NJW&C 27: Where Flies The Hellion
Hey, Kids! It’s Nice Jewish Words & Comics!, the latest installment from Neil Kleid's bi-monthly newsletter with updates and info about his latest projects!
School is back in session, friends!
Get out those folders and protractors and graphing calculators and trapper keepers
(“trappers keepers”?)
Keepers aside, while I’m still heads down in deadline crunch for this new horror novel I’m working on (stay tuned for more on that in future installments), that doesn’t mean we can’t all learn a thing or two this month, right?
To wit:
LEARNING ABOUT NEW YORK COMIC-CON
So, last month I mentioned that NYCC is upon us (October 9-12 2025, Midtown New York, the Javits Center), and while I originally thought that I’d be wandering around the floor and Artist’s Alley on Friday and Sunday, taking in the sights and sounds of the comics industry…well, now it looks like we will indeed be announcing ‘Project Mantle’ and you, dear readers and pals, will have at least two chances to get stuff signed by yours truly.
As the schedule comes together I’ll shoot out a tiny lil’ newsletter update explaining where and when I will be signing on those two days. I plan to be armed with postcards promoting both Nice Jewish Boys and ‘Project Mantle’…along with maybe some other fun giveaways, but feel free to bring copies of my books and comics to get signed. And dang yo, I would love to see some Savor or Kings and Canvas cosplay. Or at the very least, a ‘Phoenix Chase Quentin Quire.’
See you in Manhattan, friends.
LEARNING ABOUT ‘PROJECT MANTLE’
Speaking of ‘Project Mantle’, my hope is by the time our next newsletter is out, so will be the press release and announcement so I can call it by its proper name AND we can talk about my co-author.
You guys, this is honestly one of the most fun projects I’ve ever had a chance to make. The collaborative process is, frankly, a dream. Pages keep hitting my Dropbox and we’re burning through the issues really fast. Pencils for issue #4 are piling up, and the third issue has already been approved and is good to go.
This one is built as a stand-alone, but like Kings and Canvas and Savor (and a lot of my books, to be fair) there is a lot more story waiting in the wings. Of course, making comics is like a spin of the roulette wheel and you’re sitting and waiting, hoping the ball lands on you, and gives you everything you need to keeping making comics. Sure, I always plan for multiple volumes of nearly every comic book I’ve written in the last ten years…but the industry, as I’ve once said, is like that kid brother who keeps throwing a football at any sensitiv parts of your body: you love him, but dammit kid, come on already.
Anyway, ‘Project Mantle.’ We’ll let you know what it’s really called very soon and then you can see some covers and lettered artwork. Also, if you’re a comics journalist or a pro with whom I’ve traded emails or direct messages somewhere in the past, feel free to tap my shoulder and I will let you have a look. It’s a bit of a departure for me, but I think you’ll dig it.
By the way just wait til you see the kick-ass covers for this thing. I am very lucky to be partnered with my aforementioned super fantastic, secret (for now) and talented co-author. Please promise you will at least share posts about this project once it's announced, solely for his art alone, which is well worth the price of admission. For one of those cover, I got to reference the below banger of a Mike Zeck + John Beatty Captain America cover in an email discussion with my co-author and editor, so yeah, stay tuned for something awesome.
Aside from that book, I may have mentioned that I’m working on an original horror novel set to come out in 2026. This week, I hit the halfway point and I’m picking up steam. This one is a lot of fun—but I do imagine there will be some edits and rewrites coming my way after I deliver the first draft around Halloween time. Not sure when they will announce it; like I said, it’s not out for another year. So in the meantime, I’ll tease you about it as I do all my projects.
Other than that, I’ve got a couple of pitches out there with editors and once I’m done with both the books on my plate, I have to get back to writing my screenplay and Projects ‘Red’ and ‘Vigilant’, my other two novels. Thankfully I have plenty on my plate, whether or not they’re currently under contract. That feels good; to know that I can always pivot to another story, to keep breathing new worlds to life. Hopefully, one day I can hand those worlds off to you, my devoted readers. Stick around, thanks, and let’s try to make that happen.
