TINY UPDATE 2/21: The Road to Tribulation

“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

Hey Friends!

I hope February isn’t getting you all too down. I’m grateful that the sun’s been out a bit here in Brooklyn over the last week, but I’m definitely ready for the shift into Spring. My brain works better with sunlight and a little warmth.

All of my books are starting to come back out of their winter hibernations, and all of the publishers I work for are about to start banging the drums for all of them, and I figure that I should be banging my OWN drums, too!

Something is Killing the Children #21 is FOCing today.

This is the PERFECT jumping-on point for new readers who want a taste of what SIKTC is. We haven’t seen the adult Erica Slaughter since we dropped Issue #15 early last year. I’ve talked a bit before about how I view the first fifteen issues as the first Erica Slaughter novel. This is the first chapter of the second Erica Slaughter novel. It’s got a new city. It’s got a new cast of small town folks up against something horrific they absolutely do not understand. It’s got a new monster. Erica is navigating a new relationship with The House of Slaughter. And this arc is going to introduce a new enemy for Erica who Werther, Miquel and I are DESPERATE for you to meet.

Welcome to Tribulation, New Mexico. I hope you survive the experience.

We ALSO announced the second arc of SIKTC’s companion title, THE HOUSE OF SLAUGHTER this past week.

The phenomenal Sam Johns will be writing the arc starting with Issue #6, with the incredible Letizia Cadonici on art. This arc will shift its focus to the least explored mask in the House - The Scarlet Masks, and to do that, Sam and Letizia have crafted a phenomenal new addition to the Order of St. George - Edwin Slaughter. I’m going to do a more in-depth introduction to Edwin with the original Werther and Letizia design sheets, and excerpts from Sam’s original write-up about the character when we get a bit closer to FOC. And there are a few side characters that we’re going to introduce in the house who I am very desperate to reveal to the world. But all good things to those who wait!

The other super fun announcement from last week is that I am writing the eleventh issue of Michael Walsh’s incredible horror anthology series, THE SILVER COIN. I’m thrilled to be joining the smorgasbord of talent that Michael has assembled for this series over the last few years, and I’ve been dying to take part in it since it launched. I had to pull off a few acrobatic tricks to make it fit into my schedule, but it was WORTH it. This issue works as a standalone horror story, but it also plugs into some of my favorite elements of the larger mythology Michael has built in the run. It is also one of the grossest things I’ve written, and I had SO MUCH FUN with it. I highly recommend snagging the first volume, and you should tell your LCS to add the second one on your pull list, too. Michael revealed the full line-up he’s got in store for you for his third arc, and I’m honored to be on the docket!

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In stores this week, we’ve got one of my favorite issues of Department of Truth yet featuring guest art by the incredible Alison Sampson and Jordie Bellaire… The big finale of the first HOUSE OF SLAUGHTER arc from Tate Brombal, Chris Shehan and Miquel Muerto… And the latest chapter of DC vs Vampires! On the flip side, this is going to be a pretty chill week here on Substack.

We’ve got a great new Wild Fiction for you this Friday with an amazing artist, but that’s it from us this week! If I get off my ass the one thing I want to rip off from the 3W3M team is putting together an index to help folks better navigate all of the comics we have here for you all to read.

OH, speaking of reading experiences… If you read my Substack in a browser on your desktop, you should check out THE CLOSET, BLUE BOOK, or TOPLOCC… I was given a reminder nudge that we can upscale images on the site now, and the larger images DEFINITELY improve the reading experience in a big way. Feels like a good excuse to go back and read all of these neat comics… THE CLOSET and BLUE BOOK are only available for Paid Subscribers! So you should…

THE DEPARTMENT OF TRUTH #16

W: James Tynion IV / A: Alison Sampson / C: Jordie Bellaire / Cover A: Martin Simmonds / Cover B: Alison Sampson / L: Aditya Bidikar / E: Steve Foxe / P: Image Comics

Turn on, tune in, and drop out as ALISON SAMPSON (HIT-GIRL IN INDIA) & JORDIE BELLAIRE enlist with the Department of Truth for a mind-altering dive into designer hallucinogens, MKUltra, and Lee Harvey Oswald’s true motivations behind unlocking the hidden power of the human mind. The Eisner-nominated series continues its history-shattering guest arc here!

