Hard To Contain All This Good Stuff
Hey Guys
Sorry for the radio silence, the good news is I’ve been super productive, the bad news is I’m weary in my old ass bones. First things first…
ABSOLUTE WONDER WOMAN WON THE EISNER FOR BEST NEW SERIES!
It’s such truly incredible news for this book and for this team that has put their everything into it — Hayden Sherman, Jordie Bellaire (who won her own Best Coloring Eisner as well this year!), and Becca Carey — just an all-star team that none of this happens without. And I’d be remiss not to mention our fearless leader, editor Chris Conroy, able assists from Ash Padilla, and though it was for issues this year, not last, Andrea Shea (whose ZATANNA book from Mariko and Javier that I adore, also won an Eisner!) heroically pitching in on a couple issues. It takes a village to make a comic, and I am very grateful for my village.
It also takes all of you. The enthusiasm and energy you have all poured into ABSOLUTE WONDER WOMAN has been infectious in the best of ways and with the release of the collection earlier this month (collecting the first seven issues and adding the exquisite Mattia De Iulis to our village) I can feel our book spreading even wider, even more readers discovering and falling in love with Diana. It’s been truly humbling to behold.
Okay. Celebration done. Let’s roll our sleeves up and get through this news. I promise MANY sneak peeks at the end as a reward. ;D
Okay, second things second.
Webstore/Shipping update: Everything ordered before 8/19/25 was shipped last week. If you’re not International, you probably have it by now. If not, check Paypal for your tracking number and let me know if it hasn’t showed.
The Webstore has been updated, with both hard cover and soft cover versions of the ABSOLUTE WONDER WOMAN VOL 1 trade, ABSOLUTE WONDER WOMAN #11 (out this week) and JEFF THE LANDSHARK #2 (though I only have the main Gurihiru cover and expect to update the store with some variants in the next couple weeks). BOP is current through #24.
I also added in a few AWW #1s that DC sent me recently — but they’re all pretty pricey since I’m both A) almost out of #1s and B) most are more rare variants. But they’re there if you’ve been searching!
The Beat wrote a lovely piece about ABSOLUTE WONDER WOMAN winning the Eisner.
If any of you have NOT been reading AWW but are interested, DC did this nice piece promoting the trade which just released.
BamSmackPow wrote a very kind piece about my forthcoming BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER and ANGEL titles from Dynamite.
Hayden Sherman talks ABSOLUTE WONDER WOMAN (and probably some other things!) at SDCC with Heather Antos!
OH! I got nominated for a Ringo in the Best Writer category! Very honored to finally make the cut among some truly great nominees.
And if you’re into ethics or philosophy, or just cool comics analysis, Eric at Comics Philosophy did a really cool piece on ABSOLUTE WONDER WOMAN that I really enjoyed reading. I love to see deep dive analysis of the medium and am always hoping to see more of it (it’s a fascinating medium!), so I especially appreciated this piece.
Both ABSOLUTE WONDER WOMAN #11 and JEFF THE LAND SHARK #3 release THIS WEEK. There are previews of both below.
ABSOLUTE WONDER WOMAN #11 has a couple big reveals including a cliffhanger I love (and Jordie Bellaire proving exactly why she won that Eisner!), so don’t miss out.
Preview for ABSOLUTE WONDER WOMAN #11.
Jeff debuts some very fun (if temporary) powers (you think I WASN’T gonna give him Wolverine claws?! C’mon!) and gets to kiss a pretty girl, so he’s not doing so bad himself.
Preview for JEFF THE LAND SHARK #3
And if you didn’t hear the news already, the ENTIRE Absolute line has gone back to re-printings. So if you’re still chasing down issues, nearly everything is going to be available again in September and October. For Diana this means a SEVENTH PRINTING of issue #1 (Jae Lee non-foil version! Woop!) — and you can see below 5th printing for #2, 4th printing for #3, 3rd printing for #4, and second printing for #5 - #10. Truly so cool, guys.
FOC for these is MONDAY 8/25 — so if you’re missing something and want your shop to grab it for you — call now.
