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Irish Independent
03-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Independent
‘The Sandman, Season 2' review: The man of your dreams will have you nodding off
The Hollywood contracts for film and television adaptations of his novels and comic books flew into his hands like enchanted birds. The prolific 64-year-old author, screenwriter and producer could do no wrong. And then, in the summer of 2024, sexual assault and misconduct allegations against Gaiman by multiple women emerged. It got worse for him in January of this year when New York Magazine ran a cover story detailing the accusations and featuring interviews with four of his accusers. The article was published online on Vulture. Gaiman, who denies the allegations, has been banished to the realm of the cancelled. One after another, literary, film, TV and theatre projects have fallen like dominoes. Publisher Dark Horse Comics announced it would no longer work with him and cancelled publication of his Anansi Boys series Publisher Dark Horse Comics announced it would no longer work with him and cancelled publication of his Anansi Boys series and its collected volume. Prime Video's Anansi Boys miniseries completed production some time ago, yet there's no sign of a release date. One of its stars, Delroy Lindo, said recently he's doubtful it will ever see the light of day. Netflix's series Dead Boy Detectives was axed last autumn after just one season. A musical stage version of Gaiman's children's novel Coraline, which was made into a successful animated film in 2011, was scrapped. The producers stated the allegations made it 'impossible to continue'. The planned final season of Prime Video's Good Omens, based on the novel by Gaiman and the late Terry Pratchett, has been reduced to a single 90-minute episode with no involvement from Gaiman. Production on Disney's film of Gaiman's novel The Graveyard Book has paused. It's not clear if this is down to the allegations. Disney has made no comment. The last Gaiman project still standing – but not for much longer – is Season 2 of comic book adaptation The Sandman (Netflix, from Thursday, July 3), arriving three long years after the first. ADVERTISEMENT Learn more To the surprise of fans of the series, Netflix announced in January that this would be the final season. Six episodes are available now and the remaining five drop later in the month. When Gaiman's name appears in the credits, it's hard to ignore the elephant stamping loudly at the back of the room Showrunner Allan Heinberg insists the decision was made back in 2022, long before the allegations against Gaiman, as it was felt there wasn't enough material in the comics about the title character, aka Dream, aka Morpheus, to sustain any more. Whatever about that, when Gaiman's name appears in the credits, it's hard to ignore the elephant stamping loudly at the back of the room. It's unlikely, however, to bother the hardcore fans of the comic books, at whom the series is clearly aimed. They were overjoyed to see the beloved 80s and 90s cult favourite finally brought to the screen after decades of failed attempts. They'll be in nerd heaven all over again. The rest of us, meanwhile, are in hell. Literally. It kicks off with Dream (Tom Sturridge) busily rebuilding his realm. He's summoned to a meeting with fellow members of the Endless: Destiny (Adrian Lester), Death (Kirby Howell-Baptiste), Desire (Mason Alexander Park), Despair (Donna Preston) and Delirium (Esmé Creed-Miles). What the meeting was about, I couldn't quite fathom (the series doesn't make many concessions to clarity), but Dream abruptly heads to hell to rescue his beloved, Nada (Deborah Oyelade), the Queen of the First People, who he condemned to the fiery place 10,000 years earlier for reasons we have neither the space nor the energy to go into. When he gets there, he discovers Lucifer Morningstar (Gwendoline Christie) has had enough of being hell's ruler. She's quit, released all the inhabitants and dupes Dream into taking the key and becoming hell's custodian. It's his problem now and he'll have to face the numerous demons and deities who want to take control of the realm. Like its predecessor, Season 2 is ponderously paced, full of portentous waffle and mostly takes itself desperately seriously. Dream is such a passive hero, you might find yourself nodding off. You stick to your realm and I'll stick to mine. Rating: Two stars
Forbes
19-06-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Marvel, DC Sign On To New Digital Comics Platform From Ex-Amazon Team
