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 interviewed Matt Kindt and David Rubin about the upcoming “Ether: The Disappearance of Violet Bell.” We also have exclusive previews of “The Green Lantern” Annual #1 and “Ghosted in L.A.” #2.
— Dynamite announced two Halloween-themed one-shots set to debut in, you guessed it, October 2019. The first is “Savage Tales: A Red Sonja Halloween Special” by writer Mark Russell and artist Jacob Edgar, along with Dearbhla Kelly and Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou, with a cover by Erica D’Urso. The second title is “Bettie Page Halloween Special” by David Avallone and Roy Allan Martinez, with a bonus story by Erica Schultz and Fernando Ruiz.
— Brian Michael Bendis revealed on Twitter that “Pearl,” his DC series with Michael Gaydos, is getting a film adaptation from Mandeville Films. Set in modern-day San Francisco, “Pearl” is the story of a tattoo artist and accidental assassin for the Yakuza who dreams of a better life for herself.
— “They Called Us Enemy,” George Takei’s autobiographical graphic novel about his childhood experience in a Japanese American internment camp during World War II, has become a New York Times Bestseller after its July 16 debut. As The Beat points out, this news is especially significant considering graphic novels no longer have their own category. “They Called Us Enemy” is number two on the bestseller list for paperback nonfiction, following “Born a Crime” by comedian Trevor Noah at number one.
— ICv2 conducted a deep dive on 2018 graphic novel sales, which collectively showed an 11% increase over the year, but upon closer inspection varied widely by content type. Their analysis gives further insight into industry trends; sales of manga and graphic novels for kids were up in 2018, while author titles (content primarily associated with its creator, e.g. “The Walking Dead”) and, perhaps surprisingly, superhero comics were down.
— New details were released for the Wonder Woman: Bloodlines animated feature. They include official artwork and a synopsis, as well as the voice cast, which includes Rosario Dawson as Wonder Woman and Jeffrey Donovan as Steve Trevor.
— Finally, editorial cartoonist Rob Rogers is reviving “Brewed on Grant” after being fired last year by the Pittsburg Post-Gazette. Rogers has struck a deal with the Pittsburgh Current to begin publishing the cartoon on August 6 in what Associate Publisher Bethany Ruhe called a “doubling down” on the editorial cartoon medium, at a time when other publications are abandoning it.
