Image’s Forthcoming ‘Home’ Comic to Feature Special Series of Jacoby Salcedo Variant Covers

PORTLAND, Ore. 02/18/2021 — The upcoming series Home by writer Julio Anta (Frontera) and artist Anna Wieszczyk will boast a special, collectible series of variant covers featuring artwork by the lauded Jacoby Salcedo.

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Image’s ‘Home’ to Explore U.S. Immigration Policy and Border Patrol Through Superhuman Lens

PORTLAND, Ore. 01/22/2021 — Debut creators Julio Anta (Frontera, forthcoming HarperCollins 2023) and Anna Wieszczyk weave a deeply grounded and heartfelt story in the forthcoming comic book Home. This five-issue miniseries will explore the real-world implications of a migrant with extraordinary powers, and will launch from Image Comics in April.

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Meet the New Oddjob in 007 Short Film ‘A Kill From The Other Side’

Almost two years ago, Greg Pak took the reins of rebooting the James Bond 007 comic book series but this time, having a revisionist take on a familiar and iconic villain, first introduced in the 1959 novel Goldfinger: Oddjob. Not only was the reimagined take refreshing and very much needed, the series itself was incredibly well done with the plot moving at a brisk pace, the action fun and invigorating to read, and the rivalry/bickering between James Bond and Oddjob (now known as South Korean secret agent John Lee) extremely entertaining and amusing to read.

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‘Red Hood’ Writer Shawn Martinbrough Talks Jason Todd’s New Arc

Toward the end of 2020, it was announced that Jason Todd’s Red Hood would be seeing a new creative team take over, and to the delight of many fans, the team receiving the torch from acclaimed duo Scott Lobdell and Paolo Pantalena was none other than Shawn Martinbrough (Black Panther: The Most Dangerous Man Alive, Thief of Thieves, and Hellboy), Tony Akins (Jack of Fables, House of Mystery, and Wonder Woman), and Stefano Guadiano (The Walking Dead and Manifest Destiny). I had the pleasure of sitting down with Martinbrough to talk Jason Todd’s new future and what fans can expect from the work his team is putting together.

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NOC Exclusive Interview: Comic Creators Howard Wong and Josh Stafford

Heyyy! It’s Kuya P AKA Patrick Michael Strange and I recently had the pleasure of sitting down for a NOC Exclusive interview with the Comics Creators behind Source Point Press’ Damned, Cursed Children! Howard Wong and Josh Stafford!

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A Conversation with Elite Geek Marc Bernardin on ‘The Plague Nerdalogues’ and More

This past week, I sat down with the co-host of Fatman Beyond to talk comics, quarantine, and Snyder cuts. Marc Bernardin has been one of pop culture and comic book’s most necessary voices in the industry, with writing credits from Masters of the Universe: Revelation, Treadstone, and Castle Rock. Marc’s work has also spanned outlets like GQ, Wired, and Vulture.

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Cartoonist Keith Knight on ‘Woke,’ Politics, and the Power of Comics

Keith Knight is the creator of three popular comic strips: the Knight Life, (th)ink, and the K Chronicles. He has appeared in various publications worldwide, including the Washington Post, Daily KOS, San Francisco Chronicle, Medium.com, Ebony, ESPN the Magazine, L.A. Weekly, MAD Magazine, and the Funny Times. I sat down with Keith to talk his new show, Woke, now on Hulu, as well as politics, the craziness of 2020 and also the impact of animation and cartoon drawing by artists of color.

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A Conversation with Stephanie Williams, One of Comic Book’s Wittiest Commentators

This week I sat down with X-Men aficionado, comic book culture guru, and Twitter queen Stephanie Williams and talked all things not destroyed by 2020. Williams can be seen on SYFY Fangrrls writing some of pop culture’s most necessary takes: from trope-busting the “tired mom” archetype, to how differently X-Men hits after 20 years, every bit of her commentary brims with exactness.

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A Conversation with ‘Almost American Girl’ Robin Ha

Moving as an adolescent, especially moving to another country, is hard. Being forced to move, and unknowingly doing so only to realize later your life has changed, is severely difficult, but can also be fortifying. Writer and cartoonist Robin Ha knows that latter experience all too well, relaying it at Washington DC’s Fantom Comics, speaking with The Nerds of Color EIC Keith Chow about her new graphic memoir, Almost American Girl, this past February 8.

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Toxic Fandom

Shout out to Brandon Easton (Agent Carter TV series, M.A.S.K.,Vampire Hunter D comics, and the Brave New Souls documentary) for broaching this topic on his Facebook wall.

