Frank Miller tells more to the Wash. Post

One of Miller's interviewers said in one of the recent articles about him that he's got no intention of slowing down with his career, even as he's reaching 70, and as the following interview from the Washington Post makes clear, he's not done with his current promotional tour yet:

The pages of a Frank Miller work are filled with crooked cops, murderers, desperate men and unhinged dark knights. You might expect the creator behind all that darkness to be a bit gloomy himself. Maybe he would be a recluse, like his hero, “Calvin and Hobbes” creator Bill Watterson.

As it turns out, Miller seems to like people. I watched him sign hundreds of autographs at the Library of Congress’s National Book Festival in D.C. on Saturday. He was gentle, chatty and generous with his time despite the crowd overflowing past its designated space inside the Walter E. Washington Convention Center.

Unfortunately, Miller doesn't seem to like conservatives, and one in particular by the name of Donald Trump. You could reasonably wonder if any attendants are right-wing themselves, and if they let know this, what does Miller think of them?

Miller helped redefine the modern superhero with Daredevil and Batman before creating celebrated original works such as “Sin City” and “300.” Pop milestones like “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” or Christopher Nolan’s Batman movies may not exist without Frank Miller.

His book isn’t a conventional autobiography but a collection of 16 lessons Miller learned while becoming one of the most influential artists of the 20th century. Those lessons include knowing your ending, getting your hero into trouble fast and pushing against whatever it is that’s keeping you from what you want to make.

The lessons also include making mistakes: Miller would sketch out many drawings for months before he finally made something that pleased the old master.

But those mistakes don't include apologizing for writing Holy Terror 7 years after its publishing, or blatant attacks on right-wingers, do they? If not, what's his point about trying to stand your ground on the subject of those who'd try to prevent you from developing what you want to make?

“It’s created new opportunities for me to speak more freely to new people who are coming up,” Miller said. “One of the real joys is for me to be looking at drawings and hearing story ideas that people are working on themselves, and to give them some advice on where to go with it.”

I wonder what he'd say to known conservatives? Or anybody who wants to tackle challenging issues? Again, that's not something dwelled upon here.

Miller writes about how his own lessons come from everywhere. He writes lovingly about Adams and his other mentor, Will Eisner, creator of “The Spirit,” but he reaches just as readily toward painters such as Francisco de Goya, Japanese manga writers like Kazuo Koike and music.

If memory serves, he wasn't so loving in his take on Eisner when he produced the American Genius documentary. After "cementing" a putdown in a recording, why now is he suddenly and seemingly talking positively about Eisner again? There was even another certain leftist who came from Israel working in video games at the convention Miller attended:

Onstage, I relayed a question to Miller from Neil Druckmann, co-creator of “The Last of Us” game series and HBO adaptation, who said his story wouldn’t exist without “Sin City.” He wanted to know how Miller selects collaborators, particularly when someone is adapting his work. How does he make sure they won’t abandon the spirit of his stories?

“Friendships,” Miller said. “Most of them come from getting to know somebody … and getting a kernel of an idea that I know would be something both of us could feed each other on.”

Wonder what that left-wing Israeli expatriate was doing there, recalling Druckmann exploited the Last of Us sequel for political propaganda? And to think, that he drew "inspiration" from a series of GNs like Miller's. It makes me think of how, not only does nobody like them seem to consider Superman inspirational material, they don't consider the Fantastic Four inspiration either. Miller may have done some illustrations for at least one story in both of the above, but as the bulk of his work since makes clear, he has a darkness problem, and so do some of the folks who say they're inspired by his work from the 1990s.

In the memoir, he describes learning to respect film and its differences from comics. His early comics success led to work as a Hollywood screenwriter. While he appreciated the medium, he would later write his biggest original book, “Sin City,” as a black-and-white novel, in the hope that it was unadaptable to film. He didn’t want it better known as a movie.

