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.
– DSLTRY announced their second comic book series will be “Somna,” an erotic folk horror tale written and drawn by both Tula Lotay and Becky Cloonan. Spinning out of “The Devil’s Cut” segment ‘What Blighted Flame Burns in Thee?’ (out today), the comic takes place in 1600s England, and follows Ingrid, the unhappily married wife of a witch hunter, as she becomes “pursued by a shadowy figure. Ingrid gravitates to the foreboding phantom in ways she can’t resist; does this otherworldly seduction hold the key to [a murder] mystery? Or will he damn Ingrid’s soul to the blackest circle of Hell?” The first issue will be released in November, with separate covers by Cloonan and Lotay. It will arrive a month after Jock’s sci-fi fable “Gone” starts; like that series, each issue will be 48 pages.
– Image and Top Cow revealed Simon Birks and Willi Roberts’s new series “Antarctica” will become an ongoing. Originally announced as a six-parter, the sci-fi comic follows Hannah, an engineer, searching for her missing father, a researcher, on the desolate continent. The sixth issue, due out in December, will turn back the clock to Hannah’s childhood, when her father already seemed troubled. The first two issues of the series, which began in July, are available now.
– Netflix released the teaser trailer for The Killer, David Fincher’s film adaptation of the comic by Alexis “Matz” Nolent and Luc Jacamon, starring Michael Fassbender, Arliss Howard, Charles Parnell, Kerry O’Malley, Sala Baker, Sophie Charlotte, and Tilda Swinton. The trailer doesn’t go into specifics about the plot, which involves Fassbender’s assassin going on the run, instead using a montage to portray his character starting to collapse under his repetitive, soulless grind. The film releases in select theaters on October 27, and on Netflix itself on November 10.
– Netflix also announced The Archies will be released on Thursday, December 7. The Hindi-language musical, directed by Zoya Akhtar (Gully Boy), relocates the Riverdale gang to an Anglo-Indian hill station town in 1964, and stars Agastya Nanda as Archie; Khushi Kapoor as Betty; Suhana Khan as Veronica; Vedang Raina as Reggie; Mihir Ahuja as Jughead; and Aditi “Dot” Saigal as Ethel Muggs. You can learn more about the film from this year’s Tudum event here.
– Dark Horse will publish the third and final volume of Daniel Isles’s cyberpunk graphic novel series “Joyama” on May 21, 2024. Per the synopsis, the book sees Arwen go undercover with Outrider leaders’ blessing after the death of Silas. “To her, this was the best way to keep her loved ones safe. In her time off the grid, Arwen uncovered the truth, leading her to track and confront Black Cotton – not only to bring a sense of peace to Joyama, but to serve up a dish of cold, hard vengeance. With Ringo and the results of his intense training at her side, the epic final showdown begins!”
– Kevin Smith is auctioning off his comic book art collection, the writer and filmmaker announced. Among the pieces he is planning to sell are Matt Wagner’s cover art for Smith’s “Green Arrow” run, and a page from Frank Miller and Klaus Janson’s “Daredevil” #161 (which will be the most expensive item, estimated at $20,000-$40,000.) The sale will be broadcast online at Bodnars Auction on Wednesday, September 27. Smith will be in attendance, and sign the artwork from his comics, while a percentage of proceeds will go to a scholarship fund at the Kubert School.
– Finally, here’s an unexpected Smurfs news round-up: Microids announced a new game, The Smurfs 2 – The Prisoner of the Green Stone, will be released on PC, PlayStation, Xbox and Switch on November 14. A sequel to 2021’s The Smurfs: Mission Vileaf, the game will mark the second game release this year for Peyo’s blue gnomes, following Smurfs Kart, which released on Xbox and PlayStation consoles on August 22. Lastly, earlier this month, sportswear brand Puma launched a collaboration with the franchise – as they put it, it’s “smurftastic.”
