TINY UPDATE 9/20: Get yer PANELS here!
“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.
First off, I just want to say hello to all of the newest denizens of The Empire of the Tiny Onion. Hello! Second, I want to say hello to the rest of you! Hello!
Happy Monday.
On Friday, we announced the second ongoing project here on this newsletter, and it seems like folks are pretty freaking excited about it. In case you missed it, we announced THE DEPARTMENT OF TRUTH: WILD FICTIONS, which is going to be a special illustration series featuring a bunch of top-flight comic and horror artists drawing illustrations of a bunch of famous cryptids and urban legends. These illustrations are going to be paired with case files from the Department of Truth’s Field Office. These are going to run twice-monthly on Fridays, alternating with my UFO non-fiction series BLUE BOOK with Michael Avon Oeming.
Part of the idea is to lock in Fridays as our “True Weird” days. Every Friday, you’re going to get yourself some UFOs or you’re going to get some Cryptids. These features are only going to be available to paid Subscribers. So if you love UFOs and you love Cryptids, then I think you know what you have to do…
SPEAKING of Blue Book, though… I’m very happy to announce that we’re going to be the guinea pigs for the new integration with the PANELS app for iOS. If you’re reading this on an apple Tablet or Mobile Device and you have Panels downloaded from the App Store… You should give this a whirl.
They’re still working out the kinks with this, so if it gives you any trouble, I want you to drop a comment down below. Substack’s support team is going to be checking out how this all works, and want to know if you hit any hiccups in getting the book up on Panels… We’re still going to running the chapters as images you can scroll through, with download links for CBZ and PDF, depending on your preference, but I’m very glad we have this option available to us for those who prefer reading on an app.
Chapter 2 of Blue Book will be dropping this Friday, 9/24, but it’s only going to be available for paid subscribers. If you liked the taste of the story above, then I think it’s officially time to become a paid subscriber!
It’s been really gratifying to see the whole system I’ve been building behind the scenes all summer finally come to life. I’m not going to lie, it has taken a lot of VERY HARD WORK to get this all up and running, and you’ve only really seen the surface of what we’re going to be doing here. You can start to see the shape of what I have in mind… A Monday/Wednesday/Friday update schedule with rotating features. We’ve just established the Theme for Fridays and once I wrap my Thinking Bat Thoughts feature over the next month or so, I’ve got an exciting new theme for Wednesdays as well.
There’s also a whole other leg of the Tiny Onion stool that I am very excited for you all to see. That’s pretty much the top of my to-do list this week. Rallying together artwork and designs, so we’ll be ready to give you the big razzle dazzle and sell you some cool stuff.
I feel like the polarity in my work schedule finally shifted a week and a half ago. It took me a minute to be able to actually feel the effects, but aside from a few lettering scripts, I am done with my Batman run. After ten years, I am out of the superhero grind and it feels great. This weekend I did a bunch of housework that had been hanging over my head for the last two weeks (I managed to buy the incorrect toilet seat for our toilet TWICE IN A ROW, in TWO SEPARATE TRIPS to Home Depot). I fell asleep in an armchair watching a movie. I have two scripts that need doing this week, including a new number one.
I’ve barely looked at a social media platform in two weeks. I am mostly just making a bunch of comic books I care about, reading about UFOs and Serial Killers, and plotting out my future. I’m not sleeping enough yet, but that’s on the list.
BATMAN #113
W: James Tynion IV/ A: Jorge Jimenez/ C: Tomeu Morey/ L: Clayton Cowles/ COV A: Jorge Jimenez & Tomeu Morey/ COV B: Jorge Molina/ 1:25 Variant: Ben Oliver/ AE: David Wielgosz/ E: Ben Abernathy
Excited for people to read this one because it definitely has some of my most gonzo ideas in the whole run so far… There’s a piece about Ghost-Maker’s past that I’ve been dying to get to for a while, the idea that he had a mentor in his years training abroad that Bruce did not… I love writing these two together. And Jorge draws them both so freaking cool. This issue also features the continuation of the CLOWNHUNTER backup by Brandon Thomas and Jason Howard!
