What's Happening - July 2025
Back to our regularly scheduled programing. This one isn't nearly as much of a bummer!
Welcome to my monthly newsletter, giving you updates on the things I’ve been lettering, reading and writing this month.
Before we get into the newsletter proper, I wanted to give an update from my newsletter last month. That one was pretty heavy, and I really appreciate everyone who reached out afterwards. A quick update about how my son is doing: much better! He's home with me and my wife now, and all the treatments he was receiving seem to have work as well as they possibly could. That means, at least for right now, we're able to treat him like just a regular baby. Who knows what the future holds for us and there are still a ton of follow-up appointments. But we got really lucky and our little man is doing great.
Now, enough of all this personal life stuff. Lets get to what you're really here for: comics!
What am I lettering?
Since I missed the June edition of this newsletter, I didn't have the chance to celebrate Synap, my first direct market work, having it's trade come out! Check it out. If enough people buy it, maybe Mad Cave will let me letter another comic for them.
This may be surprising to hear, but having a newborn has made staying on top of lettering projects just a bit more challenging. I took some time off while I was in the hospital with my wife and newborn son, but anyone who is freelancing knows that time off doesn't really mean time off, it just means that a bunch of stuff either needed to be done ahead of time or gets delayed.
Until now, my system for keeping on top of what I was working on was pretty simple. I used my work email inbox as a sort of to-do list. If something was unread, that meant it needed some sort of attention, whether just a quick, two sentence response or an entire issue needing to be lettered. And as long as I stayed on top of my work and literally never fell more than a day behind on anything, this was a pretty good system!
This system, however, did not survive the month of June. So, long over due, I've been slowly putting together a project tracking system. The current iteration of this involves using Notion to make a calendar of due dates, and give myself the ability to sort projects into buckets based on whether or not I'm waiting for notes and finally keep a little tab of things I still need to invoice for. This might feel like overkill in a month or so, but I'm hoping this will keep everything running as smoothly as possible before my day job teaching starts back in August.
One of the projects I've fallen behind on has been putting together the trade paperbacks for a few projects I've lettered. Putting together collections like this are always fun, especially when it's a series that I didn't have the chance to create a unified visual identity for from a design perspective. It's also always just fun to look back at my own work, even if it is easy to cringe at the mistakes and things I'd do differently on the stuff I was lettering a year ago. I've been lettering pretty consistently for about 5 years now (was working before then, but that's when I'd say I started picking up a decent number of gigs) and it feels good that I'm still growing and improving.
Kickstarter comics in prelaunch:
Some fun lettering:
What am I writing?
I'm planning to send out the digital copies of Hero of Legend #4 this week, if not have them out to backers by the time this newsletter goes out!
Niccolò is working on Chapter 5 as well, (you can sign up for the prelaunch page here) though things are moving a bit more slowly than they have foe previous issues. The reason for that? Niccolò has the really exciting opportunity to work with DC Comics for one of their vertical, DC GO! comics, Aquaman Yo-Ho-Hold Onto Your Hooks! I'm super excited for him, and he is still working hard on Hero of Legend. But it does mean that our publishing schedule might not be as consistent as it has been in the past. This newsletter should be back on track for the foreseeable future, but I'm not sure if Hero of Legend will be back for our next episode the first Tuesday of August or if it might come a little later. Either way, even if our monthly episodes end up a bit off schedule, we should still be on track for Chapter 5 to launch on Kickstarter in November.
Other than Hero of Legend, Below the Depths is still coming along really well (prelaunch page for that here!) and I hope folks are on board for this second volume of underwater sci-fi action. These graphic novels have been a blast to make and, based on the feedback I got for Into the Deep, a blast to read as well. I've said it before, but I think the easiest length for comic storytelling for me is the graphic novella. There's something special about how easy the plots and characters flow when they're given that extra space to breathe.