And yet, it was adapted in the mid-2000s, though the sequel was a failure, and it doesn't seem to have been revisited on celluloid since. I do think there's only so much from even standard literature that shouldn't have to be known far more cinematically, so some could wonder if Miller sadly failed to resist the tug of Hollywood influence. And then, a certain matter of defeatism comes up in the discussion again:

Before Miller’s memoir, his comics provided the clearest insight into his mind, but his book makes those thoughts explicit, including his regrets. He looks back on “Holy Terror,” a much-criticized story written out of Miller’s anger after the 9/11 attacks. He now describes it as a rant. Would he ever write another such story?

“I hope I’m never inspired to do so again,” he writes.

Miller urges readers to push walls, especially the ones he helped build. He writes that it drives him “crazy” to see that his version of Batman is now enshrined as foundational.

Once again, Miller, in a way, continues talking out of both sides of his mouth - he urges wall-pushing, but he doesn't want to push it any longer with a GN that took on a challenging issue. But what's this, does he really think it's a shame DKR's vision wound up practically ruining the general take on Bruce Wayne in comics proper? Well he sure hasn't done enough to complain about it. Probably because, as I've guessed before, he doesn't seem to care much about most other takes on Batman save for his own. And to date, I can't even recall him ever chatting about Denny O'Neil and Steve Englehart's writings.

“For one thing, the title ‘Dark Knight’ started appearing in all kinds of comic books,” Miller said in our interview. “Beyond that, he became the unpleasant superhero for a long time. I essentially felt that I was in the business of knocking down walls, and I felt like people had used my work to construct new ones.”

Interesting he should tell this, because again, by the turn of the century, DC editors were practically forcing such a personality upon the Masked Manhunter, and only now, long after Batman's potential was ruined along with countless other mainstream creations, does he have the audacity to tell us this? It's too little, too late.

One more thing I thought of regarding Miller's early writings in Daredevil is the negative take he may have had on the Punisher, and the contrasting take he had when he drew an early Wolverine miniseries co-written with Chris Claremont in 1982. Which would make Miller another scribe with a bewildering double-standard on vigilante-style characters who kill, and it's something else he may not have addressed so far, and probably never will. For now, it's a shame that Miller continues to give signs he sticks with a defeatist position, and some could wonder if his recent positive comments on a movie or two drawing from his writings is another sign of the same. And his continued veering towards the darkness, save for certain challenging issues, is another problem he's got that makes much of his resume since the 1990s so unappealing.

Cartoon voice actor Peter Cullen dies at 85

Quad City Times reports the animation voice actor Peter Cullen, most notable for playing the voice of Optimus Prime in the original 1984-87 Transformers series, died at 85 years of age:

Peter Cullen, who gave Optimus Prime his iconic voice in the "Transformers" franchise, has died. He was 85.

Cullen died at his Los Angeles home on Wednesday, his agent, Kevin Motley, confirmed to USA Today.

"Peter Cullen passed away peacefully, surrounded by his loving family – and held in the hearts of his many friends and countless fans worldwide," his family said in a statement. A cause of death has not yet been shared publicly.

Cullen voiced Optimus Prime, leader of the Autobots, in "Transformers," starting with the original animated series in the 1980s and continuing all the way into the modern live-action movies. He brought the character to the big screen in "The Transformers: The Movie," which is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year. The 1986 film famously devastated fans by killing off Optimus Prime, though the character later returned. [...]

In a 2011 interview with USA Today, Cullen revealed how he was inspired by his brother, a former captain in the Marine Corps, when he first auditioned for the role. "One morning when I was on my way to the audition, he asked me where I was going and I told him 'I'm about to audition for a hero and it’s a truck,'" Cullen recalled. "He laughed, and I laughed, too, because I had no idea what I was getting into. He said, 'Peter, don't be a Hollywood hero. Don't be one of those loudmouths yelling and screaming and pretending. Be a real hero and you can be strong enough to be gentle and understanding.' It was the character of a Marine who was talking. His timbre is very similar to mine to begin with, so it was easy to impersonate him, and the tone he gave me to set the audition was perfect." [...]

