The weekend is almost here! What geeky things are you all doing? Sound off in the comments below. While you think about that, here’s some comic news from around the web to start the day.
First Comic News – SOURCE POINT PRESS: Where We’ve Been, Where We’re Going, What to Expect Next – Good to see their transparency.
ICv2 – Orders for ‘Space Ghost’ #1 Cross 67,000 – Awesome news!
TCJ – Ed Piskor, 1982-2024 – A well written obituary.
Ed Piskor, best known for Hip Hop Family Tree and X-Men: Grand Design as well as the cohost of the YouTube talk show Cartoonist Kayfabe has died his family has announced. He was 41 years old.
Piskor’s sister Justine wrote on Facebook:
It is with the most broken heart that I share my big brother, Ed, has passed away today. Please just keep our family in your prayers as this is the hardest thing we’ve ever had to go through.
While the cause of death has not been made public, Piskor posted a suicide note earlier in the day in which he addresses accusations and allegations of inappropriate sexual behavior that had been made public the previous week.
An exhibition of Piskor’s art was scheduled to begin in April but was postponed after the allegations became public. Piskor in his note referenced other deals that ended due to the accusations.
In his note, Piskor said that texts shared were taken out of context and other claims were not true. He admitted for being “stupid” for continuing to talk to a 17 year old after finding out her age. He attributed the decision due to loneliness during the COVID-19 lockdown. He denied other claims, saying they “border criminal.”
Piskor’s note described his despair and the accusation’s impact on his career saying that “it’s all gone.” He added that he hoped his death “makes people think twice when joining an internet feeding frenzy.”
The news has shocked the comic industry with a wide range of thoughts and reactions.
For those dealing with depression, thinking of taking their own life, or just need someone to talk to, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline 988 is a free, 24/7 confidential service that can provide people in suicidal crisis or emotional distress, or those around them, with support, information and local resources.
Last weekend, allegations surfaced regarding comic creator Ed Piskor and his behavior towards numerous women. There are multiple claims with screenshots provided. You can read the full scoop here. Piskor himself has been rather silent on the topic (with maybe a burner account going on the attack). We’ve reach out for comment and have not heard a word. His often collaborator Jim Rugg has spoken out, ending his working relationship with Piskor.
Rugg has worked on comics with Piskor as well as co-hosts the popular Cartoonist Kayfabe. The statement was posted on Rugg’s Instagram account and you can read it below.
In light of this past week’s shocking revelations, I find it necessary to reevaluate my professional associations to ensure they align with my values of respect and integrity. Therefore, I have ended my working relationship with Ed Piskor.
It’s new comic book day! What are you all excited for? Getting? Sound off in the comments below. While you wait for shops to open, here’s some comic news from around the web to start the day.
CBR – X-Men ‘97 Season 1 Premiere Sets Disney+ Viewership Record – Not too surprising.
Comicbook – The Walking Dead Creator and EPs’ Lawsuit Against AMC Gets Major Update – This should be interesting to watch.
Comicbook – Manga Publishers Want to Make Their War on Piracy Global – Um, duh?
Smash Pages – Ed Piskor gallery showing ‘indefinitely postponed’ after misconduct allegations – Good.
Ed Piskor is the creator behind the hit series Hip Hop Family Tree and X-Men: Grand Design and co-host of the popular Cartoonist Kayfabe. This past weekend, he was accused by multiple women for grooming and other wrongdoing. A fellow comic creator shared screenshots of conversations she and Piskor had through Instagram Stories. They’ve since been deleted. The screenshots featured conversations dated 2020 which would put the accuser at age 17 when Piskor was 38. Piskor was aware of the age as can be seen in the conversations shared.
He called her a “naughty girl” and asked if she’d be “a good partner in crime.” He specifically asked if she was a “snitch” and also sent a photo of a room offering her the ability to crash at his place. Both individuals live in Pennsylvania.
