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, Z2 Comics announced “Amelia Aierwood: Basic Witch,” a fantasy comedy co-written by actress Emily Hampshire.
– Al Ewing and Javier Rodríguez are putting out the call for a new team of Defenders following their work on the series last year. The new book “Defenders: Beyond” continues their saga, featuring a new team uniting against an adversary “with the power to end reality as we know it.” The new team, brought together by a call from beyond the grave by the currently deceased Dr. Strange, consists of Blue Marvel, America Chavez, Tigra, Loki, and Taaia, the mother of Galactus who was introduced in the prior series. “We’re going on a magical journey into the Mystery itself,” Ewing said in Marvel’s announcement, “mapping the Marvel Godhead and bringing back knowledge that ties into what has gone before, some seismic things to come… and if we’re lucky, maybe a little off-the-page magic to feed your hungry head.” “Defenders: Beyond” #1, featuring a cover by Rodríguez and variants by Natacha Bustos, Phil Noto, and Ron Lim, hits shelves on June 15.
– ComiXology co-founder and CEO David Steinberger has announced on Twitter that he will be departing from his role to “lead a new Amazon-wide initiative.” The news comes following the recent move by Amazon to integrate comiXology into the Kindle app and to shutter its website in favor of Amazon’s native storefront. Steinberger co-founded the company in 2007 with John Roberts and Peter Jaffe. They were acquired by Amazon in 2014. Head of Project Management Tom Ashley and CTO Jeff DiBartolomeo will take over management of comiXology going forward.
– Gale Galligan has provided a first look at the cover of their upcoming graphic novel “Freestyle,” out later this year from Scholastic’s Graphix imprint. The middle-grade book follows Cory, a young dancer whose crew is getting ready for their last major competition before they graduate eighth grade and go their separate ways to high schools scattered across New York City. After Cory gets grounded by his parents for not taking his grades seriously, he develops a friendship with Sunna, his new tutor who teaches him the art of the yo-yo. K. Czap provides the colors for “Freestyle,” which is available for preorder now ahead of its October 18 debut.
– Marvel is continuing to mark the 40th anniversary of Miracleman’s modern era with a new printing of Neil Gaiman and Mark Buckingham’s run on the series. “Miracleman by Gaiman and Buckingham Book 1: The Golden Age” will collect the first six issues of the pair’s take on the character, who was originally created by Mick Anglo in 1954, and rebooted by Alan Moore in the pages of the British anthology “Warrior” in 1982. Marvel has already produced recolored reprints of Moore’s run, and has promised that the character would appear in the Marvel Universe going forward after a tease of the character in “Timeless” #1 earlier this year. “Miracleman by Gaiman and Buckingham Book 1: The Golden Age” will be available in October.
– Rapper, actor and poet Saul Williams is working on a graphic novel titled “Let There Be Dark” with illustrator Paul Davey. Via the Associated Press, First Second will publish the book, which they call a “high wire dance” that “mixes free verse and short personal essays and interrogates darkness.” “Through his words and Davey’s visionary art, the reader is taken on a dreamlike journey of ideas and questions that seek to root out white supremacist norms while it enchants the eyes and transports the mind,” they continued in a statement. “Let There Be Dark” is expected in Fall 2023.
– Marvel has released the new Infinity Comic “Alligator Loki” from Alyssa Wong, Bob Quinn and Pete Pantazis. The all-ages book follows the titular gator’s adorable antics as he bonds with his very human brother. The first issue of the series is available for free, while the rest of the series will be available to Marvel Unlimited subscribers.
Continued below– A new initiative from the women-led comics forum LDComics will begin championing artists from Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, and Uganda following a British Council International Collaboration award. Via Broken Frontier, REVEAL! will provide a platform for women comics artists from those four East African countries, aiming to “contribute to wider cross-cultural recognition of women’s experiences historically and currently.” The program is a partnership between graphic novelist and comics scholar Dr. Nicola Streeten (UK director of LDComics), and artist and arts journalist Msanii Kimani wa Wanijru (director of Kenyan Kymsnet Media Network). The program will begin in the spring.
– DC Comics, Milestone Media, and WarnerMedia announced the first class of creators selected for their 10-week training course, the Milestone Initiative Talent Development Program, which begins on March 15. The program is designed to provide “access and opportunity” for marginalized storytellers in comics. The immersive training program will be a mix of a virtual technical course offered through the Kubert School and an in-person seminar at DC’s offices in Burbank, CA. You can learn more about the selected creators here.
– A trailer has dropped for the upcoming Paramount+ series Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. A spin-off of Star Trek: Discovery, the series is set a decade before Star Trek: The Original Series, and follows the crew of the USS Enterprise as portrayed on Discovery, including Christopher Pike (Anson Mount), Spock (Ethan Peck), and Number One (Rebecca Romijn). The show has been in development since 2020 thanks to the positive reception of this incarnation of the characters, and a second season has already begun filming. The ten-episode first season will premiere on Paramount+ on May 5.
– Finally, Aimee Carrero and Shane Paul McGhie have exited the planned college-set spinoff of The Boys. Via Deadline, the pair had been cast as lead characters on the Prime Video series, which will be set at an American college exclusively for superheroes. The show has been in the works at Amazon since September 2020, officially getting the greenlight in September 2021 with Michele Fazekas and Tara Butters as showrunners. Deadline reports that the long development history and the new showrunners have led to a shift in the show’s creative direction; the actors’ departure is reportedly due to the years-long development and the significant changes to their planned characters. The second announced spin-off, an animated series titled The Boys Presents: Diabolical, premiered last week on Amazon.
