With New York Comic Con just two weeks away, the announcements are starting to roll in. If there's one common thread among them, it's a yen for the past, whether it's a cartoon from the 1990s, a Martian from the 1950s, or a fairy tale from the days of knights in shining armor.
Rust Never Sleeps: BOOM! had another announcement to make this week: Royden Lepp's dieselpunk graphic novel series Rust will conclude with volume 4 in February 2018. Published under the Archaia imprint, Rust is a story about love and war: As a farm family struggles to survive in the aftermath of a devastating war, a young boy wearing a jetpack crashes into their barn, seemingly out of nowhere, and changes their lives.
Cosmo Returns: Archie Comics announced that it is bringing back the creators behind its Sonic the Hedgehog comics to create a new space adventure series, Cosmo, featuring the vintage Archie character Cosmo the Merry Martian. CBR reports that Sonic writer Ian Flynn and artists Tracy Yardley and Matt Herms will be the creative team for the series, which will launch in January 2018 with a cover price of $2.99. Cosmo was created by Bob White and first appeared in his own comic, Cosmo the Merry Martian, in 1958. That series only ran for six issues, but Cosmo has popped up in other Archie titles over the years and made a number of cameos on the covers as well. Sega moved the license for Sonic the Hedgehog comics from Archie to IDW Publishing earlier this year (see "'So Long Riverdale': Sonic the Hedgehog Decamps for IDW").
New YA from Image: Image Comics announced more details about their young adult series, Sleepless, a fairy-tale action/romance story by writer Sarah Vaughn (Alex + Ada) and artist Leila del Duca (Shutter, Afar), which was announced at Emerald City Comic Con in March (see "New Titles from Jeff Lemire, Matt Wagner, Grace Ellis, Joe Casey, More"). The series will launch on December 6, and issue 1 will have a cover by del Duca and Alissa Sallah (the colorist for the series) and an alternate cover by Jen Bartel.
Comics and Controversy: Next week is Banned Books Week, so you can expect a flurry of news articles. It's worth noting that three of the top ten banned books of 2016, according to the American Library Association, are graphic novels: Jillian and Mariko Tamaki's This One Summer, Raina Telgemeier's Drama, and Matt Fraction and Chip Zdarsky's Big Hard Sex Criminals (see "Graphic Novels Top ALA's Banned Books List"). These books are not actually banned (the First Amendment has not been repealed); they were the subject of challenges in school and public libraries.