There's one!
Chapter 45: Seafood special!
Lobsters, Iceman (not that one), and Thor (that one)!
It’s not funny if you have to explain the joke(r)!
Give Ryan K. Lindsay your money!
The Mixtape! - A weird seafood theme is emerging!
Hi.
Hope you’re staying cool. I can say that because it seems like it’s ungodly hot pretty much everywhere on Earth all at once. So now “don’t burn up” is a fun, universal statement. And normally I’d say all the people who live in cold places don’t have to correct me and tell me it’s cold in the comments because it was just a joke. But in this case, if you live somewhere where it is currently cold, please, by all means tell me in the comments so I can move there.
In other news I am busy, busy, working on some cool new things. The first of those was just announced. We will get to that soon. But I took a break for a few hours to go up to coastal Connecticut. About once every 5 years I get the urge to eat a lobster roll. The Connecticut ones that just have butter, not the nightmarish Maine ones. Lobster rolls are fascinating to me because the first bite is about the best food you’ve ever tasted but by the 5th you are painfully aware that lobsters are basically creatures made of snot and eggshells. Suffice it to say, I am good until 2027. That is also the year Children Of Men is set. Human extinction AND more lobster rolls? I can’t wait.
The point of this was actually not the lobster rolls, but where they come from. The ocean! Despite never really having spent much time on boats, I have an overwhelming love for the ocean. It just immediately makes me feel at peace. I feel like in olden times I would have been that young, wide-eyed country boy who ran away to join the crew of a giant boat sailing for the new world. And then I would have been swept overboard and eaten by dolphins at the first wave. But we aren’t in olden times so tragically I have to settle for taking a day off to go to the beach.
It was really nice to head up there, eat some hot buttered snot, and stare at the ocean for a couple hours. It was a good reminder to me to take time to go to my “happy place.” I am very lucky that my happy place is 70% of the Earth’s surface, but I still don’t go there enough. So, as I was reminded, now I remind you. Take some time to do some nice stuff for yourself. It can really do wonders for your brain and heart.
I also took the chance to go to the Drive-In. Other than the premiere of The Batman, I haven’t been to a movie in quite a few years. So the Mansfield Drive-In having a Thor: Love & Thunder / Top Gun: Maverick double bill was near perfect. I asked at the ticket window and they had no plans for a Memoria / Crimes Of The Future double bill, so Odinson and Goose’s son would have to do.
My very brief review of both films-
Christian Bale is very believable as a man who steals children. I mean that in a good way.
Although Guns N’ Roses are the better band, I preferred the Zep song.
The decision of how to portray Zeus was real wild. No idea if people were offended but in my theater (which was a car) it went over great. Sorry?
Miles Teller is in everything I watch now for some reason.
Making the plot of your movie “the death star trench run but longer” is honestly brilliant.
Put a fucking helmet on Jennifer Connelly when she’s on the back of a motorcycle! What’s wrong with you?! She’s a national treasure.
I didn’t understand why Iceman didn’t ask any of the other X-Men to help.
As you may or may not know, San Diego Comic Con was this past week. Some big stuff was announced, but everyone seems to agree that the biggest announcement was something I’ve been working on for a good long while.
I’M WRITING THE JOKER!
Didn’t you already write him in THE JOKER: PUZZLEBOX (Collected edition in comic shops September 13th)?
I did! But this time it’s in continuity!
But didn’t you write him in continuity a few times in the previous JOKER series (Volume 1 hardcover in stores now, paperback edition in stores October 25th. Volume 2 hardcover in stores August 30th)?
I did! But now that James has gone off to do who knows what I am running the show.
But didn’t you write the Joker in TASK FORCE—
Shut up!
That’s right! My intrepid editor Ben Abernathy was down to San Diego to make sure the world knew that me and Carmine di Giandomenico are teaming up to bring the Clown Prince of Crime back to the comic shop shelves starting this October. It’s a brand new ongoing called THE JOKER: THE MAN WHO STOPPED LAUGHING. Where did that name come from? I sent Ben like 300 different ones and he picked that one to get me to stop.
What can I tell you about this book? Not a lot really. It’s a crime story. It’s really violent, pretty weird, and maybe my favorite thing I’ve written for DC. If you like the cast of Task Force Z one special little team member might pry his way into this book. Carmine’s work has been amazing and I am so happy to get to work with him again. If you haven’t been reading his brilliant BATMAN: THE KNIGHT with Chip Zdarsky and co. you’ve been missing out.
Check out these awesome covers-
That’s all for now. But let your local comic shop know you are interested in buying a copy for everyone at your job.
In other news this week, TASK FORCE Z #10 is out. It’s a big, crazy issue and pays off something we’ve been hinting at for 10 months. I don’t think a lot of you saw it coming, but it just goes to show that anything can happen in Gotham.
Behold Eddy Barrows’s amazing cover for this issue and then rush down to your local comic shop and buy a copy for every person you have saved in your cell phone.
I’ve mentioned on here before my love for Ryan K. Lindsay’s comics. He is a writer always trying to push the medium and try new things, while never losing sight of telling great stories. If you haven’t read his awesome books like ETERNAL, NEGATIVE SPACE, and BEAUTIFUL CANVAS, you really should. You can also check out his great newsletter right here.
But the reason I’m writing about him now is that he has a new crowdfunding comic with Jen Vaughn and Teo Acosta called BACKSTORY. It’s only got a few hours to go at the time of my writing this and still needs your support. Cards on the table here I want to read this book so please back this project so I can.
Just click that button, throw some money at them, and get a cool comic.
Some day I will write something that starts with the perfect urgency of this song.
That’s it for me. Thanks, as always, for reading.
Stay safe. Take care of each other. Order something other than the lobster maybe.
-Matthew Rosenberg
NYC 7/29/22
This is Lobster Roll Slander and I will not fucking have it, Rosenberg!
Don't make me unsubscribe, mister! Cuz I will!!!! I'LL DOOOOOO IT. I WILLLLLLLLLLLLLLL
So glad you got to do TFZ book w Eddy Barrows. He's one of my absolute favorites and underappreciated in his time. Looking forward to the Joker book (which is a thing I always tell myself will be the last time I say it)!
That Squeeze song is so good. I never know where to put them on the cool/lame spectrum, but I love that song so much. The rhythm of the lyrics!