Welcome back to our new feature Comic News Roundup. Here, we give you a run down of the news from comic book publishers and other pop culture news that was released throughout this week. We have news from Baltimore Comic-Con, AfterShock Comics. DC Comics, Diamond Distributors, Z2 Comics, and Boom! Studios.
Baltimore Comic-Con
This coming weekend is the first virtual running of one of the best comic conventions of the year. Baltimore Comic-Con has engaged the folks at Mainframe Comic Con to help put together one heck of a lineup of live virtual programming.
Baltimore Comic-Con has traditionally been known and praised as a convention that puts comic books first, and this weekend’s programming reflects that theme. There are a bunch of comic creator spotlight panels and themed sessions with creators talking about current and past comic projects.
There are live Q&A panels planned and private creator Meet & Greets available for purchase. There are links to the sites of creators, retailers, and publishers who would have been on the floor of the Baltimore Convention Center in any other year.
The jewel of the weekend for me is the live broadcast of the 2020 Ringo Awards on Saturday at 8:00PM EDT. This year it is hosted by Kevin Smith with a keynote speech by Geoff Johns. You can find a list of the nominees for this year here.
AfterShock Comics
This week AfterShock announced I Breathed A Body, a new horror series debuting in January 2021. This book is from writer Zac Thompson and artist Andy MacDonald. Here is the description from AfterShock.
“When the world’s biggest influencer posts something irredeemably horrific online, the world changes in an instant. Now it’s up to his social media manager to fan the flames of outrage and create a sensationalist campaign that rewrites the rules of “banned content.” Thus begins a carnival of lust, revulsion, desire and disgust – all for viral videos.”
DC Comics
This news is about a week old but DC Comics has announced a two month hiatus from the books that remain in the monthly comic line and having a new event called Future State.
They have lined up a great mix of creative talent to explore near and far future iterations of many of the main characters in their universe. After the January-February event concludes, DC has said that there books will continue the storylines from 2020 and start new arcs for 2021.
DC Executive Editor Marie Javins had this to say:
“The DC Universe has always been fertile ground for new and refreshing takes on our characters, and DC Future State definitely contributes to this legacy. When the event begins in January, some savvy readers will not only pick up on some of the breadcrumbs that have already been tossed out in our current titles, but they will also find new hints and clues of what’s to come in 2021.”
There have been a lot of hard feelings about the business and distribution decisions that DC has made this year, but I have to say that this event promises to be very interesting and the art looks amazing.
Boom! Studios
Boom! Studios announced a new original graphic novel from Cookie Kalkair and Ophelie Damble called Guerilla Green. It is about a “thirty-year-old city-dweller who’s joined the guerilla gardening movement, which has been fighting for decades to bring more green back into cities that increasingly resemble concrete jungles.”
This will be available in April 2021.
Z2 Comics
Z2 Comics announced the retail distribution of a terrific anthology. True War Stories was funded on Kickstarter this summer and is now being made available through retail outlets. It is a collection of real stories as told by military veterans and illustrated by a Who’s Who of comic stars.
The printed book will be in stores on November 25, 2020 just in time for Local Comic Shop Day, and co-editor Alex de Campi had this to say:
“TRUE WAR STORIES is incredibly important to me personally, and I’m so proud of the absolutely top-tier work my collaborators have done in these stories. What makes it really perfect for Local Comic Shop Day is that not only is it great for hardcore comics fans, but also such an easy book to hand-sell to casual browsers. TRUE WAR STORIES is perfect for the military veteran or “dad who loves nonfiction” or the friend who doesn’t really read many comics. And a big, chunky self-contained 250-page reads that look really nice gift-wrapped for the holidays, just saying.”
Diamond Distributors
Diamond Comic Distributors released the sales and units ordered numbers for September. It is slightly amusing. I am not sure how relevant these numbers are nowadays. With DC Comics’ decision to not use Diamond to distribute their books, analyzing sales on a monthly basis is very difficult for the public. Needless to say that Marvel did very well.
I am not sure what this actually says about the state of the direct comic market with incomplete numbers. If you are interested in the details, you can check out the press release here.
