Hey guys, it's Scott.
It is Friday, August 2nd, and I am not well rested, but back and situated from San Diego. And I just want to say thanks to everybody who was there, especially the Black Jackett members. The breakfast that we got to have together was honestly one of the biggest highlights of the whole convention. It was such a blast and it makes me so excited to see the community that we've built here with Our Best Jackett, so it means the world to me.
But it was also so much fun all around. San Diego feels like, bigger and better and more supercharged ever since it came back from COVID. People seem so excited and grateful to just to get the chance to go in general. Creators, fans, everyone. And it was a whirlwind for me. It was the first time in a long time I've had Big Two stuff to promote. And I forgot like what a bear it is in the most fun way. I mean, I hadn't sat on a DC panel in four, maybe five years. I'm not sure. And just the size and excitement of those rooms. It's just overwhelming. I actually got a little nervous for the first time in a while going up there. But above all the best part was getting to reconnect and see people—fans and retailers and, of course, friends, creators that you don't get to see a lot during the year because San Diego draws people from all over the world. You see creators from South America, from Europe, from everywhere. So I get to hang out with friends like Jock and Tula Lotay and all of the artists that we're working with on All In like Dani Sampere, and we get to see Bruno Redondo, just everyone. It’s such a good time. And also like, the nice thing about San Diego, as opposed to the other giant con, New York, and I love New York too, but New York is sort of a pressure cooker because you go into the Javits Center and there isn't really a kind of way to get out or go anywhere because that area is pretty barren. But San Diego, you leave and there's the Gaslamp right there, there's the Marina behind. So you can get away with friends and talk a little bit and find moments. So I got to see James Tynion, the two of us. I got to see Josh Williamson, the two of us. I got to catch up with Jock, I got to spend a lot of good time with Nick Dragotta from Absolute Batman and with Marie Javins and just friend after friend, it was really a blast. But above all like, thank you to the fans who came out and made everything packed and wonderful and your support and enthusiasm for DC All In was just really really inspiring, I can't thank you enough. I promise we're trying our best to put something together that's going to be everything all at once.
So again, if you missed what we talked about there, we had some announcements about more of the line. We're doing Justice League Unlimited, which I can't wait for. That's sort of the heart and soul of the main DCU. It's Mark Waid and Dan Mora. And so the main DCU is going to be connected and robust and feel like, more sort of woven together than it has in a while. So Justice League with the new Watchtower is the heart of that. Justice League Unlimited, as it implies, is going to have access to all heroes up on the Watchtower in different ways. You're going to see a really big cast in that book.
And then over in the Absolute Universe, the characters don't know each other. They're totally isolated. The first three, Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman, are all coming out October into November. And then Absolute Green Lantern by Al Ewing and Jahnoy Lindsay, which we announced there.
Also, we announced Absolute Flash, Jeff Lemire and Nick Robles.
There are a bunch of books that we announced, like JSA in the mainline with Jeff Lemire.
What we wanted to do is create a universe, a DC universe that feels like an expansion and a celebration of the stuff that you love. So if you want wild, different, dangerous reimaginings of the characters from the ground up, you have the Absolute Universe where they're alone and they're underdogs and they're different than you expect, but they're still themselves. They just have to be tougher. And then if you want the big connected legacy tapestry of the DC universe, All In will give you more of that than we've had in a long time. We have a lot more books we're announcing. I argued for them to announce the whole slate at San Diego, but I think they were right not to, meaning the slate for November, December, January. So we'll have new announcements every single month. It goes all the way to January, February. I think you're going to be really excited by things. We have other names that I think didn't get as much attention simply because they were printed on the ashcan, but we didn't really talk about the books they're doing. But creators like Deniz Camp, Che Grayson, and Pornsak Pichetshote, really can't wait for you to see what they're doing down the line as well in the Absolute Universe. And over in the mainline universe, we have a bunch of creators that we can't talk about yet, but I think you're going to be really, really excited by some big established pros, some rising stars.
But again, the goal of All In is not to retcon, not to reboot, not to disrupt the things that you're enjoying, because DC has been doing really well, honestly, the last few years. It's to expand, celebrate, and give you more. It's to do an initiative that says, “listen, we appreciate your fandom. We want you to know that we see how much support you've been throwing behind DC. And we want to just give you more of the stuff that you love.” And my job consultant on the whole thing, along with Josh Williamson, was to come in and be like, “look, let's create a line that gives more of not only what they've been liking, but the stuff that has worked historically in the past that gives creators a chance to really flex.” So it was like, let's create a meta story about Darkseid and the universe that will shape things for a couple of years, give room like Ram V's New Gods book, which is going to be unbelievable to not only blossom, but to sort of weave into a mythology that shows why his ideas are central to the DCU.
Then separately to be able to create a universe where you can be apart from all of this connectivity if you want and see a Batman that is growing up differently than you've ever seen. His relationships to his villains are different than you've ever seen, to his parents are different than you've ever seen. All of it, like everything is new in that. It's a total inversion of the mythology where in general where Batman is the system and he's order. Here he's chaos. He's the monkey wrench. He's like a primal beast who's disrupting everything. He's almost like a guerrilla fighter in Gotham. And I love it. Like, it's so fun for me. I love going to work on it. Can't wait for you to see it. And again, I got to give a speech at this retailer dinner through Lunar Distribution.