BATMAN SECRET FILES: MIRACLE MOLLY #1
W: James Tynion IV/ A: Dani/ C: Lee Loughridge/ COV A: Little Thunder/ COV B: Justine Frany/ 1:25 Variant: Little Thunder/ AE: David Wielgosz/ E: Ben Abernathy
This is legitimately one of my favorite single issues I’ve written in the last few years. I think Dani is one of the best artists working in comics right now, and she keeps getting better and better. This is the origin story of Miracle Molly, who really might be my favorite out of the batch of new characters Jorge Jimenez and I have created over the last few years. You do NOT need to be reading Fear State to read and enjoy this issue…
This issue unpacks who Miracle Molly is, and why they call of the Unsanity Collective appealed to her. It’s an ode to the cyberpunk genre, which I absolutely adore.
Outside of MY Bat-Books, this week brings us FEAR STATE tie-ins in both NIGHTWING #84 and CATWOMAN #35! Both of these series have been absolutely STELLAR over the last year, and I can’t say enough good things about the incredible stories they are setting out to tell tying into Fear State. The Bat-Books are so damn good right now. I am not even remotely exaggerating when I say that I am ridiculously excited to start reading them without knowing where all the stories are going.
By the way, did you see the announcement for the new series spinning out of the end of Fear State? We’ve been planning this BATGIRLS book to come out of the first big Infinite Frontier era Bat-Event since we started putting all the pieces for this year together toward the end of last summer. A bunch of seeds we planted back in that Joker War Zone issue are finally coming to fruition, and it’s just nice to see a good plan come together. Look at this rad art from this rad team! Batgirls will launch this December with Becky Cloonan and Michael W. Conrad writing and Jorge Corona on art! The Bat-Family rules. Cass Cain, Stephanie Brown, and Barbara Gordon Rule.
The lead-in to this series happens in the Backups of BATMAN starting next month after the conclusion of the Clownhunter feature!
I was glad to see the audio/transcript of the Hickman/Morrison interview finally went up this weekend for paid subscribers. I was heading to a friend’s wedding when it was all happening live, and I just wanted to drink up a bunch of very smart thoughts by a couple of very smart creators I admire very much. There are a few core concepts in the interview I’m going to be thinking about a lot…
First, the idea that the world all the punks, goths, weirdos and nerds dreamed about in the 90s came true, just with the wrong folks holding the reins of power… Second, the idea that society today has ingested the psychedelic that was Gen X Culture, and we’re seeing what happens to a society that ingests that culture… For better and for worse, of course.
Overall, it’s just a thrill reading an interview between creators I love that’s not trying to sell a book or anything, as part of some corpo PR. I hope more people adopt this model, and just reach out and talk to the creators who interest them the most and let us all benefit from the interactions. I keep trying to think of who I’d like to talk to, if I could get literally anyone. And then I think of answers to that question and start having a panic attack over the idea of it actually happening, let alone other people actually listening to it.
PRIMORDIAL #1 by Jeff Lemire and Andrea Sorrentino is so unspeakably good. If you haven’t picked it up yet, I just assume you don’t like reading very good comic books. Go pick it up!
It wasn’t a dream after all! (Please excuse me looking like a scruffy cave monster, I took this in the middle of the night - AKA the cave monster hours)
I have a bunch of emails that need writing So I’m going to wrap this up. Here’s your latest reminder to go check out the Tiny Onion Store, and to go follow @ReadTinyOnion over on Twitter.
Oh, and happy belated BATMAN DAY! It’s wild the things you completely miss when you’re not actively on social media anymore. I hope you all got to roll around in a bunch of comics best artists doing badass drawings of comics’ best character.
James Tynion IV
Brooklyn, NY
9.20.21
I got panels to read Blue Book. I have the pdf downloaded as well. Seems to be working ok. Thanks for giving us options.
The Panels integration was seamless! Thanks for piloting it!