build-your-own-human kits: thedeadairchannel025

Going to try experimenting with slightly shorter and more frequent newsletters. Let's see how that goes.

Last week I finished up both Spider-Woman issue 3 and Project Sledgehammer issue 3. The latter is a book I believe won't drop until the third quarter of next year, because of publishing schedule stuff.

Only one more issue to go on Sledgehammer, and then it's another project off my slate- bar lettering passes and art approvals and all the other smaller jobs that snowball to take up whole days of your time when you're making comics.

Next week I'll write the Shredder issue 16 script, after which I'll only have two more issues of that book to write, too. IDW tell me orders have increased again between issues 11 and 12, which is lovely to hear. I'll miss having an issue of this book to write every month- from top to tail it will have been a part of my life for a solid two years- but the next thing is calling. Rather pressingly, as I need to have to have an issue-by-issue outline for Project Expel ready by the end of the month.

Expel is a work-for-hire project people won't expect... But one that makes sense if you know my taste and aesthetic. Crime, horror, faith, all that good stuff.

I also just agreed to a one-shot special for early next year, and the outline was approved within 24 hours... so I'll dive into that at the end of the month. Let's assign that as Project Spark for now.

Right now I'm working on Nightwing 146, which is a big issue from a story standpoint; it brings together a lot of the major story threads that began in Bludhaven Lore. That it's coming together cleanly and flowing well is a relief. In writing, if you have a problem with the end of your story, it usually means you actually have a problem with the beginning of your story. If you work in monthly comics and the beginning of your story is already in the hands of your readers, that can mean you're fairly buggered.

Preview pages are here for Mad Science Division: The Cold Open courtesy of Ignition Press. My first creator-owned book in over a year. Also my first proper project with Brian Level, who's one of my favorite artists to read and to work with. I've been doing a lot of PG-13 rated work of late, and it feels good to stretch some other muscles. And then have those muscles explode:

The Fourth of July iconography in the background of that splash was all Brian, and it does make me laugh. Look at them all turning into human hotdog meat, bless 'em.

The cold open is effectively an issue zero, a pretty much standalone story which very much sets the tone of the book proper, which will be five issues beginning in November. The Cold Open will be exclusively in comic stores on Local Comic Shop Day in late September. More about that on AIPT if you're interested.

I took two days off at the beginning of last week to go stay in a cabin in the woods.

I haven't really had any time off this year. I don't think I'd actually left New York for anything non comics related until this, which is kind of dire when phrased like that.

Returned to everything on fire, and about fifty email chains vying for priority. That'll teach me. But I did need it. Hiking, eating, sleeping, being eaten alive by mosquitoes, what more could a fella want.

Out today: Nightwing #141 from DC. The last issue of Blüdhaven Lore, so I won't say too much yet so people have a chance to read it. More preview pages:

I knew getting Denys to draw a classic Nightwing costume would be a winner, but come on.

Also today: Shredder #11 from IDW. This is a really fun one. Issue 12 will close out arc 2 and launch a new status quo which is a dramatic shift. If we've done it right, you may be able to see the trajectory we're headed towards here. Preview pages for this, too:

Oh, and the first three issues of M.A.S.K. are all being reprinted by Skybound. #3 with this astounding cover by the master JH Williams III:

Baron Karza- the big bad bastard of the Micronauts- has debuted in the Energon Universe, which has huge connotations for our book, and is something we kept deeply under wraps. Or at least tried to. We seeded hints about here and there, and it proved frightening how eagle-eyed Energon U readers are.

Went to see Oh, Mary on Broadway at the weekend, which was a good time. The Americans I went with wondered if I'd 'get it', but I was raised on historical farce and this felt like an American equivalent to Blackadder or Upstart Crow... though perhaps less Groucho Club and more Club Kid.

Finished reading Bat Eater by Kylie Lee Baker, a novel about Chinese-American crime scene cleaners during the height of the Covid pandemic in 2020. Picked it up as it appeared on a number of horror best of and awards lists last year, and enjoyed it. It feels like one really needs to have something to say to justify writing a book in that specific year- possibly it was so awful and yet grindingly mundane that making us revisit it feels borderline hostile- but this book really has something to say, and every right to feel hostile.

I read somewhere about historians wondering why so little art was created about the Spanish Flu early in the 20th Century, until they saw the same thing happen with Covid.

I'm looking forward to the next book I have lined up:

I liked Lisle's book on MK Ultra, and went into that one knowing more about that subject than I do about the OSS, the precursor agency to the CIA. I do know they dedicated a fair amount of time to trying to build things they saw in spy fiction. Never underestimate the impulse of our species to build the Torment Nexus.

Right, does this count as a shortish newsletter? Shortish-ish, perhaps. I keep thinking of more things I should add, so I'm going to kick this out the door. Back soon.

This has been thedeadairchannel. A rendering from the nebulous reality of Dan Watters. Please do subscribe.