Welcome back to The Rundown, our daily breakdown on comic news stories we missed from the previous day. Have a link to share? Email our team at rundown@multiversitycomics.com.
– Writer Janelle Asselin alleges that long-time Dark Horse editor Scott Allie has a history of harassing incidents, including a physical encounter with freelancer Joe Harris in public at this past San Diego Comic-Con. While many of Asselin’s sources for previous “open secret” incidents are Dark Horse employees speaking under condition of anonymity, the SDCC incident is described by Harris himself and also corroborated by other eyewitnesses. Since posting, Asselin’s article has been updated with a statement from Dark Horse publisher Mike Richardson and an apology for the SDCC incident by Allie himself. Neither of these statements address any conduct or wrongdoing on Allie’s part prior to SDCC, which the article describes as varying depending on Allie’s level of intoxication. CBR confirmed Allie had apologized to Harris via email and has taken steps for help in dealing with substance abuse.
With harassment incidents like these, it’s easy for those of us not directly involved to forget that what shows up as a line item in a news report for us are most often life-affecting events for those involved, either the perpetrator or the victim. So in the interest of not losing sight of both sides of stories like this one, I’d like to draw some attention to a post from Valerie D’Orazio I caught earlier this week from Tom Spurgeon’s Comics Reporter blog. D’Orazio was the subject of a concerted online harassment campaign some years ago, the effects of which she still deals with even after the harasser made sincere attempts at apologizing and has, arguably, seen the error of his ways. If she’s truly cutting ties with an industry that has shown her a side as cold as the one Asselin is writing to expose, then we are all the poorer for it. Hopefully the progress Asselin aims to foster by holding people accountable for their actions will move the industry to a place where D’Orazio feels comfortable re-engaging with it.
– In happier news of people getting knocked the f#*k out, the One-Punch Man anime will be simulcast here in the US with subtitles on Hulu starting this Sunday, October 4th. This means the series will be debuting here at the same time that it is being shown first-run in Japan, which sounds like a pretty big deal and a welcome bit of news for those of us in the target audience of impatient “One-Punch Man” manga fans. If you’ve gotten this far into the news and have no idea what I’m talking about, have no fear. You can get right up to speed by reading our Multiversity Manga Club spoiler-free review of the first two volumes!
– Kevin Feige “loves” the idea of MMA champion Ronda Rousey playing Carol Danvers aka Captain Marvel.
– Speaking of Tom Spurgeon, if you happen to be in the Columbus area or can get there by tomorrow-ish, you should definitely check out the Cartoon Crossroads Columbus festival going on there right now. Even though this year’s event has been described as more of a trial run for next year’s official grand kickoff, I’m sure any comics fan or potential fan will find tons of interesting activities and exhibitors there already.
– Just in case anyone was seeing the release of Alex Maleev’s work on “Lando” and wondering just where the hell issue 8 of his creator-owned series with Brian Michael Bendis was, here is your answer. Sorta hard to draw creator-owned work for back-end profits when the majors keep throwing big paycheck work like “Moon Knight”, “Lando”, and “Hellboy and the BPRD” (edited by Scott Allie) at you, but good for Maleev to stick to it. Just to keep things in perspective, the series debuted in July 2010 and issue #7 hit stands in July 2013.
