Some thought they might turn up in the DC Extended Universe, but it looks like they’re headed to Netflix.
For an anime.
Of Magic the Gathering?!
Here’s the official announcement tweet from Netflix…
HUGE ANNOUNCEMENT TIME: Netflix and Wizards of the Coast are teaming up with Joe and Anthony Russo to make a Magic: The Gathering anime series and this teaser of Chandra has me asking QUESTIONS. pic.twitter.com/vljlEtl0Mq
According to new details about the series, Anthony and Joe Russo will executive produce the series. In a newly released statement, the pair shared how excited they are to work on the series and confirmed they are lifelong fans of Magic: The Gathering as well.
“We have been huge fans and players of Magic: The Gathering for as long as it has been around, so being able to help bring these stories to life through animation is a true passion project for us,” the duo said.
So far, there are few details out about the project, but it will focus on the expansive world of Magic: The Gathering and its Planeswalker, which are described as “Magic’s unique magic-wielding heroes and villains as they contend with stakes larger than any one world can hold.”
But is at actually anime?
Not to be a Debbie Downer here, but we do have some concerns about the project.
The first being the teaser image of Chandra Nalaar, which is obviously CGI… and very western looking. It might not be indicative of the final animation itself, but it’s clearly not what I would call “anime.”
The series is being animated by a company called Octopie Studios. Geeky has done some sleuthing (as she often does) and it seems that Octopie is now home to several former Machinima staffers.
Machinima created the Transformers: Combiner Wars “anime” that ran on their YouTube channel. It even shares some of the same staffers as Netflix’s Magic the Gathering.
Of course, Machinima got obliterated in the first wave of mergers and cuts at Otter Studios, which has now been rolled into Warner Media. Other Otter Media divisions include Crunchyroll, VRV and Rooster Teeth. (And the word on the street is more cutbacks are coming — possibly even to Cartoon Network.)
I mean, there’s no way to know what the final animated series will actually look like. But if you’re expecting a straight up, 2D Japanese anime it will likely not be Magic the Gathering.
Still, having the Russo Brothers involved says something, right?
If you’re a small press comic book creator and thinking of crowdfunding a comics project, you might want to hear about a new initiative that Small Press Expo (SPX) is launching in conjunction with Kickstarter.
Here’s more details from their press release…
If you launch a Kickstarter campaign for a small press or self-published comic or zine in September, your project will be featured in the initiative.
You’ll also receive the following: Personal guidance and support on how to setup and run your project with Kickstarter’s Comics Outreach Lead, the fantastic Camilla Zhang
Potential promotion in newsletters, social media, and Kickstarter Magazine
Kickstarter balloons for your SPX table and your name called out in the Program Guide with a special color, bringing more visibility to you and your tablemates’ amazing work.
Bonus: If you’re selling books that you’ve funded with Kickstarter at SPX, email comics@kickstarter.com by June 30 to get special (and useful) Kickstarter swag for your table!
The Small Press Expo has sort of become the “It Con” for indie comics publishers lately. I can honestly say it’s one of the few conventions where people actually go to seek out and buy new comic books. SPX has hosted the Ignatz Awards since 1997.
This year’s SPX takes place on September 14 and 15, 2019 at the the Marriott Bethesda North Hotel & Conference Center.
Good luck getting a table, however! Exhibitors are curated and tables are in high demand, with a lottery system being instituted in recent years.
According the Variety Robert Pattinson is officially the new Batman.
Warner Bros. has confirmed that a deal has been signed for the Twilight actor to play Batman in the upcoming film that will hit theaters on June 25, 2021.
Deadline has said that the new Matt Reeves’ trilogy will have no connection to the previous Ben Affleck Batman.
This film will in no way carry on the work that Ben Affleck did as the older Batman in Batman Vs. Superman and Justice League.
It seems that they are going to continue with more stand alone superhero movies going forward with the DC properties. Aquaman, Wonder Woman and Shazam! have all performed well.
