And restore freedom to the galaxy...
Chapter 18: Still asking 'What's The Furthest Place From Here?'
THIS ONE IS GOING TO BE SHORT! I promise.
So… It’s been a bit. How are you doing? How’s the (significant other/child/job/hobby/drinking problem)? That’s great. Glad that worked out for you.
How am I? Oh, thanks so much for asking. I’m fucking exhausted. I checked the release schedule and it seems that between now and the end of the year I have 21 books I worked on coming out. 21! I try to have some perspective on stuff like this, but come on! That’s just stupid.
The crazy thing is it’s all stuff I’m really proud of. In late October my DC horror comics double feature of TASK FORCE Z and DC VS. VAMPIRES begins. And then my run doing Batman stories in the back half of DETECTIVE COMICS (!!!!) starts. And in November my first book for Image Comics and my first creator owned series in a few years, WHAT’S THE FURTHEST PLACE FROM HERE? starts. If you follow me on social media you may remember me talking about this one right before you muted me.
Today is Final Order Cutoff for that book. That means it’s the last day your local comic shop can guarantee you a copy because tomorrow we send it to print with the orders we have. So if you want to read it, it would be tremendously helpful to me, you, and your local comic shop if you contacted them right now and told them.
I’m going to have a lot more to say about the book coming up. I’ve done a lot of fun interviews, we have a cool contest going, and all that stuff. But I’m saving that for a post later in the week. For now I just wanted to (oh so gently) remind you that you might want to order the book. But I also wanted to share something with you. It’s this cool trailer I made.
Turn the sound up.
My dear friend Orlando Perez edits a lot of TV shows for places like Bravo. He is also about as kind and generous with his time as they come, so he let me sneak into his office after work so we could pull a couple all-nighters to make this trailer. I’m really happy with how it came out. And I got to see part of the season finale of Say Yes To The Dress. I didn’t understand it.
With this trailer I wanted something that evoked a bit of the same feeling as the trailer for the Spike Jonze film Where The Wild Things Are. That trailer had a great Arcade Fire song and just really knocks you on your ass with huge visuals and swelling Canadian rock goodness. I am not including a link because I don’t want you to compare our little comic book trailer to that side by side, but you should probably go watch it if you’re not familiar. Anyway, I knew we had the great visuals part with Tyler’s amazing art. So I spent a long time trying to find a song that had the feeling I wanted. After weeks of searching I finally realized my good friends in RESTORATIONS had the exact song I needed on their first LP. You can go pick it up here. So now we had our song, we had our visuals, and we had our editor, and all that was left was me and Lando bickering about 1/8th of a second cuts and camera movements.
I’d talk more about the book but I think the trailer really does an amazing job of speaking for itself. So I will just say I hope you like it.
As much as I seem to love talking about myself on here, it’s actually something that makes me incredibly uncomfortable. So I’m trying to remember going forward that I really want to be using this platform to be promoting other people’s work as well.
First up I want to point you to something new from one of my favorite writers and favorite people (please don’t tell her I said that) - Kelly Thompson. Kelly has been doing amazing stuff at Marvel for the last few years like CAPTAIN MARVEL, BLACK WIDOW, DEADPOOL, ROGUE & GAMBIT, and on and on. Her books are always full of heart and humor, action and intrigue, and they’re just plain fun. But now she’s doing a bunch of creator owned stuff and I could not be more excited.
And how do you get these awesome new books? You just click this link! (And enter your credit card # and wait until they’re out… But you get the point.) You can sign up for free and get her always fun newsletter that has lots of thoughts and news about her life, examinations of her work, and photos of the fake cats she pretends to own. But for some money you can get access to a whole lot of goodies including 2 amazing looking new books coming out in the next year. So go click the link, sign up, tell her I sent you so she has to be nice to me for the day, and enjoy getting awesome comics sent right to your inbox.
But wait! There’s more!
I wanted to give a shoutout to another new Image Comics series coming out in November. The brilliant NEWBURN by Chip Zdarsky, Jacob Phillips, and co. Newburn is a gorgeous and really engrossing pulp detective series that just knows exactly what it wants to be and nails it. I mean, look at that cover. Damn. But Newburn is smart and cool, exciting and beautiful. If you’re a fan of crime comics this is a no-brainer, but even if you’re not I think it’s definitely worth checking out. Chip is truly a master at making you care about characters and feel their struggles, and this story just immerses you in the best way. Jacob’s art is so vivid and gritty, and the world and characters are so well realized it’s easy to just get lost in the pages.
Remember when I told you about Final Order Cutoff 2 minutes ago? Well good news! You get to put that to good use again. NEWBURN #1 is on FOC next week so you should let your local comic shop know you want a copy now and save everyone a headache this November. It’s going to be an awkward call because I’m sure you just called them about WHAT’S THE FURTHEST PLACE FROM HERE? but it’s okay. A little awkwardness is good for the soul.
And with that I have to go back to work. Thanks for reading, as always.
Watch Succession. Stay safe. Take care of each other.
-Matthew Rosenberg
NYC 10/4/21
Trailer is so good, Matt.
Love the trailer and definitely excited to watch Succession. Thanks so much for the Turnstile recommendation from a few weeks ago - I've been listening to Glow On since, and it's fantastic!