IDW News And Notes From San Diego Comic Fest 2020
by Gary Catig
San Diego Comic Fest may not have the name recognition as the other San Diego pop culture show held in the summer, but it still attracts prominent creators and publishers as guests. The President, Publisher and Chief Creative Officer of IDW Publishing, Chris Ryall, hosted a panel talking about some of the company’s upcoming projects. Though attendees couldn’t see the new artwork Ryall had hoped to reveal due to computer issues, there were still some news worthy tidbits to come out of the presentation.
This summer’s The Last Ronin sees the OG’s of TMNT reteaming for an all new story. Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird will join Tom Waltz and Andy Kuhn for the tale. The comic will be in the prestige format a la The Dark Knight and will cover the Ninja Turtles’ final story.
A few weeks back, it was revealed that there would be a crossover between Locke and Key and The Sandman Universe entitled, Locke and Key: Hell & Gone. The story, from Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez, will involve the origins of the magical keys and their ties with Lucifer’s Key to Hell. The series has been in the works for a while, and if you pay attention to the Locke and Key one shots, they are subtly leading to Sandman’s “Season of the Mists”. Kelley Jones, the artist most associated with the arc, will be doing a cover for the new book.
John Layman and Nick Bradshaw have a new creator owned book with the publisher called Bermuda. It was announced that Len O’Grady will be the colorist.
Dungeons & Dragons has been a lucrative property for IDW and they plan on releasing another new D&D series as well as partnering for one more Rick & Morty and D&D crossover.
Finally, they even touched upon the new Snake Eyes film coming out later this year. Though they couldn’t provide specifics, they did say that some of their G.I. Joe comics were used to inform and inspire the plot of the upcoming movie.