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.
In case you missed it, we have an exclusive preview of “Witchblood” #1, and an exclusive art feature for “The Final Girls,” plus an update on SDCC’s planned Thanksgiving convention.
Art by Didier Conrad
– Asterix and Obelix are back for more dashing Gallic adventures this year with a new album and video game set to release in the coming months. “Asterix and the Griffin” will be the 39th album in the series, and the first to be released since the death of “Asterix” co-creator Albert Uderzo. The book is written by Jean-Yves Ferri, with art by Didier Conrad, and follows Asterix and Obelix on an adventure out of their familiar Gallic homeland. “Asterix and the Griffin” will release October 21. Additionally, Asterix & Obelix: Slap them All! is set to release on all current-gen consoles in Fall 2021. The side-scroller is animated in the familiar style coined by René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo. The two-player game will be available on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch and PC.
– Some of the biggest names in indie comic art have just joined Vault Comics’s Cover Artists-in-Residence program. Yoshi Yoshitani (“Beneath the Moon”), Martin Simmonds (“Department of Truth”), Joshua Hixson (“Shanghai Red”), Corin Howell (“Calamity Kate”) and Jen Hickman (“Lonely Receiver”) will be given the chance to draw variant covers for entire series runs at Vault Comics, with open-order publishing numbers. “In comics, we want to be judged by our covers,” said Vault EiC Adrian Wassel. “That’s why we started CAIR — our Cover Artist in Residence program.” All covers will feature the design work of Tim Daniels.
– Courtesy of column X-Men Monday, author Victor LaValle will be joining the X-Office at Marvel, writing one of the iconic X-Men villains not yet seen on Krakoa. Victor LaValle is a novelist known for his texts The Ecstatic, Big Machine, and Slapboxing with Jesus, as well as the comic “Destroyer,” and the upcoming “Eve.” There aren’t many candidates for villains left untouched in the Krakoa era, but strong contenders include Cassandra Nova, Lady Deathstrike, or Sabretooth after his exile into The Pit.
– News Corp, Rupert Murdoch’s media conglomerate, is continuing its monopolization and consolidation of the publishing industry in a recent acquisition of the Books & Media segment for Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. The US$349 million purchase will lead to their merger with HarperCollins, also under the umbrella of News Corp. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt currently owns the rights to a wide range of children’s and young adult’s literature including Kayla Miller’s graphic novels “Click,” “Camp,” “Act” and “Clash.” In addition their back catalogue includes seminal classics like The Lord of the Rings, Animal Farm, and the collected works of Virginia Woolf. News Corp will now be competing with Penguin Random House, the other major publishing corporation, who have been recently angling to acquire Simon & Schuster for US$2 billion, and just announced their role as Marvel Comics’s new distributor.
– The Austrian Cultural Forum New York is hosting a new exhibition, Three With a Pen, which will spotlight the work of cartoonists Lily Renée, Paul Peter Porges, and Bil Spira. The Jewish artists all fled from Nazi-occupied Vienna during the Anschluss, with the former two taking up residence in New York, and Spira in Paris. The artists became prolific for their works in The New Yorker, “MAD Magazine,” and many other major periodicals of the period. “We are delighted to present this selection of work by these influential artists,” said ACFNY Director Michael Haider. “While very different stylistically, they … produced a rich array of characters and stories based on current events, daily life, memories of Vienna, and their vivid imaginations.”
– Russell Crowe has reportedly joined the cast of Thor: Love and Thunder alongside Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Christian Bale and Tessa Thompson. The star is likely set for a cameo role in the film, similar to that of Sam Neill, Matt Damon and Luke Hemsworth in Thor: Ragnarok, also by director Taika Waititi. Crowe has already been seen on set as a part of the film’s Australian production elements. Thor: Love and Thunder is currently set for release on May 6, 2022.
Continued below
– Lucifer Season 5b will premiere May 28, 2021 on Netflix, giving fans eight more episodes before the sixth and final season. Alongside returning stars Tom Ellis, Lauren German, Lesley-Ann Brandt and D.B. Woodside, the latter half of season 5 is set to feature Dennis Haysbert as the voice of God, as well as Deadpool star Brianna Hildebrand’s debut as Rory, an angel rebelling from Heaven.
– StarWars.com has given us an update on the state of the Disney+ Obi-Wan Kenobi series, with a full cast announcement and production date revealed. Ewan McGregor will return to star as the Jedi-in-exile Kenobi, alongside prequel trilogy co-stars Hayden Christensen as Darth Vader, Joel Edgerton as Owen Lars, and Bonnie Piesse as Beru. Joining them will be Kumail Nanjiani, Moses Ingram, Sung Kang, Indira Varma, Rupert Friend, O’Shea Jackson Jr., Simone Kessell, and Benny Safdie. The series, directed by Deborah Chow, will begin shooting this April, likely using the same in-door VFX screening studios pioneered by The Mandalorian.
– Finally, Frank Quitely (real name Vincent Deighan) has been named a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. Per the Irvine Times, the artist, whose work includes “New X-Men,” “All-Star Superman,” and “Jupiter’s Legacy,” was one of 87 people named as new fellows of Scotland’s national academy of science and letters.
Be the first to comment