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.
– While entertainment media setting up at comic shows is nothing new, I’m pretty sure nobody expected to see that Nickelodeon would be taking animation pitches at SPX this September. There’s obviously more information at the link, but the bottom line is they are accepting in-person pitches for animated shorts lasting 2-3 minutes (the shorts, not the pitches). They are looking to produce one short out of all pitches accepted, so pitchers should be prepared to bring their A game. I know I was surprised to see Nick doing this, but if you really think about it, it makes pretty good sense. With the current crop of popular children’s animation over at Cartoon Network springing from the creative minds of cartoonists like Rebecca Sugar and Pendleton Ward, Nickelodeon looking to pick that creative fruit right from the tree seems pretty inevitable. And while getting tapped by Nickelodeon isn’t exactly like getting a book deal from Fantagraphics or Top Shelf, that sweet sweet animation money can go a long way in self-publishing.
– Colossus might be showing up in Deadpool but don’t hold your breath for any X-characters appearing in future Fantastic Four films, because producer Simon Kinberg says they are in two parallel universes. He does say having them crossover would be “challenging”, but maybe that’s code for “we can’t say yes right now because of studio politics but we’d love to see it.” Because if anyone knows about crossing into other universes and have a history for ‘challenging’ things in their inspirational lineage, it would be the Fantastic Four.
– But there’s a potential X-Men television show in the works, so there might not be time to worry about them crossing over in movies when they’re beamed into your house every week. The thing that jumped out at me about that news was seeing Manny Coto attached; say what you will about Star Trek: Enterprise, the most watchable episodes of that series were the 4th season ones with Coto as a showrunner where he got the show to finally embrace all the history it seemed to have been avoiding up til that point. Plus he also directed an early Dark Horse comics-to-film property: Dr Giggles. I swear I’m not making this up.
– Now that Channing Tatum has officially signed on the line which is dotted for his own X-film Gambit, the studio is quickly trying to figure out who’s going to be on the receiving end of the Cajun’s famous charm. The current short list has Rebecca Ferguson, Lea Seydoux, Abbey Lee getting the honor.
– Latest Fantastic Four director Josh Trank isn’t even waiting for the film to open wide before saying his version was better.
– And in news containing neither X or double F in any kind of prominence, the next volume of “Miracleman” stories is getting ready to kick off next month, and some of the remastered pages are making the rounds. You can see revamped Buckingham/D’Israeli artwork here, and in your LCS on September 2nd.