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08/22/22 @ 11:15 am EST
 DF Interview: Kate Sheridan unleashes a conjuring conflict with menacing mysteries in the YA original graphic novel ‘In the Shadow of the Throne’By Byron BrewerWhen his younger siblings and parents begin to irritate him on vacation, Jordan tries to get some space. But instead of wandering around the museum, he finds himself dropped into a fantasy world of magic where he can finally have some fun and train to become a knight. Except Prince Astel and Sir Griffith are about to uncover a sinister secret kept hidden by the queen that'll thrust Jordan into the middle of a magical battle he never could have anticipated! From Maverick, the YA imprint of Mad Cave Studios, comes In the Shadow of the Throne, an original graphic novel by writer Kate Sheridan and artist Gaia Cardinalli. Braving innumerable dangers, I headed on a magical mystery tour to talk to scribe Kate Sheridan about this coming book. Here’s what they told me. Byron Brewer: Kate, tell readers about the inspiration for your new graphic novel, In the Shadow of the Throne. I know it has a very special place in your heart. Kate Sheridan: In the Shadow of the Throne definitely comes from a lifelong love of fantasy and desire to escape into a fantasy world. As a kid and teen I loved stories like the Inkheart series, or Sabriel, or Magic Knight Rayearth that involved traveling from a nonmagical place to a magical one. This book explores those themes of escapism, and what happens when that desire hits the reality of a dark fantasy world and what surviving there entails. Byron: Introduce us to young Jordan Rivera. Talk a little about the character and the life he leads… at least before this OGN’s adventure. Kate Sheridan: Jordan leads a pretty normal life. He's a gay teen boy from a Filipino-American family who uses fantasy as a form of escapism and dreams about going on big adventures. He's the eldest of three kids and looks after his twin younger brothers, Benjie and Isko, both in general and on this vacation they're all on with their family at the beginning of the book. And, like a lot of younger siblings, they drive him crazy. He'd much rather be spending his vacation time with his friends doing the stuff he wants to do. When we meet Jordan, he's looking for an escape, and he gets one that's a little more than he bargained for. Byron: Talk a little bit about your canvas for this novel. Paint us a word picture of the nature of the magical world artist Gaia Cardinali and you build herein. Is it dream or alt-reality? Kate Sheridan: Alt-reality would be accurate! It's a pure fantasy story, Jordan very much is physically transported to the world of Lymeira. Lymeira is a world full of the adventure that Jordan's looking for, of magic and knights and princes, but it's also full of danger. Dark secrets abound, and assassins and conspirators lurk around every corner. Gaia really did such a lovely job bringing the world to life, from its lush forests full of ruins and wolves, to the bustling medieval capitol and the towered castle that sits above it. Everything feels so lived in and full of history. Byron: Who are Prince Astel and Sir Griffith? Kate Sheridan: Prince Astel is the crown prince of Lymeira and the only son of its queen Emereth, and Sir Griffith (or Griff, as they're known to friends) is his nonbinary swornsword and protector who has known him since they were both very young! Byron: We don’t want spoilers, but tell readers what you can about the Queen and some sinister secret which turns Jordan’s world-hopping topsy-turvey. Kate Sheridan: Magic is considered dangerous and is outlawed, a policy that Astel's mother Queen Emereth instated. But something strange and definitely magical is happening in Lymeira, and the Queen knows more than she's willing or able to tell, so Griff, Jordan, and Astel take it upon themselves to delve into the situation and the tragic history that led to magic being outlawed. Byron: Can you give us an overview of the OGN, a sort of expanded elevator pitch sans conclusion details? Kate Sheridan: I can! Jordan is a boy who is pulled into a fantastical world of Lymeira while on a trip with his family to an art museum. There, he saves the life of Prince Astel with quick-thinking and a fallen knight's sword while also learning Astel's secret—that he's a mage in a country where magic is outlawed. For his service, Jordan is granted a boon by his mother, the queen, and chooses to become a knight under the tutelage of young Sir Griffith, Astel's swornsword. Though Astel dislikes and distrusts Jordan, they band with Griff to investigate strange and definitely magical happenings around Lymeira, a plot which begins to close in around the royal family, and the tragic history that ties them all together. When Griff is injured protecting the Queen, Jordan and Astel are left on their own to try to work together as time begins to run out. Byron: Talk about the artwork