IDW

The Dreadnocks are causing even more trouble as the new Joe team of the post-Revolution Hasbro Universe heads to Mongolia for a battle against Crystal Ball, and you can check it out for yourself in a preview.

Comics and gorillas have gone hand in furry hand since the earliest days of the medium, and this statement goes beyond simply superhero comics. While these great apes have certainly flourished within the superhero genre, they can also be found in numerous jungle action, science fiction, and horror stories in every era of comics. With the release of a new King Kong movie in theaters this week, it's a perfect time to take a survey of the history of gorillas in comics.

The Humble Bundle deals on comics are usually a pretty good way to catch up with older stories that you may have missed out on, but every now and then, there's one that features a brand new title to love --- and right now, the IDW Creator Showcase bundle is offering up a pretty good mix of both. Not only is it full of old favorites like Locke & Key and 30 Days of Night, it also features the debut issue of Andy Suriano and Matt Chapman's Cosmic Scoundrels --- and friends, that is a comic book that hit shelves last week that can be yours (along with a ton of other great titles) for as little as a buck.

Back when the end of Jem and the Holograms was announced, series writer Kelly Thompson promised that something new and very exciting was on the way for everybody's favorite dayglo pop stars. And Friday at Emerald City Comicon we learned just what that is. Launching in June 2017, Jem And The Holograms: Infinite is a bi-weekly event split into two comics, both written by Thompson.

Announced at Emerald City Comicon on Friday, IDW is adding another Hasbro property to their comics lineup in June, with the launch of a Clue comic based on the classic board game. Written by Paul Allor with art by Nelson Dániel, the book is a humorous murder mystery in keeping with the tone of the franchise, but with a new and modernized versions of the classic characters.

Exciting news from Emerald City Comicon in Seattle, as we learn that Shelly Bond is teaming with IDW for a promising new creator-owned imprint called Black Crown, to launch in October 2017. We don't know any of the books or creators yet, but IDW promises we'll learn all about them at San Diego Comic Con in July.

The Hero Initiative's "100 Project" is a cool recurring collaboration the charity undertakes with various publishers, where together they reach out to one hundred different artists to sketch exclusive sketch variants for milestone issues, with the goal of raising money for creators in need. The most recent "100 Project" was in conjunction with IDW Publishing's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #50 and now those covers are being collected into an exclusive art book featuring work from creators such as Stan Sakai, Bill Sienkiewicz and Walt Simonson, among many, many more.

The question most often asked of the ComicsAlliance staff is a variation of, “Which comic books should I be reading?” or, “I’m new to comics, what’s a good place to start?” The Wednesday deluge of new comic books, graphic novels and collected editions can be daunting even for the longtime reader, much less for those totally unfamiliar with creators, characters and publishers, and the dark mysteries of comic book shopping like variants, pre-ordering, and formats. It’s with these challenges in mind that we’ve created Best Comic Books Ever (This Week), an ongoing guide curated by the ComicsAlliance staff. This is where new comics readers and seasoned Wednesday shoppers alike can find our picks of the best books the medium has to offer.

We have, as a people, had Judge Dredd comics for about 40 years now, so it's fair to say that maybe we've gotten used to having him around. I mean, as shocking as his sprawling thrill-powered future might be, and as strange as things can get in in the blocks of Mega City One, there's a level where we've come to terms with it --- or some of it, at least. But that's the trick with what's been happening in IDW's Dredd titles over the past year. Stories like Mega City Zero have somehow managed to drop Dredd into a world that he doesn't understand, recreating that feeling that we have when we're dropped into his world --- and in this year's Judge Dredd Annual, Ulises Farinas, Erick Freitas, Dan McDaid and Ryan Hill are taking it one step further.

If you only know "Corto Maltese" as a war-torn island nation in various DC Comics properties, it's way past time to learn where that name came from. The original Corto Maltese isn't a nation, he's a man. Specifically, he's an enigmatic sea captain who has adventures around the world in a series of comics by the late Italian cartoonist Hugo Pratt. The very epitome of EuroComics, the Corto Maltese stories were first published in Italian, but moved to French when Pratt himself moved to France. Corto Maltese in Siberia is a landmark in the series, because it's the first epic novel-length adventure in what had previously been a series of short stories. IDW's Eurocomics imprint is publishing a new English-language trade paperback of the book in March.