TINY UPDATE 10/25: Happy Halloween

“Tiny Update” is a weekly free newsletter that keeps you up to date on the latest news, comic book projects and merchandise offerings from James Tynion IV and Tiny Onion Studios.

Hello Friends.

It’s that spooky season, and I have a bunch of spooky comic books for you this week. Let’s get down to business right away… RAZORBLADES: THE HORROR MAGAZINE #5 is available right now on the Tiny Onion Web Store. As always, there is the Digital, pay-what-you-want version of the issue, and a limited edition print version of the book. If that’s what you came here for, let’s get you set up with some links to purchase!

In addition, we still have some limited copies available for Retailers to order at a discount rate. If you’re interested in ordering some for your shop, please email TinyOnionStudios@gmail.com. I’m also starting to release the overstock of previous issues we were holding onto in case of returns, so if retailers would like physical copies of Issues #1-4, we have a very limited number available. If you’re interested, email us and we’ll do our best to fulfill what we can!.

We have a lot of incredible talent in this issue. I get to work with the amazing Liana Kangas on a short. We have a one-pager from the phenomenal Ezra Claytan Daniels. On top of that, we have stories from Steve Foxe, Piotr Kowalski, Steve Orlando, Artyom Topilin, Che Grayson, Naomi Franquiz, John J. Pearson, Lonnie Nadler, Zac Thompson, Ian MacEwan, Michael Walsh, and More. Illustrations by Aaron Campbell, Zuzanna Kwiecien, Khalil Vivo, Lesle Kieu, Vincenzo Riccardi, Trevor Henderson, Paul Harrison Davies and Cam Adjodha. Razorblades #5 also features a nonfiction essay by Trevor Henderson detailing the inspirations behind his illustrations, a short prose story by Alyssa Wong, and a stunning cover by my Nice House maestro, Alvaro Martinez Bueno.

As a horror nerd, I am still pinching myself that I was able to get a Shintaro Kago illustration for the issue. I’ve been a fan of his absolutely terrifying illustrations and manga for years now, and when I emailed him asking to participate, I fully expected the answer to be no. When he presented me with a few options, I had to stop myself from going with all of them. If you’re not familiar with his work, I recommend looking him up… Though I wouldn’t necessarily do it at a work computer.

I am also extremely excited to announce that the whole first volume of RAZORBLADES: THE HORROR MAGAZINE is going to be collected in a Deluxe Hardcover edition, that will be released by Image Comics in April of next year. The press release announcing that should be going out more or less at the same time as this post. We are extraordinarily proud of what we’ve been able to build in the self-published space over the last year and a half, and we’re very excited to have a testament to all of the work by all of these stunning creators to live on the shelves for posterity, featuring the amazing cover to Razorblades: The Horror Magazine #3 by David Romero.

If you missed out on Razorblades: The Horror Magazine over the last year, and don’t want to wait until April to catch up, all five issues are available now in digital form, pay-what-you-want! Every issue is 70-80 pages of original horror comics, illustrations, prose, and non-fiction. We’re immensely proud of it all.

Finally, a word to folks who signed up for a Subscription to Razorblades one year ago… This issue will conclude your subscription to Razorblades: The Horror Magazine. The Collector’s Boxes have been printed and are being assembled, the Collector Enamel Pins are being shipped, and the Collector Postcard Print is en route so it can all be put together and shipped to you in a single package. Shipments should go out in November, starting in just a couple of weeks. Razorblades: The Horror Magazine will return, but consider this a well needed rest for all of us involved. I promise we’ll bring the razzle dazzle when the time comes for a proper relaunch.

One more announcement for all you horror nerds out there.

Over the weekend I shot off an email announcing a new recurring feature here on Substack that I am calling VIDEO VIDALIA. I go into details on this in the announcement post itself, but this Sunday, on Halloween proper, I’m going to be watching five horror movies back-to-back. I’m going to start a discussion thread here on Substack, and I’ll be doing a live commentary in that thread all day. Here’s the line-up of horror movies:

• 12:00PM ET - THE INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS (1978)

• 2:30PM ET - THE THING (1982)

• 4:30PM ET - RE-ANIMATOR (1985)

• 6:30PM ET - THE FLY (1986)

• 8:30PM ET - HELLRAISER (1987)

While the movies run, I’ll be providing my thoughts on each of them, and digging into a bit of how each of the movies speak to me and my work. This whole thing is going to live behind the paywall, so if you’re interested in participating, now would be a very good time to upgrade to a paid subscription.

This week is going to run a little differently than other weeks. On Wednesday, we’ve got the launch of HOUSE OF SLAUGHTER, and I’m going to be dropping a Tiny Onion Exclusive Variant Cover, with art by the absolutely incredible Ricardo Lopez Ortiz. The issue is going to drop at 10:30AM ET, and I’ll have some more thoughts about the launch of the first spin-off book based on one of my original titles. On Friday, rather than a dose of True Weird, I’m going to run the very delayed next entry of THINKING BAT THOUGHTS. And then on Sunday, we’ll have ourselves a little film festival!

I’m signing at Midtown Comics Downtown this Wednesday at 5pm! This is almost certainly my last in-person US Signing of the year. Hope I see you there!

