Hey guys, it's Scott!
So, for this newsletter, I thought I'd give you an introduction to Scottober, which is the big launch we're doing with comiXology in October. Best Jackett, my studio, is partnered with comiXology to produce eight books. I’m writing all eight of them and I have amazing co creators on them. So, it should be called, instead of Scottober, all of our names put together, but that would be far too long a title. But if you take anything away from this newsletter, please make it an urgent need and desire to go follow support, and celebrate my amazing partners and co creators on these books [links in our big announcement post].
But over the course of the next year and a half, we'll be doing eight books with comiXology. The first three come out this October and will run monthly. So, the first one is called We Have Demons, and it's our big summer blockbuster, R-rated Saturday morning cartoon on steroids—big heart, big action, big gore and thrills, everything that brother Greg Capullo and I loved to do on Metal and on Batman, but in our very, very first creator-owned comic together ever. We have an amazing team on it—it's also Jon Glapion, who inked us from Court of Owls on and is a great friend, and also Dave McCaig, who was the colorist on American Vampire and is also a big pal.
The series imagines a kind of scientific explanation for the theology of angels and demons and involves astronomy. And essentially, it's about a young woman named Lam (for Lamassu, this ancient angel’s name), who comes to understand that her father was part of a secret organization that hunts down demons all across the globe, and that the threat is rising, and that she's got to take part in this war if she wants to save the Earth. So, it's really fun. It's something that we've been working on for well over a year and a half, and something we talked about a lot over the last few years. So, we're so thrilled to get it out into the world and have you see it. So, that launches October 5, first Tuesday in October.
On October 12, our next book comes out, Clear #1. That's a partnership between me and buddy Francis Manapul with Deron Bennett lettering. Deron is also a friend who's lettered a bunch of my stuff in the past. But Clear imagines a future where we connect to the internet neurologically, and it allows us to essentially skin or veil the world however we want. “Veil” is the term we use in the book for filters through which you see the world in different manners. So that, for example, if you wanted to look out and see the world in a 1940s glamour veil, everything would look like a noir film, even though the superstructure of the world would still be there. If you used a manga setting, everything would look like manga, even though, again, the architecture of the world would still exists. So it allows you to color the world however you want.
And it's a murder mystery that takes place in this future where everyone's kind of isolated and looking at the world subjectively. And the detective, Sam Dunes, keeps his setting on “clear” all the time. So, it's a totally different kind of book. It's speculative sci fi noir, whereas Demons is big summer blockbuster fun. And it's really important to me. It's very much about this moment, I wrote it with a lot of things in the zeitgeist in mind, and both Francis and I are really passionate about it. So, really excited for you to see it.
And then, the following Tuesday, October 19, Night of the Ghoul comes out. Now that's a book I've been teasing for at least two years with Francesco Francavilla, who's been friends with me and partners all the way from the very beginning of my career on Black Mirror, and it focuses on this guy who has never made much of his life, and he works digitizing old films. He loves film, he's always loved film, and he comes across the remnants of what was supposed to be the greatest classic horror movie of all time called Night of the Ghoul, but according to legend, it burned in a studio fire and was never seen by anyone.
And so, he has fragments of this film, and he tracks down the writer/director, who is still alive, even though he's changed his name a bunch of times over the years and is living a rest home out in the desert. And so, the book is half this guy, Forrest, and his interview with this mysterious director, and half the actual remnants of the old film that Francesco draws in black and white. And it intercuts between those things and it's this very claustrophobic, suspenseful, dread-filled night that ends in all kinds of horrors. So, really love that book.
One takeaway from everything I'm saying is that these are books that have been in production for a very long time. All eight of them have. All of them were started well before the pandemic and to have found a home for them at comiXology, we're really thrilled. And so, I'd encourage you—and I'll ask my assistant Tyler, who does all of these newsletters so well and runs the paid subscriber’s Discord and helps me with the teaching and everything and is generally just awesome, Tyler, if you can put a button right here to subscribe to comixology Unlimited, please do.
I would encourage all of you to subscribe to comiXology Unlimited. Again, it probably serves me and my partners better for you to buy every book individually, but the whole idea that I'm going for here is that: you subscribe to comixology Unlimited, you can read our books, all three books in October, for the price of one book. And every month, you'll be getting at least three books from me and my partners, all the way through well over a year from now. We have these books, and then we have another batch of books starting in the spring.
So, for the price of one comic a month, you can basically read all of them each month. But the real exciting thing about a subscription, also, is that you can discover lots of new voices. comiXology has been a great supporter, in my opinion, of up-and-comers. They allow new people to retain their ancillary rights entirely while still giving good page rates. So, there are a lot of books on comiXology Unlimited that are by rising stars, former students of mine, people I'm really excited to see ascending in the industry.
Also, there are just tons of classics. There's everything from Batman: Year One to Sandman, and all kinds of stuff that you can read through comiXology Unlimited. So, the reason that I'm such an advocate of this isn't just to shill for a company I'm working for, essentially, but because I believe in the model. I believe in the idea that digital and print have been held apart too long as competitors and that digital has been constrained to just be a distribution arm of print, where it's had to keep the price point the same, the content the same, the date the same, and that forces them into competitive position.
