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.
In case you missed it, the first trailer for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem was released, and we had an exclusive preview of May’s “Ava’s Demon, Book One: Reborn.”
– Via Substack, Brian Michael Bendis launched “Fortune and Glory: The Musical,” a sequel to his 2000 graphic memoir of the same name. Created with artist Bill Walko, colorist Wes Dzioba, letterer Josh Reed, and editor Daniel Chabon, the comic chronicles Bendis’s time working on the infamous 2010 Broadway musical Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, which he uses as a jumping off point to discuss more of his life. It will be released weekly for all paid subscribers of Bendis’s Jinxworld newsletter in .cbz and .pdf formats, and in print by Dark Horse Comics at a later date. You can read more about the serial, and check out pages, in an interview with Bendis over at AIPT.
– Via Popverse, the next installment in Kami Garcia and Gabriel Picolo’s YA Teen Titans graphic novels will be “Starfire,” due out July 2024. It will be the fifth book in the series, which also consists of “Teen Titans: Raven,” “Beast Boy,” “Beast Boy Loves Raven,” and “Robin,” the last of which was released today. In an interview with Popverse that’ll be posted in full later today, Garcia says “Starfire” is “more like an origin story in the beginning because she doesn’t know [the rest of the Titans]. She’s not with them. And so, you get this kind of origin of, like all the books, how the character’s powers are kind of surfacing. And then at the same time, there’s kind of this other story on the side, which is exactly where [‘Robin’] leaves off.”
– Variety reports Italian journalist Roberto Saviano will make his directorial debut with I’m Still Alive, an animated film based on his graphic memoir of the same name. Created with Israeli cartoonist Asaf Hanuka and released last year, “I’m Still Alive” explored Saviano’s life under police protection since the publication of his 2006 exposé Gomorrah, which laid out the activities of the Neapolitan crime syndicate Camorra. The film version will be an international co-production between Italy, Israel and Belgium, and was written by Saviano with animation director Alessandro Rak (Cinderella the Cat), screenwriter Filippo Bologna (Perfect Strangers), and journalist Stefano Piedimonte.
– CBR shares a canceled animated Scooby Doo film co-starring Krypto the Superdog was leaked online. The movie, titled Scooby-Doo! And Krypto, Too!, was among a number of completed or nearly completed projects (like the Batgirl movie) that were pulled by Warner Bros. Discovery for tax breaks last year. According to the site, Scooby-Doo! And Krypto, Too! also features the Mystery Machine gang — voiced again by current cast members Frank Welker, Matthew Lillard, Grey Griffin, and Kate Micucci — meeting Superman, the Daily Planet regulars, Lex Luthor, Wonder Woman, the Flash, Solomon Grundy, and Harley Quinn and the Joker.
– Lesley-Ann Brandt (Lucifer, Gotham) has joined the cast of The Walking Dead spin-off starring Andrew Lincoln and Danai Gurira. She will play Pearl Thorne in the six-part series, but apart from her name, no details on her character were released by AMC. The officially untitled show, which has begun production in New Jersey, will continue the story of Rick and Michonne next year.
– Small press publishers ShortBox and Bulgilhan have criticized last weekend’s Emerald City Comic Con for not placing them in Artist Alley, hindering attendants’ ability to find and discover their books. ShortBox said “Mistakes happen, but [ECCC] didn’t/couldn’t rectify theirs and put us on the map (we emailed as soon as we noticed asking for it to be corrected), and refusing to refund us is just incredibly poor. It absolutely impacted our sales: people didn’t know we were there.” Bulgilhan expressed hope at working with convention organizer ReedPop “in the future to better include small press publishers.”
– Finally, following Scott Adams’s racist rant that led him to be dropped by Andrews McMeel Syndication, “Heart of the City” has replaced “Dilbert” in The Washington Post‘s comics pages. WWAC spoke to cartoonist Steenz about the honor, leading them to comment, “I think it’s a big deal because of two reasons. Reason number one is that I’m Black, and he hates Black people. [laughs] No, but it’s a nice way to just stick it to him, you know? But it’s also a big deal because we still rarely see a new influx of creators and syndicated comic strips, and I would like to see more of that.” Steenz took over the strip, which began in 1998, from creator Mark Tatulli in 2020, and its popularity has since soared, with a second print collection of their run due out on April 4.
