This is a consular ship.

Chapter 38: WTFPFH? vol. 1 and no, I didn't fall over Niagara Falls...

• We made a book!

• Here’s how to preorder it! (Subtext- please, please, please preorder it!)

• Silver Coin gets nominated for an award and you can buy it now!

• Red Hood continues the brutalization of Tim Drake.

• Damian Wayne continues the brutalization of everyone.

• The Mixtape!

I bet you thought you’d never hear from me again, huh? Well the jokes on you because… you did. And yes, I realize for a bunch of you who get this, this will be your first time receiving this little newsletter. Welcome. Theoretically this is a weekly note in your email box about comics I write, music, comics I don’t write, movies, life, art, and everything else. In practice it’s a semi-annual newsletter that seems to mostly review chocolate milk and lie about owning a cat. I’m not sure why. Either way, I’m glad you’re here. Feel free to comment, ask questions, tell your friends about this, or print it up and distribute it on the streets of your town like some sort of devoutly boring prophet.

As to the pressing question of where have I been? Good question. Not much of anywhere. What I have been doing is working on getting together the first volume of WHAT’S THE FURTHEST PLACE FROM HERE?, writing some comics for DC Comics, and working on a bunch of top secret stuff. Most of that involves sitting around in my house and staring at my computer all day, so it’s not the most interesting thing. Add too much work and not enough anything else and it feels silly to send you all this here newsletter. But now things are happening!

Sort of.

The biggest thing I have going on is the collected edition of WHAT’S THE FURTHEST PLACE FROM HERE? coming out June 29th. WTFPFH? is my ongoing series with the mighty Tyler Boss from Image Comics. It’s our post-apocalyptic coming-of-age series that is the middle point of John Hughes and John Carpenter, or the intersection of Lord of the Rings and Lord of the Flies. Volume 1 clocks in at a very stupid 272 pages and collects the first 6 issues. And seeing as Tyler was just nominated for his 2nd Eisner Award for book design in 2 years, you know it will be a nice looking book.

Look at this gorgeous hunk of comics.

If you haven’t had a chance to check it out you can watch this little trailer my buddy Lando made for the launch of the book.-

Before we move on, this is my very annoying reminder that preordering the book helps us so much more than we can properly explain. The ‘final order cutoff’ for the book is Monday, meaning shops decide how many copies they think they will need and place their orders. Every pre-order helps them gauge excitement for the book and how many copies they want for their shelves. So each pre-order isn’t just one order, it’s often 2, 3, 4, or even 5. And then on Tuesday morning we see how many orders there are from those shops and decide how many copies to print. So it’s pretty important. If you’re thinking of checking out the book, it would be doing us a huge favor to pre-order it this weekend.

But how do you preorder? Well, lots of ways…

YOUR LOCAL COMIC SHOP!

Tyler and I both worked in comic shops, we have a huge love of comic shops, and we wouldn’t be able to do this without comic shops. So our suggestion is always pre-order from your local comic shop. Don’t have one? No problem. The great Comic Shop Locator can help you find one nearby. Then call them or stop in and tell them you want a copy. That’s it.

MAILORDER FROM A COMIC SHOP!

Many of the comic shops that I love happily do mailorder. There are too many to list but off the top of my head a few that you can use are-

My local NYC shop who have always helped us out-

A comics institution in the PNW-

A midwestern shop that really backed the book-

A Illinois area chain who are really awesome-

And if you’re in Canada, you can’t go wrong with one of the coolest shops in the world-

And if you’re overseas, a shop I love in Leeds, England-

And London’s mighty Forbidden Planet, one of the great destinations for comic fans worldwide-

And lastly, it’s not up for pre-order yet but I’d be doing a disservice if I didn’t mention ComicHub, which is a one-stop online mailorder site for some of the best comic shops around the world. Some of our favorite stores like Big Bang, Cape & Cowl, Captain Blue Hen, Brave New World, Collected, Aw Yeah, Memory Lane, Ssalefish, The Comic Shop, Pittsburgh Comics, Maximum, Anyone Comics, Zeppelin, Fantom, Samurai, Telegraph, Neighborhood, Books With Pictures, Arsenal, Austin Books, Comics Conspiracy, Downtown, Mission: Comics & Art, Wade’s Comic Madness, 4 Color Fantasies, and so many more I’m forgetting (please don’t get mad at me.) If you want to wait I am sure a bunch of these shops will have books available online or in store.

GET IT FROM A BOOKSTORE!

If you’re partial to traditional bookstores, our book will also be available there. You can request it at your local book shop. Or you can use the great service Bookshop.org to preorder right now.

I always love shopping at Kinokuniya. They are beautiful stores.

Powell’s is one of the best book shops in the world. Pretty cool to see our book there.

I honestly don’t fully know how it works in Canada despite having lived there. I can’t tell all of you to go buy your books at the Eaton Center like I did when I was a kid so I will tell you to go to Indigo.

GET IT FROM A GIANT CHAIN STORE…

Look, I know how it works. Some of you just crave the convenience of the big guys. So here are the links.

Amazon is fun because you’re not just buying a book, you’re also contributing to a space program or something.

I’m cool with Barnes, but Noble does not like me.

I signed at a Books-A-Million once and it was pretty nice and they gave me a lot of weird soda.

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PHEW. Now that that is out of the way, I’d also remind you that WHAT’S THE FURTHEST PLACE FROM HERE? #6 is in comic shops June 1st. We’re running a little behind because of life stuff and the state of the world, but in order to make up for it we made this issue, the finale of arc 1, double sized but kept the price the same! We’re the heroes we deserve. So make sure you grab that in 2 weeks.

And then 4 weeks later, WTFPFH? #7 drops. It’s the same day as the trade. This is a really special issue, with guest art from the brilliant Josh Hixson. I’m going to talk more about it in coming weeks, but it’s going to be a wild one.

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But in stores this week is THE SILVER COIN vol. 2. Michael Walsh’s brilliant horror anthology about a cursed coin and the people unlucky enough to cross its path. I was lucky enough to write one issue in this collection, alongside such amazing writers as Joshua Williamson, Vita Ayala, Ram V, and Walshy himself. It’s a truly great series unlike anything else on stands. And you don’t have to take my word for it. The book was just nominated for an Eisner for best anthology. So do yourself a favor and grab a copy.

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Also in shops this week is issue 8 of my Red Hood / Two-Face will they/won’t they romcom TASK FORCE Z. Guest artist Jack Herbert joins us this month for a wild ride that leads whats left of the Task Force to throw down with some of their most dangerous foes yet- The Bat Family! I’m going to have to stay off social media for a bit after this because Red Hood takes some shots, both physically and verbally, that are going to upset a bunch of folks. It’s gonna be fun!

Check out the preview in AIPT here.

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And lastly, our very special Damian Wayne focussed one shot- DC VS. VAMPIRES: HUNTERS is in shops this week. Neil Googe and Antonio Fabela join me for a story that will set up the future of the DCvsV universe. And lots of Damian being a snarky dick, which is the best.

You can see the preview in AIPT again.

Been listening to this album all week. It’s a lot to take in, in a good way. Kendrick’s ability to layer every aspect of his work is unparalleled. I love art I can go back to over and over and discover new things about or feel different about each time.

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And that’s all. More soon. Maybe.

Stay safe. Take care of each other. Pre-order your damn books.

-Matthew Rosenberg

NYC 5/21/22