And as everything moves right now more towards subscription-based models and digital-first models, as you see DC moving over with WEBTOON, Marvel announcing, today, a revamped Marvel Unlimited, Substack announcing their partnership with Panels, their own guided-view readers so that content can be read in dynamic ways on that site. It's just the way of the world. Things are moving towards a subscription-based exclusive content service. Same thing on all kinds of streaming platforms.
So, for me, I believe that the special thing about this is that we're trying to give you all of our books affordably to browse. And when you love them (which I hope you will), you will go to your store and you'll collect them, and it will give a whole second bigger bite of the apple to the direct market. And similarly, you'll use your subscription to find new writers and artists that you can go support out in the stores, that you can find small publishers, and all of that kind of stuff.
And that isn't just happening through this here with comiXology, but that's kind of the trend you see happening across the comics landscape—creators taking more control of their own content, more control of their own careers to produce stuff that they really love and are passionate about and deliver that stuff to you in ways that are more immediate and immersive in the digital space, and then giving it to print in a format that will benefit print even better, because there'll be more high-end or collectible or tactile, all of that stuff. So, I'm a believer in it. I know I feel like there's big seismic tectonic movement in that direction. I'm super interested in hearing your thoughts on it. I know I could be totally wrong, I have a lot of concerns about it, too. I know it's a scary moment, but I think it's a really, really exciting moment, also.
So, in a nutshell, going back that Scottober with the fourth week, the 26th, being one where we're going to release a cheaper preview issue that's going to have preview pages of some of the other books along with a whole deck about the books that we have coming out. So, every week in October, you can get something from us, and then in November, you can get We Have Demons #2, Clear #2, Night of the Ghoul #2, December you have number three's, and so on and so forth. So, can't wait. I really would love to toast with all of you in October and say thank you for everything, but yes, that is Scottober in a nutshell.
And one other quick thing—I keep getting asked about art in my studio. Whenever I take a picture, people ask me what the McFarlane page is behind my head. I have a Todd McFarlane Spider-Man #319 page behind me, and to give you the short story, for my 13th birthday, my dad took me to Comic Con at the Roosevelt Hotel across from Penn Station. And I was a huge McFarlane fan, I had copied all those guys. I wanted to be a comic book artist growing up, not a writer, or both. And so, I waited in line for my 30th birthday to meet Todd McFarlane, it was like a three hour line, and I finally got to him and I had a couple hundred bucks, and my dad told him it was my birthday, and he gave me this page that was worth way more than the money I had. And not only that, he drew me a Spidey head on the back. So, it says on the back of the page, “Happy birthday, Scott!” with a Spidey head with webs.
And he couldn't have been nicer, and I've always treasured this page—it was the first comic page I bought. But also, it sort of exemplified the kind of creator I wanted be (and I still hope to be) if I ever broke in, so that page hangs behind my head every day in my studio and I love it dearly. I have a lot of other art I could show you if you want and talk about them—I have my cover from brother Greg from Court of Owls (Batman #3), on which he drew a little caricature of me and gave me a note with, I have Jim Lee and Frank Miller art and all that kind of stuff. So, I'm happy if you want me to make that a thing I talk about, I'm elated to do it.
Anyway, thank you guys so much! Really, really thrilled about all this and we'll talk soon. Bye!
S
P.S. I wrote up a quick FAQ for comiXology Unlimited and how to read the Best Jackett books:
Q: Scott, what’s the best way to get these Best Jackett Press books coming via comiXology Originals?
A: All comiXology Originals titles are available free-to-read digitally with an Amazon Prime, Kindle Unlimited, or comiXology Unlimited membership. If you are in the US, the best way is to subscribe to comiXology Unlimited using this link here. You not only get access to the BJP titles that are coming out in October, but you also get access to over 30,000 other titles and special discounts. If you sign up on Android or web, the first 30 days are FREE. After that you'll be charged 5.99/month.
Q: Hey, I’m outside the US! How do I get these books?
A: Both Kindle Unlimited and Prime Reading are available outside of the US in select territories. Prime Reading is included as part of your Amazon Prime membership. Kindle Unlimited is available in the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, India, China, Japan, Brazil, Mexico, Canada and Australia. Customer in those countries can sign-up for Kindle Unlimited in their local Amazon marketplace. There are over 5,000 comics, manga, and graphic novels available in Kindle Unlimited today, including all of our comiXology Originals comics.
Q: Are these books coming to print?
A: Yes, starting in 2022. More details will be announced soon. Many comiXology Originals titles are available in print via their deal with Dark Horse Books, with more on the way. For instance, you can buy brother Chip Zdarsky’s book Afterlift in print after you reading it digitally here!
Q: What the heck is comiXology Originals?
A: ComiXology Originals is the exclusive digital content line from comiXology, an Amazon company. All titles are available at no additional cost for members of Amazon Prime, Kindle Unlimited, and comiXology Unlimited, and are available for purchase on the Amazon Kindle Store and comiXology. For those of you who haven't enjoyed a comiXology Original title yet, read Kel McDonald and Tyler Crook's The Stone King for free until 9/30/2021.
Newsletter 18: Scottober