Cast your vote for who should join the X-Men

Marvel once again gives fans the chance to pick who should join the X-Men.

Marvel is once again asking fans to vote for who they’d like to see join the X-Men, as they’ve done for the past two years. This year fans can choose from six characters — Dazzler, Cannonball, Frenzy, Juggernaut, Jubilee and Prodigy.

The voting window is pretty tight — you have until Friday of this week to cast your vote. The winner will be revealed this summer as part of the big Hellfire Gala storyline, which we now know ties into the bigger Fall of X crossover that’s coming later this year.

Marvel has provided campaign posters for each character with catchy slogans; here’s the one for Dazzler, who also coincidentally received my vote this year:

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Sunday Comics | Looking at recent awards nominees

Check out the online comics nominated for both the NCS Divisional Awards and the Nommo Awards.

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.

Award nominations for both the NCS Divisional Awards and the Nommo Awards came out in the last week, so let’s take a look at what webcomics earned nods from each of them.

I’ll start with the National Cartoonist Society’s annual awards, which are given out every year in conjunction with the Reuben Award. While their categories range from comic books to graphic novels to advertising to greeting cards, they have two categories focused on online comics — a long-form category and a short-form category. Let’s start with the long-form nominees.

First up is Emily Flake, a very prolific cartoonist with comics appearing in places like The New Yorker, The Nib and others (she’s also a comedian/performer). Based on the image on the NCS site, it looks like she’s nominated for her comic “Visions of the Post-Pandemic Future (Revised),” which appeared on the New Yorker website in April of last year.

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Voting opens for the finals of the DC Round Robin tournament

It’s Superboy vs. Suicide Squad Dark in the final vote of the tournament.

DC’s second Round Robin tournament will come to a close this weekend, as voting has opened for the final round. The finals pit Suicide Squad: Dark by Zac Thompson and Garry Brown against Superboy: The Man of Tomorrow by Kenny Porter and Jahnoy Lindsay.

The tournament, which has been conducted through DC’s social media accounts and the DC Community message boards, allowed fans to vote on their choice for a new DC series. Last year’s winner was, appropriately, Robins by Tim Seeley and Baldemar Rivas, which brought together several of Batman’s former sidekicks. It went on to become a six-issue miniseries that recently wrapped up.

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Artists celebrate ‘May the Fourth be With You’ Day

Enjoy some Star Wars Day art — and a song.

Today is May 4, Star Wars Day, the day we are legally obliged to celebrate everything Star Wars. And many artists took to social media to fulfill their legal obligation, so let’s take a look at some Star Wars art:

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Twitter schools San Francisco MOMA on Roy Lichtenstein

Happy birthday to the artist/swiper who copied comics panels by Russ Heath, Jack Kirby and many others.

The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, or SF MOMA, took to Twitter earlier this week to wish a happy birthday to Roy Lichtenstein, the pop artist who came to fame in the 1960s and passed away in 1997.

Lichtenstein is notorious in comics circles, and not in a good way. Many of his paintings were copies of comic book panels by artists like Jack Kirby, Russ Heath and Irv Novick, and rarely did he credit the original artists, nor were they compensated. As such, many comic artists and fans have called him a copycat at best and a plagiarist at worst. (Well, maybe not “at worst;” I’m sure much has probably been said about him that’s worse than that).

SF MOMA, however, seems to have a different opinion. In their description on social media, they said: “Lichtenstein transferred the clichéd comic-book compositions to the canvas with a projector and simplified them; the resulting paintings mimic the appearance of four-color printing, despite being meticulously handmade.”

“Clichéd comic-book compositions.” Yep, they really tweeted that out.

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Sunday Comics | 24-Hour Comic Day, Inktober and more

Check out recent comics by Melanie Gillman, Derek Laufman, Elsa Charretier and more.

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.

I mentioned Swordtember in a post earlier today, and it’s far from the only online challenge aimed at creators going on on social media right now. Yesterday, in fact, was 24-Hour Comic Day, the “annual celebration of comics creation” where artists attempt to create an entire comic in 24 hours.

As the Crow Flies creator Melanie Gillman once again took up the challenge, creating a comic called The Night-Mother. It’s a horror story, and Gillman includes several content warnings at the beginning, including violence and miscarriage. But it’s a very well-done comic, especially for one they created in just 24 hours — or almost, anyway. Gillman still has a few pages left that they were hoping to finish today. Here’s the first page:

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Sunday Comics | Karl Kerschl’s new science fiction comic

Check out online comics from Archie Comics, PJ Holden and more.

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.

Karl Kerschl has been creating his award-winning webcomic The Abominable Charles Christopher on and off for more than a decade now, and this past week the lovable woodland creatures that inhabit his website were joined by a new visitor — Tanager, a new science fiction webcomic from Kerschl.

The description is fairly simple: A young woman with a strange gift travels the galaxy to help lost souls find their way home, but the execution is everything. In this first installment, she’s helping out an old man searching for something he lost on an alien-infested mining asteroid.

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Vote for the final two in DC’s Round Robin brackets

Four pitches remain in DC’s competition that allows fans to choose their next title.

DC Comics has opened up voting for round three of their Round Robin competition, where fans vote on which comic book concept they’d like to see made and published. They’ve also released preview pages for each of the four concepts to give you a better sense as to what exactly you’re voting for.

The competition started about a month ago, as DC pitted 16 comic book pitches against each other, March Madness style, and let fans vote on the one they wanted to see become a real comic. After two round of voting, they’ve narrowed it down to four pitches:

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Sunday Comics | Rainbow Batman, Conan without Conan and more

Check out free comics on the web and social media by Ben Templesmith, Kerry Callen, Casey Nowak and more.

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.

MAD Magazine contributor Kerry Callen shares his latest Super Antics comic strip, where he mines some of DC’s Silver Age stories for fun. As you’ll see at the top of this post, it features the infamous Rainbow Batman costume:

Don’t forget to check out Callen on Twitter and visit his Teepublic shop for some cool T-shirt designs.

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DC reveals the final four in their ‘Round Robin’ brackets

The fans have spoken.

Earlier this month DC kicked off their 2020 Round Robin competition, pitting 16 comic book pitches against each other, March Madness style, and letting fans vote on the one they wanted to see become a real comic.

For round one, they revealed the pitch, but refrained from identifying the creative teams until voting for that round closed. Fans went into round two knowing who would be working on each entry, and here’s how the voting landed:

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Cartoonists put the spotlight on Autism Awareness Month

Participants are posting personal comics about autism throughout April.

April is Autism Awareness Month, and more than 30 cartoonists are raising awareness around autism and neurodiversity in a series of comic strips posted under the hashtag #ASDComicTakeover on Twitter.

Rebecca Ollerton, a.k.a. Bex, is spearheading the effort. She regularly makes comics about these topics.

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DC wants your help in picking its next series

DC shares 16 pitches from real creators and asks fans to choose which one will get made.

DC would like your help picking its next new series, and has launched its own version of “April Madness” called 2021 Round Robin Brackets to help make that happen.

They’ve listed 16 possible future titles and their descriptions, and are asking fans to vote on them in various places –including Instagram, Twitter and the DC Universe Infinity Community message boards, depending on the round. Voting for round one goes through April 7, with plans to reveal the creative teams for each pitch coming as round two starts on April 8.

The pitches range from comics focused on DC’s top characters, like Green Lantern and Superman, to some focusing on lesser-known characters, like Nightrunner, the “Batman of Paris” whose debut was marred by racists back in 2010. There’s also a pitch for Asteria, who is probably best known from her appearance in the most recent Wonder Woman movie.

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