Some awesome art I’ve seen of Absolute Diana over the last bit…
By Simone Di Meo. Just gorgeous:
AzadPoulet-kun. You KNOW I’m digging the arms on this one:
Subversive Girl. I missed this one in the spring it seems. I love it. I wish the nose was a bit more “Diana” but I love that it feels so moody and plays with the eye color — and the black lips! Yes!:
AXE did a very cool version of Diana, which they then updated to make her face and make-up a bit more on model and while I liked the OG version, I REALLY appreciate the update!
Moving AWAY from “Diana Hodgepodge” into “Regular Hodgepodge” we get this glorious cover from Bruno Redondo for a short he and Tom Taylor are doing about Wolverine (Laura) and Nightwing in BATMAN/DEADPOOL #1:
Jae Lee drawing Barda AND Rogue. I think I’m gonna die:
Christian Ward did this INCREDIBLE Variant of Inque for BIRDS OF PREY #27 (out in Nov). It’s the kinda cover that makes you want to write a character for a 1,000 issues!
Non-comics hodgepodge!
I saw WEAPONS this week and it is EXCELLENT. I’m tough with horror. I think I ingest a lot of horror and a lot of horror makes it into my work in a variety of ways, and so it feels weird to say I’m “not a horror fan” but I think rather, like with most things I have things I’m very drawn to and things that repel me. But Zach Cregger (the director of both WEAPONS and BARBARIAN) is proving to be someone that can dial right into what I’m interested in regarding horror. Both WEAPONS and BARBARIAN are so smart (and begging for interesting analysis and excavation — if you know of any great such pieces please feel free to lob them my way in the comments) and quite simply I don’t think I’ve ever encountered such a fearless horror director before.
Cregger is completely unafraid to throw away tension (which most directors would kill to be able to even create!) and then he just… gets it back… WHENEVER HE WANTS TO. The audience in the palm of his hand. I find it wildly impressive. In addition to everything above, it has a phenomenal cast of actors just turning in terrific performance after terrific performance: Josh Brolin, Julia Garner, Benedict Wong, Amy Madigan, Austin Abrams, Alden Ehrenreich, and newcomer Cary Christopher.
I also somewhat randomly saw FREAKY TALES recently and Adam and I both really enjoyed it. Pedro Pascal remains the most roguishly charming man alive in WHATEVER he is cast in. Just… a gift from the gods that man, we do not deserve him. This also has Ben Mendelsohn doing a villain speech that absolutely floored me. I mean, Mendelsohn can make reading a grocery list compelling, so the writers didn’t HAVE to try so hard, but boy oh boy did they write some lines for Ben Mendelsohn that I wished I’d written. Some true all-timers. Anyway, this is a bit odd and it won’t be for everyone, but if you open your mind to it and just let it charm you, you’re probably gonna have a great time. I’m not sure if it counts as a horror movie — is it a horror movie if all the horrible Nazis die hard well-deserved deaths? — seems pretty feel good to me. *shrug*
If you need a laugh, I cannot recommend anything more highly than this video:
New Banner, Who Dis? Some of you who go all the way back to the beginning of this newsletter may remember the category “Three Things” which I tried as a way to talk about cool stuff I’m reading, watching, etc. And then I tried “What I’m Doing” which I feel is maybe Hodgepodge now? IDK! Anyway, I don’t know that either of those categories are “retired,” but we gotta go smaller. My workload is such that I’m easily overwhelmed and I seem to refuse to learn about biting off more than I can chew. So we’re taking it back to ONE.
ONE. GOOD. THING.
And sometimes maybe that’s enough?
I recently said I was going to be sharing some really great short animations I’ve been watching for both inspiration and also… I dunno… a reminder that the world is worth fighting for? That kind of thing. I’m going to keep doing that, and when I do, it will go here. Like this week’s piece below.
This one is weird and beautiful and definitely made me cry. Good luck!
New Banner, Who Dis…Deja Vu Version? Meredith has been doing so many incredible BLACK CLOAK illustrations — she started doing them for promotion of the second volume… but she just keeps doing them and I love them so much. I think I’ve collected all of them here for you guys in case you have missed them on social media. I’m planning to make some “mini prints” and promotional images from a few of them so if you have a favorite or two, shout ‘em out in the comments and maybe it’ll get made into a thing that you could maybe have in your hands.
