This Week’s Indie Comics News Cycle
This is the latest installment of ’ Indie Comics News. This page is a revolving news cycle post and will cease updating at 12pm 17th September AEST. You will find the latest indie comics news included here that are relevant for the week ending 17/9/21. Any news submitted outside of this time frame are counted as News for the following week and as such will be included in Next Week’s News Cycle.
NOTE: Indie Comics News WILL NOT be added retrospectively. Once the week is over, the news cycle is over.
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Indie Comics News – 10th September 2021
Jump Tales: Issues 1-3 Launches on Kickstarter
JUMP TALES, an upcoming indie comics magazine, launches on Kickstarter September 14, 2021. Made by and for fans of shonen manga, Jump Tales features a host of diverse, up-and-coming creators each bringing their own style and skill.
Jump Tales endeavors to capture the feeling of Japanese manga magazines like Shueisha’s Shonen Jump. Each issue of Jump Tales, releasing digitally on a monthly basis, will feature four ongoing series as well as one-shots from guest creators. Physical editions will be printed and shipped on a quarterly basis.
This first Kickstarter campaign for Issues 1-3 will fund three digital issues and one printed edition—three chapters for each of the four main series as well as four additional one-shots.
MAIN SERIES:
BATTLE ROAD
Created by Darren Vogt and Edited by Kyla Smith
Some time ago, musical instruments were imbued with magical properties that gave musicians extraordinary powers. The meaning of the phrase “Battle of the Bands” became something much more real. Eventually, a road was built that passed through all of the world’s most popular —and most dangerous—music venues. Battle Road became a thing of legend, inspiring musicians far and wide to follow it in search of fame and fortune. “Fro” Lombardo, a budding Synth Mage, sets off on Battle Road alone with his keytar, in hopes of finding his perfect band along the way.
CHECK AND MATE
Created by Sam Owen and Edited by Mark Bouchard
Nia Crown is a student at Castile Chess Academy. Despite studying and playing chess every day, she can’t seem to raise her rating and wonders if she’ll ever be able to achieve her dream of becoming a grandmaster. That’s when a new student, Emil Ender, transfers to Castile. Despite being an incorrigible hustler, his chess skills were good enough to earn him a spot at the prestigious school. Nia finds Emil’s methods questionable and constantly bumps heads with him, while Emil thinks Nia is too stiff and doesn’t play to win. However, Nia and Emil eventually realize they have to help each other if they want to enter the regional tournament at the end of the year and go on to reach new heights in the chess world.
MONSTER WORLD
Story by Victor Santiago, Art by Markk JC, and Edited by Alberto Rayo
Welcome to MONSTER WORLD, the most popular game ever created. Players explore a massive fantasy world in search of ancient monsters to awaken, raise, and battle their way through endless challenges. Except it’s not just a game anymore. When the latest update for Monster World is released, five players find themselves transported into a virtual world filled with monsters—for real. With their lives turned upside down, the children and their monster partners are in for the adventure of their lives. Now, the chase is on to solve the mysteries hidden within the game and save both worlds.
PANCAKE JOHNSON: ATTORNEY AT WAR
Story by Oliver Gerlach, Art By Stefani Vlusha, and Edited By Frankee White
Pancake Johnson is a straight laced, by-the-books lawyer. He loves his husband, his dog, and JUSTICE. But when an old nemesis from Pancake’s past reappears, his life is thrown into turmoil. Proving his husband’s innocence and getting back on track should be straightforward, but the courts are rigged against him and corruption runs rife. It’s time for Pancake to tear the rulebook in half with his bare hands, and bring a new level of furious, chaotic, and wildly unexpected legal warfare to the courts.
GUEST ONE-SHOTS
REVOLVING SKY
Created by Bayleigh Underwood
A young skater from earth moves to a rotating space colony and is introduced to the world of low gravity skating.
TAKESHI’S RUN
Createdby C. Thomas Anderson
After the botched robbery of a rival gang, Takeshi Ito (a young delinquent) is forced to flee Tokyo when his bosses blame him for the lost cargo. Takeshi never intended to betray his partners, however he had little choice when he found himself at the mercy of the “cargo” he had been hired to steal.
ILLARYS
Created by Jorge Santiago Jr.
A half-elf girl must brave the cold wilderness as she and her younger brother flee their despotic homeland to rejoin their mother.
LIVING GHOSTS
Created by Kyla Smith
Nemura is haunted by nightmares, and not just when she’s asleep. But it seems that the only person who may be able to help her is harboring strange secrets of her own.
