Welcome 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
– IDW announced their second Star Trek: Discovery series, “Star Trek: Discovery: Succession.” The miniseries, which will tie into the second half of the first season, will be written by long-time Trek comic writer Mike Johnson and Discovery writer Kirsten Beyer, with art and covers by Angel Hernandez. Each issue will also feature a variant cover by Declan Shalvey and Jordie Bellaire, which will reveal new designs for starships planned to feature in upcoming Discovery episodes.
– UK Comics luminaries such as Alan Moore, Lew Stringer, Brian Clarke, and more, have united to release “Fanscene,” a free 324-page compilation celebrating the UK comics community and their body of work. It is available to download for free here and is considered “donationware,” making it free to distribute, with a small encouragement by editor David Hathaway-Price to make a donation to your favorite charity if you enjoyed it.
– “Cable” artist Jon Malin has been widely condemned following a controversial tweet, wherein he compared “Social Justice Warriors” to Nazis, all while ostensibly talking about the X-Men. Much of the comics industry has denounced the tweet, though in this stream from Sunday, Malin doubled down on his views alongside Ethan Van Sciver (“Green Lantern Rebirth,” “The Fury of Firestorm: The Nuclear Man”), who has had his fair share of controversial stances over the years.
– Joe Henderson, showrunner of Fox’s Lucifer, is teaming up with “Lucifer” and “Loki: Agent of Asgard” artist Lee Garbett for a new series with Image Comics, “Skyward.” The series is set in an alternate future where gravity on Earth has become drastically lower. Main character Willa Fowler stumbles into a conspiracy to revert Earth’s gravity to its former state, forming the primary conflict of the series. The press release describes “Skyward” as “an adventure-filled exploration of our world turned upside down and a young woman’s journey to find her place in it.” Issue #1 will be available on April 18.
– Lion Forge announced “Black Comix Returns,” a project that originated on Kickstarter, is coming to bookstores and comic shops. Described as a “hardcover collection of art and essays showcasing the best African American artists in today’s vibrant comic book culture.” Throughout February, Lion Forge’s Twitter will showcase a different set of black comic creators every day.
– Yesterday, the 2018 Academy Awards nominees were announced, and Logan was nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay. The X-Men universe film was adapted from Mark Millar and Steve McNiven’s ‘Old Man Logan’ storyline in “Wolverine.” Also nominated was Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, for Best Visual Effects. Surprisingly, neither Wonder Woman or The Lego Batman Movie were nominated for anything. The full list of Oscar nominations can be found here.
– Author, artist, and MacArthur Genius Grant recipient Gene Luen Yang, currently writing DC’s “New Super-Man,” appeared in a Big Think video to offer evidence that reading comic books can make someone smarter. Yang praises the merits of a visual storytelling medium that allows the reader to control the speed at which the content is shown, letting them take in the information at their own rate. He provided an example where, while teaching an Algebra II class, he would create comic books to tie into his lessons, which allowed his students to grasp otherwise difficult concepts at their own speed.
– Gail Simone began a Twitter thread where followers were encouraged to post examples of how minority representation in comics has helped individuals. She began the thread by admitting she was uncomfortable with her red hair as a child, but reading “Batgirl,” then starring redhead Barbara Gordon, helped her feel better about it. Fans chimed in and offered stories involving Oracle, Cyclops, Luke Cage, the Doom Patrol, and Poison Ivy. Simone concluded the thread with this tweet, describing panicking over added diversity in comics as “a rotten look.”
– The Death of Stalin, an adaptation of the French comic of the same name, has been pulled from cinema distribution in Russia. The film, a satire of the final days of Stalin’s life, was denounced as “an offensive mockery of the entire Soviet past” by Russian Culture Minister Vladimir Medinsky, who regardless claims that the movie was pulled for moral reasons, not out of a desire to censor a parody of the nation’s grim history.
