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, Image Comics announced “Geiger” by Geoff Johns and Gary Frank, while DC announced a new anthology series called “Truth and Justice.”
– Kodansha Comics announced they have ten new manga licenses, including “Boys Run the Riot” by Keito Gaku, and “Beauty and the Beast of the Lost Paradise” by Kaori Yuki. “Boys Run the Riot” will follow Ryuu, a closeted transgender teen, who finds escape from societal pressures and his own anxieties by setting up his own clothing brand with a transfer student, Jin. “Beauty and the Beast of the Lost Paradise” will tell the story of Belle “as you’ve never seen it before,” with her locked in solitude by her father after the Beast kidnapped her mother, and returning to the woods where her mother was kidnapped years later to encounter the beast again. Amongst the remaining licenses are “The Invincible Reincarnated Ponkotsu,” “I Guess I Became the Mother of the Great Demon King’s 10 Children in Another World,” and “Sachi’s Monstrous Appetite.” “Boys Run the Riot” and “Beauty and the Beast of the Lost Paradise” will both be released in Summer 2021, while the other acquired licenses are scheduled to release digitally across consecutive Tuesdays in December. You can check out the full details for all of the announced licenses here.
– Dark Horse Comics collaborated with PlayStation to release a motion comic, “Sackboy: A Big Adventure: The Gathering Storm,” by writer Sean McKeever and artists Ron Chan and Maria Capelle Frantz. The motion comic is a prequel to the new PlayStation game, and tells a story featuring the Knitted Knight Scarlet, Sackboy’s mentor. You can check out the comic here.
– Patrik Henry Bass bought worldwide publishing rights to “Before 13th,” a graphic novel by writer Michael Ralph and artists Nia Palmer and Laura Molnar. “Before 13th” will shed light on a largely unknown feud between the graphic novel’s narrators, Ida B. Wells and Frederick Douglass, and show how the leasing of convicts to work on private railways, mines, and large plantations occurred prior to the 13th amendment, with a prison in Kentucky operating the system with Black and white prisoners of all genders. A release date for the graphic novel was not given.
– Humble Bundle teamed with the American Library Association to launch a new bundle to highlight PoC creators and characters across a variety of mediums, including comics. The comics in the bundle include Damian Duffy and John Jennings’s graphic novel adaptations of Octavia E. Butler’s Parable of the Sower and Kindred; volume 1 of “Bitter Root” by David F. Walker, Chuck Brown, and Sandford Greene; and Mat Johnson and Warren Pleece’s “Incognegro: A Graphic Mystery.” The bundle is available until February 8, 2021.
– The Japanese graphic design software developer, Celsys, opened their International Comic/Manga School Contest to entrants worldwide. The contest has been running for the last three years, and originally started as a European artist competition. The contest features six different categories, all operating under the theme of “Admiration,” with Charlie Adlard (“The Walking Dead”) and Simone Ferriero joining this year’s judging panel. There are combinations of cash, hardware, and software prizes available in each category, with the winning work having the chance to be published by one of the contest’s sponsors who include Shueisha, Kadokawa, and Shogakukan. Full details for the contest can be found here.
– Chantal Thuy, who portrays shapeshifting metahuman Grace Choi in Black Lightning, was promoted to a series regular for the series’ fourth season. After debuting in the first season, Choi became one half of the first onscreen queer superhero couple of color with Anissa (Nafessa Williams), with the pair due to marry before the War for Freeland broke out. In an interview with Deadline, Thuy said in season 4 “[Grace’s] gaining control of her shapeshifting abilities, she’s less volatile, and less of an outsider. I’m hoping this will mean a new suit and getting to join in on more of the family fights to protect Freeland!” Black Lightning is scheduled to return for season 4 on February 8, 2021.
– Chris Pratt was confirmed for the upcoming Thor: Love and Thunder. His character, Star-Lord, was last seen aboard the Milano, with Thor (Chris Hemsworth) joining him and the Guardians of the Galaxy for their next adventure. Thor: Love and Thunder will see Taika Waititi returning to direct, with Natalie Portman reprising her role as Jane Foster and becoming a Thor. Thor: Love and Thunder is scheduled to start filming in Australia in January, and is currently set for release on February 11, 2022.
– Finally, James Gunn, director of the upcoming The Suicide Squad, confirmed that Sylvester Stallone has joined the cast of the film in an unrevealed role. This confirmation followed Stallone sharing a video on Instagram (which has since been deleted), in which he said he was on the “way over to do a little work with a great director James Gunn on Suicide Squad 2 and I think it’s going to be a spectacular effort.” The Suicide Squad is scheduled for release on August 6, 2021.
