Good morning. Let’s talk news.
We bid farewell to Anthea Bell, translator of Asterix and Kafka. Bell’s localization work is directly responsible for many kids’, including a few of our own contributors, early love of comics. She was a treasure, and she’ll be missed.
Vin Diesel’s take on Valiant Comics’ Bloodshot has a proper synopsis. Diesel himself will be playing the titular character, the second to do so this year, after former Power Ranger Jason David Frank’s turn in the Ninjak web series. The move is swift, given there’s already one live action version this year, but not unsurprising given Valiant’s history of being intensely upwardly mobile as a company.
Last week, we mentioned the firing of Chuck Wendig from his work for Marvel’s Star Wars division. The reason given for the firing was his Twitter presence, a thing that was unchanged from before his hiring. Now evidence exists of a campaign specifically to get Wendig fired via an army of Twitter bots. Because of course that happened. Here is some further information:
Updated data on Twitter before/after @ChuckWendig being fired from @Marvel/@StarWars. The new part is the number of bots (fully automated accounts) tweeting about Wendig. I'm amazed by how many bots there were. pic.twitter.com/SIfpYynvVx
— Bethany Lacina (@bethany_lacina) October 18, 2018
Lastly, the White House has announced that the U.S. intends to withdraw from the International Postal Agency. This is a move that will disproportionately affect independent comic creators and users of things like Kickstarter, so when you can’t buy the comics you want internationally anymore, now you know why.
Quick Hits:
- The 2018 Harvey Award winners have been announced.
- Skybound has set up a partnership with Sony Entertainment. Expect more Kirkman shows.
- Leah Williams took to Twitter to discuss part of her process, including songs for the characters she writes.
