Kitchen's Closed
Daredevil is dead, long live Daredevil
Today my final issue of Daredevil is out.
I genuinely don’t think there’s a better gig in comics. Daredevil as a title is incredibly special, where creators get a level of freedom that is rare in corporate comics. If I was a smarter man I’d stay on the title until they dragged me away kicking and screaming, but the story I wanted to tell is over, and it’s a good thing to have proper endings.
All in all, over a variety of titles and a relaunch, I got to write sixty-one issues of The Man (and Woman) Without Fear. I’m incredibly proud of this run and the people I got to work with, all of whom stepped up and delivered career-high work. Below are all their names, from the origins of my time on the book, to the end:
CB Cebulski
Devin Lewis
Nick Lowe
Lauren Amaro
Danny Khazem
Tom Groneman
Sunny Gho
Clayton Cowles
Julian Tedesco
Lalit Kumar
Jay Leisten
Javier Tartaglia
Jorge Fornes
Jordie Bellaire
Nolan Woodard
Francesco Mobili
Rachelle Rosenberg
Mattia Iacono
Erick Arciniega
Victor Olazaba
Marcio Menyz
Matt Wilson
Mike Hawthorne
JP Mayer
Adriano Di Benedetto
Stefano Landini
Manuel Garcia
Cam Smith
Scott Hanna
Victor Nava
Bryan Valenza
Chris Mooneyham
Lebeau Underwood
Rafael De Latorre
Federico Blee
Ann Nocenti
Phil Noto
Alex Maleev
Chris Samnee
Klaus Janson
Paul Azaceta
John Romita Jr.
Elisabetta D’Amico
And, singled out here, Marco Checchetto.
Below are the first sketches from Marco, sent on Sept. 19, 2018. He nailed it out of the gate and we’ve been putting Matt Murdock through hell ever since.
He’s the kind of talent that comes along once in a generation. An amazing storyteller with a beautiful eye. The fact that Marco stuck with me for so long—despite his star rising to the point where he could have gone anywhere he wanted—well, it makes me forever grateful to him and his dedication to our story.
This book belongs to everyone listed above, but when people talk about the run as a whole, it’ll rightfully be Chip Zdarsky & Marco Checchetto’s Daredevil.
Thanks for everything, Marco.
Avoid spoilers until you read it. It’s taken a lot of coordination and begging to make sure the details of this issue are under wraps. But today it’s everyone for themselves, spoilers in the water.
After you’ve read it, head over to manwithoutfear.com to read my exit interview. I talk a lot about our ending and the journey to get there.
And I’ll be doing a Reddit AMA on Friday over at the Daredevil subreddit
Okay, so, believe it or not, this is actually a TRIPLE CHIPPLE week! Ever since I cut back on my projects it’s become rarer and rarer for me to have three things out in a week, but here we go!
THE BAT-MAN OF GOTHAM, the second volume in my Batman run, is out in hardcover this week! Featuring wildly detailed art from Mike Hawthorne and some extremely special pages from Jorge Jimenez, this is, IMHO, a very solid collection!
You should read it! Batman does some cool things in it!
And if you want Catwoman doing cool things…
This week DC has put out all the backup stories from my first three Batman issues into one convenient package in anticipation of Tom King and Rafael De Letorre’s new PENGUIN series! This will catch you up for that in case you, for SOME REASON, haven’t been reading Batman but are way into Penguin instead?!
(I’ve seen some pages from PENGUIN and boy oh boy it’s going to be great. Rafael has somehow become even better since Daredevil!)
ugh can’t believe I sullied my final-issue-of-Daredevil post with all this Batman
NO TIME FOR RESTING ON YOUR LAURELS
must always be promoting
MUST ALWAYS BE PROMOTING
Bye!!!
UPCOMING BOOKS
NEWBURN #10 — Aug 23
GOTHAM WAR #1 — Aug 29
KAPTARA: UNIVERSAL TRUTHS #1 — Aug 30
BATMAN #137 — Sep 5
CATWOMAN #57 — Sep 19
NEWBURN #11 — Sep 27
KAPTARA: UNIVERSAL TRUTHS #2 — Sep 27
NEWBURN #12 — Oct 18
KAPTARA: UNIVERSAL TRUTHS #3 — Oct 25
DAREDEVIL & ELEKTRA VOL. 3 — Nov 15
KAPTARA: UNIVERSAL TRUTHS #4 — Nov 22
SPIDER-MAN BY CHIP ZDARSKY OMNIBUS — Dec 13
not sure how i'm supposed to go on though without any more of marco's equally sexy & depressing daredevil art to look forward to ... tough times
I remember being so excited when Marvel announced that you were taking over *my* superhero. I love Matt. And I knew it was going to be an amazing run when I saw the Know Fear arc logo you designed (and I'm still getting that as a tattoo.)
But for me, the #1 moment of this entire run was when Matt, as a PAROLE OFFICER, told his client "we both know the system is broken, let's see if we can get you out of it." It felt like you were writing that scene for me (a probation officer.) I called and texted the old All Comics considered crew and was like LOOK WHAT CHIP AND CREW DID. It just landed so squarely for me.
Thank you for making my superhero say things that I've said to my own probation clients.