By Brandy Dykhuizen. Somewhere, betwixt the massive crowds that make you want to go on a Hulk-smash rampage and the small armada of four-year-olds we saw dressed as Harley Quinn, the world’s largest Comic Con is still, at least in part, about the comics. Below are five news items to come out of SDCC this year that got us excited about the months ahead.
Covers to ‘Kid Lobotomy’ and ‘Punks Not Dead’/Black Crown
1. Creator-owned Black Crown, coming soon from IDW. Shelly Bond is back in action, and she already has loads in store for us. Tini Howard (The Skeptics) and Gilbert Hernandez (Love and Rockets) are combining forces on the upcoming Assassinistas miniseries, a 6-parter set for publication in December. Peter Milligan (Britannia) and Tess Fowler (Rat Queen) will anchor the new imprint this October with Kid Lobotomy.
Come January we can expect to enjoy a quirky collaboration from David Barnett (Calling Major Tom) and Martin Simmonds (Death Sentence) called Punks Not Dead, featuring a bullied teen being trailed by… the ghost of Sid Vicious (!!!). Combining music, art, and mayhem, IDW is delivering a uniquely fantastic creator-owned centerpiece. Throw in a 48-page quarterly compendium due out this fall and, all in all, we are in for a real treat from Black Crown.
Image: Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times
2. The 2017 Eisner Awards. If you’re looking to update your reading list, search no further. Friday’s Eisner Awards saw Saga clean house with Best Writer (Brian K. Vaughan), Best Continuing Series, Best Cover Artist and Best Penciller/Inker (Fiona Staples on both counts). Jill Thompson was awarded for her work on both Wonder Woman: The True Amazon and the one-off Beasts of Burden: Look What the Cat Dragged In. Singaporean writer/artist and media darling Sonny Liew took home Best Writer/Artist, Best U.S. Edition of International Material and Best Publication Design for his 2016 Singaporean meta-history, The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye.
While DoomRocket has yet to garner a mention for Best Comics-Related Periodical/Journalism (we kid, we kid), we’re extremely happy with how the ceremony went down. For a complete list of this year’s winners, click here.
Photo: Willy Sanjuan/Invision/AP
3. You can’t keep Stan “The Man” down. The nonagenarian legend co-responsible for Spider-Man, The X-Men, Thor and many, many, many others is still making appearances and lending his talents to the superhero world. Stan Lee graced the con with his presence once again, just after heading up to Los Angeles to dip his hands and feet in wet cement at Hollywood’s TCL Chinese Theater. What made this honor — and his presence at SDCC this year — so remarkable was that both events took place only two short weeks after his wife of seven decades, Joan, passed away from a stroke.
Mr. Lee also announced recently that he will provide a vocal track for a new superhero audiobook project, currently in the works from Audible. Together with Luke Lieberman (Red Sonja) and Ryan Silbert (God of Love), Lee will help bring to life a set of characters tasked with navigating a politically-charged universe entirely new to us. (As opposed to the one we’re stuck in.) The Audible project has no set release date yet, but we hope its success will lead to more projects from Mr. Lee in the near future. Excelsior.
Photo: Allison Michael Orenstein/Hollywood Reporter
4. Frank Miller announces ‘Superman: Year One’. A lot can happen between crash landing in a cornfield and making a splash in Metropolis, and Frank Miller has announced his intentions to fill in those formative blanks for the Man of Steel.
Three decades after illuminating Batman’s less-than-humble origins, Miller revealed his plans for Superman during the DC Master Class panel on Sunday. Having been accused in the past of taking a rather antagonistic approach to Superman within his Dark Knight stories, Miller is now keen to explore the Man of Steel’s heroic iconography. (The artist admitted to the press that he’s eager to take a “meaningful crack” at writing this iconic character.)
Miller skirted any and all plot teasers, but you can always count on Frank for a few good surprises. In the meantime, fans can look forward to the launch of 300 follow-up, Xerxes: The Fall of the House of Darius and the Rise of Alexander, set to release from Dark Horse in 2018.
Image: Warner Bros. Pictures
5. And of course, the trailers. We can’t ignore Hollywood entirely over here, and with what they have in store for us, we wouldn’t want to.
Fans were treated to extended, ass-kicking footage of the upcoming Black Panther film, which brought the entirety of Hall H to its feet. The new Justice League trailer, meanwhile, teased a not-so big surprise. (Is the Man of Steel coming back from the dead? I think we all know the answer to that.) Thor: Ragnarok unveiled a new trailer with a commanding Cate Blanchett going toe-to-toe with the charmingly goofy Thor we’ve come to love.
Aquaman also made quite the splash with an as-yet-unreleased teaser trailer, complete with the man himself, Jason Momoa, who took a break filming in Australia to join fans and cause a triton-wielding ruckus in Hall H. While it’s possible we’ve had just about enough of The Walking Dead and Preacher, the resurgence of Rocko’s Modern Life: Static Cling, the Doctor Who Christmas Special, and the plethora of Marvel options ensured that there was something for everyone.
What news from SDCC 2017 has you excited? Sound off in the comments below.
