28: Razorblades, Enamel Pins, and Other Small, Sharp Things

Hello, friends!! 

It is time for the long storied, mythical “short newsletter” from James… It’s been one hell of a month, and I want to dig into all of it, but there have been some exciting new developments that are reshaping a lot of my plans for the next year or two. I’m very excited to talk about all of them with you, and let you in on what I’m going to be building… 

The Empire of the Tiny Onion marches on with conquest in its eyes! I’ve lined up some incredible collaborators on some new projects I’ll start hinting about soon. If the whole run of Something is Killing the Children to Batman to Wynd to Razorblades to Department of Truth to Joker to Nice House on the Lake was all the first phase of my evil plans for world domination, I’m finalizing the all of the pieces of phase two. 

I think I said in an earlier newsletter that the rest of the year was going to be relatively quiet from me, and now I think I can say in earnest that you should forget that. I’m up to some shit. And if you’re subscribed to this newsletter, you’re going to get a front row seat to everything I’m looking to build. I’m unbelievably excited. 

But let’s get to the meat of it…

RAZORBLADES: THE HORROR MAGAZINE #4

The next issue of Razorblades is now available on the Tiny Onion Studios website. It’s got this amazing cover by Becky Cloonan. 

We have comics in the book by Me, Fernando Blanco, Josh Simmons, Vita Ayala, Kelly Williams, Alex Paknadel, Jason Loo, Rich Douek, Alex Cormack, Aditya Bidikar, Rosh, Erika Price, Zack Davisson, Jolyon Yates, Daniel Kraus, Jenna Cha, Stefanie Dioso, and Raymund Lee! Illustrations by Maria Llovet, Daryl Toh, Wipor Mont, Ricardo Lopez Ortiz, Trevor Henderson, Hannah Comstock, and Aaron Campbell! A short story by Adam Cesare! A featurette by Becky Cloonan on the making of her cover! Letters by Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou! It’s available in digital, pay what you want, and there is a limited number of Physical copies on sale on the website!

Go pick it up on TinyOnionStudios.com now!

I was thrilled to work with my friend, the INCREDIBLE Fernando Blanco on the cold open to the book, a story we call “Whiteout.” Fernando has been kicking ass on Catwoman over the last year, but I’ve been dying for the chance to work with him again (and hey, we might be cooking something a bit bigger on the back-burner, so stay tuned. We also have a pin-up of my murderous son, Killboy, by his other father, Ricardo Lopez Ortiz… Ricardo has been rocking out on the Ghost-Maker backups. 

If you bought Issue 3, you know it took a while to get into your hands. This time, to mitigate that, we didn’t even put the issue up for sale online until the books were en route to our distributor from the printer. Our goal is for orders to ship out over the next few weeks. Foreign orders are, as always, going to take a bit longer but we’ve made some steps to mitigate that as well. For those of you international readers still waiting for copies of #3, a batch of books got damaged in customs en route to our international distributor and we had to send replacement copies – I’m sorry that it’s taken so long, but I promise you that if you ordered a book it’s on its way to you. But Issue 4 should get to you all much faster. Thank you for bearing with our small operation.

There is one more issue of Razorblades coming in the current release cycle, and we’re probably going to repeat the current model of waiting until it’s. I’d expect it in your hands by September, but keep an eye here. We preview the cover of 5 at the end of the book, and the cover is by my incredible Nice House on the Lake partner in crime, Alvaro Martinez Bueno… There are some artists in this last issue that I am losing my mind that we got to contribute to the project.

And then we can start talking about all the evil we’ve got planned for 2022…

SOMETHING IS PINNING THE CHILDREN

BUT THAT’S NOT ALL, FOLKS… I’ve also got some new merch available. The first batch of officially licensed SOMETHING IS KILLING THE CHILDREN pins! The logo pin is designed by Dylan Todd, and the rest are designed by my SIKTC co-creator, Werther Dell’Edera. They are BEAUTIFUL, aren’t they?? 

I’m actually going to start advertising these in the pages of SIKTC, so I have a feeling this first batch is going to go quick. So put your orders in now! 

Also available at TinyOnionStudios.com – And Retailers, I’ve set aside a big batch of these for those of you interested in ordering in bulk at half off retail price. Hit me up at TinyOnionStudios@gmail.com and we’ll get you sorted.

EVERYTHING ELSE THAT’S FIT TO PRINT

• The Department of Truth was nominated for four Eisner Awards! Best New Series, Best Continuing Series, Best Writer (that’s me!), and Best Letterer (Aditya Bidikar). Please consider us if you’re an industry professional voting in the awards! But the nomination means the world to the whole team.

• Something is Killing the Children and Nice House on the Lake letterer Deron Bennet of Andworld Design ALSO got nominated for best Letterer at the Eisners! I’m gonna make him and Aditya fight in a battle pit to make my choice between the two of them.

• The Department of Truth’s latest issue’s sales are the second highest since our FIRST issue, which is fucking nuts. You are all lunatics, and I love you so, so much. Thank you for supporting this weird book.

• The Nice House on the Lake #1 sold out, and the second print just FOCed higher than DC’s original internal projections for how the first issue would sell. And Issue #2 is holding those numbers strong. Completely blown away by the continued support.

• We announced that our big Scarecrow story is going to erupt into a whole line-wide event called FEAR STATE! Check out this rad cover by Jorge Jimenez!

  

• Tying into Fear State, I’m getting to dive into a few of the characters I’ve created, and in September I’m going to be telling the origin story of Miracle Molly with the incredible Dani, who I have been dying to work with for YEARS AND YEARS. Look at this great cover by Little Thunder!

HOUSEKEEPING

I’ve got a lot more that I am dying to tell you all, but I need to wait until the ink dries on a few neat contracts I’ve got laid out in front of me. And I think separate from all of that, we’ve got a few more big fun announcements coming next month! So stay tuned. I’m going to get some more newsletters to you soon.

And meanwhile, keep picking up Batman, Joker, Wynd, Something is Killing the Children, The Department of Truth, The Nice House on the Lake, and Razorblades: The Horror magazine, so I can keep making more cool stuff for all of you.

James Tynion IV
Brooklyn, NY
6.22.21