of Gaia Cardinali. Kate Sheridan: Gaia and her work are a dream, honestly, and I feel so blessed to have her as my co-creator. As a writer who is also an artist, I know just how much work goes into even a simple comics page, or even a single panel, and the amount of loving detail that she's able to put into every page really blows me away. Her style's such a nice mix of graphic and painterly, which is a hard needle to thread, but she does it so deftly! Byron: Kate, what other projects, inside or outside comics, might you have coming soon that you can tell readers about? Kate Sheridan: My main project right now is Whalebones, an adult comic anthology that explores love, death, and grief during New England's Whaling Era through a series of interconnected stories. I spent April to June of this year plotting, researching, and sketching a part of an artist residency with New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park, which was an incredible experience. I'd really gotten to immerse myself in the area, and learn from the people who've made it their life's work to know and preserve these places and their history. I'm making it independently so I don't have concrete details on what kind of home it will have or how it will be released, but I'm hoping to be able to share more soon. Dynamic Forces would like to thank Kate Sheridan for taking time out of their busy schedule to answer our questions. The In the Shadow of the Throne OGN from Mad Cave Studios is slated to be on sale August 24th! For more news and up-to-date announcements, join us here at Dynamic Forces, www.dynamicforces.com/htmlfiles/, “LIKE” us on Facebook, www.facebook.com/dynamicforcesinc, and follow us on Twitter, www.twitter.com/dynamicforces. 04/28/24 @ 3:00 pm EST
Is the future of physical media coming to an end? It used to be that DVD and Blu-Ray sales were the saving grace for some movies and you could walk into various stores and browse by genre in the same way you could for music. But like the music stores of the past, the days of swinging by your local shop and picking up the latest release are fading fast. Last year Netflix announced they were no longer doing the movie-by-mail program, so they wouldn’t be buying any more DVDs and Best Buy announced they were removing their Music/Movie sections as well. Now Target has come out and said they would be doing the same this year. A lot of studios have moved away from creating physical media, the exception being Disney who just made a deal with a third party to create their media and it has led to releases of WandaVision, Loki, Moon Knight, and the Mandalorian with SteeleBook editions. And when you purchase a movie or album digitally, there is always the chance that the hosting service you bought it on goes out of business, you will lose your purchases. While I don’t think there are any clear-cut answers here yet, I think the discussion definitely needs to be had. Physical media may seem antiquated to some, but when you computer crashes, your internet goes out or a company files bankruptcy… physical media may start looking a whole lot better.  04/28/24 @ 2:37 pm EST
The ouroboros created by the success of Marvel Studios is continuing with the latest round of speculation driven by nothing. With Marvel and other superhero films becoming so popular that it led to websites and YouTube channels focused on them and now those places need to keep feeding content to their viewers. So, when Michael B. Jordan reposts the trailer for the upcoming Deadpool & Wolverine, we get stories of how this means he is going to return as Johnny Storm from the 2015 Fantastic Four film. Jordan did play a version of the Human Torch, but he’s also played Kilmonger in Black Panther so he could return as either character… or he could just be promoting the next movie from Marvel because he feels connected to the studio? This is the same type of thing as James Gunn posting the original Superman logo to social media last week and everyone running around trying to figure out what it means. It could just mean that Gunn had some free time and wanted to post something Superman related. This week he posted the bloodied fist of a Green Lantern as drawn by Dave Johnson. There are now articles trying to figure out what this means. He also posted a picture of his cat and then his two dogs… I’m sure this is supposed to mean we’re getting a Krypto & Streaky movie soon…  04/28/24 @ 2:13 pm EST
