A lot of Bats and Cats

INTRO!

Welcome to my second newsletter ever! Which isn’t really as exciting as my first! But is still somewhat exciting. Because, as in writing, it’s easy to start, so much harder to continue, and don’t get me started on finishing…well you could get me started but…y’know…then it gets tough again.

Anyway! Let’s get on with the important stuff. Like…a picture of Roxy dog!

That is not a toy she likes. Too big. Too heavy. Can’t tear the stuffing out of it. But no one else can have it, because it is hers.

WHAT’S OUT NOW!

Two big releases on the stands from my friends and me.

First! We have Killing Time #2 with gorgeous art by David Marquez. This issue centers around the after effects of the big heist in issue 1. It’s the breath everyone is taking before everyone is fighting in issue 3.

I always find that issue 2’s are the hardest to write for me, and I very rarely nail them entirely. I spend so much energy planning out number 1, I can get a little hung over or not risky enough with the immediate follow up. I did think Human Target 2 really worked with the introduction of Ice, so hopefully I’m on a streak, and this one too comes off. At the very least there’s a Gordon scene in there that makes me laugh.

Second! We have Bat/Cat 11 with incredible art by Clay Mann. If you’re looking for just perfect pictures in a comic, this is the one. One stunning page after another. We’re very near the end of an almost three year journey now, and the wedding bells can be heard in the distance. But before the rise there is the fall, and here we have the sad secrets of the past coming out. How those lead to the wedding is the what the entire series is about. Feel like I’m going to be holding my breath until number 12 hits the stands.

WHAT’S COMING OUT NEXT!

Next week we get Love Everlasting 3! (Which is coming out a few weeks early for paid subscribers.) The above art is of course from number 2, which if you’re here, hopefully you’ve already read, since it’s like a click away and entirely free. We have not yet posted any art from 3 yet, but let me assure you Elsa once again blows the roof off.

Like 2, Joan awakes in a different love story, and, like 2, everything is not as it seems. Joan has to deal with the bloody consequences of what happened in those final pages of the previous issue (you know if you know), and in dealing with them she’ll find out both about herself and the trap of the Everlasting World. A very fun issue with, I think, a cool twist. I hope you all dig it.

WHAT I’M WORKING ON NOW!

This week I’m finishing a special or annual for DC that has not been announced yet. It’s a forty pager, and I wrote half last week and half this week. It has three different artists on it, so I’m basically writing three short stories that I’m braiding together into one narrative, with each artist getting 13 pages and then a 4th artist getting that last page (who knew writing required so much damn math!) I don’t think I’ve ever used that format before, but it’s similar to what we did on Strange Adventures, so it’s not entirely new.

I’m not all that sure it’s working yet. It’s a little more humorous and light than what I usually do, which makes me nervous that it’s not saying anything deep or it’s not important enough for the amount of art talent on it. I’m always thinking, I got forty pages of comics with such incredible artists I have to make this worth it. Alan Moore and Frank Miller could’ve written an all time epic with 40 pages! Not sure if this is worth it yet. I’ll keep trying to make it better.

QUESTIONS!

Got a lot of truly awesome questions to the first post. You all rock. I’ll answer a few below determined entirely by if I could think of some damn thing worth saying. If you have more questions about anything at all, please leave them in the comments.

Steve Cleff writes: One of the things I enjoy when reading your work is your use of other literature like poems. I’m not as well read in classic literature as I’d like. Any recommendations on a list of must-reads? Shakespeare? Yeates?

Upfront, it should be said, I don’t really like a distinction between high lit and low lit, and anyone who hasn’t read all that fancy stuff should not feel guilty or something because they haven’t. Life is short: find your joy and be kind to others. Wisdom can be found in the gutters; ignorance can be found in the heavens. If you feel like reading a run of Superman instead of Homer, and this makes you content, you’ve made the right choice for you that day. Also, some of Homer is stupid and boring and some of Superman is transcendent and thrilling.

When I was a kid, I tried to read all those like “Great Books,” and I got through quite a lot out of them, certainly not all and certainly not enough outside of the old white dudes who unjustly dominated that category back then. Here are some of my favorites, but not every favorite, and in absolutely no order at all (picked because I can see them on the shelf from my desk):

Tolstoy’s War and Peace, Shakespeare’s Coriolanus; Thackeray’s Vanity Fair; Joyce’s Dubliners; Wolfe’s Look Homeward Angel; Augustine’s Confessions; Woolf’s To The Lighthouse; Dante’s Divine Comedy; Levi’s Survival in Auschwitz, Chekov’s Lady and Her Dog…

That should be enough to get you started and started for a while. War and Peace is on there. That took me an entire summer. If you run out, let me know. And if you’d prefer to read none of them and read something else, that’s cool too.

Isaac Platizky writes: If you were ever to write for Marvel again what characters would you be interested in writing.

So, my general attitude is that I don’t care really what character I’m writing; it’s more important who’s the artist and the editor and the letterer and all of that. Every character has a story that can be awesome to tell.

All that said…I am large, I contain multitudes, I’ll contradict myself. I would love to write The Fantastic Four. The Thing is maybe my favorite character in comics. His “I’m too ugly to quit” attitude would just be a joy to put up against all the obstacles in all the universe. And I really love the challenging simplicity of a book built around just four characters and their interaction. How much drama generations of writers have drawn out of that dynamic is a testament to the level of talent that has gone through the comic field.

One of my first introductions to the creativity of comics was as Chris Claremont’s intern when he was writing the FF in the late 90s. I listened for hours to Chris dissecting every possible interaction between those four, how each problem led to which story and why some stories worked and some didn’t. Been eager to try it myself ever since.

All right, that’s it for this one. Looking forward to the next one. Let me know if you have any more questions, and I’ll be happy to answer them in the future.

Oh! And this is a reader supporter newsletter. It really helps us if you subscribe (You also get a free monthly comic if you do subscribe!). It really, really helps us if you go for a paying tier and get some extras (And you still get the free comic!). Thank you in advance for all the awesome help!