What's Happening - April 2024

What am I writing?

I now own one (1) physical copy of Into the Deep! The print proof came in last week, and it looks great. Genuinely awe-inspiring to see it exist in the world. Cannot recommend enough taking something that only exists in your brain and making it extant in the world. Feels absolutely wild.

Hero of Legend continues! We just published episode 3, episode 4 is coming next month, and then the Kickstarter for the print copy of Chapter 1 is coming in June. Currently working on writing issue 3 and getting some variant covers set up for the Kickstarter this June.

Just for those of you who are cool enough to read this newsletter, here are two of those covers:

I'm not a huge variant cover person, but there is a huge joy to getting to see what different artists come up with when they're representing your characters. Getting all sorts of very cool art back that I'm so excited to share with y'all.

Last thing I'm trying to figure out is what I can be doing to promote Hero of Legend. Despite my most valiant efforts (tweeting a couple of times a day) I'm not getting a ton of traction for the Kickstarter. I've been fighting for weeks to get to 50 prelaunch followers, and it's just... not happening. (Which, if you haven't signed up to be notified when we launch, please do!)

Next step is probably to reach out to some comic websites and podcasts, though there are so many I'm not really sure where to begin. If you've got any suggestions for podcasts or YouTube channels I should be reaching out to do interviews, please let me know!

What am I lettering?

The end of March into the beginning of April was a bit of a lull lettering wise. Some projects I expected to be working on were a little bit delayed, which means that while I was still working, I wasn't as busy as I was expecting. None of those projects were canceled, though, which just means that I've got a very fun end of April to look forward to!

One project I just wrapped up was Blood Type V, which I had a lot of fun with. I don't usually go for hand drawn sound effects in my lettering, because frankly I'm a lot more limited in what I can do when drawing by hand than in using fonts.

There are some books, though, where the artist have drawn in a ton of the sound effects themselves. Blood Type V was an example of that. And if it's a style I think I can replicate by hand, I usually try to. I'm not someone that thinks lettering should be invisible (far from it) but I do think that it should have as little dissonance with the art as possible. You can see a couple of these sound effects below (one of the pictures has two drawn into them. One by me, one by the artist. See if you can tell which is which.)

One actually, genuinely exciting thing that I can't really talk much about is one of the projects I'm currently lettering. This will be my first, direct to direct market comic, which I'm pretty excited about. I've had some other books be put out by publishers, but they were all things that came to Kickstarter first. Looking forward to having something show up for the first time in comic shops.

When will it be in comic shops, and when will I be able to talk about it? Impossible to say. Anyway, here are some projects you can take a look at right now:

Proctor Issue 1 and 2

Proctor is a supernatural adventure comic that only has a few days left on Kickstarter. Both issue 1 and 2 are a ton of fun. Riccardo Cecchi, who I've worked with on Ctrl-Z (the next issue of which is coming soon) has some amazing art in this issue. Werewolves, vampires, demons, what else could you ask for?

PROCTOR's protagonist, Samantha Hale, can't seem to get out of her own way, but what is a girl with an Art History degree and a fondness for binge drinking to do when all she's ever been good at is smashing monster skulls? When her mother, one of the most powerful witches in the North East, stumbles upon the ancient Staff of Kings that Sam's father hid before he died, Sam finds herself on a globetrotting, dimension-jumping adventure in an attempt to keep the staff safe. From finding foreign help in the streets of Verona to welcoming assistance from one of the strongest Voodoo clans in history, the fate of Sam's journey rests in her ability to swallow her pride, make new friends, and fight off the teams of supernatural assassins hot on her trail.

PROCTOR is a 6-issue supernatural adventure miniseries for fans of things that go bump in the night who find themselves periodically wrestling with a few demons of their own.

Like I said, only a few days left on Kickstarter, so check it out.

Alpha Clash: Torque Therapy

This is a fun one! Excited to be working on this project with another of my old collaborators, Kyle Petchock, who I did issue 3 of Tights with. Here's the synopsis:

"After the Clash" thrusts readers into the turbulent aftermath of "The Awakening" novel. Readers will follow the infamous Oliver Simmons, known as Torque, on a riveting quest for vengeance across 38 vividly illustrated pages. Delve into Torque's journey as he navigates the underworld, confronts his inner demons, and clashes with the formidable Alpha Hunters in a pulse-pounding saga of retribution.

The campaign is live until April 30th, so check it out now!

Wild Wisps #1

Wild Wisps #1 is a new series, from writer Pat Shand, artist Nabetse Zitro, colorist James Offredi and letterer: Me! Here's the synopsis:

Wisps are magical monsters with elemental powers that can be either commonplace or god-like. Some Wisps can help with household chores by using their water-based powers or load-bearing strength. Others have great and terrible abilities to control the weather or even read human minds. And others still are turned into weapons of war.

We follow a would-be knight, KINO and his Wisp TONKAREX. When we meet them, these two have lost everything. Their family, their purpose, and their hope. All they have left is a plan: to join QUEEN RAINA'S Guard. However, they harbor a secret that could tilt the balance of Raina's 20-Year War if it gets discovered.

