Tales of Syzpense #60

Unwrapping Dread the Halls, PANICK! in the streets, the deluxe Ripple Effects, now entering Megalopolis, a Spinner Rack by Campfire Light, and alas, poor ROM...

Heart to Hart

I’ve known comic writer/designer Jordan Hart for a handful of years now—first as a fellow fan of metal, and of picking through musty old convention longboxes (and the inspiration behind many of the Spinner Rack themes discussed in this newsletter, but also as a smart, conscientious writer, too. Most recently as one half of the writing team on the recent Syzygy release, The Cabinet. (Which is to say, Jordan did more than co-write the comic; he also lettered, art-directed, and designed the series and all its plethora of great extras, too. And, you know, he bears more than a passing resemblance to The Cabinet’s Trent, too.) In fact, the collected edition for The Cabinet was recently approved to print and is headed to stores in late October. It sports a great cover by Marguerite Sauvage, and is also worth a look for the love and care that Jordan, co-writer David Ebeltoft, and artist/colorist Chiara Raimondi put into the entire series.

But I’m not actually here to talk about The Cabinet.

I first got to know Jordan’s comic-writing prowess through his Fanbase Press release, Ripple Effects. I liked the book so much that I blurbed the original trade paperback release. But the book—which was nominated for an Eisner Award and won the 2023 Dwayne McDuffie Award for Diversity in Comics—is now getting a deluxe reissue through Fanbase Press’s first-ever crowdfunding campaign. Here’s a video announcing the campaign, and you can check out the campaign itself here.

Like I say, it’s a great comic, with important themes underneath the comic-book action, and the deluxe edition reflects the real-world subject matter in smart ways, the most charming of which is this:

• the deluxe edition features an art gallery which pairs youth artists who have invisible disabilities and illnesses ranging from deafness to Autism Spectrum Disorder with superstar artists including Liana Kangas (Mariko, Between Worlds), Ray-Anthony Height (Midnight Tiger), Don Aguillo (Spawn), Drew Zucker (Canto), Vittorio Astone (Canto), and Manuel Martinez (DC, Marvel).  

---

Dread Tidings

But wait, there’s more Hart-ness to come this week. As Image Comics is announcing today when their full solicits are released, Jordan Hart and I, along with a broad array of artists I’ll showcase below, are also launching a new holiday-themed horror anthology one-shot called Dread the Halls through Syzygy.

During one of our many (but never enough) conversations about old comics, Jordan and I talked about how much we liked this Marvel Comics release from the early ‘80s, the final issue of Bizarre Adventures magazine. This one was itself a holiday-horror anthology issue, and it clearly left a mark on both of us since we’re doing our best in Dread the Halls to emulate its tone, that of a black-humor look at the holidays.

Coming December 4 and officially available for preorder now, is Dread the Halls, a 48-page one-shot anthology we described like this:

“Be of Good Fear!” Long before Americans celebrated horror on Halloween, the Victorians did it gathered around a fireplace on Christmas Eve. Dread the Halls honors this macabre tradition by wishing you and yours “Happy Holidays” with stories of ghosts, ghastly abominations, and vile creatures. Covers by red-hot artist Maria the Wolf, Marguerite Sauvage, wrapping-paper variant by Jordan Hart, and a holiday homage cover by Lee Ferguson, will allow you to  spread the dread this season in a horrifically festive style! 

The full list of creators and the cover breakdown is:

WRITER: JORDAN HART, CHRIS RYALL

ARTISTS: LEE FERGUSON, FABIO VERAS, JIMMY KUCAJ, WATER PAX

COVER A: MARIA THE WOLF

COVER B: MARGUERITE SAUVAGE

COVER C: JORDAN HART

COVER D (INCENTIVE): LEE FERGUSON HOMAGE COVER

COVER E (INCENTIVE): MARIA THE WOLF ALT-COLOR COVER

But really, rather than just listing the names, it’s always much better to show off everyone’s amazing work. So here are the covers for the issue:

And while the initial preview pages featured in the Lunar catalog don’t showcase every story, the pages do help provide a nice look at the kinds of stories featured in the issue. Jordan, being from Wisconsin, is, I think, contractually obligated by the state that holds its annual “Milwaukee Krampusnacht” to tell at least one Krampus story in anything Christmas-related that he writes. And he acquits himself nicely in that regard in this comic.

Pages from the story Lee Ferguson and I are doing will be shared soon enough, but Lee’s EC homage cover provides a nice look at the approach he’ll be taking on our little tale. Which was, as mentioned, inspired by a specific story from Bizarre Adventures #34, one that that introduced Santa’s opposite number, the Anti-Claus. Our story is called “Gone Fishing” and it details a couple kids determined to catch Santa Claus on Christmas Eve night. And catch someone they do… but who’s to say that Santa Claus is the only figure slinking down chimneys on December 24…?

More on this comic as we move closer to the holidays but you can let your local retailer know any time that you’d like a copy; they’d be happy to order one or more for you.

---

PANICK On the Streets Of… Everywhere

On a Comic-Con panel this past July, a new horror-focused comic venture called PANICK! announced its arrival on the scene. I’ve been advising the team—professional and experienced comic folk, all (or, as editor Kris Simon referred to them and other recent comic start-ups in her engaging, often confessional Substack newsletter, “A handful of males standing in a group, promising a new and unique take with their line of comics.”). and last week, PANICK! launched its first salvo, the PANICK! Primer Pack Zoop campaign that will showcase the first three series under the PANICK! banner. All three covers for the Zoop release feature these gorgeous connected covers by artist Shane Pierce.

