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DC Announces New Weekly Series, ‘Batman Eternal’!

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DC kicks off the NYCC announcements with news that they are launching a new weekly Batman series next spring, “Batman Eternal”. The series will be headed by Scott Snyder with some help from writers James Tynion IV, John Layman, Ray Fawkes, Tim Seeley, and artist Jason Fabok. DC is hoping that the series will offer readers more incite into the large world of Gotham, as well as allow creators to explore any part of the city they like.

In other Batman news, next year’s “Detective Comics” #27 will be a 104-page anniversary issue, paying tribute to the original “Detective Comics” #27, which marked Batman debut in 1939.


Official Press Release:

Comic book fans have a lot to look forward to today with New York Comic-Con kicking off in just a few hours. And just in time for the show, DC Comics made a few announcements that’ll surely be the talk of the convention amongst fans of the Dark Knight!

Launching next spring, BATMAN ETERNAL is an all-new weekly series that comes to you from “showrunner” and BATMAN writer, Scott Snyder, along with writers James Tynion IV, John Layman, Ray Fawkes, and Tim Seeley, and artist Jason Fabok.

BATMAN ETERNAL will “set the stage for a new Gotham and new characters and a new set of stories that will take Batman into 2015,” explained Snyder. “We want this to be a place where you get to tell a story about anything you want in Gotham, so long as we’re also moving this big story forward in the background. You’ll see bombastic arcs as well but there’ll be plenty of room for Ray to explore some of the darker, more mystical aspects of Gotham that he loves or Tim to explore some of the crime we haven’t seen before.”

“We’re five guys doing our best to give you an exciting Gotham that’s changing under the feet of its characters,” Snyder continued.

But BATMAN ETERNAL is not the only Batman news revealed this morning. DC Comics also announced that next year’s DETECTIVE COMICS #27 will be a mega-sized anniversary spectacular! Spanning 104 pages, DETECTIVE COMICS #27 serves as an homage to the original DETECTIVE COMICS #27, which marked Batman’s comic debut in 1939, and features an all-star roster of Batman creators past and present!

In stores January 8, DETECTIVE COMICS #27 includes a modern-day retelling of the Dark Knight’s origin by the incredible team of writer Brad Meltzer and artist Bryan Hitch! Plus, all-new stories by Scott Snyder and Sean Murphy, Peter J. Tomasi and Guillem March, Paul Dini and Dustin Nguyen, Gregg Hurwitz and Neal Adams, new art by legendary Batman writer/artist Frank Miller, and more! This issue – which will include variant covers by Neal Adams, Jim Lee, Greg Capullo, Chris Burnham, Kelley Jones, Patrick Gleason and Mike Allred – also includes John Layman and Jason Fabok’s final storyline, “Gothtopia,” before the new creative team of Francis Manapul and Brian Buccellato take over writing duties for the series in the spring.

“We want to bring him closer to his roots and be more of a street-level type of hero,” Manapul said about his and Buccellato’s plans for the Dark Knight. “His superheroics will still be present, but the investigative part of Batman will be at the forefront …We’ve always written stories about hope, and it will be very interesting to see what comes out when we walk through the sullen streets of Gotham City.”

“Stylistically, we will use the tools in our toolbox to capture what we think the Bat-universe looks and feels like,” added Buccellato. “Gotham won’t look like Central City, so you won’t be seeing all the bright reds, oranges and yellows that defined Flash’s world.”

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[Review] Graphic Novel ‘Tender’ Is Brilliant Feminist Body Horror That Will Make You Squirm & Scream

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Tender Beth Hetland Graphic Novel

Beth Hetland’s debut graphic novel, ‘Tender,’ is a modern tale of love, validation, and self-destruction by way of brutal body horror with a feminist edge.

“I’ve wanted this more than anything.”

