DC kicked off WonderCon 2017 with a spotlight on DC’s Young Animal, the pop-up imprint curated by My Chemical Romance frontman Gerard Way — and along the way, Lee, Michael, and Laura Allred released the first look at pages from their forthcoming Young Animal release, Bug!: The Adventures of Forager.
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You can check them out in the attached image gallery, along with a number of images from upcoming issues of the rest of the Young Animal line, all of which debuted at WonderCon.
The panel, moderated by Vertigo Group Editor Jamie S. Rich, included curator and Doom Patrol writer Gerard Way, Cave Carson Has A Cybernetic Eye writer Jon Rivera, Shade, The Changing Girl writer Cecil Castellucci, and Mother Panic writer Jody Houser.
Way teased a special one-shot issue ofDoom Patrol with fan-favorite artist Michael Allred coming this July, and DC announced that Cave Carson Has A Cybernetic Eye will have a brand new back-up feature called “The Wonderful World of Rocks” by The Flintstones and Prez writer Mark Russell, starting with issue #7.
Bug!: The Adventures of Forager is an Allred production with Lee, Michael and Laura Allred leading the team. This new series will follow the life of Forager, from creator Jack Kirby, as he finds himself in a mysterious house in an unknown realm. When he attempts to make his way home, he’ll meet a number of strange creatures, but none so dangerous as the evil General Electric. The series launches May 10.
Michael Allred, the creator of Madman and co-creator of iZombie, will continue to work on Marvel’s Silver Surfer with Dan Slott, but will reduce his public appearances in 2017 to accommodate the increased workload.
“I am absolutely thrilled to have the first family of comics, the Allreds, producing Bug!: The Adventures Of Forager,” Gerard Way, curator of the Young Animal imprint, told The AV Club. “This year, DC is celebrating the fantastic brain of Jack Kirby and this is our offering to that wonderful tribute. In Young Animal fashion, this miniseries takes an alternative look at a character from the past, Forager, who still has a few unturned stones in his history. The Allreds’ brand of wild and weird fits perfectly with what we are doing, and in some ways inspired various aspects of the imprint — so it only makes sense to bring them in to do what they do best. We can’t wait to show you what they’re cooking up and hope this is the first of many family projects for the imprint that they’ll be involved in.”
Both Marvel and DC are celebrating the hundredth birthday of Jack Kirby this year; at Marvel, it’s with Monsters Unleashed, an event miniseries that centers on a number of Kirby-created monster characters. DC has Bug! as well as The Kamandi Challenge, which unfolds throughout the year with over a dozen creative teams flexing their muscles on one of Kirby’s best-loved worlds.
Michael and Laura Allred are no strangers to Young Animal, having done the art for April’s Doom Patrol #7.
“Every time I get to work with my ‘big bro’ Lee, it’s like tapping into our most thrilling childhood comic book daydreams,” said Michael Allred. “If you gave me the chance to list the characters I’d most like to get my hands on from Kirby’s Fourth World, Forager the Bug sits squarely at the top. And now we are throwing him into the DC’s Young Animal mix, winding him up and letting him go! When you add in our not-so-secret weapon of Laura’s magical colors, I couldn’t possibly be more pumped about this series!”
More Jack Kirby news: Stan Lee reveals Kirby’s last words to him | Kirby, Simon, & the dawn of the romance comic | Breaking down The Kamandi Challenge’s cliffhanger with Dan Abnett | Check out Jack Kirby’s The Kamandi Challenge cameo
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Image courtesy of Focus Features.
