TINY UPDATE 2/28: Nice Houses At The End Of The World

“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

What a brutal week. I hope you’re all taking care of yourselves and your loved ones out there. It’s an exhausting, frightening time to be alive in the world.

I keep falling into bouts of doom scrolling and the only real relief has been when I’ve managed to step away from my computer or phone and actually engage with real people in the real world. But I can’t deny that it’s all taking its toll on me. Writing requires focus, and I feel like I’ve only been able to pull together a few minutes of focus at a time over the last few weeks.

I wish the universe would just sort of pause for a month so I could sleep and catch up on things. That I could do a bit of reading and relaxing knowing that I didn’t have twenty things on fire that needed my immediate attention, and that the world outside wasn’t on fire.

One of my favorite de-stressing activities is going to float therapy in a sensory deprivation tank. I’ve never been able to really meditate on my own, but floating in the water lets my mind kind of work through the knots of panicked tension. At a certain point I run out of thoughts, and I know that nobody can ask anything of me while I’m in the tank, and I kind of zen out. It’s not always a cure-all, but I usually walk out of it feeling much more relaxed and clear-headed than when I went in. (Note: I’ve suggested it to friends who have tried it and subsequently told me they’ve just felt like they were having a panic attack for an hour… soooo… It might not be for everybody). I found a new spot for it in Brooklyn that I think I actually really prefer over the place I used to go. If I had my way I would sleep in one of these every night like Ben Affleck’s Daredevil. I’ve also started working out again, which has been a long time coming. But it also means that every part of my body is sore right now.

There are a lot of things happening right now. I turned in a document about a project that I still can’t believe might actually be happening. But I need to kick my ass this week to get everything done that needs doing. Wish me luck.

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This week, we see THE NICE HOUSE ON THE LAKE back in comic shops! We’ve got Issue #7, the start of our second story arc, and the collected edition of the first six issues! I love this series, and I’m extremely happy to have it collected, where it can find its way into the hands of even more readers around the world. Alvaro and Jordie continue to be make every single page an absolute beauty.

We have an ONION DROP coming on on Wednesday with some exciting goodies (and an exclusive Variant Cover) tied to the launch of SOMETHING IS KILLING THE CHILDREN #21 at the end of the month. And then we’ve got the next chapter of BLUE BOOK coming this Friday. Both of these are available only for paid subscribers to this newsletter, so if you want to get your hands on them, you should subscribe!

THE NICE HOUSE ON THE LAKE #7

W: James Tynion IV / A: Álvaro Martínez Bueno / C: Jordie Bellaire / L: AndWorld Design / Cover A: Álvaro Martínez Bueno / Cover B: Juan Ferreya / AE: Marquis Draper / E: Chris Conroy

One of the most critically acclaimed and bestselling horror titles of 2021 returns for its shocking second act—and now is the perfect time to enter the house! The 10 hardy survivors gathered in the house by their mutual friend Walter thought they'd finally cracked the code on his plans… and now everything they thought they knew has literally changed. Can they free themselves from their patterns? Or are they all just determined to build a prison of their very own?

THE NICE HOUSE ON THE LAKE Vol. 1 TPB

W: James Tynion IV / A: Álvaro Martínez Bueno / C: Jordie Bellaire / L: AndWorld Design / Cover: Álvaro Martínez Bueno / AE: Marquis Draper / E: Chris Conroy

Everyone who was invited to the house knows Walter—well, they know him a little, anyway. Some met him in childhood; some met him months ago. And Walter’s always been a little…off. But after the hardest year of their lives, nobody was going to turn down Walter’s invitation to an astonishingly beautiful house in the woods, overlooking an enormous sylvan lake. It’s beautiful, it’s opulent, it’s private—so a week of putting up with Walter’s weird little schemes and nicknames in exchange for the vacation of a lifetime? Why not? All of them were at that moment in their lives when they could feel themselves pulling away from their other friends; wouldn’t a chance to reconnect be… nice? Don’t miss the first collected edition of 2021’s smash-hit horror sensation—collects #1-6!

• My former partner-in-Gothamry, Jorge Jimenez is teaming up with the incredible Chip Zdarsky in his epic return to the main BATMAN title with issue #125, releasing this July! Over the last few years, Chip has become one of my favorite superhero writers. His work on Daredevil has been incredible, and even closer to home in Gotham City, his Batman/Red Hood story in BATMAN: URBAN LEGENDS, and his Bruce-In-Training series, BATMAN: THE KNIGHT, have been top-tier Bat-Books. I can’t wait to see him on the main title! Beyond that, I’m just thrilled that I’m going to get to see more of Jorge’s Batman and Gotham City. Jorge is a giant, and I’m thrilled to get to read more bad-ass superhero comics in Gotham in his hands!

