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.
– Legendary Comics announced “Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein Starring Boris Karloff,” a spiritual sequel to 2020’s “Bram Stoker’s Dracula Starring Bela Lugosi,” which (as its name implies) will retell the story of the original novel with the likeness of 1931 Frankenstein star Boris Karloff. Writer Robert Napton, artists Kerry Gammill & El Garing, and letterer Richard Starkings will reunite for the book, which also has the blessing of Boris’s daughter Sara Karloff. The project was unveiled as part of a Kickstarter (running until April 1) with its predecessor, so it is unclear for now when it will be published.
– Dark Horse will publish an omnibus of Shin’ichi Sakamoto’s manga “Innocent,” which explores the life of Charles-Henri Sanson, who was the Royal Executioner of France during the reign of King Louis XVI, as well as the High Executioner during the French Revolution. (He wound up beheading Louis XVI himself.) The first omnibus (of a planned three) will collect the first three volumes of the series, which ran from 2013 to 2020. It will be released in bookstores and comic book stores respectively on November 21, and November 22. Additionally, Dark Horse revealed Vols. 3-4 of the reprint of G. Willow Wilson and M.K. Perker’s “Air” will be released in June and October.
– Publishers Weekly unveiled the cover for “Billie Blaster and the Robot Army from Outer Space,” a middle-grade graphic novel by author Laini Taylor (Daughter of Smoke and Bone) and her husband, artist Jim Di Bartolo. A quirky sci-fi adventure, the book follows a brilliant 10-year old girl, who builds a robot that a school rival launches into space. When the robot returns a year later, it brings word the evil Emperor Mwahaha is planning to invade Earth, and it’s up to Billie to stop them. The graphic novel will be released by Amulet in August.
– Per The Hollywood Reporter, Karan Soni is voicing the Indian variant of Spider-Man (Pavitr Prabhakar) in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. Soni, a native of New Delhi, is no stranger to the Marvel Universe, having played taxi driver Dopinder in the Deadpool movies. The news comes shortly after Marvel announced the character, who originated in 2005’s “Spider-Man: India,” would receive a new solo comic in June. Across the Spider-Verse releases June 2.
– Via Variety, Doug Bradley (the Hellraiser series’ original Pinhead) will appear in the sixth episode of The CW’s Gotham Knights as Thomas and Martha Wayne’s killer, Joe Chill. The show will depict Chill as a secretive fiend who’s spent 50 years on death row, and become known as Gotham’s “Patron Saint of Bad Guys” as a result. Series creators Chad Fiveash, James Stoteraux, and Natalie Abrams said, “Who better to embody the role of the classic Gotham fiend than the man whose legendary portrayal of another classic fiend – Pinhead in the Hellraiser franchise — continues to terrify generations of horror fans?” Gotham Knights premieres March 14.
– Pluto TV have launched a 24 hr Sailor Moon channel, streaming all 200 episodes of the original 1990s anime, the reboot Sailor Moon Crystal, and all three of the ’90s movies. As with license holder Viz Media’s recent decision to upload the entire ’90s anime to YouTube, only the Japanese version is available (with subtitles), while Viz’s dub remains available on Hulu and Blu-ray. In the meantime, you can check out our ongoing revisit of the entire franchise in our Mooniversity column.
– Nearly 40 comics creators, including Artyom Trakhanov and Jed Dougherty, have come together for “Book of Fuligin,” a 250-page page anthology set in the world of the late fantasy author Gene Wolfe’s Book of the New Sun series. You can find out more about the crowdfunded project here. Wolfe, who died in 2019 at the age of 87, was the recipient of multiple Nebula, Locus, and World Fantasy Awards during his lifetime. The Book of the New Sun saga was set on a dying version of Earth called Urth, and followed Severian, a trainee torturer who was exiled for showing mercy.
– Finally, Netflix have announced Stranger Things: The First Shadow, a stage play hitting London’s West End in late 2023. Set in 1959, the play follows a young Jim Hopper, Joyce Byers (then known as Joyce Maldonado), Bob Newby, and Henry Creel, whose silhouette (along with that of his future self) is shown on the poster. It was penned by Kate Trefry (a writer on the show), from an original story she wrote with the Duffer brothers and Jack Thorne (the Enola Holmes films), and is being directed by Stephen Daldry (Billy Elliot) with Justin Martin (Together). You can sign up for tickets here.
