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, AfterShock announced Ed Brisson and Gavin Guidry’s supernatural crime series, “There’s Something Wrong With Patrick Todd.”
– DC announced the eight pitches advancing to the second stage of this year’s Round Robin contest, as well as their creative teams. They are: “Hawkman & Hawkwoman: The Changeling,” by writer Cavan Scott and artist Fico Ossio; “Constantine & The Demon: Vacation from Hell” by Frank Allen and Nik Virella; “Suicide Squad: Dark” by Zac Thompson and Garry Brown; “Kid Flash: The Speed of Fear” by Brandon Easton and Travis Mercer; “Green Lantern: The Birth of Conspiracy” by Scott Bryan Wilson and Skylar Patridge; “DC Horror: Ghost Tour from Hell” by Tee Franklin and Dominikie “Domo” Stanton; “Superboy: The Man of Tomorrow” by Kenny Porter and Jahnoy Lindsay; and “Green Lantern: A Light at The End of Forever” by Si Spurrier and Marco Santucci. Voting in Round 2 kicks off today at 12pm ET, and will last until Sunday, April 10; you can find out more here.
– DC and Spotify also announced the scripted podcast Batman Unburied will premiere on Tuesday, May 3. Written by David S. Goyer, Batman Unburied will reimagine Bruce Wayne as a forensic pathologist, working in Gotham Hospital during a serial killer’s reign of terror. The podcast will launch in nine different languages, with the English version starring Winston Duke as the Dark Knight, Hasan Minhaj as the Riddler, Gina Rodriguez as Barbara Gordon, Jason Isaacs as Alfred, and Lance Reddick as Thomas Wayne. You can listen to the trailer here.
– In further DC-related news, WarnerMedia CEO Jason Kilar is exiting the company ahead of its sale and merger with Discovery Networks, which is expected to be completed next week. Kilar’s tenure as CEO, which began in April 2020, saw some major layoffs at the company, including the departure of DC’s editor-in-chief Bob Harras, as well as the decision to release every Warner Bros. movie day-and-date on HBO Max in 2021. He will be succeeded by Discovery president and CEO David Zaslav. Other high-profile WarnerMedia executives who have left the company include Studios and Networks Group chairman and CEO Ann Sarnoff, and HBO Max Head Andy Forssell.
– BBC Studios have optioned the rights to “Eve Stranger,” David Barnett and Philip Bond’s 2019 spy series, which was originally published by Shelly Bond’s IDW imprint Black Crown. Veronica Gleeson (Sixteen) will adapt the comic, which follows an amnesiac assassin, who enjoys a jet-setting life filled with adventure, mad science, and zero accountability. Chris Ryall, former CCO of IDW, will serve as an executive producer on the show, along with Matthew Bouch (Being Human, Da Vinci’s Demons), who commented, “This is a key title in BBC Studios’ push to create unique, bold stories for the international market.”
– Author Kami Garcia and Tapas Media have partnered for a third installment of her YA urban fantasy series The Legion, due out later this year. The first two novels will also be expanded and republished as webnovels, while the whole series will be adapted into webcomics. The Legion books, which consists of Unbreakable and Unmarked, follow a young woman who is recruited into the Legion of the Black Dove, a secret society formed to protect the world from a vengeful demon.
– The Cartoon Museum in London, England, announced their first Young Cartoonist in Residence, Jadore, aka JadoreKid, or JK for short. “He will produce works in response to the collection, blog posts, and [be] a friendly face around the museum,” where he will also design postcards sold exclusively through their shop. JK’s work has been presented in the Victoria Library, and the Saatchi Gallery, and he is also a member of the Serpentine Studios youth collective.
– Outerverse writer Christopher Golden and artist Peter Bergting are teaming up with co-writer Tim Lebbon (Eden, The Last Storm) for horror novella Festival. The illustrated prose book will follow a series of disappearances and possessions at Valhalla, a Viking-themed music festival, which is held on the site of an ancient massacre. It will be released in hardcover by Dark Horse Books at comics stores on October 12, as well as bookstores on October 25, 2022, and retail for $19.99.
– Paramount have disclosed the third and final season of Star Trek: Picard will reunite the principal cast of The Next Generation, including LeVar Burton (Geordi LaForge), Michael Dorn (Worf), and Gates McFadden (Dr. Beverly Crusher). Jonathan Frakes, Marina Sirtis, and Brent Spiner, who already reprised their roles in the first season of the show, will also return with series lead Patrick Stewart. You can watch a teaser, which heavily implies the former Enterprise crew will reconnect on an “old-fashioned road trip,” here.
– Finally, following the success of the Jujutsu Kaisen 0 movie in the U.S., several English dub voice actors are speaking up over their low pay rates. Tara Jayne Sands, who voices the characters Momo Nishimiya and Utahime Iori, said she was paid just $150 for the film, which has now grossed $30 million at the American box office. The issue is presumably related to the historically non-unionized dubbing industry, an issue you can learn more about here.
