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.
– Mad Cave Studios fully unveiled Alex Segura, Michael Moreci and Geraldo Borges’s upcoming “Dick Tracy” reboot. The ongoing, starting April 24, will reimagine Chester Gould’s 1930 creation as beginning his career in the immediate aftermath of World War II, as he investigates a “brutal” murder. He soon “discovers the bloodshed is just the beginning of a complicated web that threatens to ensnare everything he cares about.” The first issue will have six different covers by artists like Borges, Brent Schoonover, Shawn Martinbrough, Francesco Francavilla and Dan Panosian, and you can check them out at the link.
– Writer Mat Groom shared that Image will help get newcomers into the Massive-Verse with “Across the Massive-Verse,” a $9.99 trade paperback containing the first issues of “Radiant Black,” “Rogue Sun,” “The Dead Lucky,” and “Inferno Girl Red: Book One” (the last of which is double-sized.) The 144-page compilation will be released on July 16, 2024. “If you’ve been curious about the Massive-Verse, this is the book to grab!,” he says. The tokusatsu-inspired Massive-Verse began with the ongoing “Radiant Black” in 2021, and has spawned six spin-off series to date.
– Apple TV+ will release a new Peanuts special, Snoopy Presents: Welcome Home, Franklin, on Friday, February 16. Arriving just in time for Black History Month, the special will tell the story of how Franklin Armstrong — the comic’s first Black character — befriended Charlie Brown, by persuading him to race together in the neighborhood Soap Box Derby. It was written by “Jump Start” cartoonist Robb Armstrong (whom Charles M. Schulz derived Franklin’s surname from), along with Craig Schulz, Bryan Schulz and Cornelius Uliano, from an original story by Armstrong and Scott Montgomery.
– “Heartstopper” Vol. 5 became the UK’s fastest-selling graphic novel ever after its release last month. Within three days of going on sale on December 7, it had sold 60,012 copies, also making it the country’s bestselling book of the week, and its highest-selling children’s book since 2021. Creator Alice Oseman responded, “I am completely blown away by the news. ‘Heartstopper’ is a story I care so much about and for it to break records is something I could never even have imagined.” She is now the third bestselling graphic novelist in the UK, after Alan Moore and Robert Kirkman.
– On January 1, the Noto Peninsula of Japan was struck by a 7.5-magnitude quake, the country’s deadliest since 2016. Among the places affected were the Go Nagai Wonderland Museum in Wajima, Ishikawa, which was set completely ablaze during the disaster. The museum opened in 2009 to celebrate the seminal manga-turned-anime of Nagai, who was born in Wajima in 1945, such as “Cutie Honey,” “Devilman,” and “Mazinger Z.” In a statement, Nagai noted the damage to many of the displayed items, but added “I am a currently active manga artist, so no matter how much artwork has been lost, I can draw more,” and that helping the peninsula’s inhabitants was more important. Amen Nagai, amen.
– Finally, Ivan Velez Jr. has called out Milestone and DC over the lack of credit and royalties for his work at the publisher. Velez, 63, posted a TikTok, sharing he had been sent a copy of the upcoming “Milestone Compendium” Vol. 3, which reprints his “Static” and “Blood Syndicate” runs, and more, but that the book omits his name from the cover. “No cover credit. No royalties or reprint payments. Just that endemic mainstream comics exploitation of talent that this supposedly noble company regularly enjoys. Bitter cartoonists are that way for good reason,” he added on Instagram. This is unfortunately not the first case of royalties issues over Milestone’s characters: fans should certainly remember a lawsuit with Dwayne McDuffie’s estate had to be settled before it finally relaunched in 2021. DC and Milestone had no comment.