"I love characters who do good or make people feel good," he said.

I think his inspirations were great. Of course, it's still a shame Hasbro had to spend millions of dollars on a whole cartoon movie in 1986 to make the point of jettisoning Optimus from their toy line, along with several other models, when here, they could've just canceled the models quietly and minimized the damage. They did the right thing to reverse the demise of Optimus, but I can't remember if they ever did the same with Wheeljack and Ironhide, in example.

That said, Cullen had an impressive career in cartoon voice acting, and he'll be missed.

A father-son partnership develops stories for inspiration to the Black community

The Philadelphia Tribune wrote about a father and son who've produced their own independent comics to serve as inspiration for the Black community:

Inspired by a collective classroom project, Leo J. Neal, then age 7, created a superhero comic book. Now, with the help of his father, Christopher B. Neal, the two have collaborated on “The Amazing Adventures of Captain Cold” where they aim to tell stories that uplift the Black community.

I hope DC doesn't intend to cause even an iota of trouble for them just because they're using a character name similar to that of a notable supercrook from the Flash. What I certainly do know is that in the past decade, there were at least a few cases where Marvel and DC tried to do stuff like trademarking the very word "superhero" to limit competition, and that was wrong. If we're past that issue, that's a good thing. They probably did it partly out of their failure to admit they were ruining their own products. Thankfully, the trademark was cancelled about 2 years ago by the US trademark board.

For the most part, Chris, 42, said he lets his son, now 9, bring his imagination to the books.

“I’ve been intentional about him (Leo) moving forward and for him to be a Black voice in this space,” said Chris. “His characters are Black characters that are his idea. He was intentional about that, because representation matters. I wanted to lean into his interests.”

Yes, it matters, but it shouldn't come at the expense of established white characters, as was the case at both DC and Marvel in the past 2 decades, all for wokeness that was devoid of entertainment value. Here, the considerable difference is that the guys producing these indie comics are creating their own protagonists, and not forcing them into the costumes of established mainstream characters artificially. That's why creator-owned comics like these have more potential today. Now, if only somebody would consider why specific nationalities and their cultures matter too.

Leo said he enjoys writing the comic book. “It’s not that hard with my assistant (his father),” he said.

The son won a 2026 Fan Award for Best Work for “The Amazing Adventures of Captain Cold.” According to Chris it showed Leo how much people loved his book.

“Manifesting his ideas and see how it makes sense,” explained Chris. “Our hope is to lean more into community service, activism, awareness. Where we see this going is him leaning into the ideas that he has.”

The dad explained that their journey and the stories they tell show that Black people can be owners of different mediums and portray who they are and what they represent. In addition, the dad said he has learned from and been inspired by his son’s creativity and passion.

Okay, that fan award hopefully makes clear DC's staff know better than to cause any trouble for them, which would be pretty rich after DC methodically destroyed their own quality over the past quarter century and more, all for the sake of political agendas and other repellent directions. I appreciate that a youngster's able to prove he's got potential for storytelling, and maybe when he's several years older, he'll find fortune the way some veteran writers like Marv Wolfman and the late Len Wein did when they were in their late teens. And there is an important idea to be found in how Black citizens can own businesses that include mediums.

Interestingly enough, this article also tells that:

When they’re not writing or creating, the father and son volunteer at Whosoever Gospel Mission, a Christian nonprofit on Chelten Avenue and other organizations. They’ve also started a garden and play tennis.

Religious adherence of this sort is something the mainstream's practically been blacklisting, and quite possibly erasing altogether from storytelling over past decades, unless it's Islam that's the focus. I think it's good the father-son duo are contributing to Judeo-Christianity in a time when leftists have gone out of their way to belittle it for the sake of degrading agendas. If faith is also an inspiration in their writings, that's another plus. As is playing sports like tennis. So good luck to them in developing more comics stories. The creator-owned industry could sure use more to help build it up.

