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.
– Image Comics announced “The Unbelievable, Unfortunately Mostly Unreadable & Nearly Unpublishable Untold Tales of I Hate Fairyland,” an anthology spin-off of the main title with a variety of creators attached. The first issue will feature two stories, namely ‘Bruud the Brutal’ from Skottie Young and Aaron Conley, and ‘Don’t Trust the P.I.G. in Apartment 23’ by Dean Rankine. “The Unbelievable, Unfortunately Mostly Unreadable & Nearly Unpublishable Untold Tales of I Hate Fairyland” #1, featuring a cover from Mike Del Mundo, will be available on July 5, 2023.
– DC Comics have announced “Barkham Asylum,” a middle-grade graphic novel for readers ages 8-12 by writer and artist Yehudi Mercado. The book follows Jester, the Joker’s dog. Jester, with the help of a stray cat named Penny, must win a talent show and get visitation with their masters at Arkham to thwart the evil Dr. Hugo Mange. “Barkham Asylum” will be released February 6, 2024.
– Via ICv2, Oni Press will publish the first collected volume of Dan White’s small-press comic, “Cindy & Biscuit.” The book follows Cindy, a latchkey kid whose mom easily gets angry at her due to her disappearing to go fight aliens or monsters in the woods. “Cindy & Biscuit” Vol. 1 will be available August 15, 2023. You can check out an exclusive preview here.
– Via Twitter, Josh Trjillo announced that Abrams will be publishing “Washington’s Gay General,” by Levi Hastings and himself. The book is an historical graphic biography about Baron Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben, the Prussian soldier, immigrant, and flamboyant homosexual who helped influence the course of US history during the Revolutionary War “despite being omitted from our textbooks.” “Washington’s Gay General” will be released on August 15, 2023.
– Via Deadline, Netflix have announced that Daniel Dae Kim, Ming-Na Wen, Brandon Soo Hoo and Debra Wilson have joined the cast of the upcoming 3D animated series, Mech Cadets. Based off of BOOM! Studios’s “Mech Cadet Yu” by Greg Pak and Takeshi Miyazawa, the show will take place 50 years in the future after a terrifying alien species attacked the planet. The story follows Brandon Soo Hoo’s Stanford Yu, who becomes a Robo Mech pilot. Mech Cadets is set to premiere globally on August 10, 2023.
– Deadline has also revealed that Rob Delaney has closed a deal to return as human X-Force member Peter in Deadpool 3. Delaney joins returning stars Karan Soni, Leslie Uggams, Morena Baccarin and Stefan Kapicic in the Ryan Reynolds-led threequel, which is also set to include Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine. Deadpool 3 is slated for release on November 8, 2024.
– Via The Beat, to kick off Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, Kwento Comics announced a GlobalComix promo code for its series “The Mask of Haliya” will be given to people attending the publisher’s Free Komiks Day event in Los Angeles. Written by Kaitlyn Fajilan and Jenapher Zheng with art from Renoida Renovilla, Charyn Duy, Minerva Fox, and more, “The Mask of Haliya” follows Marisol Reyes, who discovers a magic mask at her great-grandmother’s wake. The publisher’s event will take place on Saturday, May 6, at HiFi Kitchen, located at 1667 Beverly Blvd, Los Angeles, in Historic Filipinotown, from 1 PM – 5 PM. Kwento is the first all-women all-Asian comic book company, and specializes in comics inspired by Filipino and Asian mythology.
– Finally, the Writers Guild of America have elected to go on strike after negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers failed to reach a new deal. The strike stems from several issues, including a lack of residuals for writers from streaming shows, and the AMPTP’s unwillingness to regulate the use of A.I. right now. It is the first WGA strike since 2007 (which ultimately lasted three months and eight days), and will affect the production of countless film and TV projects, with late night talk shows like The Tonight Show already going on hiatus as of today. The DGA and SAG-AFTRA, Hollywood’s directing and acting unions, have expressed support for the WGA, as have the Writers’ Guilds of Great Britain and Canada.
