TINY UPDATE 3/7: Resurfacing From The Depths of Winter

“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

I feel like I’m finally surfacing after two months completely underwater with responsibilities and deadlines. Which isn’t to say that my head is fully out of the water, but my nose and mouth are, and I can start gasping for air.

It should feel better than it does.

I’ve been thinking a lot about my workload and how I (don’t) pace myself with all of the different work I have on my plate. I like having lots of things to do. I go a little crazy when I feel like I’m sitting idle, and I end up creating new projects for myself (which I absolutely cannot afford to do right now). I’m at my best when I’m juggling multiple responsibilities, and keeping a steady rhythm, but I always end up getting screwed over when something unexpected happens and throws me off my game. The big thing that I know I need to do is get further ahead. Keep the steady pace, but remove the pressure of “oh god, if you fuck up, you’re going to be keeping all these artists and people who work for you idle while you catch back up.” When that kind of pressure builds up, it drags me further behind, which just compounds the pressure.

Part of the goal of the last six months was off-loading some of my key responsibilities. Bringing in people who can keep the larger Tiny Onion machine chugging along when my attention is diverted. But managing a big system like that comes with its own headaches. It feels like I’ve been in this kind of quarterly process of onboarding more responsibilities than I can personally handle until I am at a near breaking point, and then offloading all the small details to the people I have managing those projects so I can just focus on the creative. Now I’m at the point where I think I’ve hit my upper limit of things I can manage simultaneously, and rather than use the moment I let go of some of the weight to start dreaming up new projects, I need to take that energy to power forward and get ahead of these books.

I spent a night last week re-breaking my delivery schedule through the end of the year. It’s a slow and steady path to getting significantly ahead, and keeping all of my projects on track, with the time for me to make sure each of them is good, time for me to live my life a bit so I can recharge from the grind, and time for me to take advantage of unexpected opportunities when they present themselves.

One thing I absolutely need to do is give myself another detox from social media. I have a limited private account I use to track real-world news and politics on Twitter. I spent most of the last six months pretty good about using that sparingly, only a couple times a week, but with everything going on in Ukraine, my old habits have come back with a vengeance. And with them, an intense ambient anxiety I need to work to decouple myself from again. This probably means deleting apps from my phones and devices, and using blockers on my work computers to keep myself from looking into the abyss. It’s really striking how demonstrably worse I feel during weeks where I’m too plugged in. It just hammers in how deeply important it is for me to separate my brain from the noise.

I also need to find myself a few more outlets. I need to start going to the gym again or at least working out with the equipment I have on hand. I always convince myself that my stress release from creating stories is consuming stories, and while consuming well-crafted stories is crucial to my well-being as a writer and a human, it’s all still work. I need more things that are definitively NOT work that I’m doing just for myself.

Anyways. It’s getting warmer in Brooklyn. The sun is staying out longer. I have more plans to see more people on the horizon. These are good things for my brain, and will hopefully prevent you all watching me lose my mind via this weekly newsletter. But we’ve got a lot of ground to cover today, so let’s dig in.

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This week sees WYND BOOK 2: THE SECRET OF THE WINGS release in softcover, wherever books are sold! We’ll have more news about Book Three in the next few months, but you should rest assured that the world of Wynd keeps growing. I’m so excited for you all to keep reading this story. As I’ve talked about before, I dreamed up this world the first time back when I was in high school, and this project means something very, very special to me. Getting to work with my long-time creative partner, Michael Dialynas, to build the fantasy world of Esseriel is a dream come true. It’s been absolutely thrilling to see more and more people find this series over the last couple of years.

Otherwise, it’s a light week here on The Empire of The Tiny Onion! We’ll be back Friday with the next entry in DEPARTMENT OF TRUTH: WILD FICTIONS. Later this month we’ll have more information about THE ODDLY PEDESTRIAN LIFE OF CHRISTOPHER CHAOS, and we’ll have the release of the second oversized issue of THE CLOSET. If you want to stay on top of everything we’ve got cooking here on Substack, the best way to make sure you don’t miss anything is to subscribe!

WYND Book 2: The Secret of the Wings

W: James Tynion IV / A + Cover: Michael Dialynas / L: Aditya Bidikar / E: Ramiro Portnoy & Eric Harburn

Wynd and his friends must journey to the Faerie realm in this second chapter of the hit series from The Woods creators James Tynion IV and Michael Dialynas!

Wynd, Oakley, Thorn, and Yorik take the next step in their dangerous quest across Esseriel, but are soon attacked by a mysterious enemy. Can Wynd rise to the moment and if so, at what cost? And when Wynd is captured and taken to the Faeries’ hidden capital deep in the Weird Woods, his friends must rescue him before he’s put on trial… and Basil, Titus, and Ash unknowingly lead an even greater threat to the Faerie City – Vampyres! The GLAAD Award-winning team of writer James Tynion IV (Batman, Something is Killing the Children) and artist Michael Dialynas (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) continue their hit young adult fantasy series about learning to spread your wings no matter the dangers life puts in your way. Collects Wynd #6-10.