The accuser stated that this wasn’t meant as a cancellation of Piskor but instead was to serve as a warning.
Others spoke up over the next few days telling their own stories. One stated that Piskor propositioned her for oral sex in trade for Piskor’s agent’s phone number.
Another said Piskor invited her to his home to draw her nude and in exchange introduce her to “bigger industry folks.”
We’ve included quotes and screenshots but removed the accusers names in hopes to diminish any harassment they might receive.
We reached out to Piskor for comment but have yet to hear back. He has limited his social media, deleting accounts, limiting comments on others. What is believed to be a burner account was launched defending him and attacking the accusers.
This isn’t the first issue for Piskor. A 2022 variant cover for Red Room: Trigger Warnings was criticized for mocking the Holocaust. It referenced the graphic novel Maus in its design. Piskor has also been criticized for use of racial slurs in the past. Recently, Piskor’s Hip Hop Family Tree was collected as an omnibus by Fantagraphics.
Fantagraphics has announced two new books from Ed Piskor, Hip Hop Family Tree: The Omnibus releasing October 2023 and Red Room: Crypto Killaz! with issue #1 releasing May 2023.
Red Room: Crypto Killaz!, the next chapter in Ed Piskor’s infamous series. Mistress Pentagram and the Red Room Players return in this all-new, four-issue miniseries. With variant covers by comics celebrities like Peach Momoko and Jim Rugg, splatterpunk has never looked so good!
Hip Hop Family Tree has been a global phenomenon and perennial bestseller since the first (of four) volumes was published in 2013, spawning multiple printings, fourteen comic books, and the author’s wildly popular YouTube comics channel, Cartoonist Kayfabe (with fellow cartoonist Jim Rugg). Yet the series has never been collected under one cover. Until now. Fantagraphics is excited to announce the tenth anniversary omnibus collection of Hip Hop Family Tree by Ed Piskor. This omnibus of the New York Times best-selling series includes over 140 pages of extras, all under one cover for the first time!
Hip Hop Family Tree: The Omnibus is a massively impressive tome that includes the original 360-page series with over 140 pages of extra material: a cover gallery of every HHFT book and comic book cover and back cover Piskor has ever created, pages from the HHFT comic book series that have never been collected, new annotations of the entire series by Piskor, and much more.
Hip Hop Family Tree is the entertaining, encyclopedic history of the formative years of the music genre that changed global culture. Piskor’s cartooning crackles like Kirby and takes you from the parks and rec rooms of the South Bronx to the night clubs, recording studios, and radio stations where the scene started to boom, capturing the flavor of late 1970s New York City in panels bursting with obsessively authentic detail. With a vigorous and engaging Ken Burns-meets-Stan Lee approach, the battles and rivalries, the technical innovations, the triumphs and failures are all thoroughly researched and lovingly depicted. Like the acclaimed hip hop documentaries Style Wars and Scratch, Hip Hop Family Tree is an essential cultural chronicle and a must for hip hop fans, pop-culture addicts, and anyone who wants to know how it went down back in the day.
Discover the history of hip hop in graphic novel form!
The Baltimore Comic-Con returns to the Inner Harbor at the Baltimore Convention Center this September 8-10, 2023. The Baltimore Comic-Con has announced comic guests Mark Buckingham, Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez, Gene Ha, Adriana Melo, Ed Piskor, and Andy Runton for its 2023 event. Get your tickets available now.
Mark Buckingham, who is best-known and most-celebrated for his work on the long-running Vertigo title Fables, began his career in 1990 working with Neil Gaiman on Miracleman from Eclipse Comics. Working on such titles as 2000 AD, Hellblazer, and Shade, the Changing Man, he became a mainstay at DC Comics after taking over art duties on Fables with issue #6. His run on the popular imprint title has earned him four Eisner Awards, including Best New Series in 2003, Best Serialized Story in 2005 and 2006, and Best Artist/Penciler/Inker in 2007.
Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez was born in Spain and began drawing comics professionally in Argentina at age 13. In the 1960s, he drew romance titles for Charlton Comics. Garcia-Lopez came to the U.S. in 1974 and started working for DC Comics, drawing series such as Superman, Batman, Hawkman, Tarzan, and Jonah Hex. His other notable work includes Atari Force, Deadman, New Teen Titans, and On The Road to Perdition. Since 1982, Garcia-Lopez has designed and pencilled the definitive versions of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and many other characters for various DC Comics style guides, which are created for licensees only. His style guide art has been seen on countless DC Comics licensed products and is still being used today.
Four-time Eisner winner Gene Ha is known for his art on Fables and on Alan Moore’s Top 10. He currently writes and draws Mae from Oni Press. It’s the story of Mae Fortell, a girl who follows her long missing sister Abbie to a world of mad science and mystery. Gene lives outside Chicago in Berwyn, IL with his lovely wife Lisa. Learn more at http://www.geneha.com/.
Adriana Melo has worked for Marvel, DC, Image Comics, and Titan Comics. Some of the books she has worked as a penciler/artist are: Fantastic Four, Iron Man, Silver Surfer, Amazing Spider-Man, Amazing Spider-Man Presents: Jackpot, Star Wars: Empire, Rose & Thorn, Witchblade, Miss Marvel, Birds of Prey, Catwoman, Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy, Female Furies, Plastic Man, Dr. Who: New Adventures of the Ninth Doctor, Harley and Ivy Meet Betty and Veronica, Marvel Voices, and Trial of the Amazons. You can find her most recent work in the DC Comics series Wonder Girl with Joelle Jones, and in Superman: Action Comics.
Ed Piskor has been cartooning professionally in print form since 2005, starting off drawing American Splendor comics written by Harvey Pekar. The duo continued working together on two graphic novels, Macedonia and The Beats. Ed began self-publishing Wizzywig after developing a huge interest in the history of hacking and phone phreaking. His New York Times Best-Selling series Hip Hop Family Tree, which was originally serialized on Boing Boing, has gone back to print numerous times, and won the 2015 Eisner Award for “Best Reality-Based Work.” X-Men Grand Design, for Marvel, was released in 2017-2019 to wide acclaim and his current series, Red Room is his publisher, Fantagraphics’ best-selling comic in their history.
Andy Runton is the award-winning creator of Owly, the kind-hearted little owl who’s always searching for new friends and adventures. Owly showcases Andy’s love of wildlife and the outdoors, and has earned him multiple awards, including the Eisner Award for Best Publication for a Younger Audience. The Owly books have been praised for their “charm, wisdom, and warmth” by Booklist, and WIRED.com said they are “one of the best comics for kids around. Period.” Andy lives in the greater Atlanta area, where he works full time as a writer and illustrator. Visit him online at andyrunton.com.
Pronouns: he/him
This year’s confirmed guests for the show include: Sarah Andersen (Sarah’s Scribbles), Marty Baumann (Pixar artist), Brian Michael Bendis (Action Comics), Jon Bogdanove (The Death of Superman), Judy Bogdanove (Steel Annual), Mark Buckingham (Fables), Jim Calafiore (NED, Lord of the Pit), Richard Case (Edgar Allan Poe’s Snifter of Terror), Howard Chaykin (Time Squared), Frank Cho (Harley Quinn), Amy Chu (KISS: The End), Steve Conley (The Middle Age), Abby Denson (Uniquely Japan), Todd Dezago (The Perhapanauts), Jan Duursema (Star Wars: The High Republic), Garth Ennis (The Boys), Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez (DC Nation), Mike Grell (Jon Sable), Gene Ha (Mae), Tony Harris (The Whistling Skull), Mike Hawthorne (Deadpool), Greg Hildebrandt (Star Wars), Jeff Lemire (Black Hammer), Matthew Loux (Prunella and the Cursed Skull Ring), Kevin Maguire (Justice League), Tom Mandrake (Spectre), Laura Martin (Nubia: Queen of the Amazons), Adriana Melo (Action Comics), Pop Mhan (Gears of War 3), Ed Piskor (Red Room: Trigger Warnings), Joe Prado (Superman), Craig Rousseau (The Perhapanauts), Steve Rude (Nexus), Jim Rugg (Hulk Grand Design), Andy Runton (Owly), Louise Simonson (The Death of Superman 30th Anniversary Special), Walter Simonson (Thor), John K. Snyder III (Suicide Squad), Joe Staton (Dick Tracy), and John Workman (Wild Things).
