Comics, Cats, & Cocktails, October 2024

Witches, Frankenstein, and Bea Wolf!

Oct 17, 2024

Hello Friends,

Comics happens slowly and then all at once, I find, which is why this month I find myself busier than I’ve ever been, both promoting an active Kickstarter campaign and shipping over four hundred packages full of comics. All the while, I’ve been traveling to Baltimore and St. Louis for comic conventions and uh…yeah, I’m exhausted. But, the show much go on!

What We’re Working On!

Frankenstein the Unconquered is back for its series finale and close to 60% funded. Dalton and I are so excited that we get to finish this part of the story with a bang and we’re asking everyone to get involved to make sure it happens! This book is a beast of a horror action series with art pieces from some of the most incredible indie artists working today, from Fell Hound to Flops to, most recently, Luana Vecchio! This was the series that put us on the map, and we’d love to give it the send off it deserves.

Preorder Frankenstein the Unconquered

Smut #1 was a huge hit and, whether it’s a good decision or not, we’re going to be moving forward with issue #2 before the year ends! We’ve got some incredible artists on board for variant covers, but for now, I just want to show you some of what Bianca has been plugging away at. I truly love the expressiveness of her character work and seeing her turn my dumb ideas into exciting moments is just so gratifying!

Finally, I’m working on a new series right now with Maru Davalos and Holly Aitchison called By Appointment Only, a comic about urban witches, toxic relationships, and the love between childhood friends. Recently we made some character designs in anticipation of starting on the comic and I’m kind of completely obsessed!

Maru is seriously fantastic and an absolute joy to work with! Check out her work and give her a follow on twitter, instagram, or wherever you do your thing!

What We’re Reading!

(Wells’s Pick) Superheroes aren’t really my thing, that’s more Dalton’s territory, but I’ve noticed DC doing something really smart with their back catalogue (reprinting them in a more affordable and portable format) and it inspired me to re-read All Star Superman.

I’m not going to beat around the bush or pretend I have some kind of hot take on this, All Star Superman was then and remains the best Superman story every told. Like, it’s not close. If I felt more pretentious, I might try to explain why in a really comprehensive way, but I’m either too old or too tired to really want to do a deep dive on something that’s just self evidently true.

Like, I could talk about how Grant Morrison understands the true core of Superman, that it’s not a story about how cool it is that Superman can do anything, but a story about what a good man does with unlimited power, the challenges of taking that responsibility seriously, and the challenges of being surrounded by people who envy that power and want to take it or have similar power but use it immaturely.

I could break down how Frank Quitely’s uniquely detailed art focuses on the physicality of Clark Kent to make him far too big for his environment but also believably separate from Superman just using his poor posture and style, and it’s so convincing that when he tells people that he’s Superman, they don’t believe him.

But like, why would I? It’s almost 20 years old and you can get the whole thing for $10 at literally any comic shop, book store, or gas station. And why wouldn’t you? It’s beautiful, it’s awesome in the truest sense of the word, and it’s a shockingly touching story that legitimately brought tears to my eyes, even though I’ve already read the thing twice! If you haven’t read All Star Superman, just…what are you doing?

(Dalton’s Pick) Surprise: I'm a teacher now. An honest-to-god educator responsible for the minds of almost 80 seniors in an English class most of them only really need to take to graduate high school. Which is to say that none of them are particularly salivating over our discussions of the Olde English masterpiece that is Beowulf. So, being the hip, young teacher that is totally relatable to the youth of America, I thought it'd be a good idea to introduce a less-impenetrable version of the story to help ease them into things. Thus, Bea Wolf.

Written by Zach Weinersmith of Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal fame and illustrated by master draftsman Boulet, Bea Wolf is a graphic novel/storybook retelling of the first third of the epic poem. Rather than muscular Anglo-Saxons trying to desperately hold onto their way of life from the impending death-march of the new world that is Grendel, Bea Wolf centers around a motley crew of eight-year-olds defending their treehouse from the encroaching destruction of Grendel, a middle-aged man who wants nothing more than to turn all children into boring adults who think only of IRA's, cable news, and coffee.

While all of the flipped set-dressing is enough to whet the appetite, where Bea Wolf really shines is in its dedication to the art of the epic poem itself. Weinersmith has taken legendary pains to ensure that Bea Wolf follows the same cadence and style of the poetry itself, with caesura's, alliterations, and a whole heaping pile of kennings to back him up. It's a delight to read about a six-year-old warrior beating the snot out of sea serpents after a game of dodgeball to the styling of Anglo-Saxon oral poetry.

But none of this would mean anything if not for the intricate and expressive art of Boulet, whose lines evoke an almost ancient, carved style you could find on old tablets unearthed from old tombs. The energy on each page is infectious and though black-and-white can be a turn off for some, color would honestly be a distraction from the masterclass linework going on within each image.

So, teacher or no, Bea Wolf is a fantastic retelling of one of the most important works of fiction the English language has been able to produce. Fun, frantic, and full of fart jokes, it's a book that demands your attention and admiration.

Adventures of Cat Ownership!

I don’t know if I’ve recently talked about my most beautiful and most stupidest orange boy Cornifer, but I thought I should update you because he’s been hilariously consistent in his weird behaviors. For example, apparently he’s decided that he’s the man of the house because he spends every morning hanging around my workbench and tools (don’t worry, none of it is dangerous).