Where are those transmissions you intercepted?
Chapter 35: Didn't you just write me like yesterday?
Me again!
Gerry’s new book!
New issue of WTFPFH? today!
Some things I made that I thought were cool last year! Part IV
Hi. Me again. Sorry. I know it’s been a tough week for everyone. Between the PowerLanguage Wordle and the NY Times Wordle now being different words, the realization that Veselka’s Buffalo Chicken Pierogi will soon be going away again, and someone losing the Superbowl (I assume), I just wanted to check in. You doing okay?
I’m good. Thanks for asking. It’s New Comic Book Day and I have some books out. Obviously I am always shilling my stuff here (and everywhere else) but I often take to the tweets to promote other new books I’m excited about. I was thinking about moving that over to here, but also wasn’t sure if people would be into it. So what say you? You want new comic recommendations or you want me to just talk about myself on here?
I decided to not wait for you all to answer and am just going to shout out my buddy Gerry Duggan’s new Image Comics release THE DARK ROOM, which was just announced. For those of you who don’t know Gerry’s stuff, he is a great writer adept at blending heart and comedy and weirdness. He’s currently living on Krakoa with the X-MEN but I fell in love with his work on titles like DEADPOOL and INFINITE HORIZON. For those of you who don’t know Gerry personally, he is truly one of the most kind and thoughtful people I know.
Besides being a naturally gifted storyteller, Gerry is a big part of how I landed at Marvel and I feel like it’s a feel good story worth sharing. Or at least it felt good to me because I got hired to make comics at the end of it. Anyway… I was shopping at Midtown Comics a few years ago when in walked Marvel editor Jordan White. As young comic writer always trying to hustle, I had met Jordan a few times and wouldn’t skip an opportunity to say hello and try to remind him I exist. Jordan is always incredibly kind and when I reintroduced myself he said “Oh, do you know these guys?'‘ And standing behind him were Jeff Lemire, Cullen Bunn, and Gerry. They were in town for a creative summit at Marvel and decided to come to the comic shop to see a signing that wasn’t actually happening at that comic shop (long story). Anyway, as a big fan of all three of them (I was actually buying one of the later trade paperbacks of Cullen’s HARROW COUNTY at the time) I said hello and annoyingly introduced myself. Gerry I had actually met a few years before and he remembered me. At the end of some small talk I said I’d be getting out of their hair and goodnight. Jordan, who you will remember I said was always kind, lived up to that reputation by letting me know they were all going out for drinks and asking if I’d like to come. But I don’t drink and I’m hella awkward so I thanked him but declined. As I started to walk out Gerry chased after me and told me I should really come. I said I appreciated it but was worried about overstepping. He looked me dead in the eyes and said “You want to write for Marvel? Come hang out with a Marvel editor and some Marvel writers. Trust me.” And I did. He has very trustworthy eyes. We went out. I stayed for one Shirley Temple and then hit the D train home. 15 hours later Jordan White emailed me and asked me if I had any interest in writing ROCKET RACCOON.
The point of all of that is that I owe Gerry a great deal (and obviously Jordan too, but that wasn’t the point of this story), but even if I didn’t I would be sharing this because just look how fucking cool this book looks-
Let you comic shop know you want it. And if the trailer doesn’t convince you, just know that when I opened my inbox to find the link he emailed me this is what I saw-
And then when I clicked on the link in that email to watch the trailer on Youtube?
So I talked about it the other day, but the next issue of DETECTIVE COMICS and WHAT’S THE FURTHEST PLACE FROM HERE? #4 are both out today. You should head to your local shop and grab both. Obviously you want to read DETECTIVE COMICS because Batman or whatever, but what if I told you you’d get to see Victor Zsasz? Yeah. I thought so.
As for WHAT’S THE FURTHEST PLACE FROM HERE? #4 you can read a little preview courtesy our lovely publisher Image Comics right here. But also it’s out. Don’t read the preview. Just go buy it.
We have some great covers for WTFPFH? including this one by the great Ryan Stegman who made me keep him company on his podcast for 4 hours while he drew it live.
We also have this really great cover by the great Brian Level, who colored that cover. It’s like I only know 6 people!
And we have a great cover by the great Erica Henderson too. Great! Do we have too many covers? Probably. Do we like asking artists we think are cool to draw covers for us? Definitely.
And of course we have the next of Courtney Menard’s connecting maps. This one goes underneath #1 for those of you who don’t know how maps work.
I just noticed it says “THE POINTIES” and I am so happy right now.
In addition to all those excellent covers on sale wherever good comics are sold, we have 2 exclusive covers in our shop, where only our comics are sold.
The 4th in our connecting covers series-
And the foil version.
And the Glow in the Dark version. Why is it Glow in the Dark and not foil like the previous three? Well I spent a lot of time weighing how to explain that. The choices were A) lie and say we always intended to do this. B) be honest and explain that due to supply chain issues the printer has run out of foil, prompting me to email Image’s wonderful production team asking “What other crazy/dumb shit can we do?” Glow in the dark was the best answer so there you go. Limited to 100. One per customer.
AND NOW TO CONTINUE MY RUNDOWN OF ALL THE STUFF I WORKED ON LAST YEAR WITH A LITTLE SPOTLIGHT ON THE AWESOME COLLABORATORS WHO LET ME RIDE THEIR COATTAILS.
THE JOKER PRESENTS: A PUZZLEBOX #5. This was a fun one because we broke from our structure and let Two-Face tell the story for a little bit. It’s the first real concrete hint that our story has an unreliable narrator. Other than, ya know, he’s the Joker.
There is a fun hidden gag that I think maybe 2 people in the whole world got in this panel. In addition to the fact that the Joker is playing ‘I’ve Got You Under My Skin’ while he literally has people dressing up in other people’s skin in his game to destroy the Riddler, it’s the comment about the orchestra that I’m proud of. That record was recorded with the Nelson Riddle Orchestra. Cute.
Also look how unhinged Domo Stanton’s Joker is? So good.
THE JOKER PRESENTS: A PUZZLEBOX #6. A Killer Moth vs. Man-Bat chapter drawn by the brilliant Juni Ba. There is so much I love in this one visually. I really have to applaud our editor Katie Kubert for keeping the book gorgeous and visually exciting each issue. Once Juni was on board I noticed a lot of the audience really start to get what we were trying to do with the narrative in the book as well. It wasn’t intended that way particularly, people just began to notice that we were pushing things beyond some superhero comic norms.
And that’s it for me. More next week… Probably?
Stay safe. Take care of each other. Buy some on sale valentine’s candy!
-Matthew Rosenberg
NYC 2/16/22