I’m just not sure where this one is going to fall and who can cross over into it. Although I didn’t mind the one suggestion, on social media, about Batman Beyond with Bruce Wayne played by Michael Keaton and Terry played by Robert Pattinson. I doubt that’s where they would go, but I would have liked to have seen something like that.
The new film will be called The Batman and will be produced by Reeves and his Planet of the Apes collaborator Dylan Clark. Fans can expect it in theaters 2021.
This new musical will be based on the Princess Kaguya story from the Sailor Moon S movie, the second Sailor Moon movie. This one follows the story of an ice villain named Princess Snow Kaguya comes to Earth to freeze it with the help of her Snow Dancers. The Sailor Scouts must fight and defeat the enemy.
What I really love about this story is the large part Luna plays and how Sailor Moon helps her take her human form as the Princess Kaguya. It’s always been one of my favorites!
Currently this musical is only planned for Japan, but there’s always a chance it will come over like other ones have in the past!
A variant cover for Marvel Comics #1000 featured a collage celebrating 80 years of Marvel history… and some characters from rival DC Comics.
Oopsie.
From Newsarama…
One of the just-solicited variant covers for August’s Marvel Comics #1000 is a collage of art and covers from numerous Marvel Comics stories dating back to the 1930s – and apparently, one image that traces back to a DC comic book from just a few years ago.
Spotted by Twitter user ‘Symbiobro’, the image, which appears in the collage in the middle right hand side of the image, depicts two men kissing. It seems to be ‘sampled’ from a page from DC Comics’ Earth 2 #2. The characters depicted in that scene are Alan Scott, the Green Lantern of Earth 2, and his partner.
Lol, on this marvel comics #1000 variant, they have two gay guys kissing, but it's from a DC comics pic.twitter.com/Du8vnIfAJd
According to Newsarama, the snafu is going to be corrected. Because of course it is.
Here’s an image of the full cover of Marvel Comics #1000.
What is Marvel Comics #1000?
Marvel Comics #1000 is supposed to be a celebration of 80 years of Marvel Comics since it coincides with the publication of Marvel Comics #1 in 1939.
(Buuuut the Marvel Comics universe as we know it didn’t start until the 1960s, despite characters like Captain America and Namor being introduced during the Timely Comics era.)
Really, it’s just an excuse to do an 80 page “event” book with 80 different single page comics by a bunch of different creators featuring lots of different characters.
Because, you know, DC Comics sold a ton of #1000 books and Marvel wants some of that. Who cares if it’s not actually a legitimate issue #1000, am I right?
However, that doesn’t mean that comics creators can’t make a sustainable living working outside of the mainstream comic book industry.
There’s been an explosion in six-figure crowdfunded comic book projects on Indiegogo, but you wouldn’t know it from visiting most of the news outlets that cover comics.
Sure, much has been made about Kickstarter’s comic book campaigns lately, even by the mainstream press. But you hardly ever hear anything about rival Indiegogo campaigns, even though on average they seem to be raising more per campaign.
Why not? I blame politics and mainstream publishing’s grip on comics media.
And it’s personal and political bias that is (in my opinion) keeping mainstream comic book news outlets from covering a boom in independent comic book funding and creation. Most (but not all) of the campaign creators lean conservative, and some creators openly identify as “comicsgate.”
In today’s divisive political climate, being openly conservative is likely an undesirable trait for freelancers to have in an industry that is dominated mostly by progressives. There’s some debate as to whether or not there’s actually a “blacklist” of conservatives in comics. But given how hostile many comics creators are to conservatives on social media it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to deduce that many of these people wouldn’t want to share comics credits with a political “enemy.”
I’ve noticed some “high strangeness” around how comics treats some conservative and “free-thinking” creators, and I’m a liberal.
Ethan Van Sciver’s CYBERFROG has made over $800,000 on Indiegogo… but no one is talking about it.
Former DC Comics artist turned YouTube commentator Ethan Van Sciver has raised over $800,000 in total for three different campaigns of his self-published title Cyberfrog. This includes the initial run as well as two variant runs. His initial campaign (at over $538K) would have landed him in the Top 5 most-funded campaigns of all-time had he been on Kickstarter.
