Hey.
So um. It’s been a minute. There’s no exciting explanation — it’s like it is for most of us I suspect — a relentlessly mundane cocktail of work schedule, injury/illness, and of course the overwhelming sadness/fear/depression/frustration of the current state of my country.
But it’s not cool to just disappear on you guys, and I apologize. I did have a work situation where my pages I needed to complete in June didn’t just double but tripled and I should have been prepared for it, but I had already been running behind and so the problem sort of snowballed and I had to dig hard to get out. I’m still not out quite frankly, but there’s sunlight peeking through finally!
So first things first let’s get to the overdue housekeeping stuff…
ALL ORDERS PLACED BEFORE JULY 15th HAVE BEEN SHIPPED. It’s a miracle!
I am so sorry for the delay — I had come up with a much better system that was really working for me but the chaos of my increased writing schedule this spring just absolutely torpedoed that system. I am back to the schedule now I hope — and all of you that waited such a long time should have found some fun extras in your orders. I hope you enjoy them!
I have also updated the store so we are current on ABSOLUTE WONDER WOMAN and BIRDS OF PREY. I also have a bunch of new and re-stocked JEFF stuff in the shop, so if you’ve been looking for or waiting on that, head on over.
And we’re long overdue for new Webstore discount codes. But before I hand them out… I should note that since I don’t have reliable “exclusive content” to offer right now I have paused paid subscriptions. As a result I can’t put in a paywall to give the paid subscribers a separate code. So everyone’s getting a pretty good one this month. Enjoy!
Enter ITSTOOHOT at check out for 15% off your order. One code per person please.
Heads up that I will have maybe 3 (?) of these gorgeous foil Jae Lee SDCC exclusives of ABSOLUTE WONDER WOMAN #1 for sale at the end of the month. They are… very cool and will probably be very expensive, but if you wanted to save your new store code for it, it might help? You can read more about those special editions (and more) here.
Big week this week!
ABSOLUTE WONDER WOMAN #10 — a favorite issue of mine. I don’t know that I’d rank it with #1, #3, #5, and #7 (those are my favorites of our run. shhhh) but it’s close! I’m going to try to load a few images for AWW in the sneak peeks below — but the next few issues are stacked full with spoilers so it’s tough! Main cover below by Hayden Sherman and colors by Jordie Bellaire.
Here’s the preview from Comic Book Club Live
JEFF THE LANDSHARK #2 is out this week also! Because I got swallowed in June I was barely able to promote this and still we made the Top 20 in sales… not bad for my boi! Thank you for the support. This second issue is really fun — and ends with a cameo of a couple of my favorite mutants. Can they steal the show from Jeff? Nah, but it’s fun to watch them try. Tokitokoro is doing a really lovely job on this series and it’s turning out exactly as a Jeff book should… cute but with plenty of chaos. And this issue actually has a huge reveal of Jeff’s lore — so don’t miss out! Main cover below by Gurihiru.
Also this week, is SDCC and Friday, the Eisner Awards… always a wild week in comics, whether you’re attending or not. I hope any of you attending have a terrific time, and that the rest of us don’t suffer from too much FOMO.
Since I’ve been away for a bit, things have piled up, so let’s do a HODGEPODGE! category before we get to sneak peeks…
This documentary EVERYONE IS LYING TO YOU FOR MONEY about crypto by Ben McKenzie (who also co-wrote the book - EASY MONEY) about this same subject) looks terrific and I hope it finds a home. I will be first in line (on the couch, whatever!)
DC Solicits for October 2025 released and while I’d love to give them more time/attention… I have neither, so I’ll just link here, a lot of very cool stuff coming.
Actually, I DO have to spotlight this cover, a variant from Gerard Patel for the Villains Special. And um… I think you can see why people are excited. lol
I’m also pretty freaking excited about this Absolute Catwoman design by Nick Dragotta. I mean… YESSSSSSS
At breakfast the other morning Adam was watching this fantastic YouTube video from Drewscape. And quite simply, if you want to learn how to make comics… watch this guy’s videos. This video in particular reminds me of the Scott McCloud book UNDERSTANDING COMICS, which I still say is the best book around about how to make (and understand) comics. Highly recommended:
I’ve started watching short animations for both inspiration and… I dunno… emotional grounding? To take a beat and appreciate something powerful another human being has made. Feels pretty important right now and purely selfishly, has filled me with purpose. I’ll be sharing one short I loved in each of my newsletters for a while. Here’s the first one I want to share:
I talked with Andrew and James at Geekhard a couple weeks ago.
I did a very fun Paneloids Interview:
And I did The Social Hour with Deece Casillas
Margaret Stohl, Judith Stephens, and Jeanine Schaefer have a very cool book coming out that features interviews with a lot of incredible people (including a short one with me). Books, unlike comics, have a very slow publication schedule — so this interview was a long time ago — and I feel like I have been radicalized quite a bit since then — but maybe that’s good to see? That change is real and always happening? Anyway, it’s a terrific bit of work here and all these ladies deserve big congratulations. I believe there are signings at SDCC, so if you’re there, look out for them!
