Proof of life!
Courtney’s thing!
Clowns, Zombies, and Vampires! Oh my!
Hi there. Remember me? I’m the guy who writes a newsletter for you every few weeks that begins with me promising to do it more frequently. Then I do not. Not wanting to break a good streak, let me just say that I’m going to be doing these more frequently now (I’m not) and you should get excited (you shouldn’t). I know, I know. I wrote to you over the weekend. But that was just cover art and some youtube videos. This is my normal newsletter, which is some cover art and some stolen instagram posts.
What have you been up to these last few weeks? I’ve been working a lot and promised myself I would watch 31 spooky movies in October. I watched 5. For those of you weirdos keeping track of everything I do, the movies I watched were CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND, THE BAD BATCH, ALIEN COVENANT, DON’T LOOK NOW, and CRIMSON PEAK. If you also follow my good friend James Tynion’s newsletter you’ll notice I watched the same number of horror movies this month as James Tynion watched Sunday. I guess he’s just got a lot of free time. Also are half of these even horror movies? No, not really. But that’s the joy of meaningless challenges- the only person you’re letting down is you.
But while I wasn’t watching scary movies, I wrote some scary comics and that has to count for something, right?
Before we get to my stuff, we’re going to talk about other people’s stuff. This weeks Stuff I Didn’t Write is about a short comic I loved so much. 4 KIDS WALK INTO A BANK wallpaper designer and sometimes cover artist, WHAT’S THE FURTHEST PLACE FROM HERE? cartographer, and just general friend of the newsletter, Courtney Menard did a short spooky story for NY TIMES KIDS. I’ve been friends with Courtney for a long time and, while this never happened to me, this is by far the most I’ve ever related to her.
I don’t know if the above image will be clickable because Substack remains a mystery to me. But you can read it here if it isn’t.
Let’s get back to me. Just in time for… umm… A̶l̶l̶ ̶S̶a̶i̶n̶t̶s̶ ̶D̶a̶y̶… E̶l̶e̶c̶t̶i̶o̶n̶ ̶D̶a̶y̶… New Comic Book Day! (I really should have sent this out sooner). Two books I’m very proud of are out this week. Both of them feature a crazed, murdering clown. But here’s the twist- is it the same crazed, murdering clown?
Yup. It is.
THE JOKER PRESENTS: A PUZZLEBOX #4 is in comic shops right now. In case you forgot, this is a book about the Joker being interrogated and telling the wild story of who killed the Riddler. Each chapter has a different artist illustrating a different villain’s tale, as told by the clown prince of crime. In addition to our regular artist Jesús Merino, we are joined this month by the brilliant Vanesa Del Rey doing a Penguin and Bane story that is quite fun and weird, and takes place in a labyrinth. I bet you’ll never guess what movie we ripped off in making it? (answer after the break)
It was Labyrinth.
In this issue we are also joined by my KINGPIN partner in crime Ricardo Lopez Ortiz doing a Scarecrow and Professor Pyg story. It’s a fun heist story like OCEAN’S 11 if OCEAN’S 11 was about a homicidal pigman and a walking scarecrow and it wasn’t that clever. I guess that’s really what OCEAN’S 12 is.
And, as always, our covers are by the great Chip Zdarsky. His brand new Image series NEWBURN is out today too, so make sure to get a copy. It’s hardboiled crime stuff, but done in a way you’ve never seen before. You’ll like it. I promise.
But also you may remember I wrote issue #5 of the regular JOKER series. I was so thrilled to get to work with the legendary Francesco Francavilla on the issue. And we got to tell the story of the Joker’s first night in Arkham Asylum and the coming storm that signaled for Gotham City.
Franceso is so good that I agreed to do 2 more upcoming issues with him- THE JOKER #10 and THE JOKER ANNUAL. So look for those soon. But in the meantime the first collection of THE JOKER is out now, featuring this very issue. It also has the first 4 issues by a writer named James Tynion IV (why does that name keep coming up?) and artist Guillem March. The book is a great noir detective story about Jim Gordon traveling the world on the hunt for the Joker. It really is unlike anything else being published right now and it’s excellent, so you should have wanted to pick it up even without my story in it. But since it is in it, you make sure to tell the clerk at your local comic shop that’s why you’re buying it. whether you choose to open the book in front of them and rip out the first 100+ pages is up to you.
But not to be outdone by myself, I also had 2 big scary comic launches for the wonderful folks at DETECTIVE COMICS COMICS last week.
First up lets talk about TASK FORCE Z. I’ve talked about it here before, but now it’s finally out in the world and people are getting to see how lovely and screwed up and fun it is. Jason Todd has agreed to lead a team of dead villains brought back to life as a sort of Already Dead Squad. I could ramble on about how much I like writing Jason, and Bane, and Man-Bat, and Arkham Knight, but I don’t really need to do that. I get to work with Eddy Barrows on this book so any dumb stuff I say here doesn’t matter because the book is so gorgeous you all should be buying it.
Behold-
Oh, hey Crazy Quilt. What are you running from?
MAN-BAT!!!! That guy rules. Anyway, the book gets even more gorgeous when Eber Ferreira inks it, Adriano Lucas colors it, and Rob Leigh letters it. But I still really wish we could put out a version that is just Eddy’s pencils. He is a master.
But also out now is issue #1 of DC VS. VAMPIRES by myself, some dude named James, and my HAWKEYE FREEFALL partner in crime Otto Schmidt. With lettering by the great Tom Napolitano. Otto doesn’t post pages on his instagram for me to steal, so instead I have to go to another source.
Our amazing editor, and the heart and soul of DC VS VAMPIRES shared this amazing Jorge Molina cover. Ben is one of the best editors I have ever worked with and his enthusiasm for comics is so infectious. He is really one of those editors who makes you want to make better books and gives you all the help to do that. But I think the reason I really like Ben is he, like myself, gets super excited about shit like this. IT GLOWS IN THE DARK! It’s a vampire book so it makes sense that it glows. It’s the Green Lantern, so that also makes sense to glow. But then you see the glowing part and our boy Hal is converted to a creepy bloodsucker when the lights go off! How amazing is that?! Am I essentially a child for being so excited about this? Yes. Is it still the coolest thing ever? Fuck yes.
Anyway, if that doesn’t sell you on these books here is a little interview with me from the fine folks at CBR that might. When I went looking for this link I went to an older article they had posted. At first I thought it was an interview with me because I was quoted a lot saying some real dumb stuff, but then I noticed that they said all the quotes were taken from this here newsletter. Anyway, having all the dumb stuff I write on here unexpectedly shoved in my face was the verbal equivalent of opening your phone camera to selfie mode when you aren’t expecting it. So I just want to take a moment to thank all of you for putting up with me.
Also I really wanted to post that article and make you all click on it, to create some sort of verbal ouroboros, but that joke felt needlessly cruel. So instead I made that All Saints Day joke above which may or may not have been offensive. I don’t know.
All of these books are on shelves now. Treat yourself to some new reading material. All of these books pair well with fun size Kit Kats.
That’s it for me. Buy discounted candy. Stay safe. Take care of each other.
-Matthew Rosenberg
NYC 11/3/21