Last week’s Onion Drop was a HUGE success for us over at Tiny Onion headquarters. We sold out of the Michael Dialynas cover for SIKTC #21 in about 45 minutes, and managed to move a lot of merch!

I am pleased to announce that we still have limited supplies of the following new release items, now available for EVERYONE to order, whether you’re a paid subscriber or not! We’ve also got a brand new landing page for our webstore, powered by Third Eye Comics. This is going to continue to evolve over the course of the year, so please stay tuned.

SOMETHING IS KILLING THE CHILDREN - LIMITED EDITION T-SHIRT - $19.99

We brought SIKTC Co-Creator Werther Dell’Edera in to put together a limited edition T-Shirt featuring Erica Slaughter! We’ve got a small print-run of these shirts, and when the design sells out, we won’t be reprinting it! So if you want one of these shirts, you should put your order in today!

We’ve also got two brand new, Limited Edition SIKTC Enamel Pins, also designed by Werther!

SOMETHING IS KILLING THE CHILDREN - ERICA WITH KNIVES ENAMEL PIN - $9.99

SOMETHING IS KILLING THE CHILDREN - OSCURATYPE ENAMEL PIN - $9.99

Same as the SIKTC T-Shirt, These pins will NOT be reprinted after they sell out!

I am also EXTREMELY thrilled to announce the piece of merchandise that’s pretty much the whole reason I wanted to up my Merch Game in 2022…

SOMETHING IS KILLING THE CHILDREN - BLACK BANDANA - $19.99

This is something that fans and retailers have been asking me about making happen for AGES. We’ve partnered with an incredible printer to knock off nice, functional, high-quality bandanas. They look and feel great. And we’ve got BIG plans for these bandanas. The Tiny Onion Shop is getting the first print run of these, but hold onto your horses… And if you think you’re more of a White Mask, or an Azure Mask, or a Scarlet Mask… Well… Let’s just say that you should STAY TUNED.

And I figured while I was at it, I wanted to make it MUCH EASIER for folks to cosplay Erica Slaughter (Or a Black Mask of your own creation). To pull that off, I wanted to create the Order of St. George tattoo that all members of the House of Slaughter get branded on themselves when they join the order. So we’ve got TEMPORARY TATTOOS for you!

SOMETHING IS KILLING THE CHILDREN - ORDER OF ST. GEORGE TEMPORARY TATTOO - $4.99

With both of those, you pretty much just need to hunt down a tank top to complete an authentic Erica Slaughter look! Snag ‘em both today!

SOMETHING IS KILLING THE CHILDREN TRADE BUNDLE - $49.99

Have you been holding off on checking out the full run of Something Is Killing The Children? Well, you’re in LUCK! We’ve got a trade bundle of the first four volumes of the series, so you can read up on what has been one of the best-selling comic book series of the last two years!

If you’re a comic book retailer, and you’re interested in buying any of these items wholesale, you should

The next Onion Drop will be unveiled to paid subscribers of this Newsletter on Wednesday, April 6th, at NOON ET. Members of the premiere subscription tier, The Onion Club, will get early access at Noon on Monday, April 4th. If you don’t want to miss out on snagging some cool variant covers and other merch, you should sign up for a paid subscription today!

Hey Onion Clubbers!

Last week we unveiled the first in the set of six Gold Foil original Onion Club covers by Nick Robles that we’ll be dropping in 2022 - a beautiful Erica Slaughter cover for SIKTC #21. We received some questions about the cut-off date to sign up for the Onion Club and still receive the cover. We still have some limited overstock, so I am going to keep the door open until the announcement of the next Onion Club cover on April 4th, at 12 Noon ET. If you sign up for THE ONION CLUB before that date, we should be able to get you a copy of the SIKTC #21 Gold Foil variant. If you sign up after April 4th, you will not get a copy of the SIKTC #21 Gold Foil Variant. You will, however, start rolling over to our 2023 offerings. As it stands, my plan is to do another set of six 2023 Onion Club Gold Foil covers with a new artist.

