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.
– With the controversy surrounding the Angoulême International Comics Festival, where the judges claimed that women have never exactly produced comics work, The Guardian has assembled a brief history of female cartoonists. They include creators like Alison Bechdel and June Mills, creator of Miss Fury, who wrote under the name Tarpé, to hide her gender. (There’s a character in “The Unwritten” based off her, by the way.) The judges of the Angoulême International Comics Festival this year are eating their feet so hard that they might just devour themselves into oblivion and clear the way for less manspainling-prone curators.
– Gene Luen Yang has been named the National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature by Children’s Book Council, Every Child is a Reader, and the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress. He’s the first cartoonist to have received the honor, as well as the youngest and first Asian-American recipient. Boing Boing handily provided a transcript of his inaugural speech. More than anything, this shows how kids, young readers, and everyone in-between has a strong attraction to comics, even if Marvel, DC, and Diamond Distributors would have you believe otherwise. Be sure to check out our series of interviews with Yang, conducted by Paul Lai.
– Kevin Smith will be directing an upcoming episode of The Flash. Smith is no stranger to the DCU, hosting a regular podcast called Fat Man on Batman, not to mention also having written several Green Arrow stories. During his prime, he also created the comics industry centered Chasing Amy. Smith’s last feature film was Tusk.
– In other DC TV news, the CW has renewed Vixen for a second season, as well as hinting at a live action version of the character on Arrow proper. However, TNT has decided not to pursue a Teen Titans series, due to “an unbelievable glut of superhero things in the market right now” and the fact that there wasn’t really a script. At least we still have the wild antics and sheer insanity of Teen Titans Go!, and really, could TNT and Akiva Goldsmith have delivered something nearly as imaginative?
– Check out the cover to volume six of Bastien Vivès, Michael Sanlaville, and Balak’s manga-inspired Mad Max-esque series, “Last Man.” This marks the halfway point for the series published by First Second.
– Zainab Akhtar has assembled these great commentaries from cartoonists, editors, critics, and festival directors (among others) reflecting on comics in 2015. It’s a great way to close out the year and look forward to what’s coming up in 2016.
– Last Friday we asked you, what comic adaptation film are you most excited about for 2015? Well, the results are in and 67 of you (for 39% of voters) are all about Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice, at its 150 minute run-time. Coming in close second is Captain America: Civil War, with 44 votes, followed by Marvel’s other offering for the year with Doctor Strange, at 25 votes. Absolutely no one, it seems, is about Gambit.
Be sure to check back on Friday for our next Weekly Readers Poll!
