The Rundown: The Governor Returns to The Walking Dead, Hugo Nominees Announced, and more

Welcome back to The Rundown, our daily breakdown on news stories we missed from the previous day. Have a link to share? Email me at david@multiversitycomics.com.

– As if we didn’t know this was coming after the Season 3 finale, but it was confirmed that David Morrissey, also known as The Walking Dead’s Governor, is returning for season four. What I am slightly surprised by is how he’ll be a full out regular, which means at the very least, season four will be partially bifurcated like season three was between the prison and Woodbury. Great, right? No. Not great. After Morrissey started off giving the character a lot of depth and interesting subtleties, the writers quickly devolved him into what was effectively a caricature of a horror movie villain. I really, really wish he’d been killed in the finale, which speaks volumes as to how much the writing staff of the show dropped the ball with the character.

– In other Walking Dead news, the show’s site had an April Fool’s joke yesterday where they “revealed” the episode names for season four, which would be if the show turned into “The Walking Daryl.” It’s not funny, as the joke’s on them: the show would be much more interesting if they did the joke version.

– The 2013 Hugo Award nominees are out, and the graphic story category is pretty damn hard to argue with. Regulars like Saga and Locke & Key are highlighted, but the other three nominees are Paul Cornell and Ryan Kelly’s recently canceled Saucer Country, Howard Tayler and Travis Walton’s Schlock Mercenary: Random Access Memorabilia, and Bryan Talbot’s Grandville Bête Noire. It’s an interesting and diverse list, which is always great to see from this medium.

– We knew Astro City was coming back, but now we know something else: it’s coming back as a Vertigo book. Couldn’t make much more sense, and it’s about time DC did something to beef up the DC line-up.

– Speaking of Vertigo, Jeff Lemire cruelly teased us on April Fool’s with a “Canadian Vampire” book from him and Scott Snyder. This has been a joke for a while now, but I’d love to see what they’d come up with. Who wouldn’t want to experience the extremely friendly, hockey enthusiast breed of vampire?