Tag: Webtoon

Quick Hits | Publishers push back against Florida book bans

Plus: IDW lays off Mark Doyle + three others, Webtoon targets pirate sites, Declan Shalvey, Jay Hosler, a lost Alan Moore comic and more.

Several book publishers have joined with parents and authors to sue the state of Florida over House Bill 1069, the ironically titled bill that, among other things, restricts books in school libraries that depict or describe “sexual content.” Hundreds of titles have been banned across the state since the bill became law in July 2023, according to a press release issued by the publishers.

Penguin joins with Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins Publishers, Macmillan Publishers and Simon & Schuster as plaintiffs in the suit, along with two parents, two students and a list of authors that includes Julia Alvarez, Laurie Halse Anderson, John Green, Jodi Picoult and Angie Thomas.

“Florida HB 1069’s complex and overbroad provisions have created chaos and turmoil across the state, resulting in thousands of historic and modern classics—works we are proud to publish—being unlawfully labeled obscene and removed from shelves,” said Dan Novack, VP and associate general counsel for PRH. “Students need access to books that reflect a wide range of human experiences to learn and grow. It’s imperative for the education of our young people that teachers and librarians be allowed to use their professional expertise to match our authors’ books to the right reader at the right time in their life.” 

Today’s LOL moment comes in the form of a statement from Nathalia Medina, a spokeswoman for the state’s Department of Education. “There are no books banned in Florida,” she told the Washington Post. “Sexually explicit material and instruction are not suitable for schools.” The Miami New Times has a list of the books that have been banned in Florida since 2021 through June of this year. The extensive list by school district includes several graphic novels, including Flamer, Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic, Drama and Gender Queer: A Memoir.

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Sunday Comics | ‘Wayne Family Adventures’ returns for a third season

Check out new webcomics by Derek Laufman, Leigh Luna and more.

Here’s a round up of some of the best and most interesting comics we’ve seen online recently. If we missed something, let us know in the comments below.

Wayne Family Adventures, the Webtoon comic that features Batman and all his kids, has returned for a third season. The comic first debuted back in 2021 and has also been collected in print.

Writer CRC Payne and lead artist StarBite are back with more of tales that fall into my favorite Tumblr sub-genre — “BatFam eats dinner together”:

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WBTN: Webtoon registers with the SEC to go public

The popular webcomics platform plans to list its stock on the NASDAQ.

Webtoon Entertainment, the parent company of the popular webcomics platform Webtoon, has filed paperwork with the U.S. Securities Exchange Commission to begin the process of becoming a publicly traded company. According to the prospectus, Webtoon would list its stock on the NASDAQ market under the WBTN symbol.

The prospectus is a great read if you’re interested in the business aspects of Webtoon, how it operates and how it views creators, who are vital to its business model. It’s also very readable, compared to a lot of legal/government filings, as it tells the story of the company and its founder/CEO, Junkoo Kim.

 “The project was born out of my own love of comics, which I’ve been passionate about since I was young,” Kim writes in his opening message. “Comics are like a window into another world, capable of transporting readers to distant, fantastic places, and creating new perspectives. I’ve long admired the talented artists who create comics and have the incredible gift of building entire universes on a page. I truly love visual stories and storytelling, which is why I am so passionate about helping a diverse new generation of creators succeed.”

Kim was a search engineer at the Naver Corporation, the South Korean internet conglomerate that currently owns Webtoon Entertainment, when he came up with the idea for it. According to the paperwork, Naver would retain a controlling interest in Webtoon after the public offering. The exact percentage of ownership they plan to offer and the opening price have not been determined and aren’t included in the document. They also don’t plan to offer a dividend for the foreseeable future (which is something my dad will ask about if he sees this).

But what is included? Stat and data on Webtoon, as displayed in this handy infographic and the document itself:

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Slugfest | Black Widow gets ‘Venomous’ in a new one-shot

Plus news and announcements on Hellverine, Misty, Nick Cagnetti, Paul Pope, Blood Hunt, Briar, Joy Operations and more!

Slugfest is a roundup of cool announcements about projects coming to a shelf near you that we haven’t otherwise covered. Hit the links for more information.

