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, after 15 long but joyful years, Multiversity Comics will be ending regular service at the end of the month.
– The 2024 Pulitzer Prize winners were announced, with Medar de la Cruz winning the Prize for Illustrated Reporting and Commentary for his New Yorker article “The Diary of a Rikers Island Library Worker.” A Dominican American cartoonist and educator, de la Cruz depicted his work in the Brooklyn Public Library’s Outreach Department, providing books to prisoners on Rikers Island, a subject that he is planning to further explore in a full graphic memoir. Other finalists this year consisted of Claire Healy, Nicole Dungca and Ren Galeno for The Washington Post‘s “Searching for Maura,” Angie Wang for her New Yorker piece “Is My Toddler A Stochastic Parrot?,” and Chattanooga Times Free Press cartoonist Clay Bennett. You can check all of this year’s winners here.
– Archie announced “The Cursed Library,” a three-part Premium Event series bringing together characters from several of the publisher’s “Chilling Adventures” titles. Created by Eliot Rahal, Magdalene Visaggio, Craig Cermark, Matt Herms, and Jack Morelli, the comic sees Danni Malloy convince Madam Satan to help save her best friend Jinx Holliday from being consumed by her demonic heritage. They must journey through “Hell itself to find the one thing that can possibly save her friend’s soul — Jinx’s mom. Along the way, they’ll also discover a number of faces they’ve seen before, though only in the pages of the terrifying tomes within the cursed library.” “Cursed Library: Alpha” begins the series on August 21, with “Cursed Library Omega” following in September, and “Cursed Library: Unbound” concluding the mini in October.
– Via Publishers Weekly, First Second will publish “Song of a Blackbird,” a fictionalized historical graphic novel by Maria van Lieshout. Due out on January 21, 2025, the young adult book follows Annick, a teenager who uncovers the connection her ailing grandmother had to a bank heist perpetrated against the Nazis during World War II. The historical segment will follow Emma, an art student who gets involved in a plot to swap 50 million guilders/florins’ worth of forged bank notes for real ones. It marks the first graphic novel from Van Lieshout, a Dutch American picture book author who has been active since 2000. You can find out more about the book here.
– James Gunn released the first photo of David Corenswet as Superman, portraying the Man of Steel getting dressed to save Metropolis from an unidentified sky anomaly. The suit, which was designed by Judianna Makovsky (who’s worked on all Gunn’s films since Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, as well as the Russo brothers’ Captain America and Avengers movies), has a decidedly worn look, with a strong resemblance to Jim Lee’s ‘New 52’ design, featuring elements like a collar and diamond-shaped linework. However, it still incorporates the red trunks, which are more visible after brightening the image. James Gunn’s Superman releases in theaters July 11, 2025.
– Lucasfilm marked the Revenge of the Sixth by revealing LEGO Star Wars: Rebuild the Galaxy, a four-part animated special arriving on Disney+ on September 13. The special sees the saga being flipped on its head, with heroes becoming villains and vice versa, when nerf-herder Sig Greebling (Gaten Matarazzo) recovers a powerful artifact from a Jedi temple. Ahmed Best and Mark Hamill will reprise their roles as Darth Jar Jar and Luke Skywalker, while Bobby Moynihan will play Jedi Bob; the cast will also include Tony Revolori, Marsai Martin, and Michael Cusack. It was written by Koala Man co-creators Dan Hernandez and Benji Samit, and directed by Chris Buckley.
– Finally, veteran stuntwoman and actress Jeannie Epper passed away from natural causes on Sunday, May 5, aged 83. Epper was Lynda Carter’s main stunt double on the Wonder Woman TV series, and her prolific credits also included Dynasty, Charlie’s Angels, The Bionic Woman, Foxy Brown, several Steven Spielberg films, Terms of Endearment, Romancing the Stone, both the Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield Spider-Man films, Kill Bill Vol. 2, and much more. She was a founding member of the Stuntwomen’s Association of Motion Pictures, where she served as president in 1999. Lynda Carter tweeted, “Jeannie was a vanguard who paved the way for all other stuntwomen who came after. Just as Diana was Wonder Woman, Jeannie Epper was also a Wonder Woman. She is so beautiful to me. Jeannie, I will miss you.” She is survived her fourth husband, two children, five grandchildren, and seven great-grandchildren.