It’s been great working with the PANICK! team and the creators to help get everything to this point. And the campaign launching on Friday the 13th and running into the Halloween season is nicely timed, too. So if a new approach to horror comics is your thing, check out the Zoop campaign, won’t you?

---

Now Entering Megalopolis

Artist Jacob Phillips recently finished all 148 pages of pencils, inks, greywashes, and colors on the massive Megalopolis graphic novel he and I are doing in collaboration with Francis Ford Coppola. Which in effect means that Francis and I served as city planners and Jacob the sole builder of the city. It’s an amazing achievement, and I can’t wait to get the book into everyone’s hands. It’s very much its own thing, since Francis was so gracious to allow us to take his story and make it its own thing — I’ll say more about the book as its release plans get tightened up, but for now, just know that writing with Francis Coppola, revising, editing, trimming, and adding to what he put on on paper, was a hugely daunting and even more massively rewarding prospect. But any of that pales in comparison to what Jacob accomplished. We’re mostly keeping the book under wraps until the film opens but, you know, I’d be remiss if I didn’t show a little bit of what he put on paper. So here’re a couple pages of the coming book:

The pages were lettered by Jared Fletcher, so the artistic pedigree is there across the board. About the book, Francis recently said:

“I was pleased to put the idea of a Graphic Novel in the competent hands of Chris Ryall with the idea that although it was inspired by my coming film MEGALOPOLIS it didn’t necessarily have to be limited by it. I hoped the graphic novel would take its own flight, with its own artists and writers so that it would be a sibling of the film, rather than just an echo, and that’s what I feel Chris and his team have accomplished.

It confirms my feeling that ART is never bondage, but rather always parallel expression, and part of the bounty we can make available to our patrons, audiences and readers.”

Making comics is hard, and that’s certainly been the case the past few years more than at any other point in my two decades in comics, but projects like this make it all continue to feel like a worthwhile pursuit.

---

Spinner Rack Campfire Tales

Much in the same way that Madison, WI celebrates the Krampus every December, late summer and early fall in California becomes, well, if not a celebration of fire, at least a time where every week seems to bring with it word of yet another wildfire. And it’s no joke — the San Diego neighborhood where I live was razed by a fire two decades ago, to the point where most insurance companies just laugh at you if you ask about fire insurance. Much more recently, some comic-industry friends were told to prepare to abandon their homes if the wind shifted nearby fires at all.

All of which is what initially got me thinking about comic covers featuring fire — yet it somehow seemed to be tempting fate to too great a degree to just showcase those kinds of covers. I’m in a house filled with paper: comics, books, original art; so I’m pretty much in constant fear of the day those dry winds turn any flames in our direction.

So instead, I set out to build a full spinner rack theme of more genteel flame: covers featuring campfires. Which could pretty much be filled with just Archie covers and old romance comics alone, but I tried casting a wider net here:

Still, campfire covers, while often pretty fun, aren’t always satisfying enough and so I also built a theme with fires a bit larger in size…

My criteria for these themes remains to try to never just take the easy way out: Human Torch covers, say, or Ghost Rider images. And I know I featured two Marvel Team-Up covers above but I held myself to a strict “no more than one Rex the Wonder Dog forest fire cover” limit, despite there being multiple covers that would’ve worked.

---

“Alas, Poor Spaceknight”

I’d never met editor/artist/writer Al Milgrom before but I’ve been familiar with him and his work for pretty much my entire life. We’ve chatted on e-mail over the years but Al’s appearance at SDCC this past summer was the first time we’ve ever met in person. And Al was as great as I would’ve hoped and as I’d always heard—we had a great time laughing about various industry-related goings-on.

But it turned out that I also happened to have a copy of the recent blank sketch cover re-issue of ROM, Spaceknight #1 (I recommend everyone travel with one in their bag at all times, just in case you run into someone like Al). So I asked Al if he’d be open to a commission, and told him what I had in mind. Which was this:

Al used to edit and provide many covers for ROM. But he was also the artist on the kinda ridiculous Secret Wars II series—the one that featured the Beyonder with his Jheri-curl hairstyle and his white jumpsuit; you know, the series that provided pages to Spider-Man teaching the Beyonder how to use the bathroom.

And so, the cover thought I asked Al to indulge me on was te Beyonder in all his mid-80s glory, holding Rom’s helmet in a kind of “alas, poor Yorikck” sort of pose. Al, to his now-questionable credit, said yes. And the cover, perfectly executed arrived this week:

Coincidentally, also this week, Hasbro showed off some of their coming Marvel figures… which includes both the Secret Wars II Beyonder and Rom. So soon enough, everyone will be able to re-enact this same cover scene with action figures…

The Beyonder and Rom (not final colors, obvs) figures, coming soonish

It’s nice when you can finally get a proper chance to talk in person with people you only know either through their work or through online chats. Another such cat I’ve still yet to meet, and need to rectify this soon, is new subscriber Gerry Conway (and thank you, Gerry!). Which feels especially wrong since Gerry is a fellow Dodgers fan and we’ve chatted in the distant past about catching a game at some point. Anyway, meet your heroes, kids — it’s a nice feeling when you can not only talk about the things they’ve created that resonate but also just being able to talk as peers about such inane things as the Secret Wars II Beyonder…

---

From the Dollar Bin

I did a podcast with the Dollar Bin Bandits team a little whole back and the whole thing is now live below for those who want to listen to people talk about comics old and new.

Or if you prefer to just listen and not look, here’s a link to the audio podcast, too.

---