Hi.
I hope everyone had a nice Free Comic Book Day for all who celebrate. I was camping on Cape Cod and only remembered it was FCBD the night before. So I googled around, found the closest shop, and popped in to The Cape Comics in Hyannis, MA. And there, signing for the masses, were my buddies Ricardo López Ortiz and Tradd Moore. All made extra fun because we all went to go to an advanced screening of Thunderbolts this week and then got dinner afterwards. When you leave your house as rarely as I do, running into people you know feels like nothing short of a miracle. Seeing the same people twice in a week? Well that has to mean something, right?
While I was there I bought some books (because that’s the real meaning of FCBD) and grabbed some free books, including one I am VERY excited about.
IDW’s excellent GODZILLA: THE NEW HEROES issue has the start of a story written by your 2 favorite IDEAS DON’T BLEED co-hosts- Ethan S. Parker and Griffin Sheridan! A.K.A. The Godzilla Boiz! Their story is great and everyone should be getting excited for their upcoming big lizard series. And if you’re near Cape Cod, stop in to The Cape Comics and grab some books.
I also got a fried clam roll and hung out on the beach. All around good time. No notes.
Between traveling the country for a month, some family things to deal with, and workloads, we once again find ourselves without a new episode. But fear not! That’s why we have a vault full of tapes of us probing the minds of some of the worlds greatest comic book creators. And what a mind we have this week.
We are joined by none other than Tom King, writer of this such as Batman, Mister Miracle, Strange Adventures, Love Everlasting, and more! A little while back we put Tom through the wringer by asking him our patented 24 questions designed to crack open his head like an egg and expose the gooey inner-core of his soul. If you’d like to hear more from Tom, and who wouldn’t, you can listen to our interview with him here and here.
I just wanted to take a moment to add a somber note here. The great artist Butch Guice passed away this week. I was a fan my whole life and was struggling to find words to say here. But my friend
, who was lucky enough to work with Butch, wrote up a beautiful tribute and said everything much better than I ever could.
Please give it a read and try to tell the people who make the stuff you love what it means to you before they’re gone.
Onto the business of me trying to get you to buy stuff.
I mentioned it might be happening but here we are. Issue #2 of WE’RE TAKING EVERYONE DOWN WITH US is sold out, as is the 2nd print of issue #1. So this weekend we are putting the 3rd print of #1, the 2nd print of #2, and the 1st print of #3 on Final Order Cutoff.
For those that don’t know, FOC as it’s unaffectionately known, is when shops have to place their orders so publishers know how many copies to print. Print runs are determined by shops orders, which are in turn greatly influenced by customers pre-orders. So when you hear comic creators begging you to preorder on FOC, that’s why. In layman’s terms this is when we find out if our book sold a lot of copies or not so many copies.
With all that said, we are very happy that demand on WTEDWU is strong, but selling out and reprinting books kinda sucks. It’s expensive, and time consuming, and it means there are weeks and weeks when our books are hard to find. So, if you want to read WTEDWU going forward it would be really helpful if you reminded your local comic shop to get you copies or add it to your pull list. It makes the lives of literally everyone involved easier. Yay.
Anyway here are the neato covers for issue #3 as well as the reprints of #1 and #2 for you to check out.
Here’s Stefano’s amazing cover. Speaking of Stefano, his great series with Mark Millar- PRODIGY: SLAVES OF MARS is in shops this week. Make sure to grab a copy.
Tyler Boss made this fun tribute to the original FOR YOUR EYES ONLY poster. Tyler’s excellent giallo horror series YOU’LL DO BAD THINGS #3 is also on FOC this week.
Tyler also made a cover so top secret that it is in a polybag and you can’t see it until you buy it. Ooooh.
The amazing Alison Sampson made this cover that is only available to shops who order 25 copies of the regular covers.
Here’s the 2nd print of #2. We’re making the 2nd prints all off-white, or giving them “the cream treatment” as one member of our team referred to it as and then immediately regretted it.
The great Daniel May also did this variant for the 2nd print of issue #2. It’s only available to shops that order 10 copies. Daniel is a pretty new artist but we’re big fans and think he’s going to be a big deal. So grab this to say you were down from day 1. Also, cream treatment.
And lastly, here’s Stefano’s issue #1 cover for the 3rd printing. The Creamsicle treatment.
If you want any of them, let your local comic shop know. Like, now. Nowish.
After a long bout of shameless self promotion I try to promote some other people’s stuff. Lately there have been a ton of cool looking kickstarters and here is another one.
Friend of the newsletter
has a new one for his amazing series with Nic Klein- DRIFTER.
It’s a beautiful omnibus or “omnia” as they are calling it, which is definitely a word. I was a big fan of this series when it was coming out years ago but hated that it was spread out over multiple volumes. Who can carry all of that? Well they finally took my note and put it out in one book. I am so excited that it will finally find the audience it deserves in this new, managable format.
If you like badass, smart, gorgeous sci-fi, or just pretty as hell books, don’t sleep on this.
That’s it for me.
Stay safe. Take care of each other. May the 4th be with you!
-Matthew Rosenberg
NYC 5/4/25
Share this post