It’s rare I do well on Vulture’s Cinematrix without cheating, but this was maybe the best I’ve ever done and I need to share the proof:
Nobody is busier than my boi Jeff. My being absent here in June, I missed highlighting a bunch of it, so I’m going to try to cover all the major bits here now. Strap in!
Something huge that got revealed since our last newsletter is that Gurihiru and I are doing a Jeff-Krypto short in the DC/Marvel crossover. It’s just a short so I don’t want you guys getting TOO excited, but I think, it’s hard not to be in a bit of awe that Jeff got chosen for this — Krypto is not only like 70 years old, but is arguably the star of a current little movie called SUPERMAN headed toward a billion dollar box office.
Jeff is… 7.
And I made him up in my dumb living room, while using a TV tray for a desk. Life is surreal, man.
This story will be inside the Marvel/DC crossover DEADPOOL/BATMAN #1. It releases September 17th and you can read more about it here. And here’s the variant cover by Gurihiru.
There are, as you can imagine, a ton of variant covers for this book, but if you can’t get your hands on our Jeff/Krypto variant, I highly recommend this gorgeous Peach Momoko Cass/Elektra variant:
Second up! You saw above me talking about JEFF THE LANDSHARK #2 — out this week — and just for clarity — because I think there has been very little as Marvel rushes to push out Jeff content in new formats — THIS IS AN ALL-NEW SERIES.
This is a 5-issue mini-series of ALL NEW CONTENT by me and artist Tokitokoro and colorist Jim Campbell. The #1 covers by Gurihiru and Tokitokoro look like this in case you’re hunting for them after the fact:
And here are some of the other variants. Marvel is terrible about comps unfortunately, so I had to stock the shop myself, but there should be copies of most of the variants there now if you’re looking for one:
Jeff also debuted in his first ever cartoon last month — as a special guest on an episode of Spidey & His Amazing Friends (available both on YouTube and Disney+) — you can watch the full episode where he debuts below (fair warning, this is a show geared toward pre-schoolers, so go in with the right expectations):
But perhaps even cooler than him showing up in the cartoon is that part of him debuting there is that they wrote him his own Jeff The Land Shark theme song! Sung by Patrick Stump from freaking Fall Out Boy. Just… absolutely wild:
It seems like that would be the coolest thing ever possible… but I think a fan of Jeff doing this with his incredible talent (and a whole lot of friends) actually somehow tops it:
This teaser suggests Jeff is FINALLY getting a Funko — seems Rivals connected so probably more that design?
Jeff apparently has his own very fancy trading card. Hat tip to Christopher Cantwell for the peek!
Jeff ALSO has a Magic the Gathering card (you can read more here)! I was alerted to it by a fan and reader of the stack… called Jeff. ;D
A peek at an adorable Gurihiru JEFF THE LAND SHARK #4 cover out in September. Jeff’s love of cosplay continues. lol:
We’re also doing another JEFF WEEK series of digital shorts coming up (last year I was not involved in these but they were collected in the IT’S JEFF: JEFF WEEK volume). This set of 5 strips includes the debut of a new friend for Jeff created by Gurihiru and myself … and, well, I saw the Guihiru designs this week and… you guys are not ready for the cuteness. I’m not sure the dates on that, but I’ll let you know when I do.
And here’s even more Jeff fan art… I absolutely adore this King Shark/Jeff fan art — unfortunately I couldn’t find a name for the artist beyond this twitter handle - potatoman at the hell place:
And this one by Han, also at the hell place. Please leave the hell place, guys!
Too cute to exist:
BIRDS OF PREY. Issue #24 is one of my favorite issues of BIRDS OF PREY. Maybe my favorite since Sophie Campbell did that cartoon issue for issue 14? A lot of my love for it is just in Sami Basri and Adriano Lucas’ work though. Sami really pulled out all the stops with a lot of characters and a massive fight scene and it’s gorgeous and very cool. Check out these sneak peeks for the issue — out August 6th!
I also posted this uncolored shot from the issue on Bluesky, but figured I should share it here as well. I love this one so much. Sami’s Dinah just can’t be beat:
ABSOLUTE WONDER WOMAN. As I said above, Diana’s book is really hard to share sneak peeks of right now as it’s just LOADED with reveals through the end of this arc. But here are a couple peeks at ABSOLUTE WONDER WOMAN #10 out next week, ABSOLUTE WONDER WOMAN #11 (August), both by Hayden Sherman and Jordie Bellaire. And two tiny peeks at ABSOLUTE WONDER WOMAN #13, with guest art by the incredible Matias Bergara (out in September):
I don’t think JEFF #3 has the same level of lore reveal as #2, but it DOES have Rogue kissing Jeff so they can communicate and I think, job well done, Kelly, right? ;D
Weirdos that own my soul.
Hang in there everyone. Ask somebody for a hug if you need it, they probably need it too. <3
Kelly
Jeff/Krypto is what the world needs right now (also, standing up to fascism). Can't wait!
🫂 what did you think of Superman, Kelly?