Popverse's top stories of the day

• Dune: Prophecy creators promise to bring the "complexity" and "grand scale" of Frank Herbert's books and Denis Villeneuve's movies to TV
• Marvel's TV head says there's "absolutely" a future for Jon Bernthal's Punisher after his Daredevil: Born Again appearance
• Meet the Grim Reaper of The Walking Dead TV show cast, and what goes into killing someone off in the show

Every year since Popverse has been around, we've written at least one story on Dav Pilkey's Dog Man and the next installment of his hit book series. It's always fallen in or around New York Comic Con, and this year we're doing it again - and this time, Pilkey himself has picked out a piece from the upcoming Dog Man book Big Jim Begins to share with us - and you.

Take a look:

In this new book Dog Man: Big Jim Begins, Pilkey is finally exploring the origin story of some of his main characters - a key part of any superhero story. 

"With this new book, I wanted to share the origin story of my characters, as readers get to know more about Big Jim—a character who is playful, kind, overly optimistic and often misunderstood, and who sometimes gets into trouble despite having the best intentions," says Pilkey. 

Dog Man is taking over the Javits on NYCC weekend, with time on the outdoor marque and across the indoor TV monitors all weekend. Scholastic/Graphix will have a printed edition of this Dog Man: Big Jim Begins page to show us (and you) at their NYCC 2024 booth, which is #3307. Dog Man will be prominently featured on this year's Scholastic/Graphix booth - even more so than previous years, I hear. Also at the booth will be exclusive Dog Man giveaways and even an appearance by Dog Man himself. And that's just a preview of what's to come, with the animated Dog Man movie coming in early 2025.

"What I found so compelling about Dog Man is that it transcends culture and language, connecting and uniting kids and families everywhere with stories about friendship, love, bravery, empathy, epic adventures…and of course, a lot of humor," says Dog Man director Peter Hastings. "All of us at DreamWorks Animation are thrilled to once again be partnering with the incredibly talented Dav Pilkey and the team at Scholastic to bring Dog Man to the big screen - an iconic character known all over the world."

Before the movie, of course, the 13th Dog Man book is coming to us.

Dog Man: Big Jim Begins is being released December 3 at your favorite bookstore, and is available for pre-order on Amazon. Dreamworks Animation's Dog Man movie hits theaters January 31, 2025.

Here's how to read all the Dog Man books (and spinoffs!) in order.