It just isn’t fair!
Chapter 187: Signings! New projects! How are you?
Who wants to get bit?!
Who wants to get something signed?!
Who wants some EC Fucking Comics?!
You need more Soderbergh in your life!
The Mailbox!
The Mixtape!
Hello again.
Hope you’re all well. I’ve been busy, but good busy. Mostly. Took a trip down to South Carolina for some family stuff. I don’t want to spoil it if you haven’t been, but damn that place has a lot of weird birds. While I was down there I also stopped into some comic shops, swam in the ocean a lot, went kayaking with dolphins (they were just swimming actually), and ate too much BBQ. But the big thing for me is always looking at alligators. If Jurassic Park were real I would totally go and totally get eaten and you’d all be making memes about me like I was a billionaire in a tinfoil submarine.
Oh. There might be alligators?
ENHANCE.
How can you not be romantic about baseball alligators?
I didn’t get eaten, not for lack of trying. But now I am safely back home and back to work in the comic mines. And it seems some of that work will finally see the light of day. This Wednesday DC VS. VAMPIRES makes its triumphant return with DC VS. VAMPIRES: WORLD WAR V #1.
Triumphant return is of course relative. Because Otto Schmidt and I are back to pick up right where we left off, and that isn’t exactly triumphant for anyone. Sadly James Tynion isn’t joining us this round because, as you remember, he died in the last issue of the previous arc. So sad. But look at these awesome covers we have.
The top is by Otto. Below are by Steve Beach, Jae Lee, Homare, Riley Rossmo, and my partner in Red Hood- Nikola Cizmesija!
The book is very fun, if I do say so myself. You don’t have to have read the previous series or the ALL OUT WAR spinoff (but they are collected in lovely hardcovers and paperbacks out now!) But just to get you up to speed, a bunch of people with superpowers became vampires and plotted to take over the world. A bunch of folks died. A bunch got turned into vampires. But the surviving people managed to stop their plan to block out the sun.
Which bring us to now. There is an uneasy peace between humans and vampires. As their war has damaged the planet irreparably and a new ice age has come, both humans and vampires suffer. The vampire Queen Barbara Gordon holds tenuously onto her power as forces both inside and out apply pressure. Meanwhile the human council led by John Constantine, Green Arrow, Lois Lane, and Talia al Ghul attempt to maintain the fragile peace. But the young vampire Damian Wayne wants nothing but to bring down the vampire queen and his rebel army threatens to heat up this cold war. Sounds fun, right?
I don’t always put previews in here because sometimes people don’t want to be spoiled. But if you want to check out a preview our friends at AIPT have one right here. It’s got Green Lanterns in it! Yay!
And as an added bonus all the issues after #1 have really fun backup stories by some amazing creative teams. Issues #2 and #3 have a Bat-Mite story written and drawn by my partner in WHAT’S THE FURTHEST PLACE FROM HERE? and 4 KIDS WALK INTO A BANK, Mr. Tyler Boss. I’ve read it. It rules. And today is his 12th birthday, so… do something with that information. Anyway, you want to read Tyler’s DC debut for sure.
To celebrate the release of DC VS. VAMPIRES: WORLD WAR V #1 I am doing my first and only signing in a very long time. Almost a year. And where better to sign than hometown heroes Midtown Comics!
It’s this Thursday, 5pm, at their Grand Central store. Come hang out and if you tell me you are a subscriber maybe I’ll have something cool to give you. I don’t know what that would be, but I have a few days to figure it out I guess.
In other news, it was announced at San Diego Comic Con that Oni Press’s amazing relaunch of the EC Comics line was expanding. And with that expansion I am so proud to say I’m writing a short for their EPITAPHS FROM THE ABYSS series of horror stories. I am not sure what issue number my story will be in, but Hunter and Sierra are putting together a murderer’s row of talent for every issue, so you should probably just grab them all. They’ve got folks like Chris Condon, Matt Kindt, Tim Seeley, Lee Bermejo, Jason Aaron, Stephanie Phillips, Adam Hughes, David Lapham, Charlie Adlard, Darick Robertson, and more all doing work on the books. So hurry to your comic shop and tell them you need all the EC titles you can get your creepy little hands on.
Since we have a podcast here at Ashcan Press, we know the labor of love that is podcasting. I sometimes spend up to 4 hours a month working on our show. And then somehow it appears all edited and polished and uploaded to the correct servers. I’ll have to ask Ethan and Griffin how that happens sometime. Anyway, the point is, when other people make podcasts I tend to notice it and judge them. So I was very nervous when my good buddy Michael Moreci launched a new podcast, because I know he is trying to be better than me.
Well, good news/bad news. I listened to it. Turns out he is better than me. But he is so much better than me that he’s made something really enjoyable.
On The Filmographers Podcast each episode is a deep dive into a single film of the director they’ve chosen to focus on that season. Season 1 is all about Steven Soderbergh, which is a great choice. But hopefully if enough of us listen and bug them maybe they’ll do Wong Kar-wai and let me come on and be a desperate fanboy.
The Filmographers Podcast is available wherever you get your other podcasts but if you need some help you can check them out on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Youtube, or any of those other places I don’t feel like linking too. Anyway, you know the deal. Podcasts live and die off likes and subscribes, so throw some their way.
Haven’t answered reader questions in a while. Here is one from one of my faves, Normie Osborn.
Normie asks:
As a process nerd, what’s your schedule like?Do you try to hit a page count for every day?
So, my dark secret is that I’m not a very fast writer. Despite being the most prolific writer at Marvel 2 years in a row when I was there, and the most prolific at DC 1 of my years there, it doesn’t come fast or easy. I just work long fucking hours pretty much every day. So, going over my current schedule for the next year I always try to keep 5 pages a day in mind as a target goal. But that’s not exactly realistic. For example I had to do over 3 hours of interviews the other day, and then had 2 hours of calls with collaborators, so that throws a bit of a wrench into things. Also, my scripts don’t just come out in nice 5 page chunks. Outlines take time, but make things go much faster later. Lettering passes take time, and I almost always forget to account for them. So the 5 page rule is just a general thing in my head to make me feel bad enough to keep going when I’m tired. But yesterday I wrote 11 pages, which theoretically should make me feel good or give me a day off, but it did neither. The system is not perfect and is, in fact, barely a system.
Not exactly the most helpful answer, but it is the most honest one I’ve got. If you’d like your question answered either helpfully or honestly (but never both) feel free to email them to me or just leave a comment.
Been one of those weeks years.
Rick Froberg forever.
Stay safe. Take care of each other. They should have alligators in New York.
-Matthew Rosenberg
NYC 8/11/24
Hi Matthew, in your opinion what is the best vampire power? Thanks
I'll be signing there the day before!