In Your Skin: Trade Release & More

Some fun pieces of news today. Let’s get right to it.

First, the collected edition of In Your Skin is now available in comic book stores – today, 28th October. As mentioned before, it’ll be released in regular bookstores like Waterstones, Barnes & Noble etc. in another month – on 24th November – but you can get it right now from your local comic book store, which I highly encourage you to support.

Some inside baseball – the direct market, and with it the local comic book store, not only enables the comics industry as it stands today (and therefore my lettering career as a whole), the serialisation possible in the direct market also means a whole tranche of early sales, as well as multiple cycles of promotion, which is why we like to make the book available in the direct market earlier than in the book market. It’s worth it to buy from comics stores when you can, not only to encourage their continued existence but also to encourage them to order future books by particular creators (like, say, yours truly).

I can’t say this enough – I’m incredibly proud of what this entire creative team has accomplished, and I couldn’t be more thankful to James and Tiny Onion for enabling me to make this weird, fucked-up book.

Anyway, here’s our gorgeous cover one more time:

There were other announcements in the last few days related to my work as a letterer, so let’s have them one-by-one.

Image and Tiny Onion announced the new original graphic novel Humbucker, written by my favourite editor and yours, Eric Harburn, drawn by the marvellous Simon Gane, with colours by Jordie Bellaire and letters by me!

Here’s the official synopsis:

Humbucker follows Denny, the owner of a new indie record label who is drowning in debt trying to make his music dreams come true. He tracks down the influential underground musician Connor Markes, who fell into obscurity decades ago, and bets all he has left on finally recording the musician’s mythical debut album. He sets up a session at a fabled NYC studio where everyone from Jimi Hendrix to Blondie to The Rolling Stones made hits, but tensions rise quickly as Connor struggles to perform. And when Denny’s loan shark crashes the session, all bets are off, and it’s sink or swim for the two troubled leads.

Here’s Eric on the book:

As an editor, I’ve been lucky enough to work with the best creators in our medium, on incredible projects that have always scratched the creative itch, but during a recent visit to the Lower East Side of Manhattan, an idea struck me like a power chord: a pressure cooker of crime and creative ambition, Martin McDonagh meets Elmore Leonard, all set within a legendary recording studio. This was a story I had to tell, and I’m still pinching myself that Simon, Jordie, and Aditya agreed to join the band. Humbucker is a debut album twenty years in the making, and I sincerely hope you’ll give us a spin.

I was, as expected, thrilled to be asked to letter it, particularly since I’d been raring to letter Simon’s art ever since I saw it in Sunburn and Paris. Eric is as much of a pleasure to work with as a writer as he is as an editor, and this was a delightful experience.

You can read the first 10 or so pages at the link.

Goats Flying Press, the esteemed publisher of The Fables of Erlking Wood, has a new Kickstarter for Sir Reginald and the Clockwork Heart, a new anthology by Joe Atalla and others.

This one has a very interesting beginning. The first comic in the anthology, drawn by Juni and lettered by me, was made as an exclusive reward tier for the Erlking Kickstarter, and Sebastian loved it so much that he decided to put together this anthology, featuring art by Atalla himself, Jesse Lonergan, Dimitrios Pantazis, and Armand Bodnar. The rest of the stories are lettered by Jeff Powell, who also designed the book.

Here’s the synopsis:

From scorching deserts to fathomless oceans, from sacred temples to ancient graveyards, Sir Reginald and the Clockwork Heart follows the eccentric adventurer Sir Reginald, intrepid gentleman (and skeleton) adventurer and his loyal ghostly butler Mr. Spittle, on a series of extraordinary expeditions. On each adventure, Reginald finds a mysterious artifact to add to his growing collection. However, there is more to these missions than meets the eye … What is Sir Reginald really scouring the globe for? And what is the secret project he keeps hidden even from his close confidant Mr. Spittle in his secret workshop?

The Beat has an exclusive preview, and Daily Dead has an interview with Joe. Once again, here’s the link to the campaign.

Finally, in some not-quite-comics news, Ram V has launched a new YouTube channel – Mirror Maker Studios – timed with the French release of Deicidium Volume 1, which happens to be today.

Mirror Maker is a creative studio/ideas incubator for projects helmed by Ram V, focused on bringing to life stories and narrative entertainment with artistic ambition and inventiveness, always seeking to push boundaries across genre, publishing and media. The Mirror Maker YouTube channel will provide a window into the creative process, following Ram V and his collaborators across projects, giving viewers a glimpse into the creativity, craft and talent involved in making art. Episodes will feature creator talks and process videos on a variety of subjects with creators across comics, writing, animation and games. In 2027, the channel will begin publishing episodic narrative fiction.

The first video is already on the channel, with the team involved in Deicidium talking about the process.

This, if you’ve been keeping track, is why Anand and I went to London late February this year. Of course, we were supposed to be there just for the shoot, and a pesky war ended up extending our time there, but that’s another story.

This was incredibly fun to do, and I’m glad to see it came out looking so good.

Stay tuned for more!