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.
– Via a press release, Skybound announced Robert Kirkman and Chris Samnee’s “Fire Power” will end with issue #30 this December. The fantasy martial arts series, colored by Matthew Wilson, and lettered by Rus Wooton, will receive a 56-page finale, pitting protagonist Owen Johnson and his family one last time against the dragon that threatens the entire world. Samnee says, “I’m drawing page after page of flattened cities as mass chaos. I never knew the scale of this book would change so much! The ending of this series is definitely going to shock people.” The finale will retail for $5.99 on December 27, with a main cover by Samnee and Wilson, and an open-to-order variant by Cliff Chiang.
– Magnetic Press will publish the crowdfunded sci-fi anthology “Black Box Chronicles,” and a companion artbook, Black Box: Design Space, on November 15. The anthology features stories of space exploration, supposedly recovered “from [the] records left in the wreckage of [an] interstellar spaceship,” and was conceived by Mark Schey and Chris Northrop, founders of the multimedia production company Horrible Future. Contributors include David Mack, Michael Avon Oeming, Zach Howard, Eryk Donovan, Gavin Smith, David Messina, Drew Moss, Christian Dibari, Taki Soma, and many more. “Black Box Chronicles” will retail at 172 pages in paperback for $19.99, while Black Box: Design Space, by artist Shane Molina, will retail at 96 pages in hardback for $24.99.
– The Idaho State Journal shares Randy’L Teton, the Shoshone-Bannock educator who served as the model for the Sacajawea dollar, has now written a children’s graphic novel about the Lewis and Clark Expedition’s guide. The book, “It’s Her Story: Sacajawea,” is part of an educational series published by Sunbird Books, and features art by Shoshone-Bannock illustrator Aly McKnight. It will be released on September 19. Teton notes that unlike many books about Sacajawea, this is written by someone who grew up learning about her from her people’s elders. “A lot of the stories that I’m sharing in this book were shared to me orally because that’s culturally how we share stories,” she says.
– In trailer news, GKIDS released a teaser for The Boy and the Heron, Hayao Miyazaki’s final film, disclosing it will be released in theaters and IMAX nationwide on December 8 (with preview screenings on November 22.) The film, which was released in Japan earlier this year with a bare minimum of promotion, is “a semi-autobiographical fantasy about life, death, and creation,” where a boy “yearning for his mother ventures into a world shared by the living and the dead.” Meanwhile, Amazon dropped a second, redband trailer for Gen V, The Boys spin-off set at Super academy Godolkin University. The show, starring Jaz Sinclair, Chance Perdomo, Lizze Broadway, Shelley Conn, Maddie Phillips, London Thor, Derek Luh, Asa Germann, and more, premieres September 29.
– To celebrate the series hitting the halfway mark, Lucasfilm will screen the fifth episode of Ahsoka in theaters across the US, plus London, Bangkok, and Sao Paulo, on Tuesday, September 12; head here to find your nearest theater, and to see if tickets (which are free) are still available. And in further screening news, DC announced Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy will return to select theaters for Batman Day (Saturday, September 16); check your local listings for more, and head to the link for other final Batman Day plans.
– Outright Games (Justice League: Cosmic Chaos) will publish a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem video game sometime next year. Set after the movie, the console and PC release will pit the turtles against a new mutant threat. It marks the third announced Mutant Mayhem follow-up, following the sequel and the Paramount+ series Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. It also marks the second TMNT video game announced in the past month, after THQ Nordic’s adaptation of the older-skewing comic book “The Last Ronin,” which will presumably arrive well after this game.
– BOOM! Studios announced a deal with IMG (the International Management Group), who will act on their behalf to arrange licensing deals for “BRZRKR,” such as clothes and accessories, collectibles, toys, food and beverages, and location-based experiences. The comic, created by Keanu Reeves, Matt Kindt, and Ron Garney, is currently being adapted into an anime series and live-action film (which was being scripted by “BRZRKR: Fallen Empire” writer Mattson Tomlin before the WGA strike) at Netflix, and an original prose novel at Random House, presumably increasing demand for those products.
Continued below– Author Preeti Chhibber is joining Ellie Pyle as the new co-host of the official Women of Marvel podcast, succeeding the outgoing Angélique Roché and Judy Stephens. The new, 12-part season of the podcast, produced by Pyle and Chhibber with Isabel Robertson and Zachary Goldberg, premiered yesterday with a spotlight on founding X-Men member Jean Grey. The episode, featuring appearances from cosplayer Indra Rojas, engineer Dr. France Jackson, WWAC’s Nola Pfau, and X-Men: The Animated Series writer Julia Lewald, is available now on all good podcast platforms.
– In news from the UK, DC Thomson, IPC and Marvel veteran Tim Quinn has overseen the creation of a comic for patients at Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital. The book, titled “ZOWIE!,” was crafted in collaboration with several cartoonists, as well as charity Liverpool Heartbeat, and distributed to patients for free last month. It features a celebration of 60 years of Doctor Who, plus strips based on superheroes created by patients. The project is hoping to expand into other hospitals, allowing more children to inspire and read their own comics, as well to join a group of superheroes called The Fab 4000.
– Finally, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse co-writer/producer Phil Lord has personally responded to allegations that the film’s animators were overworked. A Vulture article from June alleged Lord was rewriting the film well into post-production, causing Sony Pictures Animation to work seven days a week to complete the sequel on time. He says simply, “[It] was a really hard movie to make. We’re really proud of how hard everybody worked, and it was very demanding. But we’re just really proud of the crew, and everything they put into it.” Perhaps tellingly, Lord and Christopher Miller previously declared the third film, Beyond the Spider-Verse, will be released “when it is ready.”
