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, the nominees for the 2021 Harvey Awards were announced, and BOOM! Studios revealed the “Something is Killing the Children” spin-off “House of Slaughter.”
– Via their October solicitations, DC Comics announced “Arkham City: The Order of the World,” a new six-part series by writer Dan Watters, artist DaNi, and colorist Dave Stewart. The series will chronicle the lives of inmates who escaped Arkham Asylum during the Joker’s attack on the facility in “Infinite Frontier” #0, an event referred to as A-Day. The inmates are now living in “the dark nooks and crannies” of Gotham with Jocasta Joy, the last surviving doctor from Arkham Asylum, out to find them.
This is the second book to directly spin-out of the A-Day story, with the recently announced “Task Force Z” set to resurrect some of the criminals who were killed. “Arkham City: The Order of the World” #1 is scheduled for release with a cover by Sam Wolfe Connelley on October 5. You can check out the full description, and Francesco Mattina and Steve Beach’s variant covers, here, and we’ll have more on DC’s final October announcements in our column Soliciting Multiversity next week.
– Image Comics revealed that the next Panel Syndicate comic to get the physical publication treatment will be Ed Brubaker and Marcos Martin’s “Friday.” The series sees Friday Fitzhugh returning to her hometown from college for Christmas, only to be thrust into another occult mystery with her childhood crime-solving partner Lancelot Jones. The series currently has three issues of its first four-part arc published on the Panel Syndicate website, with the fourth issue set for release via the site prior to its physical collected edition. Previous series from the website Image have brought into print include “Universe!,” “The Private Eye,” and “Barrier.” “Friday, Book One: The First Day of Christmas” will be released in print in November.
– Marvel Comics announced that the Marvel Halloween Comic Book Extravaganza will be returning this year, taking place in participating stores on October 27. In the announcement, the publisher detailed that there will be four “perfect entry [point]” issues being reprinted for the event, namely Saladin Ahmed and Javier Garrón’s “Miles Morales: Spider-Man” #1, Kelly Thompson and Leonardo Romero’s “Hawkeye” #1, Cavan Scott and Ario Anindito’s “Star Wars: The High Republic” #1, and Chip Zdarsky and Marco Checchetto’s “Daredevil” #28. Further details about the event will be revealed in the coming months.
– Publishers Weekly reported on three children’s graphic novel deals:
– AMC ended the long-running legal battle between itself and The Walking Dead‘s first showrunner, Frank Darabont. The case had been set to go to trial next April, but AMC instead chose to finalize a settlement arrangement which saw Darabont being issued a $200 million cash payment, and an entitlement to “future revenue sharing related to certain future streaming exhibition” of The Walking Dead universe. The dispute had run since 2013, and prompted other legal claims in the years that followed by other individuals surrounding the show, such as “The Walking Dead” writer Robert Kirkman and The Walking Dead universe executive producer Gale Anne Hurd, who also felt they had been cheated out of their share of profits. The Walking Dead is set to begin its final season on August 22.
Continued below– Loki executive producer and director Kate Herron announced that she will not be returning for the second season. In an interview with Deadline, Herron stated “I always planned to be just on for this, and to be honest, Season 2 wasn’t in the — that’s something that just came out, and I’m so excited,” with the director focusing on working on “some other stuff yet to be announced.” Herron did add that “I love Marvel and I’d love to work with them again,” just not at this time. A schedule for production and consequential release date for Loki season 2 has not been announced.
– The winners of the Daytime Emmys were announced, with Netflix’s comic book adaptation, Hilda, taking home the Emmy for Outstanding Children’s Animated Series, and Outstanding Editing for a Daytime Animated Program (along with Animaniacs). Disney+’s Star Wars: The Clone Wars also took home the Outstanding Sound Mixing and Sound Editing for a Daytime Animated Program Emmy. Comic book adaptations also featured heavily in the recently announced Primetime Emmy nominations. You can see the full list of Daytime Emmy winners here.
– Finally, Celluloid Junkie detailed how a vast number of European and Japanese cinema chains are refusing to show Black Widow because of the film being released predominantly day-and-date around the world on Disney+ Premier Access. It is in Germany that the most significant stands have been taken, with four of the country’s largest chains specifically forming an alliance, the Cinema-Family-Group, against showing the film. This has resulted in only 260 “copies” of the film being distributed, compared to the usual 600 in the country. This backlash is the latest in a series of clashes between exhibitors around the world and Disney in the last decade, most notably relating to the shortened theatrical window on Alice in Wonderland (which Disney didn’t proceed with), and high rental terms and fixed minimum prices for tickets for Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
