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, BOOM! Studios have announced “Dark Blood.”
– Marvel have announced their Free Comic Book Day 2021 offerings. Both of Marvel’s Free Comic Book Day 2021 stories, “Avengers/Hulk” and “Spider-Man/Venom,” will contain two stories. While Aaron and Coello are already confirmed for the Avengers story in “Avengers/Hulk,” the creative teams for the Hulk story, and the entirety of “Spider-Man/Venom” have not been specified. The publisher has said Chip Zdarsky and Greg Smallwood are both working on something for these one-shots, but haven’t gone into detail on what.
According to Diamond, “Avengers/Hulk” will introduce the mysterious Avenger Prime, who has operatives stationed across the multiverse. Over on Jason Aaron’s blog, the writer describes the ‘Avengers’ segment as one of several imminent storylines that are building to something major for Marvel in 2022, beginning with the just-announced ‘World War She-Hulk.’ Free Comic Book Day takes place this year on August 14, 2021.
– This year’s Lynd Ward Graphic Novel Prize was awarded to editor Sarah Mirk for “Guantanamo Voices: True Accounts from the World’s Most Infamous Prison.” The book, published by Abrams, consists of a series of illustrated interviews with those who have been imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay, as well as lawyers, social workers, and military officers who worked there. Mirk will receive a $2500 prize from the Pennsylvania Center for the Book, and (courtesy of the Library of America) the two-volume set of “Lynd Ward: Six Novels in Woodcuts.”
– Via Newsarama, with Disney theme parks slowly re-opening their doors, Marvel have announced “WEB of Spider-Man,” the planned tie-in comic to an upcoming Spider-Man attraction at Disney Parks, is back on the schedule for release in June. The five-issue series is part of the story of the upcoming Web Slingers: A Spider-Man Adventure ride coming to Disney California Adventure, and Walt Disney Studios Park (Paris) as part of their Avengers Campus areas. The ‘WEB’ stands for ‘Worldwide Engineering Brigade.’ The series was originally scheduled to debut this past December, but was put on hold just weeks before its planned debut. “WEB of Spider-Man #1” is written by Kevin Shinick with art by Alberto Jimenez Alburquerque, and will be available June 9, 2021, with the second issue to follow shortly after, on June 23, 2021.
– Via Newsarama, Marvel Comics have informed retailers that “Black Panther” #25 has been delayed four weeks, to a new release date of May 26. The finale to Ta-Nehisi Coates’s five-year run was to be released this week, April 28, 2021. Current series artist Daniel Acuña will be drawing the main story of the finale issue, which is 56 pages long. The finale also features an epilogue drawn by Brian Stelfreeze. “Black Panther” #25 will now be available on May 26, 2021.
– Via ICv2, JY, the Yen Press kids’ imprint, is publishing “Kyle’s Little Sister,” a graphic novel by artist BonHyung Jeong. “Kyle’s Little Sister” follows Grace, and addresses themes that include sibling rivalry, learning to be okay with oneself, and mending friendships. “Kyle’s Little Sister,” Jeong’s debut graphic novel, is scheduled to release June 22, 2021.
– ICv2 also reports that kids titles accounted for nearly one-third of 2020 graphic novel sales across channels, with sales of kids titles up 13% despite the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Kids was the largest of four 2020 graphic novel content categories tracked by ICv2, followed closely by manga, and more distantly by corporate-owned superhero and creator-owned titles.
– Deadline reports that Netflix has rounded out the cast for Heartstopper, See-Saw Films’ eight-part adaptation of Alice Oseman’s YA graphic novel. Joining leads Joe Locke and Kit Connor are Yasmin Finney, a 17-year-old British Black trans girl who was recently cast in Billy Porter’s directorial debut What If?, and newcomers William Gao, Corinna Brown, Kizzy Edgell, Cormac Hyde-Corrin, Tobie Donovan, and Rhea Norwood. Game Of Thrones actor Sebastian Croft will also co-star. Heartstopper tells the story of Nick and Charlie (Locke and Connor), two British teens at an all-boys grammar school, after Charlie, a high-strung, openly gay overthinker, and Nick, a cheerful, soft-hearted rugby player, are one day made to sit together. “Heartstopper” originally was launched as a web comic via Tumblr and Tapas before it was subsequently published by Hachette Children’s Group. There are three volumes in the series, with a fourth planned for publication in May.
– Deadline reports that Amazon Studios have cast the four leads in Paper Girls, based on Brian K. Vaughan and Cliff Chiang’s Image Comics series. Sofia Rosinsky will play Mac Coyle, the first paper boy who isn’t a boy. Camryn Jones will portray Tiffany Quilkin, the only child of success-oriented, mixed race parents, who’s been delivering papers for just over a year. Riley Lai Nelet has been cast as Erin Tieng, a dutiful daughter, sister, and newly-minted newspaper employee, who often feels caught between worlds. Fina Strazza will portray KJ Brandman, one of the only Jewish girls in Stony Stream, and a member of the wealthiest family in town, two things nobody will let her forget. Stephany Folsom, Christopher Cantwell and Christopher C. Rogers will serve as executive producers, with Folsom and Rogers co-showrunning.
– Finally, via CBR, writer Eve Ewing discussed her time writing Marvel’s “Ironheart” and the racism she suffered from fans. “Some of them used coded language like ‘forced diversity.’ Other messages, like a simple image of a burning cross, were more direct,” Ewing said. She continued, writing “at the time I was hired, I was the fifth Black woman writer in Marvel’s nearly 80-year history.” She didn’t understand the angry reaction to her writing comics, which was more vehement than her nonfiction work about social justice. Ewing added that she thinks of the work as being “fun” above all else, but important, too. She explained “it’s not only that if little Black girls see Ironheart being brave, they will understand that they can do the same because they look like her. It’s that superheroes serve as a shared cultural mirror, paragons of what bravery even is.” You can read the full story at The New York Times.
