, Descender and many, many, MANY other projects, in a long process post where he talks about how he balances his time. It’s impressive and a bit humbling to hear how far ahead he is with all the titles he writes.

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Lemire announces release dates for two projects

‘A.D.: After Death’ with Scott Snyder starts later this year, while ‘Roughnecks’ arrives in 2017.

Sweet Tooth and Trillium creator Jeff Lemire has revealed updated releases dates for projects he’s working on — A.D.: After Death with writer Scott Snyder from Image Comics and Roughneck, which he’s both writing and drawing himself, from Simon and Schuster’s new Gallery 13 imprint.

Announced back in January of 2015, A.D.: After Death tells the story of what happens when mankind cures death. A.D.: After Death will be serialized as three, oversized prestige format books written by Snyder and fully painted by Lemire. The first volume is due in November.

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Image to publish Jeff Lemire’s ‘Royal City’

New comic written and drawn by Lemire comes out next March.

As noted on his blog, Jeff Lemire will write AND draw his first comic since 2013’s Trillium. Royal City, a new ongoing published by Image Comics, follows “a fading literary star who reluctantly returns to the once-thriving factory town where he grew up,” and has to deal with overbearing family, the vanishing town and the “ghosts” of his younger brother, who drowned decades prior.

“I have a two-season plan, about 20 issues of the comic, that will tell one decisive story about the Pike family,” Lemire told Entertainment Weekly. “But the idea of returning to this family of characters at different points in my life is really exciting to me. I think it could be something that I return to — an umbrella where I could tell other stories.”

The first issue is due out next March.

RoyalCity Promo Image

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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Lemire’s ‘Roughneck’ skates into stores in 2017

Lemire returns to small-town Canada for a new graphic novel from Simon & Schuster.

The prolific Jeff Lemire, who has left his stamp on monthly comics from DC, Marvel, Image and Valiant in recent years, returns to his graphic novel roots in October with Roughneck.

Update: According to Lemire’s blog, Roughnecks will now arrive in April 2017.

Originally announced in 2013, the graphic novel is written and drawn by Lemire. Like his Essex County series, this one is also set in small town Canada. Here’s how Simon & Schuster described the project back in 2013:

“Derek is a former hockey tough guy whose quick rise to the NHL was cut short when a brutal on-ice incident left him banned from professional hockey for life. Now, four years later, Derek has returned to Black River, his hometown in Northern Ontario, not far from the Moose Cree First Nation, where his mother grew up. Derek’s slide into alcoholism and depression is interrupted when his long-lost sister, Annie, returns home trailing a violent ex-boyfriend. Together, the two escape to the woods, where they struggle to reconnect with the traditions of their Cree ancestors in order to escape their past and gain redemption.”

This is definitely something to add to the “Comics I’m looking forward to” list for 2016.

RN PROMO