Moving, thought-provoking, both personal and political, Bad Attitude: The Art of Spain Rodriguez explores the controversial art and life of the legendary underground cartoonist through the lens of his wife, Emmy-nominated filmmaker Susan Stern.
From the propaganda comics of WWII, to the underground comics breakthrough in 1960s New York and San Francisco, to the graphic novels of today, Bad Attitude is an enthralling history of comics and a rousing call to art and activism. Featuring a roster of friends and family, Bad Attitude dives deep into Spain’s life with insight from comics luminaries R. Crumb, Art Spiegelman, Trina Robbins, Aline Kominsky-Crumb, and Ed Piskor, and features animation by Spain’s daughter, the New York-based artist, Nora Rodriguez.
“Bad Attitude is a love letter to my partner in art and life, Spain Rodriguez, but it is also a love letter to all activists, especially artist-activists,” says director Susan Stern. “I hope Bad Attitude creates a space for conversation about the art and social justice we are trying to make, the ways we fail, and how we can be forgiven.”
Bad Attitude: The Art of Spain Rodriguez premiered in the Breakouts section at the 2021 Slamdance Film Festival and is now available to stream through Amazon.
Rob Liefeld and Image Comics have teamed up to celebrate the 30th Anniversary of Prophet with an a remastered version of Prophet #1 drawn by an all-star roster of comic book talent from past and present. Image is pleased to reveal an extended preview from this exciting upcoming release.
John Prophet first debuted in July 1992 in the pages of Youngblood #2, written and drawn by Rob Liefeld. The character became an instant hit with audiences and created a demand that he star in his own showcase series featuring art by Dan Panosian from stories and layouts by Liefeld.
Prophet Remastered #1 features art by Philip Tan, Kenneth Roccafort, Clay Mann, Viktor Bogdonavic, V. Ken Marion, Marat Mychaels, Dan Fraga, Karl Altstaetter, Dan Panosian, Cory Hamscher, Thomas Hedglen, Tom Scioli, Jim Rugg, Ed Piskor, Robert Willis, Raymond Leonard, Ale Garza, Ryan Kincaid, and the legendary Liefeld himself.
In October 2021 it was announced that Jake Gyllenhaal will play John Prophet in a movie version of Prophet with Sam Hargrave directing and a script from Marc Guggenheim. Liefeld will serve as Executive Producer with Jeff Robinov of Studio 8.
Prophet #1 Remastered (Diamond Code MAY220066) will be available at comic book shops on Wednesday, July 20.
Today, Mondo is offering three new posters for Hulk: Grand Design by cartoonists Jim Rugg and Ed Piskor.
First up Mondo has Jim’s brilliant cover to Issue #1, “Monster,” featuring the massive mug of the green goliath. This may or may not be life size to the actual Hulk, when on your wall.
Additionally, Mondo will also have an Original Art variant based on a high res scan of Jim’s original pencils and inks for the cover.
Next up, Mondo will also have Ed’s brilliant variant cover – a beautiful homage to Todd McFarlane’s iconic cover for Hulk #340.
These posters will be available on Thursday, April 14 at 11AM CT on The Drop at mondoshop.com.
Artwork by Jim Rugg.
$60
Edition size: 200
Artwork by Jim Rugg.
$65
Edition size: 95
Artwork by Ed Piskor
$60
Edition size: 200