If you’ve been reading Venom of late, you know that the Black Widow — who already has a cool spider name — has gone and gotten herself a symbiote. This summer, writer Erica Schultz and artist Luciano Vecchio will “unleash Natasha Romanoff’s full potential as a symbiote warrior” in a new one-shot.

Black Widow: Venomous will not only show the super-spy figuring out how to work with her new partner, but will also set the stage for the upcoming Venom War event.

“Who doesn’t want to write Natasha Romanoff? And with a badass symbiote, it didn’t take much to convince me,” Schultz said. “Luciano Vecchio’s art is so amazing. It’s been so fun to delve into Nat’s spy craft techniques, and you just may learn something new about her.”

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Sunday Comics | ‘Scoob and Shag’ returns from hiatus

Check out webcomics by Diego Casasola, Jes and Cin Wibowo, Simon Roy, Bev Johnson and more.

Here’s a round up of some of the best and most interesting comics we’ve seen online recently. If we missed something, let us know in the comments below.

The crew behind the webcomic Scoob and Shag are back in action after taking a bit of a hiatus that encompassed most of last year. A lengthy new episode appeared on the last day of Dec. 31, with another new popping up earlier this month.

The strip started as a joke on Tumblr back in 2014, and has since grown into somewhat of an internet phenomenon. Created by Diego Casasola, aka Dingo, and the Misterie Krew, the story is … wow, how to describe it? It’s definitely a parody of Scooby Doo, or at least it started that way, but since then it has grown to encompass an endless cast of your favorite cartoons who are participating in an epic story that’s filled with action, intrigue, horror, comedy and some great character moments. Imagine if all the cartoons you watched as a kid were actually broadcasts from another planet …

It’s kinda insane, and is worth experiencing for yourself.

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Slugfest | ‘Titans: Beast World’ has giant starfish and lenticular covers

Plus more news and announcements on Canto, Nomads, Batman, Blue Book, Star Wars and more.

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

DC has released a preview of the upcoming Titans: Beast World miniseries, which was announced this past summer. The crossover event will feature a main series by Tom Taylor, Ivan Reis and Danny Miki, with various tie-ins throughout.

The story centers on The Necrostar, a giant space starfish that rivals Starro and who the Titans, along with the rest of the DC Universe, team up to fight. Along the way, they somehow end up being turned into animal versions of themselves. Beast Boy, in fact, will show that it takes a giant starfish to stop a giant starfish, as he transforms into a version of Starro himself.

Here’s a preview, along with a look at the main cover, which is by Ivan Reis, Danny Miki and Brad Anderson:

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‘Covenant’ will debut in print from Oni Press next year

Look for the first volume in stores next April.

Covenant, the popular Webtoon comic by LySandra Vuong, will come to print next year courtesy of Oni Press.

The webcomic has topped 21 million views on the site, and features a Catholic exorcist who has lost his faith and must protect a “seemingly normal” human from rising demonic forces.

“Covenant combines classic shounen manga tropes with fantasy Catholicism to tell an action-packed story in which angels talk to us and demons walk among us,” said Vuong. “Covenant is an unconventional comic. It’s supernatural, a little blasphemous, a little sexy and unapologetically queer.”

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DC’s Webtoon series will come to print later this year

DC and Webtoon have announced collections of ‘Wayne Family Adventures,’ ‘Vixen’ and ‘Zatanna & the Ripper.’

The three webcomics series produced by DC Comics and Webtoon will come to print later this year, starting with Batman: Wayne Family Adventures in August.

The webcomic by writer CRC Payne, lead artist StarBite, storyboard artist Maria Li, background artist Lan Ma, letterer Kielamel Sibal, and colorists C.M. Cameron, Camille Cruz and Jean Kim debuted on the platform back in 2021 and is still going; it’s up to 76 episodes now. It was followed by Vixen: NYC by Jasmine Walls and Maniu Azumi, which is up to episode 44, and Zatanna & The Ripper by Sarah Dealy and Syro, which is up to episode 38.

