Hey guys, Scott.
It is Wednesday, December 31st, the last day of 2025. And I wanted to do a really quick post just talking about some of the things I really loved in the comic world this year, giving a tiny bit of advice, and really, above all, just giving thanks. I mean, I can’t get over what a crazy year this has been. We were just starting the Absolute Universe at the beginning of this year and I never, never expected it to find so much support and enthusiasm and energy from you guys. I did a signing at Midtown Comics recently, and I’ve signed there 15, probably 20 times over the last 15 years. It’s the store that was closest to my dad’s work. Used to work a couple blocks away from Midtown Comics Downtown. And throughout most of my time on Batman, I loved going there and signing and seeing a lot of the same faces over and over again. Probably 60 or 70% of the people over the last five years are people that I had seen before. And then going this last time and signing there, it was the first time in 10 to 15 years that it must have been 80% new faces, just completely new. And they had gotten there really early.
I knew something was up when the tickets were gone like, hours before the signing, but it was young people, people from all walks of life, people who were rediscovering comics, and not just because of Absolute Batman, but because of a lot of the things happening in comics right now. The Absolute line, but also the Ultimate line, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles reboot over at IDW, the Energon Universe, of course, and a lot of great books in the Image sphere too like Exquisite Corpses, things that are big tent books bringing in a lot of people. And I can’t thank you guys enough. I mean, this ride on Absolute Batman is, again, nothing I expected. I thought it would be a book that sold in the mid-list. That was my hope, was that we’d at least be sustainable for 30 issues or so, because I love the premise and the story Nick and I are telling so much, and I love working with him and Frank. We’ve become really close.
But now to have it be like a load bearing book at DC, or a book that generates excitement and money for them in a way that allows us more creative latitude on other books, the things that it’s engendered for Next Level—I can’t wait for you to see these books. I mean, all of them are really creator forward. They’re real big swings, Lobo and Deathstroke. They’re big over the top epic books. Batwoman, real, real great swing by Greg Rucka and Dani. Zatanna really levels Zatanna up. Firestorm and Shadow of the Bat. I mean, there are just so many good ones. There really are. Legion of Superheroes and Jonah Hex and there’s just a ton coming that we can’t wait for you to see. And they’re all passion projects. And a lot of that is born out of you guys supporting things that are riskier, that are different, that hopefully feel yours. And it’s the best time I’ve ever had in superhero comics. I’m so, so grateful to you guys and so proud of what we’re able to do right now at DC. So first, let me start this end of year thing by just saying thank you.
Then I wanted to also thank everybody that signed up for Best Jackett. I mean, I can’t get over how many people are in the free newsletter bit, this bit, and then the paid bit that gives you access to our class, Comic Writing 101, which is going to start up again in just a couple of weeks. I’m going to get Joshua Williamson on there. We’re going to have a big chat about everything coming and how you build a shared universe, all kinds of stuff. I’m sorry we could only leave the Black Jackett Club founder’s tier open for like, two minutes, but I appreciate everybody that signed up quickly and wrote to us afterwards and so on. But what a good year for comics, right? I mean, I know it’s a tough year. This is the thing, I really want to balance the way I talk about this year with advice for creators and my enthusiasm and excitement over some of the things happening and some of the books being put out. There were so many great books. I mean, my list is probably an obvious one to most people, but the books that we’re doing at DC, obviously I can’t say enough good things about Absolute Wonder Woman, Absolute Martian Manhunter. And I think what Josh is doing on Superman is out of control fantastic. There’s a ton. And the books coming out at Vertigo soon, that whole line is just terrific. I can’t wait for you guys to see that.
But some of the books across the aisle, I mean, Ultimates by Dennis Camp, Ultimate Spider-Man has been amazing. I really love, again, the Energon Universe (G.I. Joe, Transformers, everything being done over there). And Robert’s plans are unbelievable. I mean, Skinbreaker is also great as a side note. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles under Jason Aaron was fantastic, and now under Gene Luen Yang and Freddie Williams II is going to be great. I’ve seen what’s coming and it’s absolutely worth checking out. And in the Image and creator-owned spaces, there have been some fantastic books this year. Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees: The Rite of Spring, The Power Fantasy, again, one of my favorite, favorite books. Above all, I’ve loved Assorted Crisis Events. I think that book is just going to change the game in so many ways. The issue coming out next, issue eight, is one of my favorite issues in many, many years. Also, Drome by Jesse Lonergan, who also did the great book Man’s Best Friend with Pornsak Pichetshote. They’re blowing up. And of course, as I mentioned earlier, Exquisite Corpses is a fantastic, over-the-top horror book from James Tynion IV and the great people at The Empire of the Tiny Onion. It introduces you to some fantastic new creators also, as the book is almost a round robin of writing. It’s just terrific. And again, if you love horror, this is the book. So go pick it up.