We are living in a truly golden age of nerdom. There are several superhero films out each year — the amount of films increase each subsequent year; damn near every night of the week you can watch a superhero, supernatural, paranormal, or spy-fi program, comics are everywhere, graphic novels are taught in the academy — our once exclusive (and highly ridiculed) club is, gasp, mainstream. Going mainstream comes with its own set of problems. But I want to focus on what I feel is the primary problem of this golden age: Toxic Fandom. Continue reading “Toxic Fandom”

SIUniverse Celebrates Lunar New Year at The Met in NYC

A little over two weeks ago, I had the honor of leading a comics workshop with my SIUniverse partner Jerry Ma at the world renowned Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Part of their annual Lunar New Year festival, Jerry and I helped small children and their families use inspiration from the museum’s rooms of Asian art to create their own superhero characters.

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Battle Angel Alita Lead Role Once Again Devoid of Asian American Prospects

In 2015, Nerdist announced that the live-action adaptation of the famed Japanese anime had been revived by directors James Cameron and Robert Rodriguez. Battle Angel Alita, a post-apocalyptic sci-fi action manga/anime written by Yukito Kishiro, is set in the 26th century and follows the female cyborg Alita, as she trains to become the world’s most deadly assassin. The latest report from the Robert Rodriquez/Jame Cameron production reveals that the filmmakers have their top three actresses for the lead role: Maika Monroe, Zendaya (who is the front runner), and Rosa Salazar. In other words: more bad news for Asian American actresses.

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A Comic Fueled Thought Experiment

For as long as I can remember, one description of comics has prevailed: comic books are adolescent white boy power fantasies. If you look at the majority of the offerings, it would be kind of difficult to dispute this. Go to any comic shop and you will see a crowd of covers presenting overly muscled white men and impossibly voluptuous white women competently combating some evil, some threat that is just as anatomically disproportionate as the hero/ines are.

Comics, at first glance, are filtered through a firmly and profoundly white and male point of view. But this is a cursory view. If you dig, research, or explore beyond the DC/Marvel axis, this notion begins to lose its stickiness.

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An Interview with RUNLOVEKILL Writer Jonathan Tsuei

Jonathan Tsuei and artist Eric Canete will soon be gracing the nerd world with their new comic from Image, RUNLOVEKILL. I had the honor of reading the first issue and can report that it is an innovative, futuristic, action packed story with some elements that I would dare to compare with Aeon Flux.

Recently, I had the opportunity to talk to writer Jonathan Tsuei about the comic, character development, and his future projects.

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Conception: Origins of a Nerd of Color

The gun fired and we were off to the races. I was one of the first to dive in the water without a moment’s hesitation; it was as if Denzel trained me himself. It was the early-mid 80s so “Eye of the Tiger” was quite possibly in rotation on the radio as I stroked ahead of the pack, feeling fresh and new, keeping my eyes on the arrows directing our path.

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Fresh Off the Boat: Television Karma

by Jeff Yang | Originally posted at Quartz

In 1994, exactly 20 years ago, ABC decided to pick up the pilot for comedian Margaret Cho’s All-American Girl, making it the first sitcom to put an Asian American family on network prime-time TV. The show was slammed by the press and rapidly faded in the ratings; after airing just 19 episodes, the decision was made to cancel it. In her book, Cho cited bad reviews from Asian American cultural critics as being a key reason for ABC’s lack of faith in the show, calling out one in particular — me.

Two decades have gone by, and no network has aired another Asian American family sitcom since. But this weekend, ironically, ABC officially picked up Fresh Off the Boat — a sitcom based on celebrity chef Eddie Huang’s New York Times bestselling memoir of growing up with his two brothers and immigrant parents as a hip-hop-loving outsider in suburban Orlando, Florida. Playing little Eddie: My son, Hudson Yang.

The irony — or is it karma? — in the situation led me and my friend, illustrator Louie Chin, to collaborate on this comic.

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Photo: Nick Grazin

Tunde Adebimpe Talks New Projects, Comics, and TV on the Radio

Originally posted on Hi Wildflower

Calling TV on the Radio’s Tunde Adebimpe a vocalist is a good start. Turns out, he’s a bona fide polymath. Actor, director, artist behind some snazzy comics are a few of the things he does as unnervingly as he sings. His voice weaves in and out of lush, lovelorn tunes with a veracity rare among chanteurs in this age. We ran into each other in Williamsburg on a day too cold for words. He graced us with an interview and amazing drawings that reveal his radiant imagination.

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