In an interview the other day, Nathan Fillion told the story of how he found out that he was going to be playing Guy Garner / Green Lantern in the upcoming Superman movie. The problem is that he made a slight error in his story, and it has led to a lot of online controversy. In the interview he said he ran into James Gunn at the premiere of Suicide Squad and was told there. Gunn took to social media to correct the statement, saying that it took place at the Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3 premiere instead. This made Zak Snyder fans come out and claim that Fillion’s story proves that Gunn had been lying about Henry Cavill and that now he was just trying to cover it up with his post. Supposedly the lie came about when Gunn said that he had no interest in taking over the DCU until Peter Safran came on board to do the “exec stuff” and could leave Gunn to do the creative stuff. Gunn stated he was confused and not sure who is supposed to have lied, he also made it clear that his Superman pitch was always geared for a new Superman from the beginning so it doesn’t really matter at which event Fillion found out, Gunn was never lined up to make a Cavill lead film.  04/27/24 @ 11:36 am EST
Being in Los Angeles in the late 90s gave you access to a local radio station, KROQ and their morning show Kevin & Bean. While the show was on for just shy of thirty years, it is notable for a couple of the people who made their name there before moving on. Impressionist and frequent Kevin Smith collaborator Ralph Garman was on the show from 1999 to 2017 and Matt “Money” Smith was on from 1999 to 2006 before going to work at ESPN. But the two biggest names were Adam Carolla and Jimmy Kimmel. Kimmel was “Jimmy the Sports Guy” from 1994 to 1999 before leaving with Carolla to start The Man Show before creating Win Ben Stein’s Money and eventually getting his own late-night variety show on ABC. Comedian Carolla was on the show from 1995 to 1997 as a character named Mr. Birchum, a woodshop teacher who would call in to give messages to his students. That character is coming back in a new animated series for the Daily Wire. And joining Carolla will be a voice cast that includes: Megyn Kelly, Brett Cooper, Roseanne Barr, Danny Trejo, Rob Riggle, Patrick Warburton, Tyler Fischer, Alonzo Bodden, Kyle Dunnigan and Jay Mohr. It was recently announced that Sage Steele would be replacing Candace Owens who recently left the news platform. The show is set to premiere on May 12 on the DailyWire+.  04/27/24 @ 11:12 am EST
New on Netflix is the Dead Boy Detectives, based on the comics from The Sandman creator Neil Gaiman. It follows a pair of ghosts who instead of crossing over into the afterlife, decide to stay and help other phantoms with their problems. In the comics, the boys exist in the same world as Morpheus and the other characters from The Sandman, which is the plan here as well, but because of timing the producers needed to tweak a few things. Showrunner Steve Yockey said: “We knew we wanted to hang on to the boys’ backstory as much as we could. We obviously couldn’t do the full “Season of Mists” backstory, because they have not done that on The Sandman yet. And we were trying to exist within The Sandman universe without stepping on any toes. So we had to slightly tweak their backstories. We held on to the friendship as the core thing, and obviously the detective agency. And then Crystal, to a certain extent, has the same backstory from the comics. Everybody else is either a new creation or a new version of something that was in the comic books. We did a lot of reappropriating and moving things around. So it will feel familiar to readers of the comic book, but also hopefully surprise them in good ways.” But they did keep how the ghosts work directly from the comics. “The rules about how ghosts operate are laid out like in a two-page spread in the comic book, where it’s like, ‘Here are the ghost rules.’ So we took that and we ran with it. Then we did everything in our power to just work that internal logic pretty rigorously. But these rules are the rules.” As for the theme of the series, Yockey gave what might be the best elevator pitch line ever, “I’ve said from the beginning that we were trying to make The Hardy Boys on acid.”  ... 04/27/24 @ 10:44 am EST
Recently we reported that Robert Downey Jr. has shown interest in returning to the role of Tony Stark / Iron Man in the future. The problem is that Iron Man sacrificed himself at the end of Avengers: Endgame, something that the directors of the movie mentioned when asked about RDJ’s comments. Anthony Russo told GamesRadar, “I don’t know how they would do it. I don’t know what the road to that would be.” Joe Russo added, “I mean, we closed that book, so it would be up to them to figure out how to reopen it.” And previously Kevin Feige had said, “We are going to keep that moment and not touch that moment again. We all worked very hard for many years to get to that, and we would never want to magically undo it in any way.” So, that’s the end of that, right? Probably not as anyone who reads comics know that a character death only lasts until the sales start to drop and if the MCU continues to have a few underperforming films, I would expect the writers would come up with a way for RDJ to suit up again.  04/26/24 @ 9:41 pm EST