Hair color style drawing from the comics

New Beauty tells of a hair stylist/colorist who took some inspiration from the dark haired color certain superheroes are known for:

Call it Blue-Black, “comic-book color” or the “Superman shade”—a rich, jewel-toned black with a cool, glossy blue undertone, emerging as one of the must-haves this fall in Los Angeles, according to celebrity colorist Chad Kenyon, who is fielding the fever.

“I thought about Superman and Wonder Woman’s comic book hair color and made them more editorial,” says Kenyon of his unexpected source of creativity.

Kenyon began developing the look in 2025 and says it has since moved from concept to a look he’s asked to create across every type of client. “I'm doing it for celebrities such as Taylor Ortega, from her series with Dan Levy streaming now on Netflix, as well as content creators and civilians alike.”

The only thing that's a shame here is the citation of figures working on a channel as awful as Netflix happens to be. But wow, what potential there could be in drawing inspiration from hair colors, and regarding the color blue, I think I've sometimes noticed it somehow turning up on characters whose hair is black, perhaps an oddity in how some colorists accidentally make mistakes with certain colors in past decades. Batman's certainly been drawn at times with the color blue on his costume in past decades, though that was bound to be more deliberate. But it was okay, and a welcome contrast to the black shade some artists and writers in later years thought was such a big deal, in all their obsession with the darkness.

Anyway, I'll wish good luck to the stylist in his new goal of developing hairstyles and colors inspired by comicdom. It could have potential, though it's still no substitute for quality in the comics storytelling itself.

Georgia specialty store finds new location

Decaturish gives a report about a store in Tucker, GA, that had to move to a new location after the mall it was originally in began doing renovations:

After years of serving as a gathering place for comic book, gaming and pop culture fans, Challenges, Games and Comics, a Tucker comic book store, has found a new home after an unexpected development forced the business out of Northlake Mall.

Owner Antonio Cade said the store spent 10 years at North DeKalb Mall before moving to Northlake Mall, where it operated for about three years. When Northlake Mall was sold to the Centurion Foundation over the summer to expand the mall’s Emory Healthcare presence, Cade said tenants were given little warning about having to leave.

Cade was able to secure an additional 30 days to find a new location, giving him more time to move his business.

The move came with several challenges, including finding a space that could accommodate the store’s size, fit his budget and remain close to the customers who had supported the business over the years.

Cade said staying near Tucker and Decatur was important because Challenges had already built a strong customer base in the area.

“I was already in Tucker,” Cade said. “I liked the atmosphere in Tucker. And people just knew I was there. I didn’t want to go too far away from the customer base and the community.” [...]

Henry Walsh, a Challenges customer for about nine years, was among those who helped with the move. His “Dungeons & Dragons” group also helped raise money to support the business.

“I was crushed when Tony had to leave Northlake,” Walsh said. “I helped them move there from North DeKalb Mall. It was my pleasure and honor to help them settle [in the new space.]”

For Walsh, the store is more than a place to purchase comics and games. He said its welcoming atmosphere has made it an important part of his life and community.

“A place like Challenges is rare,” said Walsh. “It welcomes people of all races, creeds and orientations. Places like that foster a sense of community. Many patrons are nerds like me who don’t really have anywhere to go ... where we can talk about and share our interests. [That] is important in a day and age when it becomes hard for people to forge new friendships. I don’t know where I’d be without Challenges.”

The only part I take issue with is the part about "creeds". That can hint at religion, but it could quite possibly also allude to ideologies in a general sense. What, do we need to welcome Islam, Communism and other such belief systems at these specialty stores? Hardly. Also, have such statements really been necessary for over a quarter century now? Of course not, and that the customer even brought this up reeks of DEI pandering. It's entirely unneccesary, and but a problem that's been undermining entertainment marketing for years. Comics and RPG specialty stores have to stop resorting ever so often to these kind of statements, because in the end, they really don't do much for the business, and completely obscure the vitality of whether they sell according to merit. That's what should be the foremost goal involved.