Kino knows the truth about a MYTHIC WISP: a special kind of Wisp born out of one million hatches that has an incredibly rare Tri-Element ability, which gives this extraordinary Wisp the power to alter reality itself. In the wrong hands, Kino's secret could lead to the end of existence as they know it. 

Wild Wisps is a comic I'm really excited about being a part of. Pat is a titan in the Kickstarter publishing community, and I've been really enjoying working with him and the whole team at Space Between Entertainment since I started on I Summoned Cthulhu to Fund My Kickstarter last year. Wild Wisps is going to huge, so don't miss your chance to be a part of it at the beginning.

Some other Kickstarter comics:

• Hero of Legend - Chapter 1
• Zeta Galaxy Outlaws #1

Some fun lettering:

What am I reading?

Hellboy

This is my third time reading through all of Hellboy. My first, during 2020, was reading the omnibuses from the library, starting with Hellboy proper and spreading into the BPRD, sprawling unto the other spin offs before eventually sputtering out. The second time was when I bought the Hellboy (just the Hellboy) omnibuses for myself. This time, I've decided to read through the story in original, trade paperback publication order (digitally, via hoopla.)

Why would I do that, when I physically own copies of these books? Well, don't worry, I'll tell you in excruciating detail. First, I should do a little table setting about the different formats. The original trades for Hellboy collected stories as they came out, which means they basically, a trade was put together once there was a mini series to collect, or enough stories to fill up a trade. And they were organized in real time, as those stories were being published.

The omnibuses, on the other hand, are published with hindsight, collected into 4 "main" omnis and two short story collections. While the 4 standard Hellboy omnibuses follow the miniseries in mostly publication order, the two short story omnis have been arranged via in universe chronology, so by the in universe date when the story takes place rather than in publication order. There is a third option, in the expensive Library editions, which my understanding follow a similar pattern to the trades in how they collect stories.

This is a bit of a bummer, because the omnibuses are by far the cheapest and easiest way to read Hellboy, but having read it both ways, I'm pretty strongly of the opinion that it is the worse option.

Hellboy starts as a fun, really engaging monster of the week book, then moves toward a bigger, more complex story about a single person trying to fight against his destiny. Chronological order presents important story events, things with resonance and meaning for the end of Hellboy's journey, early on in those short story omnibuses. Unless you're able to keep the entire saga in your head as single, complete unit, this chronological jumbling of the stories removes important, thematic connections in favor of silly temporal ones.

I have lots of thoughts about the actual story and characters of Hellboy (most of them really positive!) that I'll maybe get into next month. I'm re-reading it because I'm trying to conceptualize how I want to write my next series after Hero of Legend, and Hellboy is a huge influence on that story.

But the thing sticking with me here are the ways in which creators look back at their own work, and seem to (at least from an outside perspective) fundamentally misunderstand parts of it.

A case study for this is the Hellboy graphic novella, The Midnight Circus. In the short story omnibus, it's the second short story listed. It was originally published in 2013, far closer to the final issue of Hellboy in 2016 than the first one in 1995. Much of the writing around Hellboy and the greater universe around it (that I, frankly, don't care much about) treats Mignola as this great architect of a great universe. Which I do think is somewhat true!

But I absolutely do not think it's true that in 1995, while I was busy being born, Mike Mignola actually wanted us to start our journey with Hellboy by reading a weird, dreamlike narrative about a young Hellboy grappling with his destiny and the devils that spawn him like he does in The Midnight Circus. What I do believe is that this story does makes a lot of sense to be read in 2013 as an interlude, early on in Hellboy's time in Hell, as he's on the last stretch of his journey to break free of the destiny that has haunted him his entire life.

This is just one example, but it's something has cropped up consistently, thinking about the way the books are collected vs the way that they were originally published.

And it's something I've been thinking a lot about, in the content sludge of a world that we all currently exist in. I remember the first time I experienced this sort of false chronology, with a box set of Narnia books I had as a child which labelled Magician's Nephew (the 2nd to last book published) as 1 of 7. It's a truly insane thing to suggest reading a story that ends with the creation of a wardrobe as some sort of climactic action without understanding why that wardrobe should be important. But it's endemic in comic reading orders and watch lists and all throughout our current media landscape.

It's a commitment to fictional chronology and false historicity that seems to fundamentally misunderstand what a narrative is. Narratives are made by human beings in phenomenal time, not pulled from another, real world with an actual timeline and history. By removing stories from their true history, the history of our world, and placing them instead into the chronology of their own worlds, they often lose what made them so special in the first place.

Or at least I think so. But hey, most Hellboy experts on the internet seems to disagree with me. So take my ramblings here for what you will. And if you haven't read Hellboy, it is still worth checking out, no matter what the format. I just wish that the most easily accessible, and cheapest version didn't feel like it presented the story in a fundamentally worse way.

Anything else?

Not today. Bye!