A new week brings about the latest smattering and summary of indie comics news for January 20-22, 2013!
"Star Trek" and gay rights icon teams up with legendary comic strip detective!
As revealed by Comic Book Resources on Jan. 21st, a current storyline within the longstanding newspaper strip "Dick Tracy" has a character based upon George Takei. The story began at the start of the month and involves the famed detective trying to solve a murder from WWII based on some new evidence. A character named George Tarawa is clearly based upon Takei, and the actor gave his blessing and approval of it on his Facebook feed. Takei's husband, Brad Altman, has also appeared in the strip. Much like Takai in real life, Tarawa was in an internment camp during WWII before settling in California. This comes a month after Takei appeared in an issue of Archie Comics' "Kevin Keller".
Having debuted on October 4th, 1931, "Dick Tracy" has remained a mainstay of Tribune Media Services and distributed by the Chicago Tribune, among other newspapers. It has survived amid a climate of many long running newspaper strips such as "Little Orphan Annie" folding due to lower distribution. It has been written by Mike Curtis and drawn by Joe Staton. "Dick Tracy" has sporadically had some notable "real life" guest stars, such as John Walsh and "America's Most Wanted" years ago. Takei, naturally, is best known for his role as Sulu in the original "Star Trek" TV series and subsequent films before becoming an advocate for gay rights.
IDW launches Judge Dredd year one!
IDW has chosen to expand upon their licensed "Judge Dredd" comic by enlisting Matt Smith, the editor of the UK anthology "2000 A.D." which birthed the character, to write a new mini series. Called "Judge Dredd: Year One", it will be a mini series drawn by Simon Coleby and will tell the origin of the future's most stern lawman. Smith states the story began life as a potential e-book for the UK market and now will be published by IDW. It will share continuity with Duane Swiercynski's "Judge Dredd" and is the first Dredd series by IDW created exclusively for North America.
Arrivals and departures at Image Comics!
As revealed by Comics Beat, former iFanboy founder Ron Richards has been hired as the new director of business developments. This comes as two Image staffers, Sarah Delaine (events coordinator) and Todd Martinez (sales and licensing coordinator) depart the company for other ventures.
Changes at iFanboy!
Relating to the above news, the founder of iFanboy Ron Richards is leaving the comic book podcast and video website for a position with Image Comics. In his announcement, he also revealed that iFanboy was splitting from Graphicly, the digital comics distributor that bought the website in 2010. iFanboy began as a comic book podcast in 2005 and began doing video transmissions in 2007. Paul Montgomery will take over Richards' position on the podcast and as editor of the website.
Dark Horse publishes Legend of Zelda artbook!
Dark Horse Comics has published an official artbook for the "Legend of Zelda" video game franchise called "Legend of Zelda: Hyrule Historia". It will feature design artwork for the video games over the years as well as a Zelda manga comic strip by Akira Himekawa. This is interesting as Dark Horse will ultimately lose their license to the Star Wars franchise in 2014-2015 due to George Lucas' company merging with Disney and they thus may need some new licenses. Will Dark Horse soon gain this video game license for translated manga and/or new material? Archie Comics has done very well with their "Sonic the Hedgehog" and "Megaman" licensed comics (along with Marvel Comics publishing some "Halo" comics), and Dark Horse may seek to gain their own popular video game license.
Read last week's indie comic news here!
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