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, AfterShock announced “The Last Ride of Pillar & Pryde.”
– Dark Horse Comics announced they will team up with video game streamer and podcaster Karl Jacobs for “Time Traveler Tales,” a series based on his Minecraft playthrough Tales from the SMP. The comic will be written by Dave Scheidt (“Mayor Good Boy,” “Aw Yeah Comics!”), with art by Kelly and Nichole Matthews (“Just Beyond,” “Magic Tree House”). Further details on the series will be announced at a later time. Created in 2020, Tales from the SMP (named for the server it is hosted on, Dream SMP) sees Jacobs and his fellow players construct a story of Karl himself as a time traveler. Dark Horse have held the license for Minecraft comics since 2018, publishing books based on the game by Hope Larson, Sarah Graley, Kristen Gudsnuk, and many more.
– Bleeding Cool shared comments from various comics creators revealing they were infected with COVID-19 during San Diego Comic-Con; they include Mark Waid, Tom King, Jamal Igle, Amy Chu, and John Layman. It should be noted SDCC took the virus seriously, enforcing masking and vaccination checks, and many of these individuals were infected outside the convention center, including (as shared by The Beat) the post-Eisner Awards party, which was poorly ventilated after a guest complained the balcony doors were “letting in too much wind.”
– Netflix launched The Sandman: Dreamcast, a meditation aid featuring the voices of Neil Gaiman and various members of the show’s cast, including Tom Sturridge (Dream) and Vivienne Acheampong (Lucienne). The experience, which as a whole lasts 28 minutes, invites listeners to calm down and relax to descriptions of the Dreaming. The Sandman season one releases on Netflix this Friday, August 5.
– A commercial for the upcoming Ghibli Park, animated by the legendary Hayao Miyazaki himself, was released. The brief advertisement for the theme park, which announces tickets will go on sale on August 10, features a Cat Train resembling the Cat Bus from My Neighbor Totoro, carrying characters from Totoro and Spirited Away. Ghibli Park opens in Nagakute, Japan, on November 1, 2022.
– Finally, the Batgirl movie has fallen victim to the Warner Bros. Discovery merger, and at the time of writing, will not even be released on its originally intended home of HBO Max. Variety and other sources confirmed the story, which was originally broken by the New York Post, explaining the movie was shelved because of Warner Bros.’s new CEO David Zaslav’s desire for all DC films to be major theatrical releases. The new regime deemed the nearly completed Batgirl, which cost only $90 million to produce, not worth releasing in theaters, or the additional cost of marketing it for a wide release. Variety and Deadline stated the studio are using the decision to justify a tax write-off, almost certainly guaranteeing the movie will never be released.
Despite the Post‘s claims saying otherwise, there is no proof the decision was a result of poor test screenings, with Deadline adding the studio is mulling approaching directors Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, and lead actress Leslie Grace, for new projects. As well as Grace, Batgirl starred J.K. Simmons, who reprised the role of her father, Commissioner Jim Gordon, and Michael Keaton as Batman following the events of the upcoming Flash movie. Brendan Fraser played the villain Firefly, while Ivory Aquino played Barbara’s best friend Alysia Yeoh, who would’ve been the first major trans character in a superhero film. The movie was intended for a HBO Max exclusive release this year, along with Blue Beetle, which will be released theatrically on August 18, 2023. In the meantime, Keaton will return as Batman in the controversial Flash movie, still on course for June 23, 2023.
