Hey guys, it's Scott.
It is Monday, December 2nd. And I hope you had a fantastic Thanksgiving and holiday weekend. Ours was really relaxed. We didn't do too much. We went into New York City and visited my parents who still live in my high school apartment. And my sister came up from Maryland with her husband and girls. And it was like, a kid fest. Kids just running up and down the hallways shooting Nerf things and all kinds of chaos. But it was a lot of fun. We went out and got our tree. We forced the teenagers to come and pick one out with us. And so we got a good one and then we decorated it. And all the ornaments, most of the ornaments we have, are things we've collected over the years from different phases in the kids' lives, things they liked. Like, we have a Fortnite one and now we have a Die Hard one and now we have a monorail one from Disney World. And so it's a nice trip down memory lane, ridiculous as it is to put those on the tree.
But I'm going to do a very, very, very short post today. First and foremost, today is Final Order Cut-Off for Absolute Batman #4.
So far, issue #1 sold out before it came out. Issue #2 sold out before it came out. Issue #3 is very much on track to do the same, it comes out in just under two weeks, a week from Wednesday. And so I would absolutely encourage you to please order yours today. So many people I know come upset because they go to the store on release day and it gets sold out. So please order your copy through your local shop today. What that means, just so you understand, FOC is when a comic store will order a certain number of sale copies and then they'll order all the copies for people that reserve them. And so what happens is if people call up and order their copy, you have a copy guaranteed for yourself. If you don't, you have to go to the store and see if you can get some of those very few copies that they get for people that haven't reserved a copy. And it's not working out well for people not ordering ahead right now. So please, please order ahead.
It's a very special issue, we're really proud of it. It's designed with Nick Dragotta. We sort of came up with it together. It's a total joint project with the incredible artist, Eisner Award-winning Gabriel Walta of The Vision and Phantom Road and Sentient, one of my favorite guys on the stands. He's got an incredible style and this issue is a completely self-contained story that maps Bruce's first year as Absolute Batman, so it's almost like (Absolute) Batman: Year One. It shows how he built the cape, how he built the emblem, why it's so goddamn big, all of it. And it's one of the issues I'm proudest of that I’ve been a part of in the Bat-universe. It took a long time to really get right for us, and it's a thesis statement on what Absolute Batman is really about. So we really hope you'll pick it up. Again, it's a stunner thanks to Gabriel and Frank Martin, incredible colorists on the series. And yeah, it just is, to me, I'm so grateful to Nick and to Gabriel and to Frank for this one, too, and Clayton, the incredible letterer. It's sort of a tour de force about why Batman matters right now and what he means to us in the series.
Also, we are going to do a class next week! I think Thursday next week, not this Thursday, but next Thursday (December 11th). We got a lot of great requests for different subject matter. I would also encourage you to go look at the archive. A lot of the things suggested we actually have done classes on already, like pitching your comic. We have a great class with Will Dennis on shorts. There’s a great one where we talk about writing eight and 10 page stories. Someone suggested, “get Tom King on the show!” And I was like, “we have. I've talked to Tom King at length.” We've had so many different creators. You've had James Tynion and Donny Cates and Greg Capullo and Josh Williamson and Matt Rosenberg and just on and on and on. So there have been a lot of people on the show over the years in the class over the years. I hope you'll go check out the archives. You pay the $7 and you get access to everything.
But this class will be free. So if you're just getting this newsletter today, you can check it out again. And the subject matter will be single issues. We're going to look at some of the great single issues and talk about how to construct one that really hits hard. I'll walk you through my experience with them from my very first comic, The Human Torch, which was a one-shot all the way to one shots I'm doing right now and what I've learned over the years.
The reason I think it's such a good topic also, and I'm glad people suggested it, is because it's often your first gig. Someone will give you a one shot on something to test you out. And so there's a lot of things that you can really show and demonstrate through your writing on a project like that that will show publishers that you know what you're doing and also just create the biggest impact for what you're trying to say. So I'll walk you through some of the tools at your disposal when you're doing something that's really self-contained.
Anyway, also, if you check out
's Comic News next month. He did a long interview with me and I'm on the cover:
Weirdly, it's one of the most in-depth interviews I feel like I've done, ever. Chip is a great interviewer and he's a terrific human being and a very good friend and an incredible writer, so it's worth checking out. You can order it for zero cents. It's free but you just order it through Diamond, so go check it out. It's a passion project of his and it's awesome and he's on Substack you should totally follow him and his account.
And that's about it for now. Great comics out this week. We'll post about them. Go check them out. Really, really excited for you to see what DC has planned and what every company has planned. But also, again, please don't forget to order Absolute Batman #4 today. I don't want you to miss out. Thanks, guys!
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