Meredith deserves everything good.
My guy continues to take over the world in the weirdest of of ways.
Jeff Fan art (and Blade!) by NEO
Also, someone suggested adding a grill to the illustration above. Worth it.
I teased two images from a new Jeff digital thing I’m doing — a “JEFF WEEK” — that releases a short strip a day during a week in September. Gurihiru are doing the art for the first two “episodes” and I should also mention that… Gurihiru and I create a new character for this and… he’s preeeeeetty cute? Beware!
This first image is a crop, the second image is the full image. Both by Gurihiru:
And Marvel made a huge “Marvel Recap” for Jeff. Pretty damn surreal but fun. Thanks to Chuck Kallenbach for the hat tip!
All right, let’s get to the sneak peeks you’re all here for.
Fair warning, ABSOLUTE WONDER WOMAN has so many big spoilers for the next 4 issues, it remains pretty hard to share, but I’ll do my best. As compensation I’m going to show you some REALLY fun Birds stuff though… that will maybe get me in trouble… but since we already showed off the cover that debuts these looks, I’m calling it fair game!
From ABSOLUTE WONDER WOMAN #11 art by Hayden Sherman, colors by Jordie Bellaire (if there are any collectors out there — you’re gonna want this one I think as it debuts something sorta huge). Out next week:
From ABSOLUTE WONDER WOMAN #12 (art by Hayden Sherman). Out in September:
From ABSOLUTE WONDER WOMAN #13 (art by Matias Bergara). Out in October:
From JEFF THE LANDSHARK #3 (art by Tokitokoro, colors by Jim Campbell). Out next week:
From JEFF THE LANDSHARK #4 (art by Tokitokoro, colors by Jim Campbell). Out in September:
And one more tiny tease from JEFF WEEK out digitally in September. Image below by Gurihiru:
The Annie Wu main cover to BIRDS OF PREY #27 (below) — which teases some fun alternate looks for the Birds as they head into a kind of… virtual reality game situation… sorta. These looks debut in BIRDS OF PREY #25 (out next month with art by Cliff Richards and Sami Basri) and were designed by Sami Basri. They’ll feature off and on through the end of this arc (issue #28 - Dec):
The scene with them creating their avatars is very fun. I would have happily written five more pages of just that. The “game” they’re playing mixes genres — which is how you get a sort of archer type mixed in with a blade runner-y type, etc. But I think Sami did a great job of letting them all be their own things, while still letting them feel like the belong together. One weird family, doing what they do:
Some other panels from the issue — first two by Cliff, the last by Sami:
It’s going to be awhile before I can show anything beyond covers for BUFFY and ANGEL, but I’ll try to get permission to at least share some covers soon! I mentioned before that BUFFY #1 was probably the hardest script I’ve had to write in my career thus far — the combination of so many characters and making it both important to OG fans and welcoming to new readers is a really tough blade to walk. But I’m happy to report that since for the first arc the books are tied so tightly together, ANGEL #1 was much easier and uh… surprisingly emotional.
One of the cats is much more respectful of the Eisner than the other and all I can say is… that tracks.
All right. Thanks for reading. Be good to yourself and to each other. We need each other more than ever these days. <3
Kelly
First, congrats on the Eisner! It is richly deserved. In a line of masterpieces, AWW still managed to stand out as smart and compelling and moving. It makes me cry on the regular.
I cannot choose between the Black Cloak prints. I would buy any and all of them. They are all great, and make me want to do a reread.
I do have a question that you may be the only person who can answer. If Rogue can absorb Jeff, is Jeff people?!
Congratulations to you and the team on the Eisner, and very well deserved on the Ringo nomination as well! Thank you for the link to the Comics Philosophy deep-dive - I'm not familiar with all the terms in the piece, but Eric wrote it very well for a newcomer. I learned a lot and captures so much about what I love about your AWW writing.
I'm very squeamish with horror, but hearing your thoughts and all the great things online & from friends about Weapons is making me excited to watch it (at home though haha). Also, all of Meredith's work is just amazing!
Thanks for all the updates, very much looking forward to all the new comics this week and upcoming months!