And then again, I just wanted to give some advice because I got asked a lot by creators this year about what I thought of the market. I was asked to read a lot of different creator-owned books. I read a ton of pitches for DC, obviously, for Next Level, for other things like that. And I wanted to give like, my best guess or my best interpretation of what the market is right now, especially as advice to creators. So the thing I’m excited about with this market is is that it feels like there are fans out there that are desperately hungry, whether they’re new, whether they’re returning, whether they’ve been there all along, for things that feel transgressive and dangerous and risky and their own. Above all, their own. They want to feel like they’re getting on the ground floor of something that is only happening here, doesn’t feel like it’s connected to some giant ecosystem of TV, movies, of a million different things.
Like I said before in another post, it feels like the MCU and Star Wars and a lot of other franchises took what we normally do in comics with multiple stories, multiple series tying together and did that over the course of the last 15 years in all kinds of macro and micro ways. And it feels like there’s a cynicism right now about things that feel like they’re part of a larger ecosystem in that way that aren’t being built right off the ground now, starting in a way that’s organic and strange and new and dangerous and weird. And that’s why the Ultimate Universe and the Absolute Universe feel different. And that’s really exciting. There’s new fans that are hungry. There’s a whole discussion on social media, on TikTok and other platforms that don’t normally engage with comics quite as dramatically as they have this year. There’s a real energy and I see it in the stores. I see it at conventions all around the world.
This last year has been one of the most shocking, invigorating, energizing, inspiring times for me in my whole career, if not the most. because it is the validation, honestly, of a thesis that I think a lot of us have had over the years. When you take a risk and you try something that makes comics feel special and exciting and not safe, not going back to the things that we’ve done before, not trying to sort of give everybody just comfort food, people show up. And you can give them big, safe comfort food also. In a lot of ways that’s fun to do both at the same time. We can give you something that speaks to stories that you’ve loved in the past and repackage those or do classic kinds of stuff while also giving you brand new stuff.
But I would just say that for a long time in economic anxiety moments like it is now, the inclination of corporate bosses was to go backwards or to try and recapture what we did before and try and recapture fans that we had lost by trying to do the types of stories they had already read and liked. And I always had trouble with that. And my feeling is that to recapture those fans, you do something exciting and new. But I don’t think there’s a problem with doing something exciting and new in the format of classic, epic in-continuity storytelling. That’s what we’re trying to do with a lot of the continuing series at DC, like Batman right now. Batman is new and fun with Matt Fraction and Jorge Jiménez. But it isn’t trying to change the mold of what it’s doing. It gets to a point with that story that you’re going to see things that you’ve never seen before. But it’s in the classic style, the same way Detective Comics is, right? And that’s awesome. So you can do both. But anyway, my point is, it’s a really fascinating and thrilling market. But it is a tough market also. Books are underperforming all across the spectrum, too.
And I think the thing that I would say to creators that bring me their books, whether it’s a DC pitch, whether it’s a creator-owned book, is that you have got to meet the market where it is right now. I read so many books coming out from creator-owned spaces that feel like this is a book that could have launched at Boom in 2012 or at Vertigo in 2009 or 2015. It doesn’t feel like it’s urgent or it doesn’t feel like it’s about this moment or that it was a book you had to write right now. It feels like a passion project that you’ve had in the back of your head for a long time. And here’s the thing, 100%, I love those books and I think they should exist and you should publish them. But what I’m seeing from a lot of creators is the bewilderment as to why those books aren’t doing as well as they used to do in some way. And what I’m trying to say is that it’s a really particular moment in the market right now. And what I would say to you is you have to meet it if you’re looking for competitive sales, not if you’re looking to sell 10,000 copies, which again, I have done books like that. I love doing books like that. I love doing books that are personal to me that I’ve had in my head a long time, even if they are about the moment in my own way and they’re all about something urgent, that I understand are not designed for the market to sell right now. That’s a big part of being a creator is experimenting and doing books that maybe you know are not going to fit, but that are just your passion project.