Add to this that Van Sciver was also the only Marvel or DC pro that had generated over $500K in crowdfunding at the time. (The rest were webcomics creators, and Gabriel Picolo has since beaten Van Sciver’s initial campaign total.)
Yet none of the major comics news outlets seemed to cover the success of Cyberfrog as it was happening. I searched Newsarama, ComicBook.com Bleeding Cool, CBR, Comics Beat — nada.
In a recent livestream, Van Sciver stated that both Bleeding Cool and Newsarama reached out to him to do an interview, but both had backpeddled for various nebulous reasons.
Gabriel Picolo’s ICARUS AND THE SUN raised $596,401 on Indiegogo, making it the third highest-funded comics crowdfunding campaign of all time.
Had his campaign been on Kickstarter, it probably would have been all over the place. (Kickstarter definitely has the better PR machine in the comics space, that’s for sure.)
Richard Meyer’s JAWBREAKERS: LOST SOULS brought in over $400,000 for its first Indiegogo campaign, and an additional $56,000 for a Remaster.
Richard Meyer’s JAWBREAKERS made over $450,000, placing him in the Top 10 of Crowdfunded Comics Campaigns… but you can’t talk about HIM.
Love him or hate him, YouTube comics critic turned comics creator Richard C. Meyer (formerly known as Diversity & Comics) made bank on his Jawbreakers campaign. Over the course of two campaigns (one for a “remaster”), he raised over $450,000 with the first doing $400K.
And the comic book industry lost its bleepin’ mind. Things got so bad that Meyer is now in the middle of a lawsuit with Mark Waid, who he alleges interfered in a publishing deal with Antarctic Press.
The campaign seemingly got little to no mainstream coverage outside of admonishing Meyer’s “hot takes” on YouTube and his lawsuit with Waid. That $450,000 was generated almost entirely by his YouTube presence and word of mouth.
As I understand it, Meyer’s original plan was to bring Jawbreakers to Kickstarter, but the story is that Kickstarter wouldn’t allow him to run the campaign on their platform. Not because of the content of the book, but because someone there didn’t like his YouTube videos.
Doug TenNapel’s Indiegogo campaign for EARTHWORM JIM: LAUNCH THE COW brought in over $100,000 in a single day. It is currently sitting at just under $200,000 with 49 days left to go.
‘Earthworm Jim’ made $100,000 in a single day on Indiegogo, and the mainstream comics (and gaming) media didn’t touch it.
Eisner-winning creator Doug TenNapel is bringing back 16-bit gaming icon Earthworm Jim in graphic novel form. And you would think that alone would be newsworthy for comics media outlets, right?
How about major gaming sites like IGN, Kotaku and Polygon?
Nope, nope and nope.
Aside from a handful of blogs that cover Indiegogo campaigns and some smaller gaming sites, nobody talked about the runaway success of Earthworm Jim: Launch the Cow.
TenNapel is an outspoken conservative, but stressed that this project wasn’t “comicsgate.”
Doesn’t matter. The campaign is absolutely newsworthy for a variety of reasons, but media won’t touch it because they don’t like him.
The list goes on and on…
There have been dozens and dozens of other successful campaigns on Indiegogo in the past year, but you’re not hearing about them. And it is newsworthy. Especially at a time when the comic book industry is in “crisis mode.”
Comic Industry news is Comic Industry news, and it needs to be reported on.
But regardless of how you feel about the creators of these comic books, the fact that there are Indiegogo campaigns that would easily rank in the Top 10 most funded comics projects of all time on Kickstarter that are deliberately not being covered by most comic book “news” outlets is complete failure of “comics journalism.”
Personal bias and vendettas should have no place when there is legitimate, factual news about the comic book industry to be reported. People are making good money in comics on Indiegogo. Many of those comics are apolitical. And in a time when comic shops are closing at at alarming rate and mainstream publishers and laying off, this news does need to be reported.
It’s like the entire comic book “industry” and the journalists that cover it all decided to turn a blind eye to a massive opportunity for creators of all kinds.