LEARNING ABOUT THE HELLION
Speaking of breathing worlds to life, I had a moment to burn through some comics this past weekend and clean out a bunch of bookshelves filled with comics of my own…and sometimes when I do that, I will stop and read one or two. I may be one of the rare comic book creators who likes to re-read his old work to learn something about how my plotting or dialogue has evolved and how to evolve it, or to spot mistakes that I don’t want to repeat. This week, I picked up a copy of a graphic novel I co-wrote with my pal Rantz Hoseley for Z2 Comics while I was going through chemo (and the pandemic!), Screaming For Vengeance, a book inspired by the classic Judas Priest album of the same name.
I’ll say this: before getting this assignment, I was passing familiar with Judas Priest. I’m a big rock and roll fan, but Rob Halford, Glenn Tipton, Scott Travis, etc…I can’t say that they were heavily on my radar until Rantz pointed me in their direction. Sure, I knew “You’ve Got Another Thing Comin’” and “Living After Midnight.” I’d heard “Electric Eye.” But my tastes leaned a little more toward Aerosmith, George Thorogood, ZZ Top, and Bruce Springsteen. So until I got the assignment, I hadn’t heard the entirety of Screaming for Vengeance.
And then I played it nonstop. For weeks. For two months.
Rantz and I conceived Screaming to be like the European bandes dessinées—inspired by Moebius’ work, really—both in terms of subject matter and visual tone, allowing for an otherworldly quality in a lived-in world completely separate from our own. What we didn’t want to do was put the band members in the story—as heroes, like KISS or GWAR, say—but rather craft a narrative around the themes of the album, inspired by the iconic screaming Hellion design emblazoned on the album cover, and really think about what it means to truly seek vengeance, why one might seek it, and what vengeance might ultimately cost.
Illustrated by our pal Chris Mitten (with whom I’ve worked in the past, on “The Beekeeper”, a short story featured in the Eisner-award winning Comic Book Tattoo, edited by Rantz for Image Comics), Screaming is set approximately five-hundred years from now, focusing on a ring of cities that orbits high above the surface of a dead world, controlled by a ruling elite who maintains power through manipulation and brutality. When Chaen, a naïve engineer, threatens the status quo with a vital scientific discovery, he is first seduced into and embraced by the ruling class and then betrayed by those he trusted, cast out to the broken planet below. In the wreckage and desolation of a world where every day is a battle for survival, Chaen now has to choose between accepting a new life in exile—where he can find peace and a new life amongst the denizens of a dead planet— or doing everything he can to get vengeance on those who destroyed his old life.
One of the best things about writing this book was riffing on a world bible with Rantz. We crafted a history for the Ring that stretched back to 150 years before the events of the comic, building characters, cultures and motivations….following the dominoes as they fall up to and through the events of the book, setting it up for a big (as Rantz put it) “dramatic sci-fi Frank Herbert meets Moebius style ending.” We spent a lot of time working through character arcs and really getting into Chaen’s emotional state and his investment in both worlds—above and below—and his needs before and after his betrayal in the Ring.
For Rantz, this was definitely about nostalgia and being a fan, and being able to work with a band he knew and had always loved…but for me—still going through chemo, feeling low because of that and the stress of the pandemic—writing this book was really about power: both the harnessing of any power I could fit in my hands, and feeling impotent about not having the power I desired (to heal myself, to return to normalcy—whatever that meant to me at the time.) To me…it was definitely about rage and anger, and a great deal of resentment. And sure; it was also about loss and pain, and a bit of regret. There was a vast stew brewing inside me every time I thought about poor Chaen and the culture wars he was dealing with both above and below…and how angry and impotent he felt, how he very much wanted to take back any agency he once possessed…or at least lash out and rage against the various machines doing their best to tell him how to live, what to wear, how to find his way to any kind of success or satisfaction. Much of that—all of what I was grappling with at the time—found it’s way into the writing.
Personally, I was really happy with the dichotomy between the world of the Ring and that of the dead planet on which Chaen eventually lands. Not only did Chris and Dee Cuniffe, our fantastic colorist, establish a marked visual difference between the two, but also in the way each society is represented by cultural norms and outliers, as well as via dialogue—which to Rantz and I, the dialogue that is, became a character in itself. If you read the book, the first thing you’ll notice is how overblown the characters within the Ring are—using big words, eloquent, faux-scientific and near-poetic turns of phrase (to use a term: sesquipedalian!) And then when Chaen lands on the planet, and is stuck in the muddy environs of that world and its inhabitants, the gritty style of dialogue is a bit more contemporary but with it’s own unique frontier twists (“fucken” instead of “fuckin’”, as example.)
