Always Harder Than It Looks...
…to say goodbye!
Ahh. Yeah. It’s hard to let go of this. Even though I knew it was time, I knew it would be hard.
I hope you guys all enjoyed CAPTAIN MARVEL #50 this week (on stands now!) It’s been a huge honor to add to Carol’s legacy and I am so thankful for all of you trusting me to take you on that journey. It’s hard to let it all go, but I’m so grateful for it. It feels too soon and also like it was high time. And…I think it’s okay for both of those things to be true.
If you’re here, you probably already know what’s next, but let’s show it off just in case:
BLACK CLOAK #6
This was supposed to be out THIS month, but it’s been moved to the first week of August (August 2nd). This is for two reasons. 1. It’s a BIG issue — we made it a crazy 33 pages of story — and that obviously took more time. 2. Illness and injury played havoc with my late winter/early spring as you guys know and it really pushed me off course. If we hadn’t nearly doubled the issue size we probably still could have made the deadline, but the issue demanded the extra pages and so here we are. I will say that this final issue is looking SPECTACULAR.
THE CULL #1
We’re getting so close now!!! August 9th! Ahhhhhhh!
BIRDS OF PREY #1
September 5th, 2023! There are a bunch of fun covers (and there will be blank sketch covers too so I’ll try to get some of those to do something fun with!) but limited color 1:100 version of the main cover is probably my fave — art by Leo, colors by Jordie:
All right. It was just a quick one today in honor of Carol and a quick thank you to all of you sending me such lovely messages and sharing about your love for the book on socials, etc. Back to the drawing board with me.
~Kelly <3
I’ve been dreading this week because I truly loved this run. One one hand it’s the grand finale, but on the other hand it’s the end. But, I’m looking forward to Cull and BoP.
And just throwing it out there....Marvel needs to give you a Spider-Man teamup series. It’s a license to print money!
It has been pretty amazing to see how you've walked the line of making sure Carol remained fully three-dimensional. Yeah, we know she's powerful, but you gave her very ways to still grow in power (no easy feat). At the same time, you made her earn that growth. But that's only one dimension of her. She grew on a personal level. She struggled. She failed. She lost. She was wrongly judged (I'm looking at you magic-users!).
By the end of this journey, we've come away with not just a powerful character, but a powerful character who is immensely respectful of that power. Not every hero goes there. (Yeah, a lot of them are aware they can hurt others, but truly showing that power respect isn't as common).
As odd as this sound, despite having no kids of her own, Carol's become a bit of a mother figure. She's been looking out for the growth and development of others—Rogue, Jenny, Kamala, Binary, and more. She loves them all and wants(ed) to see them grow and reach their own potential. This level of consideration didn't quite exist before (she occasionally showed up for Kamala, but in this run, her love felt a broader part of her persona).
I've said it before, but thank you Kelly. I'm extremely grateful for all you've done for Carol, her growing family, and all of us who love her so much (and even more now... if that was ever possible).