Hey guys, it's Scott.
It is Friday, May 9th. So a couple quick things just before we start, some housekeeping. Absolute Batman #8 comes out this coming Wednesday. It's the conclusion to our mini arc about Mr. Freeze. It's with the incredible Marcos Martín and it sets up everything coming in issue #9. It has a big cliffhanger at the end that essentially sets the plot of the mega arc we're doing starting with #9 when Nick Dragotta comes back to the series in June with Bane, it sets all that in motion. I really can't wait for you guys to see these these issues coming up are some of our best in my opinion. So Wednesday is Absolute Batman #8.
Monday the 19th, so a week from this coming Monday, is the Final Order Cut-Off for issue #9. Now #9 has crazy stuff—it's the first appearance of Bane. There's also some secrets to Bane and what he can do, his history, all of it. So there's extra surprises when it comes to Bane. But it's also the first appearance of two major characters that we're not going to publicize because we want you to be surprised, but they both make cameos in the issue and you will see them appear in much bigger roles later in the series. They're characters that people have been asking for, so I really can't wait for you to see. You do not want to skip ordering this one early. I really believe this one, as many of the issues, will sell out because of the surprises in it and you get your first glimpse inside of Ark M, our version of Arkham Asylum. It's a real banger of an issue and it goes super hard, I can't wait for you guys to to take a look at it.
Also, this coming Thursday, May 15th, less than a week from now, we're going to be doing our class on comic book fundamentals. I'm really excited, I've been prepping this one. I've been thinking about it, it's a real staple, an anchor class. I can't wait for you guys to see, we'll put in some materials on Monday. So get ready for that, we'll announce more on Monday!
But yes, I am a little bit beaten up from my travels, but I'm very excited. I had a great time in Italy. Comic-Con Napoli was fantastic. I was there with my brother-in-arms from Absolute Batman, the great Nick Dragotta.
And also there were a couple of creators I hadn't met before, but I love. James Harren, who just finished up his incredible creator-owned series Ultramega.
One of the most exciting talents working in the medium today and one of the sweetest guys as well. So go check out his work. Also, Filipe Andrade, who has his issue of The New Gods with the terrific Ram V coming out soon. It's beautiful, it’s painted. Can't say enough good things about his work. And he's just a wonderful, wonderful human being as well.
And thank you so much to the organizers, to Panini Publishing, for showing us such a great time. I got off the plane at 7 a.m. on Friday, and by 8 a.m. they were taking us to see the ruins of Ercolano, the sister city to Pompeii, which was buried by the volcanic eruption of Vesuvius back in 70 AD or so. And I couldn't get over it. I've never visited a site like that before where everything was so perfectly preserved. I don't even know how they excavated it so delicately, but it was covered in 20 feet of ash, like hardened ash, pumice, essentially, I guess, stone, lava mud that hardened. And they didn't even know it was there until a couple hundred years ago. And they dug it up and the city extends almost further under Naples, further under this area. They're still uncovering it, but it was huge. It was the size of my town, essentially, where I live. And you could walk through the rooms and the original mosaic tiles were still on the floor. These incredible designs of black and white, blue and white. There was lapis-colored sea creature patterns because the town was right on the coast. And we got to see the original frescoes. And the buildings, they could still delineate which were stores and which were homes. It was really unbelievable, the masonry was crazy.
And then they took us into a little museum where they had found artifacts at the end, including a boat. And they had gold woven jewelry, gems, glassworks, marble statues. I mean, the craftsmanship across the board and all these different mediums that had been lost, until people really revisited the Greco-Roman culture after the Dark Ages, was really fascinating. And just so moving to stand in buildings that people had lived in 2,000 years ago. It was just inspiring, I don't know what else to say.
But also the fans were fantastic. The convention was wonderful. It was packed with enthusiastic geeks, such as ourselves, and everybody wanted something personalized. The fans were incredibly kind.
The organizers showed us around to all these local spots for dinner where we had the best pizza I've ever had in my life. Naples is known for its pizza. We had fried pizza. All kinds of pizza with fries and hot dogs on it and everything. It was unbelievable. And above all, it was just a great time. The highlight for me was late one night, Nick and Filipe decided to show each other the pages they were working on in the lobby. It must have been one in the morning after we had been walking through the city and sightseeing. There's a beautiful castle that's a couple thousand years old down by the water. The whole city hugs the water in this great crescent shape. But they showed each other their pages. Nick had pages from Absolute Batman #9, all finished. And Filipe showed his pages from The New Gods. And listening to them talk about the way that they craft a page, the techniques that they use. And James Harren came in too and was talking about scraping away ink to create flares, to create texture using a razor blade. I mean, it was just listening to masters. It was a master class on comic book art. I couldn't get over it.
Anyway, I'm back and settled. We are in our end-of-the-year madness for the kids. The five-year-old is in the school play, Peter Pan. He is Captain Hook. And the 18-year-old is graduating high school. He's got his prom suit we went and got. And he is ready to walk in his graduation in a couple weeks, which we're really proud of him for. Our 14-year-old has his last tennis games, and he's doing great as well. So it's just end of the year chaos over here. So forgive me if I'm not doing as many posts as I would. I'll do a lot more over the summer.
But above all, I wanted to say thanks. We have such a great time also doing this and with our students. The Black Jackett tier of this, which I wish we could open to more people but we can't because it's just really a capacity right now, guys, has given us such a great lane where I feel like getting to work with so many of you on your comics and it just keeps me young as a writer. So again, it's a great moment right now. I'm really, really grateful to all of you. I'm flying out to California in a couple of weeks with
to talk to DC about our big plans for the end of 2025 and the spring of 2026. We have some really big stuff coming where we're going to try and inject a lot of excitement into the mainline of DC Comics. So yeah, just big stuff coming to talk about here. So thank you guys so much for being a part!S
P.S. Don’t forget to pre-order the first trade for Absolute Batman before its Final Order Cut-Off this Monday, just a few days from now! It’s got the first six issues of our run in there either in paperback or hardcover. Really proud of how these turned out. So don’t miss it!
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