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.
– This June, Marvel will present their newest Star Wars comic, an adaptation of The Force Awakens to be written by Chuck Wendig (who wrote the not-the-worst Star Wars: Aftermath) with art by Luke Ross (“Captain America & The Mighty Avengers”) and covers from Esad Ribic (“Thor: God of Thunder”). This will be a five-issue miniseries due to launch this June.
– David Brothers and Sasha Head have spearheaded an effort to create their own Previews catalogue for Image Comics. Every month, Diamond Distributors (who are literally the worst) puts out a catalogue of all the books coming out three months later. This is so you can make sure to have your local comic shop order a book you’re interested in. Diamond then charts comic book sales based off how many copies stores order (not how many copies stores actually sell), and that makes the monthly rankings — despite how stores probably won’t get more than subscriber copies for smaller things, even if dozens of people order it, but always make sure to stock up on the mainstream corporate superhero stuff, even if it sits on a shelf for months until it’s relegated to the back issues bin. Also, in almost constant contradiction with something like The New York Times Graphic Novels Best Seller lists, which, you know, charts real numbers and sales and features titles that are crazy low on the Diamond list. If you want a literal metaphor for how Diamond treats retailers, this story sort of sums up everything.
Anyway, Marvel already has their own pullout catalogue and apparently DC is looking to do one with this recent Rebirth thing. The Image catalogue will include 64 pages of material, from order codes, editorials, interviews, and special short stories and is called Image+.
Incidentally, Multiversity editor Mike Romeo and columnist Greg Matiasevich go through the catalogue every month, looking for everything that seems the most interesting.
– Speaking of comics distributors: this weekend saw the annual ComicsPRO event. Image publisher Eric Stephenson gave a speech saying the comics industry needs to be “as ambitious as possible”, that retailers just need to stop ordering incentive variants, and how the industry handles itself is stunting its own progress. As Kieran Shiach at ComicsAlliance points out, this comes on the heels of Geoff Johns’s announcement that DC made Rebirth for “die-hard fans first and foremost” (which means we have to deal with David Finch even longer; thanks, guys). You can read the full text of the transcript here, which, like most Stephenson’s speeches, is interesting and full of valid points, including, “Where once comics were summarily dismissed as light entertainment for adolescent boys, there are not comics for everyone by everyone.”
– Titan Comics has announced plans to release the 2013 Japanese manga adaption of “Sherlock” in translation this June. The comic is called, “Sherlock: A Study in Pink” by Jay, and apparently features “extended page counts, new covers, and art by acclaimed talent.” Sherlock will return for its fourth series some time in 2017.
– Congratulations to G. Willow Wilson, who won the Second Annual Dwayne McDuffie Award for Diversity for her work on “Ms. Marvel” with Adrian Alphona.
– On Friday, we asked what you think of this whole Afterbirth Rebirth thing.
At the time of this writing, 52 of you said you’ll believe everything is different when you see it. (We all know it won’t be, especially because DC is so keen on regressing) 49 of you are legitimately excited I guess, though 47 people said the double shipping really bothers them. Commenter Ian A. wondered, “Does DC honestly have a stable of artists capable of handling 17 bi-weekly series? Nearly every week, Bleeding Cool posts an article about unannounced changes to artistic line-ups on DC titles, and this type of aggressive publishing schedule could lead to even more last minute fill-ins and assists.”
38 people are going to remain cautiously optimistic while 16 won’t be checking it out at all, though I’m sure that number will grow as more announcements start coming out.
Make sure to check back on Friday for our next Weekly Readers’ Poll!