DC Vs. Vampires #5

Writers: James Tynion IV & Matthew Rosenberg / Art: Otto Schmidt / Cover A: Trevor Hairsine & Rain Beredo / Cover B: Francesco Mattina

The future of the world is at stake as a battle to the death ensues between Batman and Hal Jordan! Will the vampiric Green Lantern be too much for the Dark Knight? Will the future of humanity be in the hands of… Jayna, vampire slayer? The bloody, bestselling series continues!

House of Slaughter #5

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

The first arc of House of Slaughter comes to a close as Jace finally enacts his secret plan! As chaos fills the halls and the Order members fight off legions of monsters, will Aaron be able to intervene in the battle between his love and the House? And in those final moments, what will he choose?

• I read this column by Paul Kingsnorth the other day, about the slow collapse of Liberalism (the political philosophy), and it has basically haunted me ever since. It’s behind a paywall, but if you like reading smart people saying smart things about complicated subjects, it feels a bit worth it. (I do wish Substack had a quick “Give me access to this one post for $1” function for getting quick tastes). This pointed me in the direction of the Patrick J. Deneen’s WHY LIBERALISM FAILED which I’m powering through on audiobook. Unsettling, distressing stuff, particularly against the backdrop of everything happening in the world right now. Don’t agree with all of the assertions in either, but there’s something undeniable at the heart of both works.

• In diametric opposition to the above reading, I finished Adam Davidson’s THE PASSION ECONOMY on audiobook before starting in on the Deneen. I’ve liked Davidson since the days of Planet Money, and there was plenty of good thinking in the book, but there’s also a veneer that feels like it doesn’t grasp its own context exactly. There was a segment on the “exciting” innovations of a fast food restaurant “automating empathy” that legitimately made my skin crawl. The best bits of the book are where he lays out the creation of the post-Industrial “Widget Economy” and how it evolved into the current “Passion Economy,” and some of the thoughts on how to more effectively run a small business. Now that I am running my own small business, I’m definitely looking for more tools on how to do it better. Don’t know if I found them here, but definitely encountered some cool and interesting stories, and complicated economics shit explained clearly (which is what I always loved about Planet Money in the first place).

• I was on a KICK this weekend and read a shit ton of genre short stories. “Johnny Mnemonic” and “Burning Chrome” by William Gibson. “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. “A Walk in the Dark” by Arthur C. Clarke. “The Landlady” by Roald Dahl. “To Serve Man” by Damon Knight. And then I managed to knock the wind out of all of them by reading “A Good Man is Hard To Find” by Flannery O’Connor, and “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” by Joyce Carol Oates. Holy Shit. Those are two of the most deeply frightening short stories I’ve read. The craft is just next level. I feel like I’m narrowing in on what I’m most looking for out of this whole experience. So far, Ray Bradbury has hit closest to the feeling I was reaching toward when I decided to set off down this path. I am now over halfway through the list of 50 short stories I pulled together, and once I finish it, I think I might knock out the trifecta of Bradbury short story collections - The Martian Chronicles, The Illustrated Man, and The October Country. But we’ll see. Right now my primary goal more than anything is to just keep reading. I’ve slipped out of my “reading plays” spurt, though I want to tune back in over there as well. There’s so many good things to read, and not nearly enough time to read them all.

• The Comixology stuff is a real fucking bummer, I can’t lie. I keep thinking about something I read months ago about how they keep trying to put more and more of the internet on less and less websites. The biggest bummer to me is that it sounds like all of the improvements are going to come to the app, rather than to the browser experience. I guess I’m going to keep my fingers crossed for a genuine desktop app? Or I’m going to have to figure out how to hack my desktop Kindle app into being the kind of archive I’m looking for of all my own comics. I used the ComiXology website on an almost daily basis, and losing a convenient way for me to check what I wrote in one of my books, or a way to reference other comic scenes is a real heartbreaker.

That’s it from me this week.

We’re in the process of getting all of our ducks in a row for the next Onion Drop, coming a week from Wednesday. We’ve got some VERY exciting products that we’re excited to reveal to all of you.

Have a great week!

James Tynion IV
Brooklyn, NY
2.21.22