TINY UPDATE 10/2: Okay, Now Let's Talk About THE DEVIANT

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I’ve always been a little bit too fascinated with Serial Killers.

I went to high school about fifteen blocks away from the apartment building where Jeffrey Dahmer killed all those people, just a little over a decade after the last killings had taken place. I had good friends in High School whose parents had had some small involvement in his story, both through the press or the legal side of things. And when friends and I talked about Dahmer in hushed voices, we always talked about Ed Gein, too. The Wisconsin Serial Killer who inspired both PSYCHO and THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE.

And then there was the fact that I watched Silence of the Lambs for the first time when I was twelve years old (my mom unsuccessfully attempted to cover my eyes during the Scary bits), which kicked off a lifelong fascination with Hannibal Lecter and the stories around him.

But in that fascination, there was something darker lurking. My own strange relationship with my sexuality which I was starting to piece together as an adolescent. You have to remember that in the late 90s and early 00s, it was easy to have a media diet in which gay people just didn’t exist. And when they did, it was usually as a punchline, and rarely as a three-dimensional character. I think I watched the Kevin Kline movie IN & OUT three times when my Mom rented it, without my family realizing I was going back over and over.

But most of the time I was engaging with queerness in media it was through the lens of monsters. Through sexual deviance. And there was a strange tie to Serial Killers. To the idea of the person who looked like everybody else, but there was something WRONG in them. Something twisted, that would grow into something uncontrollable and dangerous and hurt people around them.

Even now, in my mid-thirties, I’m still navigating my relationship with my own queerness. It’s nothing quite so dire as the dark thoughts of a young gay teenager reading about Jeffrey Dahmer on a Geocities website, but it’s not always the clean, clear affirmative relationship that a lot of queer fiction portrays. I wanted to dig into my ugliest feelings and see what kind of art would come from that.

Sometimes, it still feels like there’s something wrong with me. Sometimes, in a story with the monster, I see myself more in the monster than I do in the ordinary people. So I wanted to take all of those deep and uncomfortable feelings and use them as the building blocks for a horror comic. A serial killer story, with no supernatural elements. My love letter to Thomas Harris, and David Fincher, and all of the formative works that needled their way into my impressionable young brain.

The Deviant is also a Christmas Story.

That’s why it’s coming out in mid-November. There was something in my brain that told me that the best time to launch this series was going to be making sure that the Final Order Cut-off landed in the drumbeat to Halloween, and that the book would be on the stands in time for Black Friday and the whole Holiday Shopping season. What more could you want in your local comic shop this season?

I can’t say enough good things about the work of Joshua Hixson on the series. His art and colors capture the uneasy feeling of the book perfectly. We’ve been working on and talking about this book for such a long time, and I can’t wait for you all to see the way in which his work has leveled up to the next stratosphere. We’re up to something dark, and exciting in this book and I really can’t wait for it to finally come out.

We did the thing we did with W0RLDTR33 and announced the cover line-up but only showed off Josh’s incredible Cover A. The one I want to call out is the Die-Cut cover, which opens like a Christmas Card. You’ll have to get the comic to see what lives inside of that Snow Globe. But I think that’s going to be a favorite…

As always, we have a murderers row of incredible comic talent…

COVER A - JOSHUA HIXSON

COVER B - JOSHUA HIXSON - CHRISTMAS CARD DIE-CUT

COVER C - DANI 1:10

COVER D - ANDREA SORRENTINO 1:25

COVER E - SEAN PHILLIPS 1:50

COVER F - CHRISTIAN WARD 1:75

COVER G - LEE BERMEJO 1:100

THE DEVIANT has its Final Order Cut-Off on 10/16. It releases on 11/15. It is written by me, with art by Joshua Hixson, letters by Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou, and design by Tyler Boss.

It’s really good. You should order it. I’m biased, but I’m feeling very good about it all. I can’t wait for you to see for yourself.

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October 11th

HOUSE OF SLAUGHTER #18

W: Sam Johns / A: Letizia Cadonici / C: Francesco Segala / L: AndWorld Design / Cover A: Javier Rodriguez / E: Eric Harburn & Ramiro Portnoy / CREATED BY: James Tynion IV & Werther Dell’Edera

In the depths of routine, Paris and Tybalt fear that Bait may be losing his edge, and warn that failure could lead to his loyalty facing scrutiny, all while a new look at Bait's dysfunctional family—The White Masks—comes to light as he drifts into memories of his origins.