And if they sell comics with emphasis on pamphlets, I really wish that'd change to a focus on paperbacks and hardcovers.

Stars of Marvel movies are making it hard to watch them in hindsight based on their anti-Israel attacks

Mark Ruffalo's easily the most well known actor to appear in comics adaptations like the Avengers movies (as the Hulk), who's recently been viciously attacking the land of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby's ancestry. He's done it again in his attack on Paramount over his opposition to a merger with Warner Brothers, as told in this Jerusalem Post article:

US multimedia giant Paramount slammed Hollywood actor Mark Ruffalo for invoking antisemitic tropes in an Instagram post on Friday in which he accused Israel of genocide and apartheid.

The outspoken anti-Israel ACTOR, known for his roles in the Avengers films, accused Paramount moguls David and Larry Ellison of “powering some of the most destructive and inhuman forces in the world” and warned of the danger of David Ellison’s bid to combine Paramount with Warner Bros. Discovery.

A spokesperson for Paramount said the company is “troubled when antisemitic tropes are invoked in purported service of a business dispute. Words like ‘genocide’ and ‘apartheid,’ applied to a corporate transaction, aren’t just wrong – they’re a bridge too far, and they cheapen the very real suffering those words are meant to describe. This doesn’t deserve a response in kind – and to be clear, we don’t tolerate prejudice of any kind, against anyone.”

In his post, Ruffalo referred to Larry Ellison as a “classic oligarch,” and he shared a video of Safra Catz, vice chair of Oracle, discussing the technological assistance the company provided to Israel following the Hamas-led October 7 attack.

Ruffalo encouraged his followers to “look how she revels in what we now have come to see as a genocide, which was built on an apartheid system of oppression powered by Oracle.”

What Ruffalo's been up to gets even worse with his and several other actors' support for a jihadist:

Over 20 actors who have appeared in Marvel films have joined a campaign calling for the release of convicted Palestinian terrorist Marwan Barghouti, according to an Instagram post published on Friday by the group, freemarwannow.

Among the actors who have joined the "Freedom for Marwan" campaign are Benedict Cumberbatch, who plays Doctor Strange; Mark Ruffalo, who plays the Hulk; Ian McKellen, who plays Magneto; and Cate Blanchett, Tilda Swinton, and others. [...]

Barghouti is a former leader of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, a terrorist organization that carried out many suicide bombings and shooting attacks during the Second Intifada.

According to Israel, Barghouti orchestrated or was responsible for, among others, the following attacks between 2001 and 2002: the murder of a Greek Orthodox monk on the road to Ma’aleh Adumim; the shooting attack during a bat mitzva celebration at a banquet hall in Hadera that killed six Israelis; a shooting spree on Jaffa Street in Jerusalem during which two Israelis were killed and 37 people wounded; a shooting attack in Neve Ya’acov in which an Israeli policewoman was killed; the murder of an Israeli at the Bashkevitz coffee and spice factory in the Atarot industrial zone of Jerusalem; the suicide attack perpetrated by Daryan Abu Aysha at the Maccabim checkpoint in which two policeman were wounded; the shooting spree at the Seafood Market restaurant which killed three Israelis.

It's going to be very hard watching these performers from live action Marvel movies playing their roles for a long time now, based on what they've just done in the now, even if they're playing villains. Their ignorance is stunning, and most chilling is, what if they fully know what Barghouti did years ago?

A rabbi writing for VIN News described the whole repellent case as follows:

Imagine that the Superheroes known as the “Avengers” were fighting for the wrong side. Say, for example, for the Nazis. Well, it is not such a stretch anymore. But it is not the Superheroes – it is the actors who play them.

