Hey guys, it's Scott.
It is Wednesday, February 7th. I meant to do this yesterday, but I was just too beaten up from the traveling. I get too old now for recovering from a con quickly. But I just wanted to say thank you to everybody that came out at MegaCon. It was a blast. I forget how huge and Orlando-sized that convention actually is. It's amazing. Incredible cosplay, incredible fans, organizers, everybody. It was great. And I just wanted to say special thanks to all the Best Jacket members who came up and talked about the class, who came up early at the beginning of each signing. And thank you to everybody that came to our actual horror masterclass last week. I had such a good time doing that. And I really, really appreciated the attendance. It was higher than we had hoped with a class that was rescheduled, so we really, really appreciate it. A couple of quick things. If you were in the Black Jackett Club and you sent books down to Florida, they should already be on their way back or have already arrived to you. Best Jacket paid subscribers, you're gonna get your chance soon to send books down there. Two books of your choice, you pay shipping and I'll sign them. You can pay extra to have them CGC'd also. It'll all be posted here by the best assistant, Tyler, when that time arrives.
And I just wanted to mention Dungeon #3 is out this week. I'm really proud of it:
It's a straight-up serial killer series. Me and Hayden Sherman, one of the most amazing creators working in comics today, in my opinion. It’s from IDW, part of our Dark Spaces series. It's an indie series where I don't do anything supernatural or metaphysical. They're really kind of psychological thrillers. The first one was a noir called Wildfire last year. It's now collected in trade:
And this one, Dungeon, is a straight-up serial killer story. So I hope you'll check it out. Also, one of the big draws of doing that line was getting to invite up-and-coming creators to do books through it. So we have out Good Deeds by my friend, the amazing Che Grayson:
And also Hollywood Special by Jeremy Lambert:
They have fantastic co-creators on those books as well (Kelsey Ramsay and Claire Roe, respectively). I hope you'll go check them out. They're both twisted, wondrous books, and I'm grateful to IDW for doing them.
I wanted to do a quick thing today. I had two questions from Tyler. They're really good, I'll do them on Friday. But I just wanted to bring something up. I mean, it was interesting to me going down to this convention. I haven't been to a convention that isn't sort of a monstrous one in a while. I mean, I love New York, but it's humongous and there's a lot of obligations while you're there and we were setting a lot of things up for the year. But I got to go to this one and really catch up with friends. I got to catch up with Jason Aaron, who I've become really close with over the last couple of years, and Tony Daniel…
…and Francis Manapul…
…and Frank Tieri, and Tom King, and Cully Hamner, and just friends that I really look forward to seeing.
Andrew Marino, an editor at DC, took us out to dinner, me and Jason.
After that, I got a chance to hang out with my good friend Charles Soule, talking about his amazing daughter, who's going off to Penn, I feel okay saying that because he posted about it and very excited for her and for them. But again, just talking about life, the pressures, the stresses, the excitements, the joys, all of it. And it reminded me, and I know this sounds really ridiculous and silly, but that comic creators are people with lives outside of comics. And talking to people, again, all my Ghost Machine friends—Jason Fabok, Pete Tomasi, Geoff Johns, also getting to catch up with Ryan Stegman, a good friend. It just reminded me, everybody has so much going on in their lives. Some things are wonderful and some things are really hard. Talking to some people about, the death of parents, illnesses they're facing, troubles their kids are having, telling them about stuff going on in my life as well in that regard, some of the stresses and struggles right now, it just reminded me that as a really silly PSA to everybody out there reading comic books, especially on a day like this, New Comic Book Day, to just remember as you pick the books up that creators have a lot going on in their lives as well. It doesn't mean that you can't be just as critical as you want of their books, but sometimes I see things online that are personal attacks. I've always gotten them too, but just things that are not about the work and are more about guesses about what's happening in the people's lives or a complete sort of absence of consideration of what might be going on in their lives and comes after them for on a personal level.
And again, none of this has to do with being critical online about work constructively or unconstructively, it's totally up to you, freedom of speech. And you can be mean and say whatever you want about a creator personally, too. You have that right. But I would just say, again, it was really interesting getting to reconnect on a friend level, or with a good handful of people that I really like and some of whom I've known for many years and some of whom I've only become friends with recently, and really getting to connect and talk about parenthood, talk about being a kid as your parents are getting older, talking about the finances of college. Some friends I know had just adopted a kid. Other people were struggling with problems with children. All kinds of stuff. It's just a wonderful reminder going to a convention like that and talking to friends just that you don't know what's happening in a creator's life when you're reading their work. And you shouldn't. Unless they're sharing it with you, it shouldn’t be the context of how you read it. Their work should just be the work.
But it's just something to keep in mind as you consider what you say or how you approach them at conventions or those things too. Everyone was so happy to be there and to meet fans and all of those things as well. I forget myself sometimes. I'll read a book and be like, “God, I love this book. I'll bet this creator is going through X, Y, Z” or I won't like a book and be like, “God, this person has fallen off maybe because of this.” And then you see them and you realize their reasons on a personal level for why a book is completely working, why a book is not working. They can be the opposite. It can be something they're really struggling with is making their work shine. It can be something where they're having a very happy time and they're admittedly saying they can't put as much into their work, all kinds of stuff. So I'm just saying it's a nice reminder going to conventions, and I don't mean to keep repeating this, that creators have personal lives as well. And again, just separating them from the work is a nice thing as a reader. Anyway, I hope everyone out there is doing really well. I'm looking forward to posting on Friday. And thanks so much, you guys. I really appreciate all the support!
S
Newsletter #175: Creators Are People