Anthologies, Poll Results + Something New
You've spoken! Starting now this newsletter goes out every other Friday :)
Hey everyone and Happy Friday from Scotland, where it’s finally starting to get brighter and a bit warmer (the dark winter days really drag down my brain…)
I’m currently in a cafe working on the opening foreword of my upcoming run ‘n’ gun history book, and I’m kicking it off with an anecdote about the first time I played the genre (more on that below!)
And over on the paid newsletter - I’ve posted my second comic scriptwriting tutorial on how to create an engaging world for your story that readers really care about. You can subscribe to the tutorials and other deep-dives for just £3.50 a month, by clicking on any of the posts in the paid section. It really does help support my writing.
Let’s get started!
1. Subscriber poll results
Thanks so much to everyone for voting in my subscriber poll last week. I said from the start that I wanted this to be enjoyable for you all, so I’m making some changes already that you requested, which I think you’ll like :)
There won’t be a newsletter next week - as 43% of you voted for the newsletter to be updated every two weeks. The next newsletter will drop on Friday, April 21st, and will be every other week. I’ll run another poll in future to see if that’s still working for you.
Each newsletter will be smaller - also starting next week, each newsletter will be made up of smaller, bite-sized updates on my writing projects, rather than longer form deep-dives and features.
Paid tier newsletters will still be every week (for now) - I’ll run an exclusive poll for paid tier subscribers soon, to see what more you’d like and if weekly posts are too much (or if they’re just fine).
Thanks again to you all for taking part, it was really nice to see so many people taking an interest and giving me some feedback.
Speaking of which, I was thinking about trying out Substack’s podcast feature to do very short audio updates - maybe on games I’m playing for my history books, cool movies I’ve seen, comic stuff etc.
Let me know if you’d dig that here:
2. Upcoming anthology shorts
In March, I had pitches accepted for two upcoming anthologies. One of them hasn’t been publicly announced, but the artist I’m working with is incredible and our story idea is bat-shit crazy, so I can’t wait to share that one when I’m allowed to.
But I can talk about Always The Same Story, which is an anthology by Spotlight Comics. It’ll feature 28 one-page stories around the themes of ‘memory’ and ‘forgetting.’
My story is called “How It Started” and it’ll include artwork from the talented Jess Peng, who has some incredible art over on her Twitter, and my good friend and regular letterer, Rob Jones (who you can follow on Twitter here).
And here’s the cover, by the great Laura Helsby (check out their work, it’s awesome!)
Lastly, here’s the full list of all the brilliant people who are involved in the anthology:
2. Something new…
Back on my old newsletter, I revealed that I’m currently writing a Killtopia sequel series. I’ve finished the script for issue #1 and I have an artist locked in for the run.
I’m currently chipping away at writing the second issue between some other projects and working out what I want the rest of the story to be. I know how the sequel arc ends, I just need to work out what the stuff between will be.
But in short, it’s more of a cyberpunk psychological horror story this time around, with detective elements - as it focuses on a special police task force in Neo Tokyo after the events of Killtopia #5. That’s all I’ll say for now, but I’m really enjoying it.
But, that’s not the new thing I’m talking about today!
I’m also working on a new non-Killtopia universe comic that I’m co-creating with a genuinely brilliant artist who I can’t wait to announce. It actually started as a Twitter DM discussion about our favourite metal and punk bands, until we realised that we were clicking really well on ideas for a potential comic about music.
And that’s basically what we’re now doing. I can’t say too much, but I’m over halfway done with the first issue’s script and it’s really popping, with lively characters, a great setting, and some of the best dialogue I think I’ve ever written - as well as a bait and switch set up that’s going to get crazier and crazier as the arc progresses.
Here’s a screen grab of the first page’s script, as a little teaser of the setting and base theme:
So this is a thing that actually happened - it was called the ‘Satanic Panic,’ and you will have seen references to it if you watched most recent series of Stranger Things, with the whole Eddie Munson character arc. A lot of people across America (for a while at least) were genuinely concerned that satanic influences were corrupting their kids through things like Dungeons & Dragons, metal music, horror movies and more.
Me and the artist decided to use this real thing, and the emergence of the infamous Parental Advisory warning label on albums in 1985, as our story’s catalyst. The main character, Casey, also feels trapped in her own life and wishes she could go back and do things differently - which is basically me injecting pondering thoughts about turning 40 in August into the story (ah, if only I could go back and change a few things…)
We’re hopefully pitching this one as a sort of ‘hail mary’ to a few big publishers, so it might be a while before we can show anything, but watch this space!
3. Closing bonus bits!
BPM #2 artwork updates will start dropping again in the April 21st newsletter, as our artist Steve is back working on the book. Expect many, many. many, silly references to your favourite fighting games.
As mentioned up top, I’m working on the foreword to my run ‘n’ gun history book. I’ll probably either post this or a snippet from a review in the April 21st newsletter as well - but if you were curious - my first experience with the genre was the original Contra for NES (which was renamed as ‘Probotector’ here in the UK, due to political reasons). I was like 8, playing it at a friend’s house after school and I was really crap at it…
My next comic con appearance will be at Glasgow Comic Con on Saturday, June 3rd. It’s always a great, comic focused show that has a great vibe. I hope to see some of my local subscribers there!