Good morning! My eternal curse continues.
Oni Press has begun an investigation after one of their writers on Dream Daddy, Lee C.A., was accused of improper conduct with a minor and plagiarism, among other things. In the meantime, if you’ve interacted with him, please take steps to protect yourself.
Vault has announced a new program called the Bound: Comics and Community initiative, pledging $25,000 of support for local comic shops doing community engagement events, with a specific focus on things that promote literacy and create safe spaces for fan engagement.
“Perhaps the most important step we can take to ensure the ongoing success of comics is to create and support a healthy, diverse community of fans,” said Damian Wassel, Vault Publisher & CEO. “Vault celebrates and applauds comic shops who work to foster deep ties with their community, through events that engage fans, promote literacy and inclusion, and support local businesses. So we’re launching our Bound: Comics & Community initiative, because we want to put our money where our heart is: With the fans, comic shops, and retailers who make comics what they are.”
DC has canceled the religious satire book Second Coming in advance of its first issue release. According to creator Mark Russell, they’ve given the rights back to him, and the split is not acrimonious. Russell also promises that Second Coming will see a new home in the future, which bears watching; the last time DC passed on a book like this, they abruptly cancelled Garth Ennis’ The Boys. That book went on to find a home at Dynamite, where it thrived and is now planned for a television adaptation.
Have you heard of Jose Luis Duran? Probably not, before this week! The story is that, after Gwen Stacy died in the pages of Amazing Spider-Man, publishers in Mexico were worried that the book’s popularity would plummet. So, around 40 completely original issues were produced there, starring Gwen in a feature role. Duran was the artist on these, as well as over a thousand Spider-Man newspaper strips. There’s been a bit of a push on twitter in the last week to get those issues collected, something that would be extremely cool (my personal wish would be for the release to be untranslated)!
A bit more on Hombre Araña, the Mexican Spider-Man strip: I got some nice messages from the artist, Jose Luis Duran, today. Jose is 86 now, from Toluca, Mexico, and been drawing since he was a kid. In the '70s, he got to draw Spider-Man, first in 1000+ newspaper strips… 1/ pic.twitter.com/nVbPJ9Zt1E
— Chris Ryall (@chris_ryall) February 20, 2019
A couple of Quick Hits:
- Michel Fiffe’s COPRA has a new home, with trade collections being published by Image.
- Usagi Yojimbo, the Stan Sakai classic, also has a new home, this time at IDW, who will be publishing reprints and new stories, both in full color.
