CATWOMAN #68.
The end of Nine Lives, and the end of my nearly three year run on one of my favorite characters in comics.
I don’t want to spoil the ending - but it’s a big battle of an issue, both internal and external for Selina, as she bargains with Bast for the final time…
NINE LIVES was the kind of story I’ve always wanted to tell in comics - a big high-concept pitch that takes one character around the entire world in pursuit of their truth. I’m incredibly grateful I got to tell it with incredible artists like Stefano Raffaele, Carmine DiGiandomenico, and Ivan Shavrin.
I feel so proud and happy and complete! Like I’ve made indelible, long-term work on a character who I’ve loved since I was a child - how can one want anything more?
As you know, my run on Harley Quinn with Sweeney Boo and Natacha Bustos ends this upcoming week. But here’s the great news - our first trade paperback, HARLEY QUINN: GIRL IN A CRISIS comes out the day before! So if you want to start collecting the run in trades, or want to pick it up for a friend who has been trade-waiting, (or if you’re that friend,) you can pick it up at the shop the same day as our final issue. I’m not sure why they waited until the whole run was over to collect it in trade, but I’m super eager to see our book reach a whole new audience!
Volumes 2 and 3, EYE DON’T LIKE ME and CLOWN ABOUT TOWN are also available for pre-order now.
I’m still busy at DC Comics with a special project I can’t wait to announce. And I got to go back to the building this week for some great conversations with great people.
And lunch with some of the world’s finest!
On top of that, I’m rolling into production on my first creator owned comic in years. I’ve got a coffee meeting this week with an artist, and a graphic novel tie-in in the works for one of my mind-blowing favorite (can’t say yet)s ever. But we did have one announcement this week:
TINI AND BLAKE HOWARD, STEVAN SUBIC, AND MORE HEADLINE CREEPSHOW 2024 HOLIDAY SPECIAL
and I got to get our creepies out for this one! Our terrifying tale takes place in days of Auld Lang Syne, New Year’s Eve, 1899…in an exclusive salon for London’s arcane elite... We can promise, as does the solicitation text, that you will be, ahem, ‘crying for your mummy.’ Art by the spooky Stevan Subic. (The idea started during our trip to the British Museum, if that gives you a taste for our flavor.) HARLEY QUINN Vol 1: GIRL IN A CRISIS TPB - 9.24.24
HARLEY QUINN #43 - 9.25.24
HARLEY QUINN Vol 2: EYE DON’T LIKE ME TPB - 11.19.24
CREEPSHOW 2024 HOLIDAY SPECIAL - 12.18.24
LA COMIC CON - 10.4.24-10.6.24
THOUGHT BUBBLE - 11.12.24-11.17.24
CATWOMAN: NINE LIVES TPB - 12.03.24
HARLEY QUINN Vol 3: CLOWN ABOUT TOWN - 03.25.25
Last month’s post about writing my Harley Quinn pages in Batman #151 was extremely popular, so we’ve got another one in the works for you on something I’ve been doing a lot of lately:
Writing the beginnings of things. How to get all the information you need conveyed in a smooth fashion, how to rewrite your beginning after you’ve figured your ending, and a few of my favorite issue #1s and pilot episodes - the ones I go back to again and again and study like a textbook.
I’ve got a post on that queued up to finish soon, and another on one writing good endings. I’ve learned a massive amount about this stuff in the writing of the last several years of ongoings, and it’s stuff I don’t think I’d have learned anywhere else, so I’d like to impart that knowledge onto those with interest. As putting this stuff together takes a good amount of time and I feel it has value, it’ll mostly be behind the paywall. No need to sign up until the content you’re interested in has dropped, but if you want to be the first to see it (or read that Harley post now) you can become a subscriber below.
Stay weird, talk soon!
-TH 9.21.24 18:30
1. Holy shit you got to meet Nicole Maines! I’ve been a fan of her as a human being for a while now and would love to hear more about your time hanging out with her. What was she like and what did you two chat about?
2. I’m really looking forward to your new creator-owned book. Given how you’ve grown as a writer over the years, would you consider it to be a step up from your earlier creator-owned material or are those books so dear to you that you wouldn’t dare think poorly of them in any way?
3. I need to read those planned posts on beginnings and endings right now! Something that beginner writers forget is that what they’re writing will ultimately be a first draft and will (hopefully) have an editor overseeing it. Extensive notes and outlines aren’t as necessary as they think because nothing is perfect early on and revisions will happen.
Ooh, Nicole!! Loved what she’s done with Dreamer these past few years, would love to see you two possibly collab on a project!