San Diego Comic-Con News:  IDW Publishing has announced the next two releases from Shelly Bond’s Black Crown creator-owned imprint, Tini Howard and Gilbert Hernandez’ Assassinistas, which is due out in December and Punks Not Dead written by novelist David Barnett (Calling Major Tom) and drawn by Martin Simmonds (Death Sentence), which is due in January of 2018.  In addition IDW is publishing Black Crown Quarterly, a 48-page compendium of all things comic and cool, the first issue of which kicks off with 10-page lead story by Rob Davis (The Motherless Oven) that is set in the Black Crown Pub.  The first issue of the Black Crown Quarterly, which is due right after the first release from Black Crown, Peter Milligan and Tess Fowler’s Kid Lobotomy (see “Shelly Bond Joins IDW” & “IDW Announces New Publishing Imprint”).

Assassinistas is a six-issue miniseries that follows the adventures of Octavia, an ex-hitwoman, who comes out of retirement in order to fund her son’s college tuition.  Gilbert Hernandez brings his weighty powerful style, honed by years of work on Love and Rockets to Howard’s cheeky narrative that is bursting with attitude.

Debuting one month later, is Punks Not Dead, a coming-of-age saga about a fatherless boy who finds an ethereal companion and father figure in the spirit of Sex Pistols bassist Sid Vicious. Barnett and Simmonds blend traditional elements of the coming-of-age saga with a narrative borrowed from the thriller genre (the lad is being pursued by a super-secret branch of MI5), and set the whole thing to a relentless punk rock beat.