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, we had an exclusive preview of next week’s “Black Panther” #6.
– Marvel is preparing to enter Phase II of “Star Wars: The High Republic” with with a new ongoing and a new limited series. “Star Wars: The High Republic” will bring back writer Cavan Scott and artist Ario Anindito for a new story set 150 years before the first volume, set on the Force-rich planet of Jedha. Issue #1 is due out this October. Meanwhile, writer Charles Soule and artist Marco Castiello will team up for the four-issue miniseries “Star Wars: The High Republic – The Blade,” focused on Jedi-turned-cook Porter Engle, otherwise known as the Blade of Bardotta. “The Blade” #1 is due out in November. Both books were announced as part of Disney’s Star Wars Celebration in Anaheim.
– It was also announced at Celebration’s High Republic panel that Dark Horse’s first all-ages entry in the series will be “The High Republic Adventures: The Nameless Terror,” written by George Mann with art by Eduardo Mello and Ornella Savarese. Head to the link for more from the panel, including new novels, an audio story also penned by Mann, and excerpts from the upcoming Art of the High Republic.
– In more Star Wars news, Disney released the trailer for the upcoming Andor series, set to hit Disney+ on August 31. Also unveiled as part of Star Wars Celebration, the new series will see Diego Luna reprise his role as Cassian Andor from Rogue One, and explore the early beginnings of the Rebellion. Luna leads a cast that includes Genevieve O’Reilly, Stellan Skarsgård, Adria Arjona, Denise Gough and Kyle Soller. Tony Gilroy created the series and will serve as showrunner.
– In even more Star Wars/Disney+ news, it was announced during Lucasfilm’s Studio Showcase that The Mandalorian will return for its third season in February 2023, and that Ahsoka will premiere later next year. Jon Watts, Christopher Ford, Jon Favreau, and Dave Filoni’s reportedly Amblin-esque Disney+ series was revealed as being titled Star Wars: Skeleton Crew, and will co-star Jude Law. It is set to hit the streamer in 2023. You can read more from the showcase here.
– Hugo Award-nominated writer Seanan McGuire will pen “Magic: Ajani Goldmane” for BOOM! Studios and Wizards of the Coast. The one-shot will peer into the backstory of the fan favorite healer from Magic: The Gathering. An interior artist wasn’t announced, but Ariel Olivetti will provide the main cover art, with Ethan Young providing a variant. The book is due out this August.
– British cartoonist Sabba Khan has won the Jhalak Prize for her debut graphic novel, “The Roles We Play.” The book, which explores Khan’s family displacement from Mirpur in Azad Kashmir, is the first graphic novel to win the award, which is given annually to the best book by a writer of color. “Hopefully [my win] will really open people up to the medium and open them up to the fact that there are so many ways of storytelling,” Khan said of her win.
– Both volumes of Evan Dorkin, Veronica and Andy Fish’s “Blackwood” are being collected into Dark Horse’s “Blackwood Library Edition.” The supernatural murder mystery follows “four teenagers with haunted pasts” enrolled at occultist school Blackwood College. According to the official synopsis, “their desire to enhance their supernatural abilities and bond with others is hampered by an undead dean’s curse, ghosts in their dorm, a mischievous two-headed mummy-chimp, a plague of mutant insects, and the discovery of an ancient evil that forces our heroes to undergo a crash course in the occult for the sake of the world.” Available in a deluxe, oversized hardcover format, the book is due out October 12 in comic shops, with a bookstore release on October 25. It will retail for $39.99.
– Finally, FanX convention co-founder Bryan Brandenburg was arrested in Hawaii for a series of bomb threats made to several establishments in Utah. The threats were made while Brandenburg was going through divorce proceedings, with his targets including the 3rd district courthouse, and the Salt Lake City Mayor’s Office. Brandenburg has not been associated with the con since 2019, selling his shares after taking a leave of absence following sexual harassment complaints involving a guest.
