Hello! I hope your Monday’s going well. We do not want to invoke the Garfield, after all. Some news:
Dynamite has begun a series of “Seduction” covers for their books. Perhaps realizing that this term was not as helpful as it could be for a line of comics that already features vampiresses in keyhole bodysuits and warrior women in metal bikinis, Dynamite went on to describe this series as “deadly, but seductive.” Well, good. Thank you. That clears things right up. Also, the conflation of violence and sexiness for women has never been a problematic issue even once in comic books. Ever.
Do you like DC’s program pushing digest issues of comics at your local Wal-Mart store? If so, good news: It’s expanding! I have some personal thoughts about choosing Wal-Mart of all stores to do this, but I suppose they do have the national reach. Of course, like a proper Big Two company, DC is never content to let one bad decision rest on its laurels without drumming up another, worse one! This time, they’ve decided to include a twelve-page story featuring the brutal murder of Lois Lane in one of those digests. You know, the ones meant to… get kids into comics again. Good job, DC!
We have a couple of different awards announcements this week:
- First, check out the student winners of New York Times’ 2018 Editorial Cartoon Contest. Learn their names! One day they’ll be big and you can say you read about them when.
- ComicsBeat has covered the announcement of the finalists for this year’s Grand Prix d’Angoulême!
- And…Diamond has some awards? I guess “selling best” is an achievement of sorts. “Best capitalism!” Woo! P.S. Diamond’s distribution system is a stranglehold on the comics market.
Marvel’s hoping that Liefeld magic will work for them again; he’s creating a new X-character! This time it’s Major X, a black and red (shocking!) clad gun-shooting (amazing!) individual who wears a large helmet with an X on the face. Major X will time travel from a mutant utopia and land in the year 1991, which is definitely not bordering on self-parody. This will run concurrently with the “Age of X” storyline, which is about a different mutant utopia, and will absolutely not be confusing at all. Personally I find the helmet choice to be significant as well:
There was a brief bit of news out of Canada as a Catholic school board pulled a comic for containing imagery of two boys kissing, before summarily reversing that decision and allowing the book to go on library shelves after all. Kudos for realizing your mistake, folks! Now do something about your religion’s long and sustained war on LGBTQ rights.
Finally, George Perez has a sad announcement: Due to health reasons, he is retiring from comics, as well as severely limiting his work at conventions. Perez’s work in comics is legendary, and he’s generally just known as a really nice guy on top of that. Take care of yourself, Mr. Perez.
Some quick hits!
- Ben Applegate is the new Director of Publishing Services for Kodansha USA. Congratulations!
- Eve Ewing is holding a cosplay contest for Iron Heart!
- Our own Rosie Knight is going to be putting together an anthology!
- Preeti Chhibber is going to be writing a book tied to Spider-Man: Far From Home!
- The date for this year’s Small Press Day has been announced!
- The story about DBZ and FMA voice actor Vig Mignogna has cropped up again, following his work on the record-breaking Dragon Ball Super: Broly film. Funimation: C’mon. Cut ties.