Sony has pushed its reboot of Karate Kid from December 13 this year to May 30, 2025. This has created a bit of a backward domino effect but won’t rob the year of theatrical releases. Backfilling Karate Kid‘s spot is Sony/Marvel’s Kraven the Hunter, which goes from August 30, the Labor Day weekend frame, to December 13. The Aaron Taylor-Johnson movie will have Imax and PLF screens. Kraven the Hunter will be the only R-rated movie during the holidays, directed by J.C. Chandor, it will go up that frame against Warner Bros’ animated Lord of the Rings: The War of Rohirrim. The plus here on Karate Kid‘s move: The movie will now follow the sixth and final season of Cobra Kai, which was delayed due to the strike. The summer date will see 50% K-12 out on its opening day with great family-film spacing. Warner Bros has the weekend reserved for an untitled movie. Through five movies, the Karate Kid cinema franchise counts north of $620 million worldwide. (via Deadline) 04/26/24 @ 9:35 pm EST
The two most talked-about comic book icons of the year are co-starring in their latest team-up-series—DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE: WWIII. Brought to you by two of the characters’ most legendary creators, writer Joe Kelly and artist Adam Kubert, DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE: WWIII is a three-issue epic that’s a must-have for fans and a perfect entry point for newcomers to Wade and Logan’s comic book adventures. The debut issue hits stands next week, and to celebrate this highly-anticipated launch, comic shops will receive a special surprise DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE: WWIII variant cover! The Promo Surprise Variant Cover is an all-new take on acclaimed artist Gabriele Dell’Otto’s regular variant cover that features Wolverine in his beloved brown costume. WADE WILSON AND LOGAN AT THE ENDS OF THE EARTH - AND EACH OTHER'S THROATS! The most intensely mismatched team-up in comics and pop culture - the best there is and the merc with the mouth - undergoes a radical change in this three-part, globe-spanning saga for the ages! The mysterious Delta believes in change. Change is good. But as he sets his sights on Deadpool, and Wolverine is caught up in the plot, is the third time really the charm, or the curse? Get ready for WWIII to erupt on the scene with the wildest duo in comics! The DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE: WWIII Promo Surprise Variant Cover is the latest complimentary cover delivered from Marvel to show appreciation for retailers and build excitement for readers. Check out Dell’Otto’s variant cover below and inquire with your local comic shop regarding availability.  04/26/24 @ 8:46 am EST
James Bond alum Pierce Brosnan is returning to his espionage roots. The actor is attached to star in A Spy’s Guide to Survival from director Simon Barry, the creator behind Netflix series Warrior Nun. Uri Singer’s Passage Pictures is producing the project that centers around a reclusive, retired spy who is brought out of hiding by his enigmatic new neighbor, digging up both of their secrets in the process. Barry will also write the film based on a story by him and his father, Derek Barry. The project will mark Simon Barry’s feature directing debut. “As a longtime Pierce Brosnan fan, I’m extremely grateful to have the opportunity to work alongside someone I admire for their craft, character and humanity,” said Simon Barry. (via The Hollywood Reporter) 04/26/24 @ 8:35 am EST
This June, chaos reignites when Steve Orlando’s SCARLET WITCH run returns! Teaming up with X-Men Red’s Jacopo Camagni, Orlando’s SCARLET WITCH will continue to push the limits of what Wanda’s magic is capable of as she becomes the Marvel Universe’s prime defender against deadly mystical threats—new and old! Among them will be LORE, Wanda’s demonic counterpart from 1994’s Scarlet Witch limited series. Complete with a wicked new look from Russell Dauterman, fans can check out Lore on both the cover of August’s SCARLET WITCH #3 and Dauterman’s original design sheet. In addition, Dauterman will join Camagni as an interior artist on SCARLET WITCH #3 to bring Wanda and Lore’s epic battle to life. LORE RETURNS! Scarlet Witch’s fight to reach the land of the living puts her face-to-face with her necromantic multiversal counterpart! Lore won’t stop until her death at Wanda’s hands is avenged – but another one of Wanda’s nemeses may hold the key to her survival! "Redesigning Lore was a huge treat!” Dauterman said. “Lore is an evil Wanda variant, so I wanted to contrast the design I did for our Scarlet Witch, which was meant to be magical, vibrant, and super-heroic, by going dark and sinister, with a goth, undead vibe. I’m incredible excited to also be drawing some interiors in the issue where these two Wandas face off!" Lore, who destroyed her own world before trying to conquer the multiverse, represents Wanda’s worst fear—a version of herself that’s gone mad with power! Will Scarlet Witch need her own inner darkness in order to defeat her? Preorder SCARLET WITCH #1 at your local comic shop today! 
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