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.
– Andrea Romano, one of the most well known voiceover directors, has announced that she is retiring. The announcement came following her diagnosis of optic neuropathy in one eye, which has caused blindness in that eye. Romano has been behind the voices of several iconic animated projects, including Batman: The Animated Series, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Animaniacs, and the original Ducktales. Her work includes over 1,600 episodes of TV, 50 films, 20 video games, and she has collected 35 Emmy nominations and 8 wins. Romano plans to continue working for another two to three years to wrap up her current projects.
– American Gods and Deadwood star Ian McShane has joined the upcoming Hellboy reboot as Hellboy’s adopted father, Professor Broom. McShane joins David Harbour (Stranger Things) who will play the titular Hellboy. The project is scheduled to start shooting in the U.K. and Bulgaria starting in September.
– Dynamite has announced that they are bringing the Hitman video game franchise to comics with “Agent 47: Birth of the Hitman.” Christopher Sebela (“Green Lantern”/”Space Ghost”) and Jonathan Lau (“Battlestar Galactica”) will be writing and drawing, respectively. The new series will launch on October 11, and will dive into the origin of the series’ main character.
– Sony Pictures is set to acquire U.S. anime distributor Funimation, and their expansive catalog, which includes series like Attack on Titan, Cowboy Bebop, and Dragonball Z. Sony will pay about $143 million for a 95% stake. Funimation founder Gen Fukunga will retain a minority stake in the company and remain as CEO.
– IDW has launched IDW Digital Studio. The new division will create “episodic video, animation, short form social content, digital comics, interactive content, mobile games, features, live events and daily fan centric content.” The new content will tie in to existing properties like “Wynnonna Earp” and “Locke and Key.”
– In other IDW news, their current run of “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” will officially be the longest running iteration of the franchise with today’s #73. The previous longest run was with Archie Comics for 72 issues.
– DC will be launching a series of collector pins to coincide with “Dark Days: Metal.” There will be six different pins, each featuring the logo of one of the “dark” Batmans, and released with their respective one-shots.
– Mike Allred is a busy man. In addition to “Silver Surfer” and “Bug!: The Adventures of Forager,” Allred will be doing an “all new solo creator-owned” project. No details are known yet.