The other thing I wanted to address is the few reports we received of people not receiving the initial Onion Club email with the password and links for advance access to the Onion Drop last Monday. I’ve reached out to Substack, and they let me know that on big emails like that sent through their mailing server, sometimes a few people get dropped, but we’re going to work to close the gap moving forward. The other thing I’m going to do is separate out the Tiny Update and Onion Drop emails because the thing that I believe is happening to a few more people is that the Onion Club emails are landing in their spam folders. Please mark all emails from “jamestynioniv@substack.com” as not spam to help keep that from happening in the future. (Note: Emails sent to that address are NOT monitored, any customer service problems should be raised to tinyonionorders@thirdeyecomics.com)

Substack’s IT team are going to work with me for the next email, coming at 12 Noon on April 4th to ensure that the email goes out to everybody. But if you are an Onion Club member, and you don’t see an Onion Club email in your inbox at that time, you should reach out to tinyonionorders@thirdeyecomics.com. Our customer service team will be able to quickly confirm your Onion Club status and provide you with the password and link to the new Onion Club offerings.

Onion Club status only guarantees you the six Onion Club covers, and early access to the merch and covers I’ll be putting on sale at ShopTinyOnion.com over the course of the year (along with other benefits outlined here), it does NOT guarantee that you’ll be able to get every cover or item we sell. The best way to get these limited edition covers is being ready when the drops come. These drops will never be unannounced, and we’re going to keep banging the drum and reminding you before each release.

I gotta say, I’m pretty thrilled to be bringing the “Upcoming Appearances” tab back to my Tiny Updates. I’m incredibly excited to hit the road this year and meet so many of you that I haven’t been able to meet over the last few years in peak Covid.

• April 22-24th - PLANET COMICON - Kansas City, MO

• May 19-22nd - MEGAGON - Orlando, FL

The Monday before each convention, I’ll be posting my signing and panel schedules for each of the shows, and I’ll go over what special offerings we’ll have for card-carrying members of The Onion Club at these shows.

I’ve also got one more appearance on the books in the next couple of months. More information to come when I’m free to announce it.

• Sam and I were thrilled to go to the premiere of THE BATMAN in NYC this past week. I really enjoyed the movie! Gotham was the highlight of the film for me. I don’t think they’ve ever captured the feel of the city better in any medium other than the comics. It felt like a wholly realized fictional city, stranger than real life. The tense, haunting score by Giacchino is perfect, and it has immediately entered my work playlist. Pattinson’s Batman is strange in the way that I wish more incarnations would let Batman be strange. Paul Dano’s Riddler was really something special. Did it need to be three hours? Maybe not. But I think I’m going to go see it again in theaters to let it sink in a bit more, which I haven’t done with a superhero movie in years. Key to that, I think, is the fact that it’s built to be pretty complete in and of itself. I’ve missed the power of the standalone superhero movie that’s not trying to sell you a whole other universe of movies. I hope we get more from Bat-Pattinson. I especially want to see some of the grimy corners of this Gotham city lit up in colorful garish neon, as they expand the rogues gallery. And to be clear, I want that because I think it would complement the aesthetic they’ve built, not cancel it out. ALSO: I just want to echo all of the people saying they should bring in the Court of Owls into the sequel because hell yes they should bring in the Court of Owls. Wasn’t there a rumor that they were chatting to Oscar Isaac about this franchise? He’d make one hell of a Lincoln March.

• Folks have been reaching out about when I might be doing my next CGC Signature Series event, and with me just a stone's throw away from CGC HQ in Florida this May, I’m going to be heading over to sign a bunch of your comics with a few of my pals and collaborators. You can find all of the information right here.

• My pal, Marguerite Bennett was in town over the weekend and we watched a truly insane but incredible triple feature of TITANE, THE NIGHT HOUSE, and JACKASS: THE MOVIE. I fucking loooooved TITANE. It’s strange, ambitious and you can not predict what’s going to happen next for one second of the movie. The first two acts of THE NIGHT HOUSE were incredible, but Rebecca Hall’s acting is phenomenal throughout. JACKASS: THE MOVIE was oddly healing and life-affirming. Makes me wish I caught Forever in theaters, but that’ll be a nice treat once it makes it over to streaming.

• Busy week, so I’m behind on my reading. I knocked out THE CONTRARIAN: PETER THIEL AND SILICON VALLEY’S PURSUIT OF POWER by Max Chafkin on audiobook, which was good. I read it because a bunch of articles I had been reading had referenced it, but the downside of that is that I don’t know that I learned anything new in the book. But it was compelling and painted an effective and frightening portrait of one of the most powerful people in our country. I started another audiobook, but I might put it down so I’m not going to name it. I feel like I’ve been dabbling a bit too much in nihilistic non-fiction about the present day and it’s probably time to give myself a bit of a breather.

Am I going to try to watch all of the Best Picture films before The Oscars? A question I ask myself every March. I definitely want to finally sit down with THE POWER OF THE DOG. But there are many more 2021 movies I still want to see that aren’t on the Best Picture list and plenty on the list that I think I’d rather half-watch on an airplane later this year than prioritize before then.

That’s all from me this week! See you on Friday for a Wild Fiction, and next Monday for the next Tiny Update.

James Tynion IV
Brooklyn, NY
3.7.22