My favorite character is Frank Public, who is the de facto leader of that world’s camp. He was born on the planet and never stepped foot on the Ring above it—something that can’t be said for many in his camp—or, as he says: “born in mud, bred in mud.” He’s a historian, Frank is, and the spider at the center of the frontier camp’s web. He knows everything that’s going on, everything about everyone, and all he cares about is everyone working in harmony to repair the camp—and their world—and not letting any talents or resources go to waste. When conceiving Frank, I was inspired heavily by Ian McShane’s portrayal of saloon owner and camp boss Al Swearengen in HBO’s Deadwood, and you can hopefully see some of that in Frank’s crude card sharp meets Shakespearean, David Milch influenced dialogue.
We wrote a couple of shaky outlines and then I did a bullet outline, something I do with larger narratives to really try and break down the beats across chapters. This gives me a rough sense of what happens within a specific span of pages—key action, specific dialogue or themes, turns and highlights—and is a lot less formal than either a pitch or actual outline, as you may have seen one. It’s almost like me having a conversation with myself, to remind me what goes where in the framework of the story—where I want to punch a certain one-liner, or where I want to place a specific splash. It’s very helpful, and like world bibles, I don’t do them often: just on the stories that may get away from me if I don’t keep them in line.
From there, of course, we scripted, passing the draft back and forth so we could polish each panel description and line of dialogue until it became an amalgam of both our styles. I think the reason Screaming was successful in terms of a writing partnership is that it’s nearly impossible to tell which bits were written by me and which by Rantz. Our fingers were all over every single part of this story, and we managed a hybrid narrative style that made this book it’s own.
Chris and Dee (and Troy Peteri, our letterer, of course) really made it sing. Those panels where the Hellion breaks out of its cage (the ancient bones of Madison Square Garden, by the way; see above!) are viscerally brilliant and visually satisfying on so many levels. The last twenty page are, of course, a destructive glorious mess…but even the first fifty are so stunning and sumptuous that I am surprised that no one has asked Chris and Dee to partnered together on something else since completing the book.
The response to Screaming…well, it was a victim of delayed pandemic scheduling and came out nearly a year after it was scheduled. I don’t know that anyone actually noticed the damn thing, despite us hawking it furiously on social media, and partnering with the band to promote it. As far as I know, it did fine. The book design, by the way, is gorgeous with new cover art by new cover art by Jan Meininghaus, and credit the brilliant Lauryn Ipsum with that. We got a few reviews, including this fantastic video review from Graphic Policy, and this one here at Metal Rules which says:
“The creative team do a great job in portraying the post-apocalyptic wasteland of future earth, which his very dark, cavernous and claustrophobic. There are snippets of lyrics from the album woven and I won’t be revealing too much to say the overall concept of the Hellion is also worked into the story very nicely. It a good story, maybe a slow paced, a slow burn but that is part of the charm perhaps. The plot reminds me of some vintage 70’s sci-fi, (Logan’s Run, Zardoz etc. ) meaning it is much more cerebral than much of modern ‘sci-fi’ which is all about lasers battles, spaceships and funny talking aliens that can easily made into plush toys”
There were also plans for a follow-up that no one has seen but me, Rantz and the folks at Z2, based on Judas Priest’s Defenders of the Faith, which would pick up from the end of Screaming and have Chaen reckon with the choices he made in the first volume as his world is attacked by an extraterrestrial threat…a city that abandoned our planet before it died long ago, and has now returned to take control. I’ve adjusted the pitch here to update names that changed from pitch to book (don’t laugh…but Chaen’s original name was…Jude):
Regretful and horrified, Chaen birthed the HELLION and slaughtered MILLIONS. The Fallen scream with joy as his monster settles to the ground. Now Chaen has a title of his own—like The Five—and knows that Frank and Aylana were right. He started off trying to help those like him, and instead of putting faith in himself he put it in a terrible redeemer. He brought about his own downfall, ruined his honor and heart, and destroyed a world he once hoped to save. But the genie can’t go back in the bottle. The Hellion is PERPETUAL; it keeps its country clean. Chaen spends his days trying to act as an advocate for humanity, hoping to undo all of his wrongs…but the Hellion beckons, and Chaen isn’t seen as a protector, but an avenger. All fear the SENTINEL. All fear his Hellion.