Neon Ichiban, a new digital comics marketplace with an elite pedigree from publisher DSTLRY, will launch with new and backlist material from Marvel Entertainment, DC Comics, Dark Horse Comics, Kodansha, Oni Press, Vault Comics and DSTLRY's own titles, according to the company's announcement today. Neon Ichiban will offer individual issues for sale to read and download, plus unique features that allow the signatures and remarques of digital issues and resale of limited-edition items on the site's marketplace. The website and mobile reader app are slated to launch later this summer, with Android and IoS apps in development and expected to follow shortly, according to the company. 'We're trying to bring the fun of comic collecting to digital,' says DSTLRY cofounder/CEO David Steinberger in an exclusive interview. 'Whether that's being able to download your favorite comic as a PDF, getting it signed or sketched on, or being able to sell it to another collector. We're building a hub for both readers and collectors.' Though DSTLRY has only been around since 2023, Steinberger and cofounder/CCO Chip Mosher are no strangers to the world of digital comics. Steinberger (with John Roberts) cofounded the market-leading app comiXology in 2008; comics industry veteran Mosher joined in 2011, serving as head of marketing and communications before transitioning into a publishing role. When comiXology was acquired by Amazon in 2014, Steinberger was tapped to head up Amazon's entire global comics business, including operations in Japan and Europe as well as North America. Steinberger and Mosher left Amazon in 2022 as the company began folding ComiXology's brand and technology into the larger Kindle digital bookstore. It turns out their personal brand carried as much weigh as Amazon's corporate brand when it came to luring launch partners to the platform, including the critical 'Big Two' (Marvel and DC) of the comics publishing world. Sales leader Marvel Comics is bringing one of its largest licensed digital comics catalogs in recent years to the new platform, and all publishers are making both frontlist and backlist available on a pay-to-download basis. 'We sold a lot of digital comics for those publishers and we always tried to operate in a forthright and transparent way,' says Steinberger. 'A lot of the same people are still in leadership in those companies. When we told them what we were doing and showed them some of the work we had done on DSTLRY publications, they were pretty excited to come on board.' Mosher says he expects additional publishers will sign on as momentum grows. Steinberger says creators and self-publishers will eventually be able to sell their work on the site as well. As the branding suggests, Neon Ichiban isn't just about American comics. Mosher and Steinberger say that Asian manga and manwa are going to be a big area of focus, unsurprising considering how digital has taken over that industry. Kodansha, a leading publisher of manga in both Japan and North America, is also one of the launch partners. 'We have an aspiration to bring readers of all the global styles of sequential storytelling art together to experience great comics,' says Steinberger. 'We're able to use modern tools to present personalized recommendations and bridge the gaps, so everyone can see what's most interesting to them.' Mosher also emphasized the importance of having current material from the industry's top publishers visible on a single platform, given the chaos that has engulfed the comic book distribution system in recent months. 'One of the things we learned from comiXology is that digital can be a big benefit to the whole industry, because our data showed so many first-time comic readers on digital go on to buy comics in print at local retailers,' he says. 'We look forward to making print customers for the entire industry. We are a print publisher ourselves, and that's still an important part of our business.' One other lesson from comiXology is that, even with the might of Amazon behind them, digital sales of comics on a download-to-own basis hit a ceiling of about 15% of the total print market. Sure, people want to read comics, but they also want to collect them, hunt for rare variants, get them signed, and sell them. DSTLRY developed technology that enables exactly these features, which debuted on their proprietary marketplace in 2024. Now Neon Ichiban is making that functionality available to all publishers. 'We register each purchase with an edition number, and our back end transfers that edition from user to user,' explains Steinberger. 'People can see who owned it, who sold it to who, whether it got signed or remarqued. We don't use any kind of blockchain or NFTs for that. It's unnecessary. We ensure the provenance, so we avoid the issues that crushed the whole NFT thing.' The resale marketplace allows creators to supplement their income by charging for sketches and signatures on digital just as they do on physical comics. It also includes opportunities for the original publisher and creators to get a share of the revenues when books change hands. The Neon Ichiban team hopes those features, combined with their experience, industry relationships and extensive launch-day partner lineup, can help their new project gain traction in a multilayered digital comics space that includes international players like Webtoon, new subscription-based services like Global Comix, and what's left of comiXology, now largely subsumed into Amazon's Kindle and facing mounting complaints from users over lack of support. 'Once people see what we're doing, we expect to add new partners, new benefits for readers and creators and other enhancements,' says Steinberger. He and Mosher urge people interested in news and notifications about Neon Ichiban to sign up for the company's newsletter.