Men so often dominate the body horror subgenre, which makes it so rare and insightful whenever women tackle this space. This makes Beth Hetland’s Tender such a refreshing change of pace. It’s earnest, honest, and impossibly exposed. Tender takes the body horror subgenre and brilliantly and subversively mixes it together with a narrative that’s steeped in the societal expectations that women face on a daily basis, whether it comes to empowerment, family, or sexuality. It single-handedly beats other 2023 and ‘24 feminine horror texts like American Horror Story: Delicate, Sick, Lisa Frankenstein, and Immaculate at their own game.

Hetland’s Tender is American Psycho meets Rosemary’s Baby meets Swallow. It’s also absolutely not for the faint of heart.

Right from the jump, Tender grabs hold of its audience and doesn’t let go. Carolanne’s quest for romantic fulfillment, validation, and a grander purpose is easy to empathize with and an effective framework for this woeful saga. Carolanne’s wounds cut so deep simply because they’re so incredibly commonplace. Everybody wants to feel wanted.

Tender is full of beautiful, gross, expressive artwork that makes the reader squirm in their seat and itch. Hetland’s drawings are simultaneously minimalist and comprehensively layered. They’re  reminiscent of Charles Burns’ Black Hole, in the best way possible. There’s consistently inspired and striking use of spot coloring that elevates Hetland’s story whenever it’s incorporated, invading Tender’s muted world.

Hetland employs effective, economical storytelling that makes clever use of panels and scene construction so that Tender can breeze through exposition and get to the story’s gooey, aching heart. There’s an excellent page that depicts Carolanne’s menial domestic tasks where the repetitive panels grow increasingly smaller to illustrate the formulaic rut that her life has become. It’s magical. Tender is full of creative devices like this that further let the reader into Carolanne’s mind without ever getting clunky or explicit on the matter. The graphic novel is bookended with a simple moment that shifts from sweet to suffocating.

Tender gives the audience a proper sense of who Carolanne is right away. Hetland adeptly defines her protagonist so that readers are immediately on her side, praying that she gets her “happily ever after,” and makes it out of this sick story alive…And then they’re rapidly wishing for the opposite and utterly aghast over this chameleon. There’s also some creative experimentation with non-linear storytelling that gets to the root of Carolanne and continually recontextualizes who she is and what she wants out of life so that the audience is kept on guard.

Tender casually transforms from a picture-perfect rom-com, right down to the visual style, into a haunting horror story. There’s such a natural quality to how Tender presents the melancholy manner in which a relationship — and life — can decay. Once the horror elements hit, they hit hard, like a jackhammer, and don’t relent. It’s hard not to wince and grimace through Tender’s terrifying images. They’re reminiscent of the nightmarish dadaist visuals from The Ring’s cursed videotape, distilled to blunt comic panels that the reader is forced to confront and digest, rather than something that simply flickers through their mind and is gone a moment later. Tender makes its audience marinate in its mania and incubates its horror as if it’s a gestating fetus in their womb.

Tender tells a powerful, emotional, disturbing story, but its secret weapon may be its sublime pacing. Hetland paces Tender in such an exceptional manner, so that it takes its time, sneaks up on the reader, and gets under their skin until they’re dreading where the story will go next. Tender pushes the audience right up to the edge so that they’re practically begging that Carolanne won’t do the things that she does, yet the other shoe always drops in the most devastating manner. Audiences will read Tender with clenched fists that make it a struggle to turn each page, although they won’t be able to stop. Tender isn’t a short story, at more than 160 pages, but readers will want to take their time and relish each page so that this macabre story lasts for as long as possible before it cascades to its tragic conclusion. 

Tender is an accomplished and uncomfortable debut graphic novel from Hetland that reveals a strong, unflinching voice that’s the perfect fit for horror. Tender indulges in heightened flights of fancy and toes the line with the supernatural. However, Tender is so successful at what it does because it’s so grounded in reality and presents a horror story that’s all too common in society. It’s a heartbreaking meditation on loneliness and codependency that’s one of 2024’s must-read horror graphic novels.

‘Tender,’ by Beth Hetland and published by Fantagraphics, is now available.

4 out of 5 skulls

Tender graphic novel review

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