When forces from beyond the stars arrive to lay low the Hellion, Chaen must partner with the Fallen—those already on the ground, and those who survived the Ring’s fall—to protect their shared, new world. Together, they fortify their world and construct mankind’s new redeemer. This time, Chaen builds not from vengeance but FAITH…faith in himself and humanity…and woe betide those who stand in the way of Earth’s latest defender. For only those who keep the faith shall escape the wrath of THE METALLIAN…!
Who knows? Maybe one day we’ll do it…though I feel like both Z2 and Judas Priest have moved on. I had a blast co-authoring this thing with Rantz, Chris and Dee, though. I would love to do another book with that team.
In the meantime, I’ll always have the Hellion.
LEARNING ABOUT SOMETHING I PROBABLY SHOULDN’T BE DOING
Okay, last month I showed you some sketches for a Starjammers fan comic I’m working on with Brownsville and Kings and Canvas co-author Jake Allen for his portfolio, right? These are not for Marvel or any editor, and I probably shouldn’t show any part of this project to you here, right?
Anyway, here are two of Jake’s inked pages. I should have colors next week and then I’ll letter ‘em up real nice-like.
LEARNING ABOUT SOME COMICS I’VE READ
Like I said above, sometimes I read new comic books. Here are three I really dug:
POWERS 25 #1 is a brand new tale in a world I know all too well. Powers, for you comics tourists, is a creator-owned comic book by friends of the newsletter Brian Michael Bendis and Mike Oeming. It’s been around for a good, long while and is about detectives and cops in a world populated by superheroes. Sure, it’s a conceit that’s been done quite a bit, but I think Powers —if they weren’t the ones to do it first — did it best. Snappy dialogue you’ve come to expect from Bendis, expressive and cartoony art from our man Oeming. The book has been published by nearly every company in the business at one time or another, and this new iteration is at Dark Horse Comics. Set in the future, after the events of their last big graphic novel, Powers 25 follows the current iteration of the Powers precinct which includes older versions of classic characters (including our girl Deena Pilgrim. Hey, you all remember than Brian and I wrote a prose novel about her, right? Buy it here!) and new characters that appeared in the last GN and now appear for this new adventure. Man am I glad this comic book series is back. Same DNA, brand new story, like a hit of adrenaline, nostalgia, and innovation all in one. Welcome back, Brian and Mike. Thanks for giving us the good stuff.
Speaking of Dark Horse, I was privileged enough to get an advance look at DUNGEONS & DRAGONS: THE FALLBACKS #1, the first big foray in the shared new partnership by Dark Horse and Wizards of the Coast. This one is by Greg Pak and Wilton Santos. Look, I’m not the biggest D&D guy, but I am very passing familiar and actually devoured Dragonlance novels as a teenager (okay, and also as an adult.) I think I have only played the game once or twice in my life, though, and have often tried to get back into it with the right folks. That said, I really loved the movie that came out in 2023, and I really loved this comic book. It's utterly charming, lots of fun, funny & relatable—with compelling characters, awesome creatures, jokes about clowns—even for a D&D novice like me. The book is out in October—make sure to check it out! (Also, one day ima make a comic or RPG about ten Jewish men looking for a soup and sandwich when they aren’t busy killing fantasy monsters and ima call it Delicatessens & Dragons.)
As many of you know, I am an avowed fan of the late, great Will Eisner. Our old publisher, NBM, has recently published WILL EISNER: A COMICS BIOGRAPHY by Steve Weiner and Dan Mazur, a look back at Will’s life leading into comics and then beyond. The graphic novel covers a lot of already well-traveled road—much of it already detailed in Eisner’s The Dreamer—but also digs more into his family history and relationship with Eisner & Iger partner Sam Iger, while also spending time laying out his time working on The Spirit, what he did during the war and after, and how he came to create the intimate graphic novels—so many of them Judaically-themed—that drew me to his work. Mazur’s style is really sketchy and cartoony, and definitely the kind of work you would see from both NBM and your premier alternative and independent graphic novel publishers. But I found the artwork quite charming, and the story these co-authors tell reveals intricacies to which I was previously unaware. Well worth a read.
Oh, yeah. I read the new Batman comic by Fraction and Jimenez. It was all right. I also read a few issues of Imperial by Hickman, Vicentini and Coello. Also all right—I did like where they went with the Shi’ar Imperial Guard in that series…which is who I thought that series was going to be about, to be honest. This week I’ll check out Deadpool/Batman…which I think is a fantastic thing for our friends in comic book retail, but as a story I find less than compelling simply because I’m not a huge Deadpool fan.
