TINY UPDATE 3/6: Putting All The Pieces Together
“Tiny Update” is a monthly 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 is completely fucking insane to me that I’ve only been back from France for a month. A short month at that.
So many exciting things have been happening over the last few weeks. Most of them I can’t or won’t talk about, though I think a few of them are going to start revealing themselves pretty quick. I’m low key reeling at the fact that everything seems to be genuinely lining up. I set a lot of things in motion two summers ago, and you’re seeing that in effect now. I love the feel of the comics I’m putting into the world, and it means so much that people are reading them and connecting with them. I feel more in touch with myself than I have in a minute, and I’ve been out there, living life in a way that I feel I haven’t let myself in a while. Sometimes it’s been scary, but I feel deeply and thoroughly alive and I feel like I’m just getting started.
The biggest piece of news in the last few weeks is probably the new creative team behind SOMETHING IS KILLING THE CHILDREN over at Netflix, Baran bo Odar and Jantje Friese, the creators of Dark and 1899. I’m so freaking excited for this process to keep on rolling, and just to keep talking story with such phenomenal genre storytellers. Here’s the amazing headline from DEADLINE.
We’re entering the last few weeks before the Final Order Cut-Off of W0RLDTR33 at Image Comics, so you better bet that I’m going to be banging some more pots and pans about this series before the sales numbers lock. The response we’ve been getting so far has been incredible. This is a strange, brutal horror book. Maybe the most disturbing thing I’ve written. I am very very excited for people to read it. Look at this phenomenal poster that series co-creator Fernando Blanco worked up with the fine people over at Image Comics! If you’re a retailer and you got one you should put it up in your shop and sell a lot of my comic book! Please and thank you!
If you’re on Twitter, I just want to apologize in advance for spamming your feeds for the next couple of weeks. Just doing what I can to get the word out before W0rldtr33 hits FOC on Monday, 3/20. I have promised myself and my loved ones that once it’s over I’m going to lock the beast back down and go back to the internet caves where I lurk with my friends away from the madness on the main site.
I’m already writing some comics that won’t come out until 2024, which has been part of my evil plan for like two years, and it feels incredible that it’s actually happening. They’re gonna be fucking GOOD comics, too. My next few years are taking clearer and clearer shape and I really think they are going to be very exciting good years. I wish I could say more than that!
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Okay so, this is the first full week of the month so we’ve got the decks stacked for you over here on Substack. Tomorrow we’ll see the next entry in the SKTCHDxTINYONION interview series. Wednesday, we’ve got an ONION DROP spotlighting this month’s issue of SOMETHING IS KILLING THE CHILDREN. Later this month you’ll get another dose of BLUE BOOK… And we’ve got more cooking in the oven. Stay tuned, true believers. Now, let’s get to the books you can pick up at your LCS this month.
March 15th
HOUSE OF SLAUGHTER #13
W: James Tynion IV & Tate Brombal / A: Werther Dell‘Edera & Antonio Fuso / C: Miquel Muerto / L: AndWorld Design / E: Eric Harburn & Ramiro Portnoy
As Jace wanders the streets of New Orleans, his mind drifts between his youth and the present, bringing light to his and Jolie's past, and revealing that she's not all that she seems...
Meanwhile, a mysterious message carried by a crow holds the key to Jace saving his child. But right now, Sunny is alone and unprotected from what prowls in the dark...
March 22nd
BLUE BOOK #2
W: James Tynion IV / A: Michael Avon Oeming / L: Aditya Bidikar / E: Greg Lockard, Daniel Chabon / P: Dark Horse
After their bizarre encounter with an unknown floating object and the creatures that inhabit it, Betty and Barney Hill head home in the darkness only to find themselves plagued by the residues of their night sky confrontation.
Tiny Onion Studios and Dark Horse Comics present a line of upcoming creator-owned work from the mind of James Tynion IV across a broad spectrum of his interests, from non-fiction supernatural encounters to high-concept coming-of-age monster comics.
Also includes "True Weird: The Green Children" by Michael Avon Oeming and Aditya Bidikar!
March 29th
SOMETHING IS KILLING THE CHILDREN #30
W: James Tynion IV / A: Werther Dell'Edera / C: Miquel Muerto / L: AndWorld Design / Cover A: Werther Dell'Edera / E: Ramiro Portnoy & Eric Harburn
It's the final hour for Erica as she has no choice left but to face the Duplicitype and save Tribulation from its reckoning.
