(cat)ching up after an une(x)cused absence
cicadas, crocuses, and me
I went to ground for two (three?) months there, you may have noticed.
Typically I apologize for these types of absences, I always feel really guilty coming back here after I’ve vanished, but we all need to beat ourselves up a little less, and I mean that.
After all, who benefits from us beating ourselves up? No one. Who suffers? Ourselves. We can take all the time with ourselves that we need. The other day I said to my pal/agent/favorite podcast host Connor, “You know, Henry David Thoreau had to go into the woods to find enough quiet to write, and he didn’t even a phone.”
(To which Connor also pointed out he had someone cooking all his meals for him. Then I had to cop to the fact that my always-husband and occasional-co-writer Blake is an angel who does all the cooking. Anyway.)
We’re not gonna be hard on ourselves! I think if you can do it, I can do it too.
So let’s talk comics.
CATWOMAN
My collaborator Nico Leon and I, along with the fine folks at Detective Comics Comics, have released two more issues of Catwoman. #40 and #41 have an array of some of the best covers you’ve ever seen in your life (with artists and their @s below each image):
Lest anyone be unsure (because I’ve been absent for months) - I adore writing this book. My editors, Jess C and Jess B, are an absolute dream to work with. Nico and I are on a wavelength. It’s all amazing to be a part of.
I have big, big, big plans for Gotham. (And they’re not just mine…)
Issue #42 comes out APRIL 19, and it’s an important one. An emotional landing for Selina, and some big risks and heavy truths before we hit the road with Harley, Duchess, and all-time great artist BENGAL next month.
One more beautiful Jeff Dekal cover, the #42 main cover, for your nerves.
KNIGHTS OF X
When we last left Betsy Braddock, she was sealed away, fighting for an Otherworld that hates and fears her.
And she wants backup.
We return to Otherworld with a cast of Excalibur heavies both old and new, and I could not be more excited for you to read it. Series artist Bob Quinn (who you might know from WAY OF X) has frankly, snapped, as the kids say. He’s doing incredible work.
Due to ongoing printing and shipping issues, it seems that #1 won’t be released until Wednesday, April 27. Which means you still have time to run to your comic shop and ask your store for it by name. And check out these covers by Yanick Paquette:
DEAR GOD, YANICK. He’s a favorite artist of mine, and I geeked when Sarah told me he’d be our cover artist for the book. This is a huge cast and a huge amount of visual narrative - and he always uses every inch of the cover in the most amazing way. I almost wish you could get “virgin” variants of these, with no text.
Yanick must know his work is good, because he’s begun making demands via this DM I got from him that makes me giggle every time I look at it -
HOTHIVE: INSECT ROMANCES #1 coming….as soon as that gets approved, I promise.
“Hey, you turned the comments off!”
I did. I’ll be turning them on shortly with a bit of moderation, to engage you all with something I think you’ll be very excited about. I miss your support very much, and I’m eager to launch a project unlike any I’ve ever done before.
It’ll all be so, so worth it. I promise. I’m vibrating out of my skin with excitement, and excited to be back into the posting spirit and to begin posting a few bits about what I’ve got planned for next month…soon.
I’ve had my head down reading and watching films for months! I’ll drop a few of my recent faves here:
Films that blew my mind recently, new and old: Drive my Car, Power of the Dog, Throne of Blood, Seven Samurai; I, Tonya
Fiction books I really enjoyed: The Overstory by Richard Powers, This is How You Lose the Time War by Max Gladstone and Amal El-Mohtar, The Last Days of New Paris by China Mieville.
Nonfiction I really enjoyed: Everything is an Emergency by Jason Adam Katzenstein, Songs in the Key of Z by Irwin Chusid.
And lastly, A Paradise Built in Hell by Rebecca Solnit. This book was really good for my mental health with regard to current events. Solnit posits that our nature is to care for one another in disaster and emergency, and the prevailing ideas about apathy, cruelty, and chaos are largely ideas that come from authoritarian stances, and we believe it without questioning that.
(I’m looking at you, Don’t Look Up, a film whose thesis I fundamentally disagreed with.)
She utilizes facts and figures and stories from disasters all over North America - from Earthquakes in Mexico and the 1906 San Francisco fire to Hurricane Katrina in 2015 to make her point - we, as a species, are good. It’s the authoritarian mindset that makes us scared of one another.
(If you’re thinking about reading Rutger Bregman’s Humankind, I found this one to be much better researched and written.)
Ciao. Stay weird, talk soon!
TH 4.6.2022 10:25AM