And I went like, full Jerry Maguire mode on it, mostly just because I went last. And I had listened to all of these great presentations from indie companies and licensed companies. And it just felt a moment, it feels that way. It feels like everybody is taking their biggest swings in the creator-owned world with Image/Skybound, look at Skybound with the Energon Universe. I mean, so many of my friends are over there doing incredible things. Look at Marvel with the X-Men and the Wolverine stuff they're doing with Greg and Jon and all of it. Like, the Ultimate Universe, of course, which is amazing. And so it just feels like everyone is trying to remind people right now the comics is where the biggest stories live, the best stories, whether that's superheroes, whether that's Turtles, whether that's indie stuff, whether that's creator-owned. It just feels collective, like a moment.
And so for DC, this is our biggest swing. This is us saying as a company, from Jim and Marie and Ann and the people all the way at the top to assistant editors and people working in sales and marketing as assistants and interns. It's all of us, the entire ecosystem of DC saying, “listen, we're taking a swing together. This is what we're about. This is what we stand for. We stand for the best big legacy storytelling you can get in the main universe where our heroes are connected and know each other and go up against the biggest things possible. And then we also have over here, we're willing to take risks and reinvent our characters in bold and daring ways to make them feel as exciting as they did when they first appeared and to try things that will excite you.” We also announced there we have a lot of incentives. We're going to do a really cool thing with Justice League membership cards that we're going to give further details on soon, but there'll be rewards for going into your comic store and buying a few DC Comics of any kind every single week for the first four to five weeks of the initiative. Doesn't matter if the comics are old or new or classic or trades or whatever. We're just going to let it be up to the retailers. We're going to have fun with it. We want you to get rewarded. We want you to feel the excitement of going to the comic store every single week.
There's this myth in comics that's fucking stupid that says that fans enjoy going once a month and picking up their books and they don't want to have to go every week. I find that to be complete bullshit. I think that everybody wants a small excuse to get to go every week. For me, I could get a subscription to my comics like everyone could have when I was a kid. You could always not go to the store, you could always have them mailed to you. The reason to go to the store is because you love the store, you love the people, you love the culture. You can browse it's being immersed in comic culture. For me it's like going to a sports bar. And so that's always what it's been, it's been community. When I moved out to Long Island with my wife I was fucking miserable and lonely when I was like, 25 and I wasn't in comics yet. I hadn't broken in. No bullshit, the first thing I did to make myself feel better as I started to get depressed and anxious was find a comic store, 4th World Comics. And I went there all the time because it's a lifeline. It's hard. That's what, to me, comic stores are. They're the heart of the business, all of that stuff. And so this is about saying “we all know you want to go there every week. So let's go every week. Let's give you a tiny excuse, a little reward, a little thank you for going every week and picking up DC Comics.”
And maybe people don't like me saying this, but I'll say it again. If you go in there and you don't buy DC, buy Marvel Comics, buy IDW, buy Image, buy Vault, buy Boom, buy Valiant, buy fucking anything. Just go celebrate comics. Because the fun for me to be a part of this thing is DC offered me a lot of different things. I had opportunities to go to Marvel as well. I didn't want to do one book. I didn't want to do an imprint. I didn't want to do like a vanity thing. What I wanted to do is be a part of something bigger than myself where I could be one person among many just taking one big collective swing. That lets me sleep at night about coming back to superhero comics.
And it challenges me to do the best book I can possibly do, and I promise I'm not trying to compete or compare this to what I did with Greg and everybody else. That stuff is incredibly special to me, I'm not trying to touch any of that. This is an entirely different project, but I've never written a comic like this before. I've never worked in a way like I work with Nick before. I don't think you've ever seen a Batman comic like this before either. So honestly, I can't wait for you to see it. I just go to work loving it. So again, I can't wait. And again, so I'm going to talk more about it. We'll do a livestream later. I'll do one like, next week when things slow down. We're back in the Wytches room doing season two. I love it to death. It eats my fucking life. It's like noon to five every day, but it's also a lot of work on the side.
Also, big, big announcement I just wanted to mention before I go. We announced a new book at DSTLRY. Me and Jock are reuniting to do it. It's a serial killer book. I can't wait for you to see it. It's super dark. I saved some of the most autobiographical personal stuff, not that I'm a serial killer or in assisted living, which the main character is. But autobiographical material about somebody who feels like maybe they work too much. Maybe they, if they solve this one thing, if they can do this one grand majestic thing, everything will make sense to them. All the decisions they've made in their life.
But it's about a guy who was a star detective and now has early onset dementia and decides as he's going into assisted living that he thinks he needs to solve the one case that always alluded him and the killer seems to be in the town where this place is where they all grew up and he starts to believe the killer wasn't just somebody passing through but somebody he grew up with. It's violent and vicious and it's extremely personal honestly Jock is a great partner for books that are deeply unsettling to you as a creator because he encourages you to go to those places and his art reflects that stuff. So I really love this book, it's called You Won't Feel a Thing. I can't wait for you to see it, it's a big three-issue series from DSTLRY. We have White Boat finishing up, I can't wait for you to see the ending.
And yeah, I hope everything's going well with you. Let's talk again soon!
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Newsletter #190: In Case You Missed SDCC