As Bait wrestles with the current situation, it also becomes clear that something is shockingly wrong with Nannette...

October 25th

UNIVERSAL MONSTERS: DRACULA #1

W: James Tynion IV / A + Cover: Martin Simmonds / L: Rus Wooton / E: Alex Antone

MINISERIES PREMIERE!

THE BIGGEST NAMES IN COMICS RESURRECT THE MOST ICONIC MONSTERS!

THE DEPARTMENT OF TRUTH creators JAMES TYNION IV and MARTIN SIMMONDS reteam to tell a new tale of the monster who started it all!
When Dr. John Seward admits a strange new patient into his asylum, the madman tells stories of a demon who has taken residence next door. But as Dr. Seward attempts to apply logic to the impossible…his surrogate daughter Lucy begins to fall under the spell of the twisted Count Dracula!

SOMETHING IS KILLING THE CHILDREN #34

W: James Tynion IV / A + Cover: Werther Dell'Edera / C: Miquel Muerto / L: AndWorld Design / E: Ramiro Portnoy & Eric Harburn

Erica must finally face the deadly doppelganger—the Duplicitype— but can she survive in the end?

And with everyone in the town of Tribulation at Cutter's mercy, who will pay the ultimate price?

OKAY, so I said I’d have my NYCC schedule ready this week. And while I’ll have a proper graphic ready to go top of next week which I’ll post on Instagram and here, my schedule is pretty simple on the floor…

I am signing every day in Artist Alley at Table C-27 from 11:30-1:00 PM.

I am not doing any panels for this show, and the rest of my events are off-site. So if you want to catch me for signatures next weekend, you have four chances to do so.

I’ll be back next week with more news on how we’re going to do the DOT Bootleg (which it sounds like everyone is CLAMORING for, so we’re definitely going to need to limit purchases a lot so we don’t sell out on Thursday).

I ALSO wanted to say a few words about my buddy Michael Dialynas’ new series ZAWA, which is going to be FOC-ing on the same day as THE DEVIANT.

If you love Wynd, you will love Zawa. If you love Fantasy, you will love Zawa. If you love anime, you will love Zawa. Mike wrote it, drew it, colored it, lettered it, and it’s just fantastic. And its titular character and her strange appetites are going to draw you in and never let you go. I promise you want to check this book out.

It’s gorgeous. It’s good. If you like good comics, you’ll want to read this one.

Hmmm… What else? We haven’t done one of these sections in a while.

• I haven’t been letting you all know as much about my media intake lately, because it’s been scattered and inconsistent. I made the dumb mistake of starting to rewatch MAD MEN, despite knowing that I get kinda compulsive with my binging, and somehow managed to burn through like five seasons in ten days, to the detriment of my schedule and sleep habits. But now I’m close enough to finishing that I have to see it through. Did you know that MAD MEN is still a very, very good TV show? I know this is shocking to hear, but it’s true.

• I was very happy with the first volume of the manga THE SUMMER HIKARU DIED, which is a queer horror book with some genuinely great horror moments. I don’t want to over-promise anything but there are two beats in particular that are going to stick with me for a long time. I hope Vol 2 can top it when it comes out later this year.

• There’s no way in hell I have the bandwidth to try and watch any serious number of horror movies this month. One of these days I’ll get back to 31 Horror movies for Halloween, but it won’t be this year. What I’m going to try to do INSTEAD is read at least 13 horror short stories over the course of the month. I will provide a list once I finish. I kicked off last night with Stephen King’s WILLA, which is a nice simple story I really enjoyed. Honestly a bit of a sweet romance story which is exactly what the doctor ordered.

• I think I’m going to low-key dress up as Dracula for Halloween. If it looks good, I will share pictures. If it doesn’t, we’ll never speak of this again.

Last week I banged the drum for DRACULA, and today I’m giving it one last bang. We got this lovely quote from the high emperor of Skybound himself, Mr. Robert Kirkman, who said…

Now how’s THAT for an endorsement?? Today’s the last day to get your orders in, so get to it!

Okay. That’s it from me this week. I’m going to be back right before NYCC to shout a bit more about The Deviant. I passed it around to a few industry pals before the weekend, and if you’re an industry pal and you’d like to read it, I’d be happy to send it your way.

Happy Spooky Season. Read some horror comics. Watch some horror movies. Put on a costume and kiss a gremlin or a goblin. Or both. See you next week.

James Tynion IV
Brooklyn, NY
10.2.23