Well, It's Over
NEW CHAMPIONS #8 hit shelves yesterday, and with it, we bid farewell to our cast of kids who first debuted on variant covers and then wormed their way into my heart. NC was a lot of things: a long-shot from the jump, the longest series I got to plan in one go (Spider-Woman was approved as a mini then extended), a shorter series than we initially planned, and a delight to work on behind the scenes from start to finish. My artistic partner on most of the book, Ivan Fiorelli, is one of Marvel’s fastest-rising stars; check him out on Doctor Strange next. He’s also an extremely friendly human being who absolutely GOT my vision for this book trying to capture the elevated action and emotion of manga without mimicking manga stylings. Our colorist, Arthur Hesli, is a palette genius, and brought out the best in every single person who touched this book. Ruairí Coleman, who came through in a pinch to draw two issues when our schedule got tight, has become a real pal, and is an exceptional artist to boot. Former collaborators Ig Guara and Julian Shaw were treats to work with again on guest spots. And editorial guardian angels Alanna Smith and Sidney Stubbs shepherded this book through the storms to make sure it stayed one of the most positive creative experiences I’ve had in work-for-hire comics.
I’ve also got to shout out the artists who designed each of these kids in the first place: Amaranth by Jen Bartel, Nightdrifter by Mateus Manhanini, Liberty by Lucas Werneck, Gold Tiger by Ernanda Souza, Monte by Romy Jones, Cadet Marvel by Paco Medina, Fantasma by Luciano Vecchio, Hellrune by Toni Infante, Magnetrix by Betsy Cola, Moon Squire by Javier Garrón, and, yes, Deadpool Boy by Nick Bradshaw. Without their eye-catching talents, there’d have been no interest in trying to launch these characters AS characters in the 616.
I could do a post-mortem on the book, or how hard it is to launch new characters/IP in the superhero world right now, or things I’d try to do differently if I could start all over again. But there’s no relaunch button on real life. We got eight extremely fun issues. Our audience may have been modest, but when solicits made it pretty apparent we were wrapping up, I heard from some very passionate readers who were crushed and concerned they weren’t going to get to see more of this cast. (And, thankfully, several of these kids will land other places before too long, so keep your eyes peeled!)
Rather than lamenting issues we didn’t get to do, I’m choosing to celebrate the run we did have, and how much fun I had helping to bring these kids to life. Ivan, Alanna, Arthur, and I met these kids as we made the book, and Ivan in particular brought SO much personality to all of them. He made it so much easier to discover their personalities and bring their voices to life. The very last page of the series, I actually left entirely up to him, and it might just be my favorite of the book.
For anyone who picked up New Champions: thank you. And if you didn’t…well, there’s always the trade collection!
WELL, THAT WAS A DOWNER
That’s life, baybee. But hey, you know what’s not a downer? Getting forcibly impregnated by a Xenomorph. ALIEN: PARADISO is out now in trade paperback form, just in time for ALIEN: EARTH, the hot new Hulu original. (I haven’t watched yet—no spoilers!) I’m still in a bit of shock that I got to do a full story set in the world of ALIEN, and I can’t wait to get my comps collecting the entire series. Edgar Salazar, Peter Nguyen, and Jason Muhr really let the blood flow on art, and we did our best to deliver a Xenomorph story you haven’t seen before. Nab it now if you just can’t scratch that extraterrestrial itch.
AND SPEAKING OF ALIENS
While I mostly talk about my writing work on here, most of you know I’m also an editor at Tiny Onion, and the very first series I worked on there was THE DEPARTMENT OF TRUTH. Well, the little book that could is reaching its five-year anniversary this September, and to celebrate, we put together an oversized #0 issue that violently upsets the status quo for the series moving forward.
James Tynion IV and Martin Simmonds always put their all into bringing the Fictions of this book to reality, but we lined up something extra special for #0: for the first time ever, we invited a guest creative team to tell their own story set within the world of DoT. Superstar writer Scott Snyder and acclaimed artist of the Eisner-nominated The Deviant, Joshua Hixson, have united for a three-part backup story that reveals the secret history of ELVIS PRESLEY.
As an odd bit of Foxe lore, I actually took a class with Scott __ years ago in college. And Josh is one of my absolute favorite collaborators. So putting this together has been a nightmarish dream come true. Final Order Cutoff is THIS MONDAY, August 18th, so be sure to get your orders in. Don’t let The King down.
ANYTHING ELSE?
SUPERIOR AVENGERS #5 came out the other week, bringing us tantalizingly close to the finale. Luca Maresca and Kyle Hotz bring the pain on the final issue, so now’s the time to catch up.
The postal service dropped two total DOORSTOPPERS on my front porch, too: the GANG WAR omnibus, and the FALL OF THE HOUSE OF X/RISE OF THE POWERS OF X omnibus. The former is big, at 680 pages, but the latter is HUGE at a whopping 1,256 pages. GANG WAR contains the first four issues of SPIDER-WOMAN, written by yours truly, with art by lovely Carola Borelli, who’s been tearing it up on AVENGERS ACADEMY, among other projects. FotHoX/RotPoX contains DEAD X-MEN, on which I got to collaborate with the murderer’s row of Jonas Scharf, Bernard Chang, Peter Nguyen, Vincenzo Carratù, Guillermo Sanna, Lynne Yoshi, David Baldeón, and Javier Pina. It’s a real privilege to be in such colossal collections alongside so many other talents I admire, so grab these and use them as potential self-defense weapons when you’re not enjoying them as fine sequential literature.
On the horizon, we’ve got PREDATOR: BLACK WHITE & BLOOD #2 out in two weeks with my best hunt-mate Phillip Sevy. I’ve also got IMPERIAL WAR: EXILES with Francesco Manna and Davide Tinto, co-written with Jonathan Hickman (!!!!) dropping next month, which you can read more about over at my X-Men Monday interview.
Oh, and last week finally saw the release of the first two ARCHIVES OF THE UNEXPLAINED books, my proper book market OGN debut…but those warrant their own post that isn’t about sending one of my other series off into the sunset.
ANY TEASES BEFORE YOU GO?
No. I don’t want to jinx it.
But I figured out how to embed music, so I’m going to start signing out with whatever’s in frequent rotation—saves me from having to come up with a pithy closer.