Bilquis Evely

The Holidays are upon as, and the year is basically gone. And as you know by now, that mean that here at ComicsAlliance, we're looking back at the best that comics had to offer in 2016. So here, to give you warm feeling as you head into your holiday weekend, are the best Archie Comics covers of the year.

This month in DC's March solicitations, there are a few big shake-ups in the two Titans books as each team gets a new member that fans have been waiting to see for a long time. There are also some interesting developments with Wonder Woman's villains, and possible answers to the mystery of the two Supermen coming our way next year.

It might seem hard to believe, but there was once a time when Archie Comics was the only publisher that didn't do variant covers. If memory serves --- and I might be wrong about this --- it took until 2010 for them to do their first one ever on Jughead #200. Now, though, with the high profile relaunches that we've seen over the past year, it looks like they're making up for lost time. When Betty & Veronica #1 hits shelves on July 20, it's coming with twenty-five different covers, including covers from Colleen Coover, Bilquis Evely, Chip Zdarsky, Veronica Fish and many more. Check out the entire roster!

Legends of Tomorrow #1 is one of the weirdest comics DC has put out in quite a while. Despite the name, it doesn't seem to have much to do with the Legends of Tomorrow television show --- unless Metamorpho and the Metal Men are joining the cast sometime in the next season, which would be amazing, the only connecting thread to the comic is Firestorm, and even then, the comic's Firestorm is made of two completely different people than the show's. As good as it is to see DC using the TV show to get eyes on a comics anthology --- and as solid as those stories might be --- it seems like a bit of a strange approach. But then you get to Sugar & Spike, and that's when you realize that the name of this comic is nowhere near being the weirdest thing about it. No, the single most bizarre thing about this book --- and the thing that makes it a must-read for me --- is that Keith Giffen and Bilquis Evely are doing the most unexpected reboot of the year.

One of the really nice things about the rise of digital comics is that there's always a sale going on, and this week, Dynamite has one that's definitely worth checking out. It's listed on the site as a "Recent Hits" sale, and there are a lot of great comics from the past year that are up for 99 cents each: the amazingly weird Bob's Burgers tie-in that features a new installment of Tina's Erotic Friend Fiction in each issue; the beautiful Conan/Red Sonja crossover; the surprisingly great Django/Zorro series from Matt Wagner, Quentin Tarantino and Esteve Polls; the Kirby-inspired Captain Victory; and even the first issues of their new King Features line. It's one of those sales where it's easy to spend a whole lot of money --- which, I believe, is the entire idea --- but if you've only got the budget to check one thing out, then there's one book that I can recommend over everything else: David F. Walker and Bilquis Evely's Shaft, one of the year's best miniseries.

Next Saturday at the Long Beach Comic Expo the first ever winner of the Dwayne McDuffie Award for Diversity will be named, and today the organizers revealed an impressive roster of nominees that includes a tribute to the first Chinese-American superhero, a blaxploitation revival, and the most prominent Muslim superhero in North American comics.

David Walker and Bilquis Evely have teamed up at Dynamite for the first-ever comic adaptation of Ernest Tidyman’s ‘Shaft’ character, delivering an exhilarating, game-changing opening issue to a series that should make stars of the entire creative team. Surprisingly, the book deftly skips away from the John Shaft seen in film and TV, instead dialling back in time to look at the young Shaft, just out the military. The original books talk briefly about this time in the character’s life, mentioning his brief stint as a boxer; this is where Walker chooses to focus as his series starts off. The story of the first issue sees Shaft just getting started as a boxer when he's asked to take a dive, and that hook is all Walker needs to create a solid sense of place and character. The story gives us a look at a confident but less seasoned John Shaft, still feeling out his place in the world and deciding what kind of mark he wants to make.

Next month, the world's most famous fictional Private Dick / Sex Machine / Bad MotherSHUTYOURMOUTH will make his first-ever appearance on comic shop shelves, when Dynamite Entertainment releases the premiere issue of Shaft, by the creative team of David Walker and Bilquis Evely. And while John Shaft is a well known figure to moviegoers and soul music listeners worldwide, this title promises to focus on the rough-and-tumble version of the character that originated in Ernest Tidyman's series of novels. We spoke to series writer Walker about the character's long history in multiple media, and his plans for the comic incarnation.