Posted in: Comics | Tagged: april fools, Comics, HRL

April Fools Roundup: DC Comics, Phoenix Weekly, About Comics, 501st Legion, Funko, and More

Bleeding Cool hasn't run any April Fools this year again — but others weren't so reticent.

Alice's copy of Britain's best ongoing comic book by far, The Phoenix, came through the post on Friday with its most recent weekly issue with a brand-new format for this week… and a big change.

The all-colour comic was going all black-and-white. Britain's weekly comic books have traditionally been black-and-white affairs, but they at least had colour covers…

…and it seemed that would be the way it was. Quite a surprise for little Alice, who started wondering if she would have to colour each page in, in order to retain her usual reading experience. But one page turn later…

…the truth was revealed. She was thoroughly April Fooled.

DC Comics announced a new Trunks Initiative.

Since the arrival of Superman in ACTION COMICS #1, trunks have been an essential element of Super Hero design. With the Man of Steel returning to his classic look in this spring's ACTION COMICS #1000, DC is proud to announce a line-wide initiative that returns its characters to their classic trunks look. Even characters whose original designs never included the iconic outerwear will receive a pants-lift, with bespoke trunks designed by some of DC's top artists.

Batman? His trunks are back. Wonder Woman? Trunks. Lex Luthor? That guy's got a whole designer closet full of them (they go over his three-piece suits). Now fans everywhere can rejoice that, indeed, the trunks are back—all of them.

These inspired trunks designs come from some of comics' most acclaimed creators who spent a painstaking three-month creative retreat making sure each and every pair had its own unique design and rich backstory. While the core designs will start to appear shortly after ACTION COMICS #1000, DC's tireless artists have created trunks for a variety of future storylines, including Mecha-Trunks™ and Omega Beam Trunks™.

The character redesigns will be an integral component in a special one-shot, DC UNIVERSE: INFINITE TRUNKS #1, following the April 18 release of ACTION COMICS #1000. The must-read issue will introduce the reworked costumes, which tie into a larger mystery involving the Multiverse that will be explored in JUSTICE LEAGUE: NO JUSTICE, a special JUSTICE LEAGUE DARK storyline titled "Unite the Trunks," and the JUSTICE LEAGUE ODYSSEY crossover "A Lot More Trunks."

For additional info on the line-wide trunks expansion, please follow us on social media at @DCComics, hashtag #AprilFools

They had to literally give it away at the end though. Poor show. Other notable April Fool's this year includes Nat Gertler's About Comics announcing a change of direction.

Everyone knows what holiday it is – it's Easter! Tiny/mighty comics publisher About Comics is taking advantage of the most joyful holiday on the Roman Catholic calendar to announce its joyful and oh so Catholic change of direction. After two decades of publishing not just comics but an ever-widening array of comics creation guides and tools, novels, audiobooks, and items of historical interest, About Comics has decided to focus on becoming America's preeminent publisher of books of cartoons about nuns.

"Nun humor has been a staple for a long time, whether it's Sister Act, Nunsense, Sister Mary Elephant, or The Flying Nun. But for some reason, culture has chosen to forget what presaged all of those – the classic single-panel nun cartoons from 1950s Catholic publications," explained About Comics founder and head nun cartoon expert Nat Gertler. "Now, we're going to put all the company's energy into reviving these lost works."

The publisher is immediately releasing reprints of classic nun cartoon collections, featuring such diverse little titles as Two Little Nuns, More Little Nuns, and Our Little Nuns. For the sake of representation, these will be accompanied with some little books of non-sized-limited nuns – specifically Nuns So Lovable, Vale of Dears, and Yes, Sister! No, Sister!

And for those customers who are just not interested in little books of nun cartoons, About Comics is proud to offer Nun Funnies!, a full 8.5"x11" paperback with a life-time supply of nun cartoons. There's more than one cartoon for every day of the year, even Lent, and you can read it again and again.

"We're ready for the inevitable nun cartoon explosion," explains Gertler, "and we're not stopping here. In the future, nun cartoon aficionados can look for such great About Comics titles as Kids' Sisters, Nice Habits, and All For Nun."

The first seven titles in the About Comics new nun direction are available through Amazon and for wholesale order as of April 1. Happy holiday, everyone!

There were lost of genre-April Fools abounding. Director David F Sandberg's Shazam teaser…

Subreddit /r/MarvelStudios became All Hawkeye.

San Antonio twinned with Wakanda.

Archaeologists uncovered something unexpected.

The 501st Legion introduced cosplay standards for a topless Kylo Ren costume, requiring that "shredded arms and chest match the costumer's natural skin tone."

Toonami went subs-all-the-time.

Netflix acquired Seth Rogen.

BritBox introduced a new service that replaced British accents with American ones…

Screen Rant reported that Tom Holland and Edgar Wright were working on a Ferris Bueller reboot.

Funko found a way to stop boxes getting dinged…

ThinkGeek was selling Klingon Alphabet Fridge Magnets. Um… why is this an April Fool?

Roku gave us streaming socks remote control…

Jeff Vandermeer announced his books were being rewritten for kids…

And the Kraken came to the Thames.

But my favourite from anyone was…

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