I've been thinking a bit about my schedule for my Kickstarter launches for this and next. Hero of Legend will be done, with Chapter 6 finishing in March 2026. Then Below the Depths will be next, coming in either June or July. After that, probably the collected edition of Hero of Legend that winter.
But looking at that, I'm realizing that I will have almost no single issues on the schedule from March 2026 onwards. That means I'm not sure what comics I could have serialized as part of this newsletter. Maybe Into the Deep and Below the Depths? Something new? Or maybe the comics in your guys inbox are more annoying than anything else, and you'd rather they stop. Either way, if you have thoughts, sound off in the comments of this post or shoot me a message.
With that, I'm starting to think about what comes next after Hero of Legend. Depending on how the collected volume for Hero of Legend does, there's definitely space for us to make a follow up for that series, but that won't be getting off the ground until after the Kickstarter for the trade collection.
I mentioned in my May newsletter that I've started putting together logo options for my next serialized, single issue comic Scum, and I've just about finished up a script for the first issue. Now I just need to find an artist that wants to collaborate on it with me. So, if any of you are artists looking to work on a fun, cyberpunk series... please reach out.
What am I reading?
The Power Fantasy
The Power Fantasy is a monthly super hero comic published by Image comics, created by Kieron Gillen, Caspar Wijngaard and Clayton Cowles. I'm a huge fan of Wijngaard's art. The way he plays with style and color is fantastic. Every page he creates is a work of art in itself. But, unfortunately, he's been a part of a bunch of comics that I vastly prefer looking at to actually reading. There are a couple stand outs! I think All Against All was a great book (and you can read my thoughts about it here) but most of the other projects he's been a part of have left me a bit cold. Peter Canon Thunderbolt is another book, from mostly this same team, that I liked quite a bit when it first came out, but have soured on over time. I think I just have a lot less patience for navel gazing super hero comics than I did 6 years ago.
And, well, this is very much a navel gazing super hero comic. I think Ritesh Babu is pretty much correct when he writes about the series in this piece, though he's quite a bit harsher than I would be about both this book and the direct market in general. You have to scroll a bit to get to it, but in the section on The Absence of the original ongoing serial, he describes the series as "a comic that gives its characters varied specific international identities and yet everybody talks like Kieron Gillen. The dialogue is dire." Like I said, harsher than I would be. But, unfortunately, how I feel about pretty much every Kieron Gillen comics I've ever read.
I think Ritesh's piece I linked above is a really canny examination of the direct market, and while I don't fully agree with his assessment, I do think he's fundamentally right, about the market as a whole and about The Power Fantasy in specific. I also think I'm willing to give a bit more grace for a book that looks this good even if it just fine. And that's what I think The Power Fantasy is! Just fine. It's premise and Wijngaard's art are enough that it makes the book reading. And if you pick up the single issues (or read them on Hoopla like I did) the essays in the back are much more engaging than I think the writing of the actual book is (another critique I'd give to most of Gillen's work.) It's a book that I think is at least worth looking at, even if I don't feel like the story itself is much to write home about.
Witch Hat Atelier
For year, since JK Rowling actively started being a despicable transphobe, people have tried to recommend other series as a replacement for Harry Potter. None of them, to my mind, ever actually worked. As someone who is now disgusted by her work but for who the Harry Potter books did hold a special place in my heart, there is a reason those were the phenomena that they were. I think you can believe there are problems with the books, believe Rowling is a nightmare human being, and still be willing to admit that.
Anyway, all of that preamble is to say, I think Witch Hat Atelier is the closest thing to actually being a Harry Potter replacement.
Kamome Shirahama's artwork and storytelling in this series is truly spectacular. It's a gorgeous book, one that brings you along every step of the way with the main character Coco as she discovers and becomes completely entranced by magic. Anyone who likes fantasy comics owes it to your self to check out this series if you haven't yet. This series is already huge, but I think that the anime coming out later this year is going to send it into the stratosphere. But it's huge for good reason. It's really, really good.
Anything else?
Nope. See you next month!