• Speaking of the incredible Jorge Jimenez… We created a bad-ass character in our Batman run named GHOST-MAKER, and now he’s getting a real-life action figure from the McFarlane Toys DC Multiverse Line!!! I am going to buy like a dozen of these.

• And speaking of Batman… I’m heading to the premiere of THE BATMAN in NYC this Tuesday. I’m really excited to see what Matt Reeves has cooked up for us! I’ll give you my spoiler-free thoughts next week. Very eager to see what they’ve done with The Riddler. I have some theories about what the movie is, and I’m excited to find out how right or wrong I am.

• I finished WHY LIBERALISM FAILED by Patrick J. Deneen. There’s enough truth in there to leave me deeply unsettled, but not enough to fully buy into the larger ideas espoused at the heart of it. Particularly the kind of society he seems to be suggesting we build in the ashes of the current system. The book is elegant at pointing at the fault lines and groups our systemic problems in interesting, enlightening ways. But it feels like it dismisses the concern of the outsider, who can only thrive in a free society that protects the right to be an outsider. As an outsider, it’s uncomfortable to read about how unstable the system that allows me to exist is, but not so uncomfortable that I can dismiss the instability or disagree with the fault lines. Good food for discomforting thoughts. I followed up my reading with A WORLD AFTER LIBERALISM: PHILOSOPHIES OF THE RADICAL RIGHT by Matthew Rose which was equally discomforting in a whole different direction. Reading all of this right before everything started playing out in Ukraine definitely put me in a MOOD.

• I didn’t get a lot of reading done this past week or weekend. But last week somebody asked if I would consider putting together the list of science-fiction short stories that I’ve read over the last month, and I’m more than happy to comply. Here are the twenty-two classic genre short stories I read in February Alphabetical by author, then story.

  • Isaac Asimov - Nightfall

  • Isaac Asimov - Robbie

  • Jerome Bixby - It’s A Good Life

  • Ray Bradbury - A Sound of Thunder

  • Ray Bradbury - The Million Year Picnic

  • Ray Bradbury - The Veldt

  • Ray Bradbury - There Will Come Soft Rains

  • Arthur C. Clarke - A Walk in the Dark

  • Arthur C. Clarke - The Nine Billion Names of God

  • Arthur C. Clarke - The Sentinel

  • Roald Dahl - The Landlady

  • Harlan Ellison - I Have No Mouth, And I Must Scream”

  • Harlan Ellison - “Repent Harlequin” Said The Ticktockman

  • William Gibson - Burning Chrome

  • William Gibson - Johnny Mnemonic

  • Charlotte Perkins Gilman - The Yellow Wallpaper

  • Robert A. Heinlein - “All You Zombies—”

  • Shirley Jackson - The Lottery

  • Damon Knight - To Serve Man

  • Ursula K. Le Guin - The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas

  • Flannery O’Connor - A Good Man Is Hard To Find

  • Joyce Carol Oates - Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?

  I have a list of another 20 short stories that I want to tackle as a part of this self-administered survey course in short genre fiction. I’ve been focusing on the classics, but I want to start opening the list up to more 21st Century short genre fiction, and as always my interest is shifting over into horror.

• I’m really enjoying SEVERANCE on Apple+ right now. Ben Stiller has put together something very strange and very unlike the rest of his work, and he’s not hand-feeding the audience what he’s got up his sleeves. We’ll see how it all plays out, but I’m having a good time.

• Meredith Gran, the brilliant creator of the webcomic Octopus Pie which is one of my favorite comics ever, made a video game called PERFECT TIDES that is available now on Steam. I am desperate to find the time to sit down and play it. But I have… Let’s call it six scripts that are past deadline and only partially written that I need to finish. Maybe this will be a mid-March treat for myself. But only if I’m good.

Okay, folks.

We’ve got some big stuff coming to paid subscribers to this newsletter on Wednesday with our second ever ONION DROP! We’re going to be releasing a Tiny Onion exclusive SIKTC 21 variant cover, and a whole bunch of really exciting SIKTC merch that I’ve wanted to exist for a long, long time!

Other than that, let me just say that this February has been long and frustrating, and I am grateful that it’s March tomorrow. I’m not as far ahead as I wanted to be on March 1st, but I’m getting there, inch by inch.

Go hug the people you love in your life and tell them how much they mean to you. We’re living through hard times, and I think a lot of people are putting on a stronger face than they feel.

James Tynion IV
Brooklyn, NY
2.28.22