Welcome back to The Rundown, our daily breakdown on comic news stories we missed from the weekend. Have a link to share? Email our team at rundown@multiversitycomics.com.
– Charles Adlard has been named the United Kingdom’s Comics Laureate. The Comics Laureate is an “ambassadorial and educational role” that tries to “raise awareness of the impact comics can have in terms of increasing literacy and creativity.” Adlard was handed the title by the 2015 UK Comics Laureate, Dave Gibbons, and the Lake Comics Festival.
– Jeff Smith is working hard to make the Cartoon Cross Columbus festival something akin to South by Southwest. Created in collaboration with the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum, the festival offers panels, workshops, and networking opportunities, but with an ideal that “focuses more on the art form, and the creators as authors and artists [rather] than pop-culture characters.” Tom Spurgeon, the festival director and writer of The Comics Journal, also has plenty to say about the direction of the festival and its ambitions. In all honesty, I hope to see more festivals like this popping up all over the place. If any of you made it to Cartoon Crossroads Columbus this weekend, we would love to hear what you thought about it.
– No longer content with studios passing over all their projects (how many attempted adaptations of “Locke & Key” have there been already?), IDW is partnering with production houses to help make sure its properties get made. We’ve already seen Wynonna Earp on SyFy, and Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency is forthcoming from BBC America. Plenty more is in development. With their acquisition of Top Shelf and constant set of new imprints, it’s been interesting to watch IDW carve a niche for themselves as a huge publisher in the industry.
– This year, comics are replacing candy as Trick-or-Treat prizes, They join the trend of non-traditional Halloween goodies. Which is sweet.
– Finally, take some time to watch this discussion between Signe Wilkinson and Ann Telnaes, two Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonists. The conversation deals with cartooning in a Charlie Hebdo World.
– Dear Mark Zuckerberg: I would really like to voice your AI. Love, RDJ. (A letter from Robert Downey, Jr. to Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg. Probably.)
– Check out this article about Gerard Way and his attempts to launch the Young Animal line.
