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 have an exclusive preview of “Iron Man Annual” #1.
– Bill Watterson’s “Calvin and Hobbes” is getting a brand new reissued and reformatted edition from Andrews McMeel. “The Calvin and Hobbes Compendium” was designed with input from Watterson, who personally chose cover art for each volume from one of his original colored Sunday strips. The compendium will be released in seven two-volume sets. The first is set to be released August 29, and will contain almost 500 strips, with subsequent releases every Fall and Spring through 2026. While the books are printed in 9” x 6” landscape, newspaper-style format, each set will be packaged in 6” x 9” vertical format for shelving purposes.
– The 2023 Ignatz Award nominees have been announced. Kate Beaton’s “Ducks” picked up a nom for Outstanding Graphic Novel, while Noah Van Sciver received nods for Outstanding Artist (“Joseph Smith and the Mormons”) and Outstanding Series (“Maple Terrace no. 1”). Olivia Stephens was also recognized in the Outstanding Artist Category for the self-published “Darlin’ and Her Other Names.” The nominees were decided by the judging panel of Ellen Lindner, Juniper Kim, L. Nichols, Ally Shwed, Jason Little, and Kotaline Jones. Ballots are available either to subscribers of the Small Press Expo (SPX) mailing list or upon request. The awards will be presented at the SPX on Saturday, September 8. They are sponsored by crowdfunding platform Crowdfundr.
– Scholastic has unveiled the latest installment of Dav Pilkey’s best selling “Dog Man” series. “Dog Man: The Scarlet Shedder” is set to hit shelves on March 19, 2024, dropping concurrently in the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. The last volume, “Dog Man: Twenty Thousand Fleas Under the Sea,” was the #1 best selling children’s book of 2023 in North America The 12th book in the series, “The Scarlet Shredder” sees the title hero become shunned after getting sprayed by a skunk. A quick dip in tomato juice takes care of the smell, but leaves him dyed red.
– Starting in 2024, Vault will publish premium, full-color graphic novels based on Shirtaloon’s He Who Fights With Monsters. “He Who Fights With Monsters is among the best long-form fantasy series I’ve ever read,” Vault CEO Damian Wassel said of the LitRPG series from digital publisher Podium, created by Travis Deverell (aka Shirtaloon). The series follows an Australian middle manager who’s transported to a dangerous, magical world, and is on its ninth volume. A tenth will be available on November 28, 2023.
– Humanoids will publish “Hanami,” Spanish artist Julia Cejas’s YA graphic memoir about her time living in Japan. The award-winning artist makes her English language debut with the book, which follows her and her partner’s experiences “learning about the local fire patrol or the beautiful terror of Japanese toilets.” The publisher also teases a few references to iconic manga creators Akira Toriyama (“Dragon Ball”) and Rumiko Takahashi (“Ranma ½”). It’s due out on April 2, 2024.
– In more Humanoids news, the publisher has also announced “The Road to Epsilon,” the debut graphic novel from Lolita Couturier. The book follows Tom, a young pregnant woman, and her child companion Lele searching for the distant town of Epsilon through an apocalyptic nightmare. The book was completed while Couturier, a Master’s student at the European School of Image, was still an undergrad. It’s set to release in March of next year.
– 27 Latino groups have signed a letter asking film goers to “amplify the work that countless Latino artists have worked so hard to create,” including Ángel Manuel Soto’s upcoming Blue Beetle film. The letter comes after the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes, as writers and actors are unable to promote their projects while on the picket line. “While we’re encouraged by some of the changes we have seen in recent years,” the letter says, “we continue to deal with the repercussions from years of being actively erased and invisible on screen.” Variety states that Blue Beetle is the “first superhero movie directed and written by and starring Latinos.”
– Finally, all 15 issues of the Eisner and Ignatz Award-winning The Nib Magazine are now free to download. The Nib website announced it would be shutting down at the end of August 2023 back in May, with the theme of the final magazine issue being “The Future.” In an email, it told fans, “That’s more than 1,600 pages of comics, including our out of print Secrets, Nature, Food, and Color issues.” The email went on to add that print issues were still available in the online store, while also inviting donations. “We are making efforts to preserve the website long term in order to make sure all the work we published remains accessible to the public,” the website’s donations page reads. “This involves ongoing web hosting and regular backend work and maintenance.” You can download all 15 issues here.
