RUN IT UP
We Sold Some Books
BIG THINGS
We sold big! That’s the news! And now we’re going back for a second printing! Tell your shop you want one!
I believe most things in comics are out of my hands and I take little credit for any successes. But I am happy to report these are the best numbers of my career. EPHK has worked extraordinarily hard on this book and it’s gratifying know it will be in a lotta people’s hands. Thank you for ordering it.
PAGES IN MY INBOX
Sometimes stories go their own directions. This series with Pramono was supposed to be self-contained stories. We mostly arrive there, but it’s clear there will be more carryover than originally thought. It’s exciting to let a thing grow at its own pace.
REGICIDE, a book you’ll learn more about soon, is as tight a story as they come. Paced in true 22-page bursts, every issue feels like a leg of an adventure. I think “for fans of BERSERK” is cheap in 2026, but this is one series I can justify the selling point. Almost monster-of-the-week style. Also, I am very aware I missed the opportunity to make the bar The Slavish Devot-Inn” and it is eating me up.
Across the next 24 months, I’m going to deliver
THEMES
Ok, so I’ll keep this short. An observation, rather than an essay. Scott Snyder was given creative latitude with his ABSOLUTE BATMAN and it sold truckloads. Then he was given editorial latitude in his choice of hires for the ABSOLUTE line. And it sold 8M copies.
Jonathan Hickman was given creative latitude with his Krakoa-era X-MEN and it sold truckloads. Then what happened? If you believe the official narrative, he then sought out a team of journeyman creators to fill out the roster of his X-Office. And it withered.
For what it’s worth, I never bought that story. I don’t think you become Hickman by surrounding yourself with mid-tier creators. Even if you believed some of these people were about to break out, I don’t think you would attempt to build a team without stars. Unless you were broke.
I assume the real story is Hickman was not given the same freedom Snyder was. Guardrails and mandates were applied, and as a result there is no Marvel analog to ABSOLUTE. Instead, there’s creative half-measures and a market share propped by variants, relaunches, and shelf-flooding.
I don’t have any insight into what might be coming from above at Marvel. I don’t know why they are very intentionally treading water. Over time it starts to validate conspiracy theorists.
In most businesses, missing opportunities, particularly obvious ones, leads to the death of a company. But in the too-big-to-fail strata of entertainment corporations, it’s not the company that dies. Rather it’s the career of whoever misses the moment.
The weird thing is, that hasn’t happened.
There appears to be no consequences to cluelessness. Whatever the mandate is (higher output of books at a lower creative production costs per book?), maintaining it is more important than solutions. And obviously more important than making good books.
A lot has been made of the “new reader” coming into stores. Retailers report that young people are showing up for ABSOLUTE. Clearly this is on account of vibe. I love American comic books. In fact, I love a lotta Bronze Age messes that feel stilted and goofy to a young person in 2026. But I’m already a consumer of comics. Reaching a new readers will require new sensibilities. ABSOLUTE BATMAN managed that. And you can’t compete with it by doubling-down on stodgy.
This thought was prompted by a news item that Marvel will be wrapping up its cosmic line of comics. Early. While the word a year ago was “series will go to a minimum of 10 issues” it seems that some series are more equal than others.
This was a Hickman-inspired line born out of (I think; I’m reading articles) an event he planned in that portion of the universe. I happen to think there just isn’t an appetite for those books and middling sales were, at least somewhat, inevitable. But, again, the choice of talent carries some blame. This is not an attack on those creators. It’s just to say when you hire corporate creators to do corporate things, you will often get unexciting outcomes.
Famously Frank Miller took DAREDEVIL from low-seller on the cusp of cancelation, to one of the only corporate comics to truly matter. For a time I thought that wasn’t possible anymore. The readership is too small, I thought. But maybe ABSOLUTE proves you don’t have to win over 100% of that shrinking number. You can appeal to new people. [For this theory to be truly proven, we’d need a 2nd tier series to really break out from the ABSOLUTE line.]
So what’s Marvel’s excuse? Why cage Hickman? Why not pay to surround him with stars? is there a non-conspiracy answer to questions like this?
Also in comics talk, they got rid of Mike Richardson at/of Dark Horse Comics. When I say ‘they’ I mean Embracer Group, the holding company that acquired the publisher.
This was inevitable. Which is not to be confused with ‘good.’
Dark Horse has made some canny picks the past couple years, putting out interesting books. And it is, forgive me, something of a retirement home for some of the greatest creators of a certain generation.
People had good and bad experiences with Richardson. That’s how life is. And certainly how business is. But everyone agrees that he was a comic book survivor. You could not count him out.
Part of his ongoing influence on comics was bringing international work to the American market. This opened a lot of readers up to creators they might not know otherwise.
It seems unlikely that whoever steps into his shoes will be able to fill them. Richardson knew comics. You could argue his sensibility is dated, but that’s what he had editors for.
Everything changes, and I’m not necessarily torn up about a man at retirement age moving on to another area of life. But not like this.
MEDIA CONSUMPTION
Very much in the Fletch model of things. Ham is no Chevy Chase but he is charming. Doesn’t have the rewatch value of the originals, but I enjoyed myself. Recommended.
Crap! There’s goofy monster arms that crush skulls. So, fun crap. Soft recommend.
Ugly to look at, and it’s only talking heads so take that how you want. But I loved the actual content of the stories and the experiences. Strong recommended.
FROM THE DESIGN FOLDER
Part of my job is finding ways to make classic ideas feel cool.
‘Babes’ are pretty tired. Sure, you could argue that the post-MeToo era of art makes babes sorta novel. Nobody really felt comfortable acknowledging that babes help sell concepts, characters, and stories. You had to dance around the babes, for a time. But, still, they are not exactly original.
Thought experiment: You have an idea for a opium heist comic set in 1900 Beijing. This will be impossible to sell. If you could set it up at a publisher, only a small portion of your troubles are addressed. You then have to convince readers that a period piece, in a place they’ve never been, concerning criminal politics they have no frame of reference for, is something they want to spend money on.
What do you do to help get you in the door with readers?
Great covers? Ok. Good start. What about a clear hook? Maybe all your promotional visuals take place on a runaway train. Alright. Getting somewhere.
Now what if you made the protagonist a beautiful woman with a distinct look? Do you think that would help? Do you think it might add a few sales to your destined-to-suffer period piece?
I do. That’s why, unless a character has to be a man, I prefer to populate my stories with exciting-looking women.
In the image above, Béatrice Dalle is an exciting-looking woman. She’s not merely beautiful. She’s engaging, which is more important. There’s an instinct to dismiss fiction with beautiful women as “gooner bait” (this is really a young-millennial thing, older generations are ok with the idea). But that’s failing to see the forest for the trees. The fact a character is ‘hot’ is largely (though not fully) immaterial. The fact they are visually engaging is of much greater importance. ‘Hot’ women are everywhere in 2026. Visually striking women whose very appearance makes you want to know more about them as a person (or character) are far less common.
This is all a long way of saying the photograph above inspired a story in me with one glance. And THAT’S the power of a person with a look.
THANKS
EPHK and I are supremely grateful for the support of TIGRESS ISLAND. I leave the paypal at the end of every newsletter if you’d care to tip for my time. But I much prefer you order yourself a comic book. Thanks again. Do for self.
The photograph of Béatrice Dalle is really striking, can see why it conjured up a story for you.