But what creators keep asking me is like, “why isn’t my book selling” or “why isn’t this right for this moment?” And a lot of the time what I’d say to them back is just like, “is this your biggest swing? Is this the thing that feels like you’re speaking to fans and saying, this book has to exist right now?” For better or worse, like, the Absolute Universe, what I’m so excited about with them is that they all feel really urgent. You know, you might not like their politics, but they are designed to make these superheroes feel immediate and exciting and bigger than life but in a moment that speaks to the hardships and the things that people are facing right now. They’re meant to be even more heroic and inspiring as underdogs. And I think that’s true of what was happening in the Ultimate Universe as well. I think Jonathan Hickman and Marco Checchetto’s Ultimate Spider-Man speaks to what a lot of people are feeling as struggling young families right now. And that’s great.
So my point is just like, Transformers feels urgent. It has art that feels urgent. Daniel Warren Johnson and Jorge Corona and these guys that like, aren’t safe artists and mashing that together with G.I. Joe is cool and exciting and it’s never been done. So why not? And The Last Ronin and these books are they’re trying things that haven’t been tried. And that’s what I’m saying is that there are too many creators that pitch something that feels like it could have existed 15 years ago and then expect that thing to compete in a tough market right now. And what I’m saying is not “don’t do those books.” Do those books. But you can’t then turn around and say, “why isn’t this book selling like Nightwing?” That’s what I hear too much.
And that’s my honest advice going into 2026 for creators. Make your biggest swing if you want a book that’s going to be competitive, not if you’re doing a book that’s personal to you. When I did Book of Evil or AD: After Death or some of the IDW books I did, those were not designed as books that were going to sell big. Or Barnstormers, luckily, surprisingly, when it won the award, that took off. But those books were about things that I thought were really pertinent at that moment. So they were trying to meet the moment in terms of what they were about. But I understood that they weren’t going to meet a market that was tough with half-prose books or books that were historical and painted. And I don’t expect them to sell that way. And that’s why I tried to make extra money at conventions or took an extra teaching job in the early years to do Severed.
And that awareness of the market is key going into this year for aspiring freighters. Only in that talking to Deniz Camp when he was doing Assorted Crisis Events, it was like, he just cares about making enough money on that book that his artists and his team is paid for. And everything else on that book is whatever happens happens. And he doesn’t care if he makes any money. When I was starting out and when I was coming up and we were broke, that was the spirit with American Vampire. That was the spirit with like, a lot with Wytches, early on in that stuff too. And I love that. But sometimes you can’t do that. And you have to be like, you want your book to sell and you need it to sell. And what I’m saying is if that’s where you are, you’ve got to look at the market and be like, “what’s my biggest swing right now? What’s my biggest tent book? What is the thing that I can do that says this hasn’t been done? It has to exist. It’s dangerous. It’s urgent.” That’s the market right now.
So that’s my biggest advice to creators out there is like, don’t turn around and blame the market. Don’t blame the books that are doing well. Take a look and think like, this market is scary, but it’s thrilling. It is tough and competitive, but it’s also corrective to a lot of years of inflated sales because of streaming, because of variant covers, because of all kinds of things like COVID money, TV interests, corporate support, all kinds of stuff that is going away. And that means it’s a tougher market. It’s corrective and it’s competitive and it’s scary. And I wish that every creator-owned book sold 100,000 copies. But in this market, you’re lucky if you sell 20,000 to 30,000. Very lucky. That’s what you’re facing. But that also is exhilarating in its own way. As hard as it is, it’s exhilarating because it means it’s a market where books are overperforming when they take a big swing. You’ve got a hungry, excited comic book audience.
Do the thing that keeps you up at night if you want something that’s going to swim high in a competitive market like this, or do something that’s the book you’ve had in your head a long time and you know is quieter or whatever it is, but understand that that book in this particular market is probably going to be a tough sell. It doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t do it and you shouldn’t absolutely have it find its audience, but that’s all I’m saying. So ultimately, that’s my best advice going in. It’s a thrilling moment. It’s a scary moment. It’s an inspiring moment. And I can’t wait to see what people come up with in ‘26. Thanks you guys!
S
