It’s restricted!

Chapter 51: Body heat, questions, and the inescapable pull of the Joker...

• More Tyler Boss art for sale!

• Adrian Pimento likes us!

• Got Questions?

• You can’t escape the Joker!

• Actually, maybe I can’t escape the Joker!

• Dark Ride doesn’t have the Joker in it!

• A song that’s so sexy it’s gross!

Hello again!

I’ve spent the last few days being overwhelmed by the realization that basically all humans, regardless of size, age, race, sex, or place of origin, are all basically the exact same temperature. It’s real weird when you think about it, right? Some 80 year old, 300 pound man from Norway is probably within 1/10th of 1 degree temperature difference from a 14 pound 1 year girl from Fiji. Really freaks me out.

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In fun news, Tyler Boss has put up all the pages from WHAT’S THE FURTHEST PLACE #5 and #6 for sale, as well as the covers to some issues and the collected edition (which is the cover to #1 also you may have noticed. Looking for a nice piece for your wall? Look no further. If someone doesn’t buy the last page from issue #6 I’m going to lose my mind with temptation.

So good! Stop me before I buy it!

Go here to get some art from these issues.

Tyler also still has some pages from 4 KIDS WALK INTO A BANK, DEPARTMENT OF TRUTH, and some ARCHIE covers left.

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Speaking of 4 KIDS WALK INTO A BANK, someone just showed me this very cool interview in ComicBook.com with a man famous for his roles on PAPER GIRLS, BROOKLYN 99, INVINCIBLE, and as Tommy Lee’s penis in PAM & TOMMY, Mr. Jason Mantzoukas! When asked about dream comic projects to work on he had a real A+ answer.

“Holy sh-t, there's so many things. There's so many things that I think Tyler Boss and Matthew Rosenberg's 4 Kids Walk Into a Bank, I think is an incredible story that I'd love to see done.”

If I had to guess, he actually said “shit” but I wasn’t there so can’t be positive. You can and should read the whole interview here.

Also, because sometimes my family reads this dumbness, I wasn’t joking about the penis thing.

Let’s move on…

So I totally forgot about this but I want to bring it back. This is the section where I answer questions. But since I didn’t tell you to ask them I don’t have any questions to answer right now. So you should go ahead and comment your questions or respond to this email if there’s anything you want to know. Maybe I’ll try to do an All Questions edition of this newsletter next time.

So it is once again time for the dreaded FOC. The thing that makes the comic book industry move. For those that don’t know, it stands for Final Order Cutoff, and it’s the last day your local comic shop can order a book and guarantee they’ll get their copy. So asking for a book before FOC helps the shop determine demand for a book, helps the publisher set the print run size, helps the creators make money, and it helps you make sure you’ll get the book you want.

This Sunday is FOC for THE JOKER: THE MAN WHO LAUGHS #1 by myself, Carmine Di Giandomenico, Francesco Francavilla, and co. I am incredibly proud of this very strange book. It’s weird, violent, funny, disturbing, and beautiful and it’s one of the things I’m most proud of so far in my career.

Ben Oliver’s masterpiece cover.

I will talk more about the book when it comes out. There is a driving mystery at the heart of it and the man hunting the Joker is one of my favorite characters I’ve ever written. It’s a real honor to write a character with such a rich history but it’s even more so to really feel like you’re maybe adding some new stitches to the tapestry of the character, and it feels like that’s what we’re doing here. I hope you’ll come along for the ride

Haining’s fun Harley Quinn cover. Is she in the book? ,,, Maybe.

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Because I seem to be a real “Joker guy,” I also have a really amazing hardcover collection of my THE JOKER: A PUZZLEBOX series in shops next week.

I really love that the pieces not put in place show his teeth together but the bigger piece shows his mouth open. So creepy. Artists are smart.

I feel like I’m repeating myself, but this was a really weird and fun series. It’s a collection of short stories told by the Joker, about Gotham’s most dangerous villains, that all add up to one larger murder mystery. The challenge of doing an unreliable narrator story from comics most unpredictable villain was really fun and each story is drawn by a guest artist. The book is a murderer’s row of talent with Jesús Merino, Chip Zdarsky, Josh Hixson, Keron Grant, Dani, Vicente Cifuentes, Domo Stanton, Juni Ba, Vanesa Del Rey, Ricardo López Ortiz, Chris Mooneyham, Freddie E. Williams II, Shawn Crystal, Juan Doe, and Mike Norton all contributing.

If nothing else it’s one of the prettiest comics you’re going to come across at the shop next week. And weirdest.

Because I don’t want to just plug my own stuff like a monster all the time, I will mention that the excellent new horror series DARK RIDE #1 is on FOC now too. So when you call or stop into your local comic shop to tell them you want THE JOKER #1 you can ask for DARK RIDE too. The Joker isn’t in it…

Written by friend of the newsletter Josh Williamson (who has his own little newsletter here), who reunites with his BIRTHRIGHT team of Andrei Bressan and Adriano Lucas, DARK RIDE is a blast. I’ll let them tell you about it-

“Devil Land has been the world’s premiere horror-themed amusement park for over 50 years, home to the scariest ride ever created – The Devil’s Due. But when lifelong fan Owen Seasons begins his first day on the job, he will discover the true horrors happening behind the scenes, the truth about the park’s reclusive creator Arthur Dante and that the job of his dreams might just be a living nightmare.”

It’s such a fun and screwed up book. Let your local shop know you want a copy today.

I don’t know why I always found this song so unnerving. It’s great. It’s catchy. It’s weird. It’s sexy… But in a creepy way? I don’t know. Anyway listen to more Suede.

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Stay safe. Take care of each other. Check your temperature.

-Matthew Rosenberg

NYC 9/8/22