Hello Friends!
Time hasn’t made sense for me since before New York Comic Con. The idea of something being one day ago, one week ago, or one month ago is all a bit abstract in my head right now. But here’s what I gather.
Last Monday, I announced my first ongoing horror series since NHOTL. That series is W0RLDTR33. It is coming out next spring from Image Comics. It is going to be drawn by Fernando Blanco, with colors by Jordie Bellaire, and letters by Aditya Bidikar. There is a preview story running in the IMAGE! #8, FOC for which is today. Let your LCS know you want a copy!
I actually spent the weekend putting final touches on a W0RLDTR33 script for Fernando. W0RLDTR33 might end up being the series with the highest on-panel body count in my whole library? It’s a brutal, scary comic book, and cuts close to my deepest fears about technology, the future, and the world today. I can’t wait to show you more from it as we get closer, but I’m extremely proud of what we’re building.
Last Monday I also put some goodies on the Tiny Onion Store, including a bunch of Halloween Pumpkin Stencils based on SIKTC and DOT! I tossed in a line about sending me pictures, and I wasn’t sure anybody would… But look what rolled in over the weekend! They both look SO FUCKING GOOD, I can’t STAND it!
You can snag your own Stencils, and pay whatever you want for them, right on over at ShopTinyOnion.com. You can also buy all sorts of cool shit on the shop right now, and use the code: “TR1CK” at check-out to get 15% off everything we have in stock!
Okay… What else happened last week… Hmmmmmmmm… DIDJA KNOW I’M DOING A KICKSTARTER?
So, in short (because I know I’ve made this sales pitch a bunch over here)… Elsa Charretier, PK Colinet and I are making a horror short film, a comic book, and an art book. We funded the whole campaign on its second day, and have kept up the momentum ever since. Over the weekend we passed the 150% funding point, which was really gratifying. We blew through our first stretch goal in just a couple of hours. Yesterday, on a YouTube Livestream we announced the next stretch goal. If we can hit 100,000 Euros in funding (just shy of 100K US), we’re going to make a variant cover of the comic book with Martin Simmonds’ amazing art available to all of you, and we’re going to add 20 pages to the art book we’re developing.
So YEAH! Go back the campaign! Let’s make that Martin Simmonds Comic Book Variant Cover into a thing that exists in the world that you can hold with your hands!
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So, after successfully funding our Kickstarter last week, I figured I’d take it easy and leave the country for three weeks for a three country, three convention European tour.
This weekend I’m going to be at LUCCA COMICS & GAMES in Lucca, Italy! Lucca is one of, if not THE largest Comics Festival in the world! Bigger than SDCC and NYCC! I am excited and terrified! I just got my full schedule for the show from the organizers there….
And here’s a panel I’ll be doing with SIKTC co-creator, Werther Dell’edera!
The following weekend, November 4-6, I’m going to be at Madrid Comic Pop-Up in Spain, and the weekend after that, November 12-13, I’m going to be at Thought Bubble in Harrogate. I’m going to do my best to give you a quick round-up at the top of each week.
And then I’ve got Singapore in December, and Angouleme in January, but we can talk more about them once I get back!
I read a really fascinating essay earlier this week that’s been staying with me. Kieron Gillen and Ed Brubaker both talked a bit about it in their newsletters, and Josh Williamson was the one who finally nudged me to sit and read it while I was half-insane on the launch day of the Kickstarter. More of it rang true to me than I expected it to. The essay is called “The Internet Is Already Over” and it’s written by Sam Kriss, and I genuinely think everyone should read it and chew on it a bit. I don’t know how right it is, but there is a heart of it that DOES feel right on some very real level. I’m going to keep on chewing on it for a while yet.
My studio-mate, Ian recommended an episode of the podcast ACID HORIZON to me, which I fucking loved. It’s the first of their recurring series, INNER EXPERIENCE called “The Contactee Experience.” If you want to think big thoughts about UFOs, esotericism, philosophy, and psychology, you should listen. Link to the episode on YouTube here. After listening, I’ve loaded up Whitley Strieber’s COMMUNION on Audible, which I’ve meant to read for ages, to try and knock out during my travels.
I wanted to get enough done to get to the theaters this weekend to see Tár, The Banshees of Inishiren, or the both of them. But I had to “write comic books” because I am “traveling for three weeks.” Sincerely hope some of the indy houses here in NYC keep them running into November, but that’s not hugely likely. Hey, maybe the WGA will notice that they’re supposed to reach out to me about membership before it’s Screener Season. A boy can dream.
There was a brief moment earlier in the month where I nearly thought “Oh wow, I’m actually going to watch 31 Horror Movies this October for the first time is almost a decade,” but sadly I’ve only gotten up to the high teens, and it doesn’t seem hugely likely I’ll get any movie marathons up and running while I’m on the road. I will say, the two real winners for me in terms of creepy movies I hadn’t seen before are Phil Tippett’s MAD GOD, and Juraz Herz’ THE CREMATOR. I’m extremely grateful to have both in the inspiration tank right now.
I have an essay brewing in me about how much the first season of the new INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE means to me as a queer genre fiction writer. I don’t even know if I’d want to share it with the world, but this has been one of the most surprising and important TV viewing experiences for me in the last few years. I’ll do my best to explain why in a future post.
Okay, I have a lot of shit to do before my flight to Italy takes off tomorrow night, so I am going to get back to it.
But seriously, it’s been an overwhelming week, and I am so fucking grateful to all of you for letting me make all of this cool stuff, in comics and beyond. None of this would be possible without your support on every front. Now, if you haven’t backed the Kickstarter yet, go check out the cool shit we’ve got for you, and otherwise, I’ll be in touch from the other side of the world.
Be good out there.
James Tynion IV
Brooklyn, NY
10.24.22
NHOTL in the New York Times today - congrats!
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/24/arts/halloween-comics.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
Shit yea!