Dave's June 2024 newsletter: Boom! Studios anthology + more

Plus, new Killtopia: Nano Jams artwork and much more!

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Hi everyone, Dave here with my June newsletter. I hope you’ve been having a great month so far and have been getting more sun than here in soggy, grey Scotland!

I’ve got lots of really neat stuff to cover in this newsletter, but before we dive in here are all my social links if you’d like to follow my creative writing on there too:

• Twitter

• Bluesky

• Instagram

And here’s a wee reminder that the hardback omnibus edition of Killtopia #1-5 is available to preorder now. It’s out across the UK and US, at all good book and comic stores, as well as several online retailers. It has reworked editions of books #1 and #2, and new bonus content too. Find out where you can preorder a copy here.

Alright, let’s get started :)

1. I’m in issue #1 of Boom! Studios’ new horror anthology

Back in January, Boom! reached out and asked if I wanted to pitch them a six-page story for their new monthly horror anthology, Hello Darkness. I teamed up with artist David Cousens on the short and it was green-lit a while back.

Now, the cat’s out of the bag, and our story will appear in Hello Darkness #1, which hits all comic stores on July 24th. The contributor line up is wild for this one, including Garth Ennis, R.L. Stine, James Tynion IV, Becky Cloonan, Liana Kangas, Cullen Bunn, Brian Azzarello and many more.

I can’t share any details of my story just yet, but keen an eye on my socials and the Boom! socials for updates in the run up to launch. It’s still a wee bit mind-blowing that David and I are sharing pages with a line up that stacked with legends.

The imposter syndrome is real!

2. My Run ‘n’ Gun book is targeting a July launch!

My second video game history book, Run ‘n’ Gun: A History of On-Foot Shooters is expected to open for preorders and general orders in July. You can head on over to the Bitmap Books site for updates, and I’ll be sure to post order links on my socials when they’re live.

I receive my comp copy a few weeks back and I couldn’t be happier with how it turned out. The page designs are beautiful and the game screenshots and artwork inside are full of colour and nostalgia.

And, much like my beat ‘em up book Go Straight, the tome is so weighty it could quite easily be used as a blunt weapon… (not that I’d ever endorse such behaviour!)

3. Killtopia: Nano Jams - some new artwork!

Production is rolling along nicely on the Killtopia: Nano Jams anthology, with 6 of the 25 stories now completed. The other 19 are all being worked on now, so I’ll have many new pages to share over the next few months.

For now though, here’s a look at page one of Re-Pete, a brilliant six-page short by writer Dan Whitehead, with art by Gustaffo Vargas and letters by Micah Myers:

Re-Pete is a great story about that yearning feeling we sometimes get when we think back to our childhoods, a time when we had less responsibility, fewer worries and lots of cool toys and cartoons to enjoy.

4. Final thoughts…

• I’ve recently completed scripts for two all-new issue #1s, which I hope to pitch around around the end of Autumn / start of Winter. I can’t say much about either series just yet, but me and the artists involved are feeling really good about them - stay tuned!

• Ninja Baseball Spirits #2 should be hitting Kickstarter this October! Steve and I have been hammered by our day jobs and other urgent projects landing on us unexpectedly, but we’re almost ready to get back into the groove. I’ll have more to share on this nearer the time!

• Lastly, since my last newsletter I’ve been playing a lot of new video games. I’d highly recommend Hi-Fi Rush from Tango Gameworks, which was cruelly shut down by Microsoft recently (ugh…). It’s a fantastic hack ‘n’ slash game in the style of Bayonetta and Devil May Cry, but everything moves in time with the music. It’s a clever concept that I urge you to check out.

That’s all for this edition. Have a great rest of the month, and I’ll see you all again in late July!

-Dave