Somewhere in a publicist’s office, likely, in Hollywood – a decision was made. A list circulated. Names were added, one by one, each signatory presumably assured that the others had already looked into it.

Nobody looked into it.

More than twenty actors from the Marvel Cinematic Universe — Benedict Cumberbatch, Mark Ruffalo, Don Cheadle, Cate Blanchett, Tilda Swinton, and a supporting cast long enough to fill a closing credit scroll — have signed their names to a demand that the United Nations and the governments of the world work to free mass-murderer Marwan Barghouti from an Israeli prison.

The statement voices grave concern for his imprisonment and his treatment inside it. Grave concern. That is the entire emotional range on offer, and it is expended in full on behalf of the man serving five consecutive life sentences for murder.

For the five people he was convicted of murdering, the statement has nothing. No sentence. No clause. No name. Twenty-plus celebrated artists, working presumably with the assistance of professional wordsmiths, produced a document about a quintuple murder conviction that manages never to acknowledge that anyone died.

I'll never be able to watch a lot of these particular movies ever again, realizing just how far into the abyss the twisted perspective of the actors in the Marvel movies goes. They've desecrated the memory of many Jewish comics creators with this abominable act of theirs, and it's stunning they'd even take the roles they did in comics adaptations to begin with. The Marvel live action movies aren't aging well, as a result of what the actors who played the casts in the films have been doing lately.

South Carolina paper fluff-coats Steve Epting's career

The Lexington County Chronicle announced artist Steve Epting is attending a book signing for one of his latest projects, and they made sure to paint a fluff-coated picture of what he did with Captain America 2 decades ago as well:

“Steve Epting is a South Carolina native who has had a huge impact in the comic industry that ultimately led to these giant blockbuster Marvel movies,” Scratch N’ Spin owner Eric Woodard said in a news release. “We love promoting local creators, whether it’s comics, music or movies. We love bringing these guests to our store to have them available to meet with our community and encourage aspiring creators (who get) the opportunity to have a space to get their comics signed without having to go to a big comic convention.”

A multiple Eisner Award-nominated comic artist, Steve Epting worked on The Avengers, Fantastic Four, Velvet, Batwoman and Superman. He has contributed art for Marvel, DC, Image and many more publishers across the comic industry.

He’s best known for Captain America and his Marvel projects, where he teamed up with Ed Brubaker in co-creating The Winter Soldier, which led to the character’s appearance in the Marvel movie hit “Captain America: The Winter Soldier.”

Epting is credited with “forever redefining Bucky Barnes and allowing the character to become globally recognized with a recurring role in many films like ‘Black Panther’ and ‘The Thunderbolts.’”

Wow, such overrated mishmash that was part and parcel of a time when Marvel was on the decline, and we're told this is what made great movie material? It's actually enough to reevaluate. The problem was that, at the time, bringing back Bucky was for little more than replacing Steve Rogers as Cap, and this was before they took to serious DEI-pandering, with figures like the Falcon shoehorned into the costume. Also, wasn't the Thunderbolts film a failure? So what good does that citation do?

As for Epting's new comic from Image, Hammerfist, which he produced with writer Rick Remender, what's it about?

The protagonist of Hammerfist is Mike Denton, “a dirtbag hitman, junkie and absentee father who’s spent his life chasing the easy fix — drugs, cheap sex and murder for money — while failing the one person who still believes he can be better: his daughter.”

“Now, on the eve of Black Noon — an ancient darkness that erases the light in all things — Mike has to drag himself out of the gutter, awaken a supernatural weapon powered only by love and fight his way through the living embodiment of evil to save her,” a description of the comic reads. “This unredeemable killer is forced to do the one thing he’s avoided his entire life: stand for something other than himself.”

Gee, yet another dark-laced product we could do without, one where a murderer is in the spotlight?!? Well that's got to be one of the worst ideas the market could turn out, and it's yet another example of too much attention paid to villainy at the expense of heroism. That the character's depicted saving his daughter and fighting another evil entity is no alleviation.