But Cutter's looming arrival isn't the only thing competing for the rogue Black Mask's attention… and Gabi has her own plans-ones that put her in grave danger.
The next few places you’ll be able to hunt me down and see me have finally been announced! We’re doing something really freaking cool for BLUE BOOK in a few weeks in Portland, OR. We wanted to do something FUN, so we’re doing a screening of one of my favorite movies of all time: CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND. I’ll be there with Michael Avon Oeming, and there will be a special cover limited to the event, and a live Q&A with me and Oeming after the film!
This is going down on Wednesday, March 15th at 7 PM. I hope to see some of you there! You can read more about it here.
And about a month after that, I’m going to be down at the Third Eye Comics mothership in Annapolis, MD for the launch of W0RLDTR33 #1. Details below.
AND JUST A FEW WEEKS AFTER THAT, I’m heading back to Las Vegas for Amazing Comic Con with Fernando Blanco, Alvaro Martinez Bueno, and Martin Simmonds in tow! That show is April 28-30!
Feel like that’s a pretty good spread around the country! I hope I see a bunch of you in each of these spots! My next convention (in June) should be announced shortly thereafter, and I will be at San Diego Comic-Con this year in a way where people can actually get stuff signed, but still in a limited capacity.
I was a fucking asshole last week and posted all of those amazing homage variants for W0RLDTR33, and didn’t credit Dylan Todd as the designer who knocked each and every one of those cover designs out of the fucking park. Dylan is fucking amazing. One of the best designers in the business, and I’m so fucking lucky to work with him!
Elsa Charretier, phenomenal artist and one of my partners on the ROOM SERVICE Kickstarter, has a bad-ass new offering in her Mini Print Club over on Patreon - It's called Mini-Print Club PLUS, and combines one mini-print of a classic comic book character and a second based on a new and exciting indie property. She’s doing these amazing mini-prints of her DEPARTMENT OF TRUTH cover this month. Go sign up to get yours, today!
I HAD MY FIRST BOXING LESSON AND I LOVED IT SO FUCKING MUCH. I have ordered boxing gloves and I am going to start kicking my ass/getting my ass kicked a few times a week. I’m READY.
I finished the script for my first and only non-Sandman licensed project on my docket right now (not a superhero thing, I have no superheroes on the docket). There was a moment when I thought I had lost the knack for writing other people’s characters, but I managed to channel the heart of the beast. I’m extremely proud of what we’re doing in the book, and I think when it’s announced people are going.
I’ve been re-reading Jonathan Hickman’s FANTASTIC FOUR over the last week and it really is just one of the best long-form superhero runs of the last few decades.
I need to get a couple of good umbrellas. One collapsible enough to fit in a backpack and travel out of the city with, the other good for walking around in a city with. Not looking for the cheapo options, and I need something with good coverage. I’ve lost a lot of weight in the last year, but I am still a big guy. Give me recommendations!
I have picked up Malcolm Harris’ PALO ALTO and am desperate to find a few minutes to rub together and read it. I’ve loved Malcolm’s work since the phenomenal KIDS THESE DAYS, which I think is the only book that gets close to nailing down exactly what’s fucked up the whole Millenial Generation. PALO ALTO is really getting under some powerful people’s skins, so it feels all the more essential a read.
The album DIE DIE LULLABY by Night Club has made for really good February walking-around music.
Okay, that’s it from me. I have to get back to scripting before Steve Foxe crawls through my computer and strangles me. Be good to each other out there. Hug your friends. Kiss some people. Enjoy the sun being out a little more often and for a little longer each day. Soak it all in.
Have a good March, and I’ll be back with the next Tiny Update in April.
James Tynion IV
Brooklyn, NY
3.6.23
I'm partial to Shed-Rain umbrellas.
And also partial to Hickman's FF run. It was one of the things I read during spring 2020 when new comics were shut off for a few months. Thankfully all four complete collection volumes are now out, so you don't need to flip back and forth between the trades of Fantastic and FF.
My umbrella recommendation: I got a portable umbrella at UNIQLO three years ago and it was a great umbrella, it didn't break with he wind, it didn't bend and it was great. I lost it recently but I think it was the best umbrella ever.