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.
– So, Star Wars: Episode VII — The Force Awakens did well. Since it’s opening on December 18th to Sunday, Decmeber 20th, the J.J. Abrams-directed sequel took in about $517 million worldwide ($238 million domestically and $279 million internationally) and basically eviscerated all previous records. It beats Jurassic World‘s previous biggest opening of $208.8 million, as well as December opening (previously held by The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey) and largest Friday opening (previously held by Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2) and I’m sure a ton of other numbers I don’t know about but that the Disney bean-counters will make sure to let us know. Episode VII is still no Mad Max: Fury Road and isn’t without it’s share of problems, but it’s a step in the right direction (as in namely not like that trash, Avengers: Age of Ultron) and so immensely enjoyable.
– John Logan’s series, Penny Dreadful, is getting a comic series from Titan in Spring 2016. Written by staffers Chris King, Krysty Wilson-Cairns, and Andrew Hinderaker and illustrated by Louie de Martinis, the series follows a bunch of classic Gothic Victorian characters as they uncover and confront supernatural elements in London. It’s sort of like “The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen” but with far less raping.
– In the 70s, the incomparable Will Eisner turned in a bunch of one-page joke gags about sharks in space called “Star Jaws.” The Comics Journal rounds up a couple of them and they’re charming.
– Kate Beaton’s The Princess and the Pony was a wonderful treat, and her collection of “Hark! A Vagrant” strips, “Step Aside Pops” was one of the highlights from this year. Scholastic (through their Arthur A. Levine imprint) has announced her next picture book, King Baby, slated to release on September 13, 2016. The story of “a baby who rules over everybody’s life” is probably super relatable to many readers.
– Oh man, do you guys remember Steel? The 1997 Shaquille O’Neal vehicle about a superhero who obeys the law or something? I remember there was a chase scene where he was having his crew turn the street lights green so he wouldn’t run them. Anyway, the podcast How Did This Get Made? and SlashFilm (lovingly hubbed by The A.V. Club) have a series of articles about exactly what went wrong with that movie. These things probably won’t make you want to dig out the movie, but it’s interesting to watch the train wreck in retrospect.
– Andrew Kreisberg, the showrunner for the CBS series, Supergirl has announced that Bizarro will soon appear on the program.
– Finally, in Webcomics Worth Clicking: “Endeavors of Men (and otherwise)” by Wesley Russell is a high fantasy, dimension-hopping adventure, with all your favorite elements: grand battles, young heroes, dinosaurs. Russell shows nice control of the story though one of the biggest draws to the comic is his willingness to experiment. He tries different layouts, switches from black-and-white to color, and seems to push himself to play with the medium. It’s super cool like that.
If you have any other webcomics you’d recommend, shoot me an email or leave them in the comments!