I also bought all of Marvel’s Bring on The Bad Guys one shots, and our boy Alex Paknadel (with co-author Michael Sta. Maria) gave us one of the best Dormammu stories I have ever read. Give that one a try.
LEARNING ABOUT REDFORD
Right as I finished up this installment, veteran actor Robert Redford died.
If you have a love for old school Hollywood—for the cool, for the classics—then you love Redford. Sure, the guy was handsome. But he was also a fantastic actor and a wonderful director (Quiz Show is one of my top ten favorite films. Give it a watch if you haven’t seen it yet.)
And yeah, Redford was in a Marvel film, playing Alexander Pierce in both Captain America: The Winter Soldier and again in Avengers: Endgame. That’s how my kids know who he is. But while it’s exceedingly easy for the social media generation to reduce an actor like Redford down to his last, most recent appearance in a popular film, I love that most of the tributes I've seen so far have been highlighting the rich tapestry of his filmography: The Sting, The Natural, Three Days of the Condor, Butch Cassidy, Ordinary People, The Last Castle (check out this tour de force performance alongside the late, great James Gandolfini), All the President's Men, and many more classic films. If you can, check out one or two of the above if you’ve never seen them.
I will say that with Redford's passing, I believe that’s one more link broken in our connection back to vintage Hollywood and both actors and performers of that caliber who shaped the movies. As those filmmakers continue to pass we lose a little more of the history, the glamour, and—like we do when comic book legends are lost—the link back to a golden age.
LEARNING ABOUT FOOTBALL SEASON
It’s football season! Our boys in silver and Honolulu blue are back on the gridiron. Sure, they dropped one to the Packers but then took the second at home from their old offensive coordinator, Ben Johnson, and his stupid trick plays (oh and the Chicago Bears.)
We’ll cheer the Lions over the next few months…as well as the Detroit Tigers, who have clinched the American League Central division and will appear in the baseball postseason.
It’s truly weird when Detroit sports teams are good, so we have to celebrate them while we can!
#OnePride #DetroitvsEverybody
LEARNING ABOUT THE CONEY ISLAND CYCLONE AND OTHER RANDOM THINGS
This Labor Day, Mrs. Newsletter and I took our kids to ride the world-famous Cyclone at Brooklyn’s Luna Park Coney Island. That crazy wooden roller coaster has been open for nearly one hundred years, yo, and it feels like it every time you ride the thing. I haven’t ridden it in twenty years and boy did I feel it. Boy, did it feel great. Sometimes I feel like making comics is exactly like riding the Coney Island Cyclone. It’s uncomfortable and old and possibly falling apart, you may get hurt at every single turn, but what a fucking thrill ride
Interesting interview here with Greg Rucka of Gotham Central, Queen & Country and Stumptown fame (among many, many others.) I saw this below excerpt which I found interesting because it makes me realize maybe I wasn’t imagining my own experiences with antisemitism in comics, too:
“…they were great at their jobs. But the environment was growing more and more toxic crazy. I've really come to a place where I'm like, "Oh, no. I can see I can see what was done." And I can see now the truth of it. And I can see also some common denominators of things. There are certain things that I have realized about people who I was working for and working with who were very careful about hiding it about themselves… I've had a lot of realizations in the last year, and some of them have been like, "Oh, oh, this person was an anti-semite from the start. this person didn't like me because I was a Jew… I'm not interested in protecting anybody's legacy anymore. I'm just not. I'm not.”
Oh, hey—do you want a good thing to read? It's David Harper at SKTCHD, maybe the world's biggest Stilt-Man booster, celebrating Stilt-Man's SIXTIETH anniversary
I just realized that next year is both the 20th anniversary of my book Brownsville with Jake Allen and also my X-Men Unlimited / Colossus story with Mike Oeming. We should maybe do something to celebrate the former and Mike and I should think about doing something at Marvel to celebrate the latter… right, Mike? Right, Marvel?!
What’s weird is that I have consistently had stories, comics and books out for the last few years via Kickstarter, bookstores, digital, but the last COMIC I had physically drop on comic shop shelves was a reprint of my Perry White/Wildcat story in 2022. Three years ago.
Let’s fix that soon, shall we?
See you at NYCC or after, buddies, when we talk about ‘Project Mantle.’
No sleep til Brooklyn, friends.
—Neil
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