Smashed into who knows what!
Chapter 31: The ballad of Ooder's Wot.
Ooder’s Wot?
WTFPFH? #3 is out!
Detective time again!
The Mixtape!
Hello,
nice to see you again. How have you been? I’ve been crunching on deadlines, working on some new and top secret things, reading some Brubaker Batman issues, and hanging out with the friendliest crime boss around- Boba. That’s about it. Oh I watched Licorice Pizza. Probably my 2nd favorite PTA film? I don’t know. Heart counts a lot with me, and that movie has a lot of it.
I guess I should probably explain the Ooder’s Wot thing at the top. Star Wars has been my favorite film my whole life. It’s one of the first things I remember ever seeing. When you’re a kid some things just get your mind racing and connect with you in ways nothing ever has before, and for me that was Star Wars. Every character, every scene, every shot, and every line had the ability to open up a whole other world. I wanted to know the histories of everything they talked about. I wanted to explore all the things we didn’t get to see. So with that in mind I would watch the movie over and over as a kid, memorizing every line that hinted at things we didn’t see on screen and imagining what they were referring to. And the first line that really gives you that glimpse at a bigger universe is C-3P0 telling R2-D2 that they will be “Sent to the spice mines of Kessel. Smashed into Ooder’s Wot.”
Now spice mines of Kessel is pretty self explanatory. It’s a place where spice is mined. Sure. For all I knew as a kid (and maybe now) that’s how we get spices on Earth too. Kessel? Maybe a place. Maybe a guy who owns mines. Doesn’t matter too much, I got the general idea. But then there is the next part. “Smashed into Ooder’s Wot.” What the hell is that?! Is that a place? Are they going to drop the droids out of a ship to smash onto the surface of Ooder’s Wot? Is it a material? Is it something they can turn droids into, like how I can smash a peanut into butter of sorts? Is it something that is going to happen in the spice mines or is that a separate thought? Also, I made the decision that the “s” in “Ooder’s” was possessive. This Wot belonged to someone named Ooder. But I was never 100% sure on that. And if “Wot” was something they were going to be turned into, why did they automatically become the property of Ooder when they transmogrified. Or maybe Ooder’s Wot was a general name, like Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. The ones you buy at the store aren’t actually owned by Reese, despite what the name would tell you. Perhaps Ooder just cornered the market on Wots. So many questions and so few answers.
So imagine my surprise when I watched the movie with subtitles on in my 20s and found out he fucking says “smashed into who knows what.” You’re a goddamn protocol droid. Enunciate better, for fuck’s sake.
But in the end that doesn’t really matter. It all sucked me into the story, the lore, the universe at a time when that had never happened before. It was just one more loose thread that I got to pull on and follow myself and make up where it lead. And Star Wars taught me to love that type of storytelling. The big world building that isn’t as concerned with answering all the questions as it is with making sure you feel like you’re there in the moment. And that is something I strive to do with a lot of my work… Like, say, WHAT’S THE FURTHEST PLACE FROM HERE?
Look at that segue. Flawless. Would you believe I don’t plan this stuff? In fact I don’t edit this thing at all and just sort of write it on the fly, high off a potent mix of stress, sleep deprivation, and boredom? It’s true! That’s why sometimes I reference peanut butter randomly twice in the same paragraph.
So, yeah. Third issue of WHAT’S THE FURTHEST PLACE FROM HERE? is out right now. Want to read it? You can grab a copy at your local comic shop. Don’t have one? ComicShopLocator.com. Don’t want to read it digitally? Comixology has all the issues so far to read on your computer or reader-thingie.
This one is a weird one. I guess I say that every month, but this one is really one of my favorites and I think is Tyler and I hitting our stride. It has some of my favorite sequences of his in anything we’ve done. And it has a bunch of kids battling 1980s technology, which is probably the smartest thing I’ve ever done. So go pick it up.
And if you want to feel especially connected to the book, you can buy some original pages from Tyler. He doesn’t ever promote that fact, so I like to do it so he can do important stuff like eat or buy progressively bigger TVs to watch his precious Buffalo Bills on. There are still pages from #1 and #2 available, and all the pages from #3 go on sale this morning at 10AM EST. Why? Because Tyler’s art rep at Modern Mythology hates you and doesn’t want you to sleep in. Teach him a lesson by throwing on some pants, getting to your computer, and then giving him a bunch of money. Click here to preemptively spend your tax return on art.
They also have the last few pages from 4 KIDS WALK INTO A BANK for sale on their site. That’s fun.
In addition to all the great covers for the book in your local comic shop now, we made our own covers for our own webstore over at FurthestPlace.com. As always, we would much rather you buy the books from your local comic shop. If you can’t do that we have all the covers for each issue up at our shop plus the exclusive connecting cover (limited to 500) or the shiny foil one (limited to 100) those are going on sale today at Noon EST.
As always the foil covers are one per person. In the past we made the connecting covers 5 per person but some friendly folks convinced me to stop that and we still have some left of #1 and #2 if you want. So get what you want. 2022 is your year.
I know some of you were clicking refresh on the site a lot hoping not to miss these selling out. Shopify was down for a day when we tried to get it ready, then I realized I didn’t have the correct art and had to get it from Tyler, then he was working, then I was working. Anyway, sorry about that. We’ll make it up to you with something neat soon. Promise.
In addition to the new issue of WHAT’S THE FURTHEST PLACE FROM HERE? #3, I also had the second chapter of my story in DETECTIVE COMICS #1048.
This one is again by the brilliant Fernando Blanco, Jordie Bellaire, and little old me. We got some good disturbing Arkham Asylum stuff and a guest appearance from everyone’s favorite man whose face is not made out of skin- Clayface!
I actually really love writing Clayface. There has been a lot of great writing in the last few years to humanize the character and I think he is really one of those great tragic villains that deserves a bigger spotlight. Plus he’s a giant clay monster, which is cool.
So grab a copy at your local comic shop today.
No reason for this one. I was just thinking about it because the original name of WHAT’S THE FURTHEST PLACE FROM HERE? was ACADEMY FIGHT SONGS named after this Mission Of Burma song. That is why the record store they live in is called Academy Records. Ironically also the name of one of my favorite record stores in the real world, but that is coincidental.
If we’d kept that name I bet less people would message me about Jawbreaker lyrics like they caught me shoplifting.
Just realized I ended last weeks newsletter by saying my 2021 recap would continue here and that I had a special surprise for you. Neither of those was true. Don’t believe everything people email you.
Stay safe. Take care of each other. Watch NAOMI on the CW.
-Matthew Rosenberg
NYC 1/14/22
I guess the question here is: have you ever been caught shoplifting?
In C-3P0's defense (and yours), he doesn't have lips. Made it hard. I was definitely with you till you said you misheard it!