Epting's resume is decidedly overrated, and this kind of project doesn't improve it either. All we have here is another example of a newspaper making a big deal out of nothing, just because the guy lives in the area. Not every local figure is worth celebrating, and even Remender's no big deal.

An artist from North Carolina who may respect what the Punisher was created for

Queen City News spoke with artist David Vandyke, who created a comic titled Mercer. What's interesting for starters is that:

In an era of digital art, he works by hand.

“I like the tactility of it, like I like feeling the paper,” Van Dyke said.

He's got a great idea there. While it's always possible to turn out good art with computers, old-fashioned techniques still matter, and can still result in something to appreciate.

He draws a comic book series called Mercer, which he co-created with Jason Seibel.

“It’s basically if the Punisher was a demon hunter type thing,” he says.

Whatever one thinks of the premise of Mercer, what Vandyke says here does seem to indicate he has respect for what the Punisher was created for, certainly far more than some of the leftists who messed up Frank Castle since the turn of the century, not the least being the late Gerry Conway himself.

Vandyke had a very terrible misfortune in the past 2 decades that influenced his decision to become an artist:

He has come far from the chilling conversation he had 21 years ago.

“The doctor literally came into the room and said, ‘Your life as you know it is over,’” he remembers vividly.

Vandyke broke his back in 2005 while working as a mechanic in Gastonia.

“I heard a pop, and something moved out of the corner of my eye, and I just turned and caught it,” he said of a devastating shop accident. “It was like a 400-pound transmission—and I caught it at a dead stop—and it annihilated the bottom two discs in my back.”

That crushed his dream of a drumming career.

At the same time, he was almost in denial.

“This is my identity; this is everything I’m supposed to be. Like, what do you mean [doctor]?” said Vandyke.

But one night, he picked up a pencil and reinvented himself.

“Like before music, what did you want to be?” he asked himself.

The answer is a comic book artist.

Instead of dwelling on depression and anger, he practiced drawing as his body healed.

“You determine your story,” he says.

I'm terribly sorry he suffered back injuries, and hope he's recovered as best as possible since. Taking up an artist's career is certainly a great way to make a comeback, and I wish him well in his new career.

Image restores its partnerships with Warren Ellis

Some news I almost missed is that British writer Warren Ellis, who was accused of sexual coercion 5-6 years ago is now, all of a sudden, working with Image again, as told on Comic Book Club:

Five years ago, writer Warren Ellis was accused by multiple people of grooming and sexual coercion. In the wake of these accusations, publishers — including Image Comics — cut ties with the writer. Until now, I guess, as Image has announced a brand new graphic novella by the writer.

Titled Ghost Drive Stations, the graphic novella features art by Lordess Foudre, and focuses on “a haunted investigator with no time for the modern world is sent to a research station in the desert to discover why it’s gone offline. What he finds is an experiment in immortality gone horribly wrong, with stakes both global and very, very personal.” So basically, vintage Ellis, who has walked this sort of ground many times before. [...]

As of 2023, he had not taken any of the steps laid out by the organization. However, in 2025, Image published a facsimile of Fell, and just last week the publisher announced the collection of one of Ellis’s Wildstorm titles. We have reached out to Image Comics for comment.

What could've convinced them to reverse course? An excellent question. What is clear is that, if no legal complaints were filed against him, then there isn't much of a case at all. Of course, it's odd in a way how Ellis wouldn't defend himself by filing a lawsuit against the accusers, since arguably, to post such claims as they did on a whole website dedicated to the accusations could be considered defamation by a legal perspective. Popverse says:

Five years since those aborted Fell plans, and six years since the very troubling allegations emerged, something has apparently changed to lead to Image to get back in business with Ellis for new comics, beginning with a November 2026 OGN illustrated by Lordess Foudre. This project would be the most significant new comics work from Ellis since the allegations were made; however, the writer has talked over the past few years about other new comics work being in progress with unspecified publishers.

