Slaps 'n' Queens
Plus! A new STILLWATER book!
First, here’s a tweet you can make, free of charge, free of credit. YOU’RE WELCOME
More like Spider-Man: No Way I’m Leaving Home For This
I’ll watch it one day. I’m sure it’s very good.
Okay! Onto the NEWSLETTER!
DC announced the new series WORLD’S FINEST, which promises to be AMAZING (Waid! Mora! Bonvillain!), and they asked me to do two very special covers for it:
Which, obviously references the classic meme:
People seem to like them, but I can’t even really take credit for it! It was the wonderful DC editor Paul Kaminski who approached me with the idea. All I had to do was draw it! I keep telling people I’m not funny anymore! I’m fuckin’ dark and gritty!!!
SO DARK SO GRITTY
Speaking of which! My dark and gritty Skybound series has a special anthology issue coming out!
We’ve rounded up some amazing talent to tell the UNTOLD STORIES of Stillwater, so they can be then be referred to as TOLD STORIES of Stillwater! Ramon and I are in it as well and are incredibly excited to give you creepy and sad tales around an eternal campfire! Go check out the announcement!
Also, this week, shout out to the Queen herself, Anne Rice, who passed away (or DID she).
She was a wild figure who threatened fanfic authors, but damn if her books didn’t define my late teen years. Just imagine a seventeen-year-old Chip Zdarsky in his goth trench coat, ankh necklace and hockey hair, giving his English class oral report on The Vampire Chronicles. Did my classmates love and cherish me for my take on these modern homoerotic vampire stories? No, they did not.
Weirdly, I only got into Anne Rice novels because of those TIME-style magazines Marvel were putting out in the late 80s/early 90s. I was a pretty big Gambit fan (please love and cherish me) and this bit was in there under the Fashion section, via Janet Van Dyne:
“Who the fuck is the Vampire L’Estat” I muttered, the words tumbling past my horrid teenstache. Then I saw this in my local comic shop:
I was hooked. I immediately took Interview with the Vampire and Vampire Lestat out from the library, and was on the hold list for Queen of the Damned, which was only out in hardcover at the time. That was the longest wait of my life.
I don’t think there’s anything more magical than those novels you find as a teenager that keep you riveted, that introduce you to a weird eroticism that imprints on you forever.
Thanks Ms. Rice, you wonderful weirdo.
Now, for my paying subscribers, new KAPTARA pages!