Geek Dad
19-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Geek Dad
Umbrella Academy: Plan B # 1— The Sparrow Academy
It is a rare occasion when we witness a superb adaptation finish a line before the story is fully drawn, and I am thrilled to know that things in comic form will be as weird and different as a set of timelines set off by Number 1. Six years later, we pick up where we left off. After the mass release of The City's greatest foes and the chaos that was to be known as Hotel Oblivion, Umbrella learns that other brothers and sisters exist : The Sparrow Academy. Mom is alive and well, and the Sparrows are dubbed by her as the best ones. They tell their siblings (as only siblings can do) the Umbrellas were the failures. No one knows how to hurt each other more than family, and this will be an all-out battle for the upper hand, a bloody one. This adaptation invites you to reread the cult classic and remember how things ended up, because we will tend to mix it up with the TV series (and things are very different). I have to say that in 2019, I was wondering about how they were going to film Hotel Oblivion, and the wedding party at the end of the world surpassed my expectations. It is one of my favorite screen scenes of all time, as it reminds me of my very weird and wonderful family (we are six siblings). Having said that, this will be blood and mayhem all around, and I can′t wait! ′Umbrella Academy: Plan B # 1′ is on sale since June 11th, 2025. Genre: Superhero, Science-Fiction, Action/Adventure Format: FC, 32 pages; Miniseries Price: $4.99 UPC: 7 61568 01420 4 00151
National Post
10-06-2025
- Entertainment
- National Post
WEBTOON Entertainment and Dark Horse Comics to Bring "Cyberpunk 2077," "Critical Role," "The Witcher," Nickelodeon's "The Legend of Korra," and other titles to WEBTOON's English-Language Platform
Article content The titles expand the companies' existing partnership, which brought Nickelodeon's Avatar: The Last Airbender to WEBTOON Article content WEBTOON Entertainment continues to redefine digital storytelling, working with Dark Horse to bring some of the biggest franchises in fandom to webcomics Article content Article content LOS ANGELES — WEBTOON Entertainment Inc., a leading global entertainment company and home to some of the world's largest storytelling platforms, is expanding its collaboration with Dark Horse Comics, bringing five major franchises to WEBTOON's English-language platform. WEBTOON will become the digital home of Critical Role: The Mighty Nein Origins, The Witcher, Cyberpunk 2077, Plants vs. Zombies ™, and new tales of Nickelodeon's The Legend of Korra. Newly reformatted for WEBTOON's vertical-scroll format, the new slate of titles will roll out on the platform throughout the second half of 2025. Article content The new slate joins WEBTOON and Dark Horse's existing partnership to bring Nickelodeon's Avatar: The Last Airbender comics to the platform, where these have accumulated over 13 million views. Article content 'WEBTOON has made it easy for a new generation of fans to fall in love with comics,' said Yongsoo Kim, CSO and Head of Global WEBTOON at WEBTOON Entertainment. 'We're thrilled to work with Dark Horse to bring this new slate of world-class titles to WEBTOON. Whether we're helping new creators build their fandoms or working with marquee publishers like Dark Horse to bring beloved franchises to fans around the world, we're committed to delivering the highest quality storytelling to our passionate community of readers.' Article content 'I couldn't be more excited about partnering with WEBTOON on this slate of new titles. They've done such an incredible job shepherding our Avatar: The Last Airbender comics to their audience that I know all of these new stories are in good hands,' said Tim Wiesch, Vice President of Business Development at Dark Horse. The full slate of WEBTOON's reformatted Dark Horse titles includes: Article content The Witcher – A dark fantasy epic featuring the witcher Geralt of Rivia, a mercenary monster slayer. Embark on the Path and explore the world of the best-selling video game franchise. The Legend of Korra (Vertical Scrolling Format Exclusive to WEBTOON) – A continuation of the Nickelodeon animated television series, Avatar: The Last Airbender, The Legend of Korra series follows Avatar Korra and her friends in their continuing adventures. Critical Role: The Mighty Nein Origins (Vertical Scrolling Format Exclusive to WEBTOON) – Based on the hit tabletop RPG series, Critical Role: The Mighty Nein Origins follows a band of unlikely heroes as they embark on high-stakes adventures, blending immersive storytelling with the creativity of roleplaying. Cyberpunk 2077 – A collection of action-packed stories set in the same world as the best-selling video game, featuring a new cast of characters in the neon-lit streets of Night City. Plants vs. Zombies™ (Vertical Scrolling Format Exclusive to WEBTOON) – The hilarious, action-packed battle between brain-hungry zombies and their unlikely plant defenders continues in this fan-favorite comic series based on the worldwide gaming phenomenon. Launch dates for each series will be announced at a later date. Article content WEBTOON Entertainment is a leading global entertainment company and home to some of the world's largest storytelling platforms. As the global leader and pioneer of the mobile webcomic format, WEBTOON Entertainment has transformed comics and visual storytelling for fans and creators. Article content With its CANVAS UGC platform empowering anyone to become a creator, and a growing roster of superstar WEBTOON Originals creators and series, WEBTOON Entertainment's passionate fandoms are the new face of pop culture. WEBTOON Entertainment adaptations are available on Netflix, Prime Video, Crunchyroll, and other screens around the world, and the company's content partners include Discord, HYBE, and