Tag: Walt Simonson

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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Walt Simonson, Jared Cullum win 2021 NCS Divisional Awards

French cartoonist Boulet received the Sergio Aragones International Award for Excellence in Comic Art.

This weekend is NCS Fest, the annual event hosted by the National Cartoonists Society that includes, among other activities, the NCS Divisional Awards and the annual presentation of the Reuben Award.

This year’s event is being streamed online, and the NCS has interspersed some of the awards presentations throughout the stream. Yesterday Hellboy artist Duncan Fegredo presented the award for best comic book, which went to Walt Simonson’s Ragnarok: The Breaking of Helheim. The comic is published by IDW, which also publishes the other two nominees in the category, Usagi Yojimbo and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Jennika.

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Mail Call | DC reveals more details on April’s relaunch of ‘Green Lantern’

A round-up of recent news on ‘Aliens,’ DC Future State, IDW’s Canto and more.

Mail Call is a roundup of the announcements we’ve received from comics publishers in our mailboxes recently that we haven’t already covered. Hit the links for more information.

When Green Lantern returns later this year after the events of Future State, Geoffrey Thorne and Dexter Soy will chart a new path for John Stewart, Sojourner “Jo” Mullein from Far Sector and Teen Lantern, the hacker Green Lantern who appeared in Young Justice.

Here’s how DC describes the first issue: With the majority of Green Lanterns called back to Oa, John Stewart arrives alongside Teen Lantern Keli Quintela, whose homemade gauntlet could be one of the most powerful and unstable weapons in the universe. With the entire landscape of the universe in flux, is this the end of the Green Lantern Corps…or a new beginning?

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Mail Call | Clownhunter joins the ‘Joker Wars’

Plus: X of Swords, Star Wars manga, free Scooby comics and more.

Mail Call is a roundup of the announcements we received from publishers in our mailboxes recently. Hit the links for more information.

Marvel is hyping up their next X-Men event with some new promo art for X-Men: X of Swords, which was announced right before the pandemic at C2E2. Jonathan Hickman, Tini Howard and Pepe Larraz bring you X-Men: X of Swords: Creation #1 in September.

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‘Ragnarök’ returns in July

Walt Simonson presents a new six-issue storyline in his Norse mythology epic.

Walt Simonson’s Norse mythology epic Ragnarök will return in July for a six-issue storyline titled “The Breaking of Helheim.”

The story picks up after the end of the last series, as Thor hears a voice from the past.

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‘Section Zero’ returns at Image Comics

Karl Kesel and Tom Grummett’s Gorilla Comics title will finally conclude in comic book form.

It’s been 20 years, but Image Comics is declassifying the adventures of Tom Grummett and Karl Kesel’s Section Zero. One of the original Gorilla Comics titles will return to comic book form thanks to Image Comics.

“Ever since 2000, Tom and I have constantly tried to bring Section Zero back,” Kesel said in a press release. “Almost two decades later, we finally found a way to finish what we’d begun. The cherry on top is seeing the book return to where it all started—Image Comics.”

The series will be published by Image/Shadowline Comics this April. Here’s Grummett’s cover for the first issue:

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Comics Lowdown: Jack Kirby special edition

A roundup of some of the Jack Kirby 100th birthday news this week!

Not only is it “Kirby Week” here on Smash Pages, but the entire comic industry has come together to honor and remember one of the industry’s greatest and most influential creators, Jack Kirby, for what would have been his 100th birthday. Here’s a round-up of links related to “The King.”

The first place to check is Marvel.com, which has an entire section dedicated to Jack Kirby. The colorful articles have been posted throughout the month of August, with reading lists, character features and articles by Jim Zub, Carlos Pacheco, Mark Waid and Mike Allred. Plus there are several videos about the life of Jack Kirby.

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Don’t tell Thor: Walt Simonson covers Titan’s Hercules series

‘Hercules: Wrath of the Heavens’ debuts this August from the team of JDMorvan, Looky and Olivier Thill.

Known for his bold interpretations of Norse mythology in the pages of Thor and Ragnarok, Walt Simonson takes leave from the halls of Asgard to cover a new comic featuring a different pantheon — Hercules: Wrath of the Heavens.

Titan Comics will launch the new series by writer JDMorvan and artists Looky and Olivier Thill in August, which will feature a new take on the Greek demigod’s fabled 12 labors. The new series launches in August. Check out Simonson’s cover for the first issue below.

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1990s Era Color Guide by Walt Simonson

As part of a larger piece on the comics coloring process by Glenn Whitmore Smash Pages uncovered a 1990s era color guide by Walt Simonson, along with this supplemental contextual data.

The separator, which for much of comics history was Chemical Color Plate in Connecticut, would make nine acetate prints of the original art, one for each percentage of each color.

The black and white artwork – originally drawn at twice the printed size, then 1½ times, and currently slightly less than that — was photographed, reduced and printed on sheets of clear acetate. Nine copies were made of each page – one for each of the three percentages of the three colors – and these were turned over to a separator.

Using the colored artwork as a guide, areas on the acetates would be filled in with an opaque paint (Rubylith) to correspond to the color(s) necessary.

Once the color guides were fully “translated” and the acetates were finished, they would be photographed with appropriate screens to create a single version which included the percentage dots and the solid of one color. These three new pieces of film, along with a fourth clean version of the art which was used to make the black, were used to make the printing plates.

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