Look, you don’t have to like the politics of the people behind the campaigns. But as an advocate for independent comics and for creators finding a better way to get paid to do the things they love, I’m legitimately angry that this isn’t being covered. It’s doing a huge disservice to displaced creators and up-and-comers to deliberately not tell them that there are other options out there.
The situation with these Indiegogo campaigns confirms to me what I’ve suspected for years.
Beyond politics, I personally think some of the animosity toward these campaigns is that most have a connection to creators who’ve become popular on YouTube. Comic book blogs are quickly losing relevance in the age of YouTube, and the dance that publishers and comics journalists did for the past couple of years just isn’t working as well as it used to.
I really have to wonder if sites like Newsarama, Comic Book Resources, etc. view YouTubers as competition. It does seem like they’re going to insane lengths to avoid talking about these campaigns in anything other than a negative light. CBR even forbids discussion of the Jawbreakers / Antarctic Press situation on its forums — despite it being one of the biggest stories in comics in 2018.
Even Neutrals and OG Comics Creators are getting caught in the crossfire of this bullshit.
There seems to be a “secret war” between comics media outlets and their supporters, and YouTubers and their supporters these days, with neutral parties and even oldschool comics creators being caught in the crossfire on social media.
Alterna Comics has seen a massive uptick in sales of their newsprint comics over the past year. They’ve also faced a lot of backlash from Twitter outrage mobs because they won’t take a “side.”
Alterna Comicscame under attack by “Twitter outrage mobs” because publisher Peter Simeti didn’t want people working with Alterna to use blockbots and wouldn’t publicly denounce readers who identified as “comicsgate.”
More recently, legendary comics creator Billy Tucci also got a taste of what it’s like to go up against “Club Comics” on Twitter. However, he had some choice words for them…
Again. I don't ever recall hitching my wagon to anyone. I'm Billy Fucking Tucci. Comic books about heroes, antiheroes and the journey will prevail over such strange and unwarranted toxicity. It always does.
Billy “Fucking” Tucci had some thoughts on the crazy censorship and collusion going on in the comic book industry on his own YouTube channel, Crowdfunding Comics. He was joined by Gemstone Publishing’s J.C. Vaughn and co-host Nile Scala.
Another legendary comics creator, Christopher Priest, was seemingly attacked by Newsarama who took his comments about there being “two genders” out of context.
The interview with Christopher Priest on Newsarama was supposed to be about Vampirella, but it wound up turning into an inquisition on Mr. Priest’s views on gender.
Here’s a bit from that interview…
Other veteran creators that have “called out” by comics media and Twitter outrage mobs for weighing in on the current state of the comic book industry include Chuck Dixon, Mike Baron and others.
What is the future of the comic book industry?
Even mainstream media is calling the time of death on the direct market.
The doomsday clock is ticking on the careers of many people working in comics right now.
Crowdfunding might be one of the only viable life rafts for a lot of comics creators, and to ignore the success of these campaigns, comics is acting like Denethor in Lord of the Rings — burning not just himself alive, but even those who can’t speak for themselves like Faramir.
The choice to burn yourself down with the rest of a dying industry or not should be yours and yours alone to make.
Real journalists lay out all the facts and options. And there are options for creators who want to escape the dying mainstream industry.
You just won’t hear about all of them from Club Comics and the blogs that support it.
EDIT: Catch our recent livestream talking about the subject here.
NOTE: Some of the opinions expressed above are just that — opinions. They do not necessarily reflect the views of other D-Rezzed contributors, sponsors or advertisers.
The party from the classic 1980s Dungeons & Dragons animated series finally finds their way home… thanks to a Brazilian car commercial.
We talked about this incredible looking commercial last week when a teaser was released, and now the full car commercial is available online. You can watch it below!
Yes, thanks to a little help from Dungeon Master (and a Renault SUV) Hank the Ranger, Eric the Cavalier, Diana the Acrobat, Presto the Magician, Shiela the Thief, and Bobby the Barbarian finally find their way back to the carnival that transported them to the DnD realm all those years ago.
The trailer also features their nemesis Venger, Uni the unicorn and — surprisingly — classic DnD supermonster Tiamat!
