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, veteran MAD Magazine editor Nick Meglin passed away during the weekend. We also reported on BOOM! Studios’s “WWE: NXT Takeover,” and Archie’s “Archie 1941,” both coming this September.
– A new creative team will take over “Kick-Ass” from issue #7. The team will consist of writer Steve Niles and artist Marcelo Frusin. Steve Niles is best known for writing “30 Days of Night,” and Marcelo Frusin is an artist best known to Vertigo readers for his run on “The Hellblazer.” Niles said in a statement to CBR.com “I am absolutely having the time of my life working on Kick-Ass,” “it’s a thrill to be continuing the work set out by Mark and John and wonderful to be working with Marcelo and [colorist] Sunny [Gho].” Niles and Marcelo’s run will take over from Mark Millar and John Romita Jr. in August with issue #7 at Image Comics.
– Paramount and DreamWorks released the teaser trailer and poster for Bumblebee, the live-action Transformers film spin-off depicting the little yellow Autobot twenty years before the first Michael Bay movie. Bumblebee, which is directed by Travis Knight (Kubo and the Two Strings), stars Hailee Steinfeld as the girl who will befriend the mute Volkswagen Beetle, and will also feature John Cena and (a much more recognizable) Starscream. The film is out December 21st, 2018.
– Yesterday at BookCon, author, comedian and Marvel.com host Lorraine Cink announced her new book, Powers of a Girl: A Celebration of 30 Marvel Superheroes. This will be illustrated by Alice X. Zhang (variant cover artist for “Doctor Who” at Titan Comics). Cink previously co-wrote Marvel: Absolutely Everything You Need To Know, and Ultimate Marvel. The book will hit stores February 2019.
– Gotham fans may be disappointed to hear that the recently renewed fifth season will not be 13 episodes long. It will be a 10 episode season and be released as mid-season filler. While on Instagram, answering questions for fans, Gotham star Camren Bicondova was asked about season five, and replied, “Gotham season five is happening, we were picked up for 10 episodes, and I believe it will be airing in the U.S. January 2019.”
– Adrian Holmes (Arrow) is set to co-star alongside Ian Somerhalder (Vampire Diaries) in Netflix’s V-Wars. V-Wars, created by Jonathan Maberry and published by IDW Publishing, debuted in 2012, is a collection of chronicles set in the first Vampire War. Somerhalder will play Dr. Luther Swann, a man who enters a world of untold horror when his best friend Michel Fayne (Holmes), is transformed into a murderous predator by a mysterious disease. Jacky Lai (Beyond, The Flash) will also star as a struggling online journalist, who would do anything to advance her career. She breaks the biggest story imaginable and finds herself a key part of that story with a growing list of enemies. The show is coming to Netflix in 2019.
– Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, also known as PG, is the largest newspaper serving Metropolitan Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It has won six Pulitzer Prizes since 1938. Now it’s been accused of killing one of its longtime cartoonists’ critical drawings of President Donald Trump. Rob Rogers, the said cartoonist, has been drawing for the Post-Gazette since 1993 and has had six of his cartoons unpublished in a row by the newspaper’s new editor Keith Burris, who took over in March, when the paper’s editorial board merged with its sister newspaper, The Toledo Blade. Rogers couldn’t comment on the situation but has reassured fans of his drawings that he is still employed as the paper’s staff cartoonist, and that he is working on a new cartoon for Tuesday. Catch his withdrawn work here on Twitter.
– 69-year old Turkish cartoonist Nuri Kurtcebe has been arrested for insulting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Kurtcebe, who used to work for famous Turkish humor magazines and publications, was convicted and sentenced to 14 months in prison due to a cartoon of Erdogan he drew in 2015. Hundreds of people in Turkey including high school students face charges of insulting President Erdogan, even the slightest criticism of whom is considered an insult. Turkey is ranked 157th amount 180 countries in the 2018 World Press Free Index by Reporters without Borders (RSF).
– Viz Media’s English digital edition of “Weekly Shonen Jump” did not publish a new chapter for Nobuhiro Watsuki’s “Rurouni Kenshin: Hokkaido Arc” manga in Monday’s issue. The manga went on hiatus last December following Watsuki being charged for possession of child pornography. Watsuki was later fined 200,000 yen (US$1,900) in February. The manga series resumed from hiatus in Shueisha’s “Jump SQ” magazine in Japan on Monday. At the time of the manga’s hiatus, Shueisha commented that it’s taking the matter seriously and Watsuki is living a life of regret and reflection. Shueisha and Watsuki decided that continuing the manga was a matter of duty, for the fans.
– Finally, “Freedom Bound,” written and drawn by Warren Pleece, is a graphic novel about three runaway slaves in Scotland during 1777. It will be be published later this year by BHP (Black Hearted Press) Comics with the support of The Economic and Social Research Council and the College of Arts of the University of Glasgow. A class set will be given to every state secondary school in Scotland.