For more information on Jump Tales‘ lineup, be sure to follow Jump Tales on social media.
www.kickstarter.com/projects/jumptales/jump-tales-issues-1-3
www.jumptales.com
Twitter: @jumptalesmag
Instagram: @jumptales
Mike Mignola to Illustrate His First Full Length Comic in Five Years
For the first time in five years, legendary Hellboy creator Mike Mignola is both writing and illustrating a full length comic book, one which provides the next chapter in the fabled Hellboy Universe. Titled Sir Edward Grey: Acheron, the one shot story is set following the events of B.P.R.D.: The Devil You Know, in which the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense managed to fight off the monsters on earth long enough for humanity to barely escape underground. The story is Mignola’s first full length comic book since Dark Horse Comics published Hellboy in Hell in 2016; here he reunites with award-winning colorist Dave Stewart, as well as letterer and longtime collaborator Clem Robbins. Dark Horse Comics will publish Sir Edward Grey: Acheron this winter, featuring a main cover by Mignola and Stewart and a variant cover by acclaimed artist Ben Stenbeck and Stewart.
“I’ve been saying I’ve been semi-retired for years, but I keep coming up with new stories anyway” said Mignola. “In Sir Edward Grey: Acheron, Hellboy is dead and gone and the B.P.R.D. are underground. And so it turns to Edward Grey to return to Hell to confront a familiar foe and finish what needs to be done to truly save the world.”
“The mysterious Edward Grey has long been in the shadows of the Hellboy Universe,” said Katii O’Brien. “The Victorian occult detective’s ghost made repeated appearances in Hellboy in Hell, but now he’s front and center. If the original weird investigator can’t save the world, no one can.”
Sir Edward Grey: Acheron will be published by Dark Horse Comics on December 1, 2021. For more information about the Hellboy Universe, follow Dark Horse Comics on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
The Truth Could Destroy Everything in SOMETHING IS KILLING THE CHILDREN #20
BOOM! Studios today revealed a first look at SOMETHING IS KILLING THE CHILDREN #20, the next issue in the Eisner Award-nominated horror series from GLAAD Award-winning author James Tynion IV (The Woods, Batman), artist Werther Dell’Edera (Briggs Land), colorist Miquel Muerto (Bury the Lede), and letterer AndWorld Design (We Only Find Them When They’re Dead), about Erica’s early experiences with the House of Slaughter and the start of her monster-hunting career… before the horrifying events that brought her to Archer’s Peak, available in September 2021.
Can Erica withstand the final stages of the mysterious Order of St. George initiation? Erica finally faces her official initiation into the Order of St. George, a torturous process that pits a child against an unrestrained monster… and bonds them to it for the rest of their life. Does Erica have what it takes to earn the Mark of St. George, embody the oath of secrecy each member of the House of Slaughter makes, and take her rightful place among the Order?
SOMETHING IS KILLING THE CHILDREN #20 features main cover art by series artist Werther Dell’Edera and variant cover art by fan favorite artists Evyn Fong (Magic the Gathering) and Valerio Schiti (X-Men).
SOMETHING IS KILLING THE CHILDREN is the newest release from BOOM! Studios’ eponymous imprint, home to critically acclaimed original series, including BRZRKR by Keanu Reeves, Matt Kindt, and Ron Garney; We Only Find Them When They’re Dead by Al Ewing and Simone Di Meo; Seven Secrets by Tom Taylor and Daniele Di Nicuolo; Once & Future by Kieron Gillen and Dan Mora; Abbott by Saladin Ahmed and Sami Kivelä; The Many Deaths of Laila Starr by Ram V and Filipe Andrade; Proctor Valley Road by Grant Morrison, Alex Child, and Naomi Franquiz; and Eve by Victor LaValle and Jo Mi-Gyeong. The imprint also publishes popular licensed properties including Dune: House Atreides from Brian Herbert, Kevin J. Anderson, and Dev Pramanik; Mighty Morphin and Power Rangers from Ryan Parrott, Marco Renna, and Francesco Mortarino; and Magic from Jed MacKay and Ig Guara.
Print copies of SOMETHING IS KILLING THE CHILDREN #20 will be available for sale September 29, 2021 exclusively at local comic book shops (use comicshoplocator.com to find the nearest one) or at the BOOM! Studios webstore. Digital copies can be purchased from content providers, including comiXology, iBooks, Google Play, and Kindle.
For continuing news on SOMETHING IS KILLING THE CHILDREN and more from BOOM! Studios, stay tuned to www.boom-studios.com and follow @boomstudios on Twitter.
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