Why Brazil? Dungeons & Dragons was known as Dragon Cave in Brazil, and was apparently quite popular there.
The Dungeons & Dragons cartoon never did get a proper ending, although it was planned for the teenagers to finally find their way home in the series finale “Requiem.” Sadly, the episode was never produced and the kids have been stuck in limbo ever since.
The Sonic the Hedgehog live-action movie has been pushed back to February 14, 2020. This is due to the studio deciding that the need to rework Sonic after fan backlash over the un-Sonic-like design of the character.
The movie’s director took to Twitter earlier today to make the announcement.
The hashtag seems to indicate that this is so the visual FX artists have ample time to rework Sonic, as there was a growing concern they’d be worked to the bone to make the initial release of November 2019.
Director Jeff Fowler also took to Twitter earlier in the month to announce that Sonic would be redesigned to be more in line with his classic video game counterpart.
Thank you for the support. And the criticism. The message is loud and clear… you aren't happy with the design & you want changes. It's going to happen. Everyone at Paramount & Sega are fully committed to making this character the BEST he can be… #sonicmovie#gottafixfast 🔧✌️
Not everybody is happy about the decision to make Sonic fans happy.
Of course the internet is lit up with the usual articles attacking the “entitled” fans for wanting their favorite characters to look and act like their favorite characters.
In fact, according to ComicBook.com it’s dangerous to give fans what they want, even if it might hedge(hog?) your bets at the box office…
Arguably the most dangerous example of fans demanding a creator please them came with the Sonic teaser. (…)
While this was considered a “win” by one faction of fans, it doesn’t account for the fans who actually enjoyed this initial design. Additionally, Fowler didn’t note how the design would be changed, which opens up the notion that an upcoming design still won’t be embraced by fans. Now that there’s a precedent that, if you’re loud enough, you will get what you want, it means that anytime enough fans don’t enjoy a piece of art, they can band together to voice their complaints and point to, “Well, Sonic changed the design, so you can change this.”
And then there’s Twitter…
Shit like this is why redoing Sonic is so fucking dangerous.
Listening to entitled fans is what kills artistic vision.
Imagine if Ledger had petitions up when fans heard about him playing Joker and we never got that.
So, if rumors are to be believed, the Obi-Wan Kenobi Disney+ show is back on again.
This rumor has almost as much “on” and “off” as The Karate Kid.
If you’ve been following along it was previously rumored that there would be an Obi-Wan Kenobi series on the upcoming Disney streaming service. Then it was said that it was going to be scrapped and now, apparently, it’s back on.
” An industry insider recently revealed to We Got This Covered that Disney is not only planning to bring Obi-Wan to their streaming service, in a brand new series, but it’ll also see the return of McGregor to the franchise. Details are scarce right now, but it seems the House of Mouse is planning to make an official announcement in the near future, so be sure to stay tuned.”
Personally, I’m hoping this is true. I would like to see a show with Ewan McGregor reprising his role as Obi-Wan. It sounds like he’s on board for it.
But that’s not all!
Sounds like we might be getting a Boba Fett show as well. Again, We Got This Covered did an article about this news, that I assume they got from the same “Industry insider” that indicated Obi-Wan was back on.
“Speaking exclusively to We Got This Covered, an industry insider revealed that Disney will be adapting Boba Fett for the small screen. Specifically, for their Disney Plus streaming service. No casting or plot details were disclosed, but with The Mandalorian reportedly costing the company $100 million to produce, we wouldn’t be surprised if the House of Mouse chose to spend an equal amount of money on Boba and co. to put together something on the same scale as Jon Favreau’s aforementioned show.”
I do wonder if they would do Boba Fett as a prequel to his time in The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, or as a sequel with him escaping the Sarlacc pit?
Right now it seems it’s all based on this one person’s statements, but that doesn’t mean it’s not true. We will just have to wait for Disney to make an announcement to confirm it. Till then it’s all just speculation.
What’s interesting to me is that both of these characters would be George Lucas Star Wars characters.
What do you think? Would you watch these? Comment and let us know!