DC Comics, among many others. Article content With approximately 150 million monthly active users, WEBTOON Entertainment's IP & Creator Ecosystem of aligned brands and platforms include WEBTOON, Wattpad–the world's leading webnovel platform–Wattpad WEBTOON Studios, Studio N, Studio LICO, WEBTOON Unscrolled, LINE MANGA, and eBookJapan, among others. Article content About Dark Horse Comics Article content Dark Horse Comics was founded in 1986 by Mike Richardson with the goal of creating a welcoming environment for comics professionals. The company strives to be an example of how integrity and innovation can broaden a unique storytelling medium and transform a company with humble beginnings into an industry giant. Dark Horse has published modern masters such as Yoshitaka Amano, Margaret Atwood, Brian Michael Bendis, Paul Chadwick, Geof Darrow, Colleen Doran, Janet Evanovich, Dave Gibbons, Faith Erin Hicks, Kazuo Koike, Matt Kindt, Jeff Lemire, Kentaro Miura, Moebius, Chuck Palahniuk, Eric Powell, Stan Sakai, and Gerard Way, as well as Hall of Fame legends Will Eisner, Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, and Richard Corben. The company also set the industry standard for quality licensed comics, graphic novels, collectibles, and art books, based on properties such as Star Wars, Stranger Things, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Minecraft, The Legend of Zelda, Dragon Age, James Cameron's Avatar, Game of Thrones, Mass Effect, The Witcher, and Halo. Dark Horse established an entertainment division in 1989, finding success with company-owned projects The Mask and TimeCop. Current hits from Dark Horse Entertainment include The Umbrella Academy on Netflix and Resident Alien on SyFy. Additionally, Dark Horse has a long tradition of establishing new creative talent throughout all of its divisions. Article content Article content Article content Article content Contacts Article content
The South African
04-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The South African
African animated series 'Iyanu' set for Showmax debut this June
The groundbreaking Nigerian animated series Iyanu will premiere on Showmax across 44 African countries on Friday, 13 June. The release is perfectly timed for Father's Day and the school holidays. This thrilling series draws deeply from Nigerian culture, music, and mythology. THE STORY OF 'IYANU' It tells the story of a teenage orphan who discovers her divine powers and her destiny to save the ancient kingdom of Yorubaland. Iyanu follows its courageous heroine as she navigates a magical world steeped in Yoruba traditions. While yearning for a normal life, Iyanu's world turns upside down when a looming threat awakens powers. These powers have been unseen since the legendary Age of Wonders, according to Shomax Stories. Accompanied by her friends Biyi, Toye, and a magical leopard named Ekun, she embarks on an epic quest to uncover the source of evil and save her people. The series is adapted from Roye Okupe's acclaimed graphic novel Iyanu: Child of Wonder , published by YouNeek Studios and Dark Horse Comics. This is the same powerhouse behind The Umbrella Academy and Hellboy . Roye Okupe, born and raised in Nigeria, serves as creator, executive producer, and showrunner. He said, 'One of the reasons I started YouNeek Studios and created Iyanu is because I grew up in Lagos, Nigeria, watching superhero stories on DStv. To now see Iyanu launching on Showmax across 44 African countries is truly a full-circle moment. I'm beyond thrilled that kids, adults, and families across the continent will get to see a superhero who looks, sounds, and feels like them'. Produced by Lion Forge Entertainment, the Emmy-winning studio behind the Oscar®-winning Hair Love , Iyanu boasts an all-African voice cast. The voice cast is led by award-winning Serah Johnson as Iyanu. The cast also features African Movie Academy Awards (AMAA) winner and Vogue US cover star Adesua Etomi-Wellington. Three-time AMAA nominee Stella Damasus, multi-award-winning Blossom Chukwujekwu, and Shaffy Bello, known for The Black Book, also join. Nigerian Grammy nominee Yemi Alade lends her voice to the theme song, expressing her pride. 'Iyanu showcases the resilience, the beauty and the strength of our culture. Growing up, I always hoped to watch cartoons with characters that looked and sounded like me. Right now, it's happening, and I'm really happy to be part of it'. Since its US debut in April 2025, Iyanu soared to become the #1 series on Cartoon Network. The show was ranked in the top 10 kids and family series on Max. It has already been greenlit for a second season and two linked feature films. Screenrant praised it as 'The Last Airbender and Black Panther hybrid you didn't know you needed,' highlighting its unique blend of fantasy and African heritage. Dr Busola Tejumola, Executive Head of General Entertainment at MultiChoice, remarked, ' Iyanu brings Nigerian culture and mythology to life excitingly and authentically. We are proud to be the home of its African premiere. I can't wait for audiences across the continent to experience this epic adventure on Showmax.' This launch marks a significant milestone for African animation. The show joins the ranks of other award-winning productions like Tabby McTat and The Smeds and The Smoos . These shows are also available on Showmax. Iyanu offers a fresh and vibrant superhero tale that resonates with African identity and pride. It's a chance to see a hero who looks like us, speaks to our cultures, and celebrates our stories. With its captivating animation, rich storytelling, and all-star African cast, Iyanu promises to be a must-watch hit this June on Showmax. Let us know by leaving a comment below, or send a WhatsApp to 060 011 021 1. Subscribe to The South African website's newsletters and follow us on WhatsApp, Facebook, X and Bluesky for the latest news.