“Fans can’t get enough of our DC and Webtoon content, and expanding DC’s creative partnership with Webtoon into print with books like Batman: Wayne Family Adventures reflects this demand,” said Anne DePies, DC’s senior vice president and general manager. “Each page of these new volumes is meticulously reproduced to be read seamlessly in book narrative format. DC’s continuing partnership with Webtoon combines legendary franchises with new technologies and global fandoms, and we can’t wait to get these new print editions into your hands.”

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House of Slay returns with a new story by Cherish Chen + Ashley Liu next week

Check out an exclusive preview of the story “The Remarkable Helen Huynh” before it lands on Webtoon and Tapas on March 7.

House of Slay, the webcomic created by and starring fashion icons Prabal Gurung, Phillip Lim, Laura Kim, Tina Leung and Ezra Williams, returns next week with a new episode written by Cherish Chen (Radiant Red) and drawn by Ashley Liu. Today we’re pleased to present a sneak preview of their short story, which will debut on both Tapas and Webtoon on March 7.

House of Slay debuted back in 2021, with the first season chronicling the fictional story of how the five fashion icons became superheroes. Season two, which debuted at the end of last year, will include in total five different short stories by different creative teams, with key art and character designs by Kevin Wada.

“While Season 1 of House of Slay was a story about five friends who come together to overpower hate, Season 2 is much wider in scope, taking us all over the world to meet fascinating new additions to the team. What’s so special about this concept is how it serves to remind us what we can do when we organize and empower ourselves,” Lim said.

Gurung sets up Chen and Liu’s story:

“In Cherish Chen’s and Ashley Liu’s story we get to meet Helen Huynh, one of the most memorable new cast members of the House of Slay universe. She’s so relatable!” Gurung said. “We are all in a constant crush of responsibilities and duties and if we don’t take time out to breathe and notice the world we’re in we can’t have a positive impact on it. Even though she’s a professional photographer, Helen’s learning how to see for the first time, and the first thing she observes is the kind of just-barely hidden injustice that’s so challenging to overcome in our society. But it’s never impossible, and that’s what House of Slay is all about.”

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Sunday Comics | ‘Webcomic Name,’ ‘Let’s Play’ and more

A round-up of news items from the webcomics world this past week.

Typically I use this space to recommend interesting webcomics I come across, but this week I’m going start with some recent news topics in the webcomics world.

The first is the ongoing effort by Alex Norris to reclaim his rights to Webcomic Name, his popular online comic. Even if the name doesn’t ring a bell, more than likely you’ve seen his fun, blobby characters in your social media feed at some point:

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Sunday Comics | Opening the ‘Gates of Hell’

Check out recent webcomics from Dennis Culver, Yuki Saeki, Will Tempest, Grant Snider, Ryan Cody and Joshua Barkman.

Here’s a round up of some of the best comics we’ve seen online recently. If we missed something, let us know in the comments below.

Dennis Culver and Yuki Saeki launched one of my favorite new webcomics back in October — Gates of Hell, which is available on Webtoon. It’s about a teenage girl, Jennifer, who is dealing with the grief of losing her mom. As a result. she ends up opening a portal to the underworld to say all those things to her mom that she meant to say when she was alive.

But instead of finding her mom, she instead meets a hunky devil lord:

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‘Planet Divoc-91’ comes to print

The webcomic funded by several UK science organizations arrived in the early days of the pandemic.

An early webcomic inspired by COVID-19 is coming to print later this month, courtesy of Velocity Press.

Back in July of 2020, in what could still be considered the early days of the COVID pandemic, several UK-based scientific organizations funded the creation of a sci-fi satire that drew its inspiration from what the world was going through at the time. Planet Divoc-19 debuted on Webtoon and featured stories and art by Charlie Adlard, Alex Paknadel, Marco Finnegan, Matt Kindt, Hannah Berry, James Devlin, Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou, Elsa Charretier and more.

“Although the topics we’re discussing in the series are incredibly serious, Planet Divoc-91 is full of humor and is occasionally ridiculous,” said Sara Kenney, who wrote the first chapter. “We’re aiming for more of a District 9 or The Good Place feel than, say, Star Trek.”

The print edition of Planet Divoc-19 is a not-for-profit publication, with 100% of profits go towards helping young creatives in South Africa, India and UK. It arrives in UK bookstores today; those of us outside the UK can order it directly from Velocity.

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