Did he actually do any work during that time? I don't know, but he sure didn't seem to have what it takes to stand up to the accusations and launch a countersuit if he felt the accusers were being dishonest. Here's more:

At the time, Image Comics said it would not commit to any new Warren Ellis comics until the writer made "amends to the satisfaction of all involved" (and naming SoManyOfUs specifically). In the intervening years, Image has published a collection of older Warren Ellis comics, but now, five years later, Image Comics ramped up the relationship with the announcement of a new OGN and a reprint of another out-of-print comic, despite no appearance of "amends to the satisfaction of all involved," which it had publicly stated.

"A few people have asked me about past events in my life. It’s not my place to pick at it in public or speak for others," Ellis writes in the August 16 edition of his newsletter, Orbital Operations. "I will say that I got to apologise directly to a group of people and offer amends, which I remain very grateful for, and I keep that door open. I learned a lot and still am." [...]

In 2021, Image Comics said it had decided not to work with Ellis until he "made amends to the satisfaction of all involved." Now, with Image proceeding on new work with Ellis, it appears as if they feel Ellis has done enough for them to feel confident in working with him in 2026. It's unclear if Image believes Ellis has "made amends to the satisfaction of all involved," or if that boundary has changed.

I don't find Ellis appealing, but if trumped up accusations were made against him by the SoManyOfUs group, that was wrong, does a terrible disfavor for actual victims, and Image did not have to cut off ties with him. If the group was trying to extort Ellis, that too was wrong, and an example of cancel culture to boot. They may have said they didn't want to cancel Ellis, but that's what they did for a time, in a manner of speaking. That said, if Ellis thought they were unfair to him, then again, why didn't he sue them?

It'll be interesting to see if Ellis' newest work in a while will turn out to be "woke", since that'll only compound the impression he's suddenly got cold feet on anything that could be considered challenging subjects. Image may have resumed their partnerships with Ellis, but that doesn't mean he won't disappoint fans of his otherwise overrated works this time. And for all we know, his legacy, despite the current situation, could still be gone and never recover.

Roger McKenzie passes away at 75

That Eric Alper announced the veteran comics writer Roger McKenzie, who was active mainly during the late 1970s to late 1980s, died at 75 years of age:

Roger McKenzie, the comic book writer best known for helping shape the modern era of Marvel’s Daredevil alongside artist Frank Miller, died on the morning of August 21, 2026, at the age of 75, following months of dealing with heart failure and kidney disease while in hospice care.

McKenzie broke into comics in 1976 with a seven-page short story in Warren Publishing’s Vampirella, going on to write extensively for the company’s black-and-white horror anthologies Creepy, Eerie, and Vampirella through 1982. He also worked for DC Comics during this period, creating the western character Cinnamon and contributing to several of the company’s horror titles.

McKenzie’s most significant professional relationship began in 1978, when he and a young Frank Miller collaborated on a two-page story for DC’s Weird War Tales. That same year, McKenzie took over as writer on Marvel’s Daredevil with issue #151, giving the series a darker tone drawn from his horror writing background. Miller joined him as artist on the title starting with issue #158 in 1979, and the two worked together through issue #166, laying the creative groundwork for the run that would soon make Miller one of the most influential figures in American comics. Their collaborative issues were later collected in the ‘Daredevil by Frank Miller & Klaus Janson Omnibus.’

Here's the annoucement on his Facebook page, and here's what veteran writer Paul Kupperberg's telling about him. I'd read at least a few stories he wrote, and he did have talent for his time, though it's a shame he got his start through the horror genre. But when he wrote issues for a several series from Marvel, I'd say that's where he began to show promise, including on several issues of Captain America, and several issues from Marvel Fanfare. I hope Miller's thankful to McKenzie for providing him with the platform that gave his career its most serious start. McKenzie overall did some good work in his time, and IMO, his work for Marvel is what's really appreciated.