What's Happening - August 2025
Back to school!
Welcome to my monthly newsletter, giving you updates on the things I’ve been lettering, reading and writing this month.
What am I writing?
The printed copies of Hero of Legend #4 should be arriving at my home later this week! I was hoping to get these shipped out before I ended up back at my day job, but alas, as of Monday I'm back to teaching. Still, excited to get this issue out to folks. Chapter 4 is my favorite issue of Hero of Legend so far. Though, with the work that Niccolò is doing on Chapter 5, that one will probably be my favorite by the time it's done! (If you haven't, sign up for the prelaunch page here!) Unfortunately, we're still a little behind on the first episode of this chapter, so we're probably going to push it until next month. But I'm really excited for you all to finally experience The City in the Sun and discover what secrets it holds.
In other news, last month I was talking about how I only had longer projects, the collected version of Hero of Legend and the sequel to Into the Deep planned for 2026. Well, no longer! I've gotten started on a new series, SCUM, and am currently working with an artist to start bringing it to life. It's about as different from Hero of Legend and Into the Deep as those two projects were from each other. The (in progress) elevator pitch:
In a world of locked doors and rigid ranks, a young woman is brought from the outside society into a conspiracy to kill their all-seeing AI god.
I'm really excited about this book, but that's all I'm going to share about it today. Next month I should have some early pages for you to check out, and I'll talk more about the process of writing it. I took a pretty different approach to writing this book, and I think it's had some pretty cool results.
What am I lettering?
This month I've been doing a lot of thinking about purpose. I'm back to my day job as a teacher, and along with having a newborn baby, my time for doing stuff like lettering comics is more limited.
I like, maybe would even go as far as to say love, lettering. Just the act of putting words and balloons onto a page is soothing to me. I get itchy if I haven't done it for too long. But I've definitely been feeling the crunch on my time. I think I'm probably going to have to be more intentional in what projects I take on going forward, because there just aren't as many hours in the day. But! The projects I have been doing? There are definitely some pretty cool ones.
Vixx the Hunter: The Complete Series
Vixx the Hunter was one of the first books that I was brought on to letter with Pat Shand and the team at Space Between Entertainment. The first issue was lettered by the amazing Jim Campbell, while I took over on issues 2 and 3. This is a really fun post-apocalyptic fantasy book.
100 years ago, an event called The Glowing devastated 80% of the population, leaving the survivors with an Earth that has been changed. Water is radioactive, animals have mutated, and the world has been painted with beautiful, dangerous, glowing color. Most of the remaining society has broken into villages in an attempt to rebuild the world they lost. Will Vixx, a lone hunter, and her companion Kitt, a giant four-eyed fox, be able to make it on their own?
Looking back at these issues, I think you can really see the places where I tried (and failed!) to match Jim Campbell's lettering style. Taking over for him on this and a few other books was a good push to make me match a lettering style that I hadn't created, and I think you can really see my lettering grow over the course of issue 2 and 3. Also, it's just a really fun book. Check it out!
Kickstarter comics in prelaunch:
Some fun lettering:
What am I reading?
Dawnrunner
I'm going to keep my blurb about this pretty short, because I just don't have much to say about this book. I really, really wanted to like this. Mech stories are some of my favorites! But this book just didn't do it for me. The art by Evan Cagle and Dave Stewart is phenomenal, absolutely gorgeous. And it's always a treat to read a book lettered by Aditya Bidikar. I don't always agree with his lettering choices, but they are always really interesting. The story, though, is just a reheated version of Neon Genesis Evangelion. That's two for two with Ram V written sci-fi projects where they wear their influences so openly that I wonder why I'm reading this book rather than the original. I really like some of his other books! But I'm probably going to steer clear of the sci-fi ones for now.
That's it?
Yep! Bye.