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, BOOM! Studios have announced “Buffy the Last Vampire Slayer,” and the winners of the 2021 Ignatz Awards, honoring the year’s best independent and small press comics, were announced. We also have an exclusive preview of “Snow Angels” Season Two #4.
– As part of the celebration of the character’s 80th anniversary, Archie Comics have announced “Archie’s Holiday Magic Special” #1, a one-shot anthology that will feature three separate stories penned by Micol Ostow, Michael Northrop and J. Torres with art by Gretel Lusky, Arielle Jovellanos and Dan Schoening. The official description reads, “It’s Christmas Eve in Riverdale, and it’s almost time for the annual Snow Ball, but Archie still can’t choose who should be his date: Betty or Veronica? Has he always been this indecisive? Will he always be? Will his flaws leave him all alone? Everything changes when a spirit guide appears to help him navigate these questions, and explore his past, present, and future in three distinct tales. This heartfelt and humorous holiday tale harkens back to classic holiday stories like It’s a Wonderful Life, mixed with the over-the-top sentimentality of a Hallmark Christmas film.” “Archie’s Holiday Magic Special” #1 will be released December 8, 2021.
– Via Newsarama, after a three-year hiatus, readers will return to Gotham Academy in the form of a backup story in “Batman” #119. The backup features Mia “Maps” Mizoguchi as she investigates the sudden disappearance of one of her classmates with the help of Batman. “Gotham Academy” original series artist Karl Kerschl returns for this brief “Batman” #119 short, this time writing as well as providing the art. “Batman” #119 will be available on January 4, 2022.
– Publishers Weekly announced nine graphic novel deals this week. McElderry Books have bought world rights to “Steam,” written by Shaenon K. Garrity and illustrated by Emily Holden. The graphic novel follows the adventures of Ruby, a “hypercognitive humanoid” designed to solve science’s greatest problems, who escapes from a university lab and finds a job as a barista in a kooky coffee shop, where she finds plenty of problems to solve. Publication is slated for Fall 2023. First Second have bought debut middle-grade graphic novel “North for the Winter” by Pixar animator Bobby Podesta, which follows a group of kids who must outsmart a hunter, and dodge U.S. military planes, so they can return a flying reindeer to the North Pole and save Christmas before it’s too late. You can check out the other deals here.
– IDW Publishing and Penguin Random House have announced an exclusive worldwide multi-year sales and distribution agreement for IDW’s newly published and backlist comic book periodicals, trade collections, and graphic novels to Direct Market comic shops beginning June 1, 2022. In response to the announcement, Diamond’s Steve Geppi released a statement saying “I would like to thank IDW for their many years of partnership and we are delighted to continue selling IDW’s comics, trades and graphic novels to our retail customers as a wholesaler effective June 1, 2022.”
– Via Newsarama, writer/artist Evan Dorkin has announced on Twitter that he’s taking a break from comic books. The “Milk & Cheese” creator says this decision comes as he began “rethinking things as an aging old-timer,” continuing, “My reality is that I’m not a fast enough writer to turn out multiple monthlies the way some folks can, I’m not a huge ‘get,’ I’ve possibly burned a few bridges (they didn’t go anywhere I wanted to be), and it’s a big industry that doesn’t need anyone in particular to be here.” Dorkin is best known for his comedy series “Milk & Cheese,” and his spooky dog series “Beasts of Burden,” which was created with Jill Thompson. The limited series “Beasts of Burden: Occupied Territory” will be Dorkin’s last comic book “for a while.”
– In a Twitter thread, writer/artist Joshua Luna discussed his comic “Reconciliasian” and accused blogger Jenn Fang of enabling harassment toward him as well as “slander[ing] me as an ‘MRAsian.'” Luna says that he does not allow reposts of his comics, but that’s what Fang and others did. You can read the rest of the thread here. The issue of Asian American men in the anti-feminist “men’s rights movement” received wider attention following a Slate magazine article on the subject; in contrast, Luna believes “we [must] acknowledge white men as the architects of anti-Asian racism, & the blueprints they use to divide the Asian community & sabotage progress.”
– Via Deadline, Meridian Pictures has acquired the rights to turn artist Chaz Guest’s paintings and graphic novel “Buffalo Warrior” into a feature film. The paintings tell the story of a boy born into slavery, who enlists in the army and becomes a member of the Buffalo Soldiers, the all-African American calvary regiments of the U.S. Army founded after the Civil War. The soldier dies in battle, but is reborn as the superhero Buffalo Warrior. In a statement, Guest said that creating Buffalo Warrior “not only satisfies that little boy in me that wanted to see a superhero come out of the cotton fields of American slavery… but will satisfy the imagination of generations of young and old that share the same desire.”
– Finally, Entertainment Weekly has a first look at Hit Monkey, based on the Marvel comic created by Josh Gordon and Will Speck. The show follows “a Japanese snow macaque whose clan meets a stranded hitman, Bryce (Jason Sudeikis), and nurses him back to health. But when Bryce bites the dust, it’s up to the titular simian (guided by Bryce’s ghost) to follow in his assassin footsteps and seek vengeance.” Hit Monkey will start streaming on Hulu November 17, 2021.