HOUSE OF SLAUGHTER #1

W: James Tynion IV & Tate Brombal / A: Werther Dell‘Edera & Chris Shehan / C: Miquel Muerto / L: AndWorld Design / E: Eric Harburn, Ramiro Portnoy, Jonathan Manning

I’m going to have more to stay about this on Wednesday, but holy shit is it a good feeling to launch a spin-off title of SOMETHING IS KILLING THE CHILDREN. I’m so immensely proud of the universe I’ve been able to build with Werther Dell’Edera and Miquel Muerto, and I’m so excited to welcome Tate Brombal and Chris Shehan to the larger SIKTC family. We’ve got one hell of a story for you, and a comic series that’s going to explore all of the nooks and crannies of the Order of St. George that we can’t get to in the pages of the flagship SIKTC title itself. This is just the beginning. I’m excited to spend this next era of my career opening up and playing in the world we’re building here. Much more where that came from on Wednesday!

DC VS. VAMPIRES #1

Writers: James Tynion IV and Matthew Rosenberg / Art and Cover: Otto Schmidt / Cover B: Francesco Mattina / Glow in the Dark Variant: Jorge Molina / Team Variant Cover by Ejikure / 1:100 Variant Cover by Daniel Warren Johnson & Mike Spicer

I can’t believe this comic book is real and that it’s finally coming out! Once upon a time, DC vs Vampires was my escape raft when I didn’t know how to wrap my DC Contract… But it became a story I loved so much I couldn’t walk away from it even though I didn't have the bandwidth to write the dang thing myself. I’m so excited that my good friend Matt Rosenberg is at the helm of this comic. I lay down the big picture beats, but he brought this story of the undead to life. This is a slow burn vampire apocalypse story, it’s out of continuity so you can be sure that characters you know and love are going to die… The Vampires have enacted a terrifying conspiracy that’s going to take over the entire DC Universe. And we’re going to get to see all of that happen with the incredible Otto Schmidt on art! What better present to get yourself this Halloween?? (ALSO: The bit with the blender is all Rosenberg, as much as I wish that I came up with it myself.)

THE DEPARTMENT OF TRUTH Vol. 2: The City Upon a Hill

W: James Tynion IV / A: Martin Simmonds / L: Aditya Bidikar / D: Dylan Todd / E: Steve Foxe

The second volume of DOT is now available in stores! I’m very, very excited for all of you trade waiters out there to meet Hawk Harrison, and dig deeper into the mysteries of The Department of Truth! This collection features our acclaimed two-part Bigfoot story, for all you cryptid lovers out there!

• I absolutely fucking loved DUNE. I have loved DUNE since I read it the first time when I was in 8th Grade. There are many different delivery systems for the glory that is DUNE, and there are things I love about every filmic incarnation. None of them are perfect… None of them can fully capture the majesty of the book… But the movie is beautiful, perfectly casted, impeccably scored. I want to see it again in theaters, and will be revisiting some of the scenes on HBO Max to live through them all again. I hope to god that we get the second entry that this deserves. I am VERY curious to see who they’d cast as Feyd Rautha. I have to imagine that a large part of a second movie would take place on Giedi Prime.

• Sam and I watched John Carpenter’s IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS over the weekend. I love the movie, because it feels strangely incomplete… Like it’s an adaptation of a story from another medium, where they had to compress some of the most compelling elements, and now there are only hints of them. It’s also something that I would genuinely love to adapt into a longform something at some point. Feels like they don’t let you pick up the license for a property like that and just do a longform comic series, or a Novel. Not that I have the time, anyways… But there is something really incredible at the beating heart of the thing, that is very much in conversation with my projects. Would love to take a crack at a creative problem like that one day.

• I won the RINGO AWARD for Best Writer! Ain’t that neat? I wish I could have been down in Baltimore for the ceremony, but I’m honored all the same.

Okay, If you were a DAY ONE SUBSCRIBER or an ONION CLUB subscriber, you should have heard from me over the weekend. If you filled out your shipping info survey before Saturday, you should have heard from me with a verification email on Saturday. If you filled it out on or after Saturday, you’ll get a verification email from me over the next week. It looks like over 90% of eligible parties have filled out their forms. If you feel like you are eligible, and haven’t heard from me, first please check your Spam/Junk folders before reaching out, and then email TinyOnionStudios@gmail.com to get to the bottom of things. I was more responsive over the weekend that I’ll be able to be over the coming week, so please bear with me.

It is not too late to sign up for THE ONION CLUB and receive the exclusive House of Slaughter variant (A color variant of the standard Ricardo Lopez Ortiz cover), and you can upgrade your subscription pretty easily by going to the account tab on Substack.com. I’ll make a more aggressive pitch for this on Wednesday with the dedicated post about the new House of Slaughter cover.

DAY ONE SUBSCRIBERS, you can consider this your last nudge. At the end of this week, I’m going to be moving past this project and focus on future offerings. So if you’ve been sitting on the Survey for whatever reason, now would be a very good time to send it in.

Talk to you all in a few days. Have a wonderful, and spooky week. I’m not on twitter anymore, so if you’re dressing up as one of my characters for Halloween this week, please send me pictures!! I want to seeeeee!!!

James Tynion IV
Brooklyn, NY
10.25.21