What's Happening - March 2024
Hero of Legend marches forward, and other comic news.
It feels like only a single week have past since the last time I did one of these, when I know for a fact it's been at least one more than that. Time is a flat circle, and from my experience, most of the points along that circle involve comic books.
Welcome to my monthly newsletter, giving you updates on the things I’ve been lettering, reading and writing this month.
What am I lettering?
I think in the last edition of this newsletter I mentioned that February was going to be a pretty busy month for me, lettering wise. And hey, guess what! It was. But I've now successfully made it out of my lettering hole and into a much nicer lettering meadow, where rather than all of my none day job minutes being taken up by lettering tasks, I'm able to set aside at least one half hour each day to stare off into space, head completely empty, and eating a blue berry Poptart.
Lettering wise, as much as I love lettering other people's books, my favorite thing to letter is something I've written. Part of that is because I treat lettering as a final draft of my work, and since there's no other human being there to get annoyed at me, I can tweak the dialogue as much as I want once it's on the page. But there are also little touches I like getting to throw in that, if it were for another project, I would feel like I need to ask my other collaborators about.
From Hero of Legend, one of my favorite things to do has been dropping the boxes and letting captions just float freely in whatever panel they're a part of. It works well with Niccolo's backgrounds, especially in the panels where the background is mostly blacked out. And, also, I think it just looks cool. Small joys, but really that's what all of lettering is for me. The best parts of lettering are the little things I do that I don't know if anyone will notice or care about.
Though there is definitely a joy, though a slightly different one, to working on other writer's projects as well. There are a number of writers whose work I letter where, as I'm doing dialogue placements, I just get to admire the way they structure their pages and write their dialogue. Partially because I can steal it for myself, but also because there are things I letter that I could never in a million years write, and I think that's pretty cool.
Anyway, some of those projects have recently come to Kickstarter, and you can check them out here:
Lost Between Worlds 0-3
The fourth issue of Lost Between Worlds is here! One of the first on going series I started lettering is back and I'm super excited for it to be here. Here's a quick synopsis:
Gwynn, a Grim reaper whose job is to collect the souls of the dead and take them to the afterlife, has a new target. Her mark, a man claiming to have Dissociative identity disorder, tells her the guy she is looking for is the other persona not currently in charge of the body. Unsure if the man is lying to find a loophole to cheat death, she returns to the afterlife to get answers-but hears more than that. She hears of an impending apocalypse, Ragnarök, that will reset the whole universe in 24 hours. Gwynn must now keep the man by her side as she tries to stop the apocalypse before time runs out.
This campaign is running until March 31st. Please help Edwin, Elton, Gabriel and I bring this to life.
Heroes and Zeroes #1
Heroes and Zeros is a new series, coming from Paul Eza, Kasey Quevedo, Maja Opacic and me! I've worked with Maja on a bunch of different comics, and she's one of my favorite people to collaborate with. The rest of the team, Paul and Kasey, are also doing great work on this fun twist on super heroes. Here's a quick synopsis:
Several hundred years in the future, the majority of people have enhanced abilities. Those who don’t—known as Zeros—are considered worthless. But when Erik Peterson, the most powerful person since the dawn of heroes, is murdered, three Zeros are recruited by an underground resistance group (the Equalizers) to solve the murder and expose the conspiracy behind it.
This book is going to be a ton of fun, and is already fully funded as of this writing. Check it out, and help us hit our goal so we can get Gail Simone (!!!) to write a short story in this world.
Some other prelaunch comics:
Some fun lettering:
What am I reading?
House of Open Wounds
The answer to the question above: Not much! Unless people would like a write up about "Foundations for Teaching English Language Learners" or "Transition Planning and Services." (Not that either of these are bad books. But I doubt you're subscribed to this newsletter to learn about transition planning for students with disabilities.)
Anyway! Over the past month, I read one book, House of Open Wounds by Adrian Tchaikovsky, which rules. I've been reading a bunch of Tchaikovsky's books recently, but I think this book and it's predecessor, City of Last Chances, are my favorites. I love the way the fantasy worlds are rendered in these books.
There is magic, but not in the "Magic System" type way (except for the people trying to systematize magic, who are all clearly evil.) And there's world building, but not in the showy way that makes you feel like you're doing homework. And more than everything else, there's the actual writing itself. Tchaikovsky is a master of writing prose that is deeply readable while also being substantive. The book is funny, thought-provoking, and deeply heartfelt. Nothing but the highest recommendation.
What am I writing?
Hero of Legend continues! I'm currently working on the script for what will end up being issue 3, and episodes ~8-10 of the comic. But I haven't had a ton of time for actual writing. Partially because of all the lettering I've been doing, but also because of the work I've been doing to get the first chunk of Hero of Legend out the door. While episodes 1 and 2 are now out to read, I've now got the next two episodes for April and May scheduled and ready to go. Pretty cool stuff!
Here, how about a sneak peak of the next episode?
Aside from that, I've just put in the order for the print copies of Into the Deep. If you missed the Kickstarter, I'm going to have digital copies of that book available on... some sort of webstore that I still need to create. For now though, I'm just excited that my weird, underwater space opera is finally going to be out there in the world.
A lot of what it's doing is making me think about what's next. Hero of Legend is chugging along, and I'm having a blast doing it. But now that Into the Deep is finished, what is going to come next? I'm still not sure. My first instinct is to follow up Into the Deep with a sequel (which I've tentatively titled Below the Depths.) But there's a part of me that wants to have something else come between Into the Deep and it's sequel.
Either way, whatever I decided, this newsletter will be the place to hear about it!
Alright. Anything else?
That's it. Bye!