Many of you wrote in last time to let me know the Amazon page for PULP: the Process Edition was messed up. After a week of back and forth that has now been fixed. So any of you that don't have a comic shop and want to order it can now confidently get one. You can also find out more about other ways to get the book, including finding your local comic shop, right here.
The book is a hardback, the same size as the DELUXE EDITIONS for our other books, and it will most likely never be reprinted, since it's an oversized art book aimed more at collectors and art process junkies (like me and Sean) than the average reader. We printed a lot of them, but I suspect they're going to sell out fairly fast, as the Deluxe Editions usually do.
The last week has been mostly dealing with family stuff, a bit of writing and mapping out a short story that Sean and I are doing before our next longer graphic novel, and a rewrite/polish on a Batman script for the show. A few meetings about a movie project and some other things Hollywood-related. I'm nearly done with the bulk of the first season of Batman: Caped Crusader (and I'm really happy with how it's turning out so far). I wish animation moved faster, but at least the scripting part moves fairly fast.
And honestly, it's been a great distraction from everything else on the planet Earth, which, to quote one of my favorite songs, "is clearly dying..." I spent part of last weekend watching a great new UK TV show called The Lazarus Project, which had that same theme, but was so gripping that I couldn't look away. Somehow it didn't feel as bleak as it was. I was jealous I didn't write it, so cheers to Joe Barton and all the other creative and talented people who made that show with him.
Somehow I ended up diving back into some Vonnegut after that. Not sure why, but something about the show reminded me of Vonnegut's books, and I rarely talk about how big of an impact they had on me. I spent a lot of my formative writing years absorbing books - pro-tip: if you want to be a writer, read a lot of books - and the novels and non-fiction of Kurt Vonnegut were an obsession of mine for quite a while. His voice, his experimental structures, and the soul of what he's saying really affected me. Mother Night and Cat's Cradle are probably my favorites, and thumbing through them, I was surprised to realize that PULP is a bit influenced by Mother Night, without me realizing it. But that's how influences are meant to be, hidden so deep even the writer isn't fully aware of them.
I ended up reading some interviews with Vonnegut that I dug up online, and was struck by how open and honest he was, even to call his own work "nonsense" and "horseshit" at times, which I wholeheartedly disagree with. There's something so deeply human about his work, from his best to his not-best, and I still miss reading his voice, 15 years after his death. If you haven't read him, start with Mother Night and Cat's Cradle, then Palm Sunday, then Slaughterhouse Five. You won't regret it.
Thinking about Vonnegut, of course, makes you think about the world and humanity and what we're doing to each other and to our planet, and I remember I used to take solace in that. He said he wrote to try to change the world, and I guess in that kind of Krishnamurti way, anytime you change one person you change the world, or something like that. (The actual quote is about changing yourself to change the world, but I can't remember the exact phrasing). But his work definitely changed me. Like all great art, it makes you feel not alone, yet also apart from the crowd. If it connects for you, which obviously it did for me.
But thinking about the world, especially the US recently, I keep feeling like KILL OR BE KILLED just becomes more relevant every year, as our society slowly unwinds around us... And recently I found myself looking at this scene again...
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KILL OR BE KILLED is a big book that goes to a lot of places, and not everything in it is something I actually believe. Some of it is meant to be a black comedy about our society and someone much younger than me reacting to it, but the rage underneath it is real. And these two pages are among the truest things I've ever written. It's just easier to say stuff like this in a bizarre vigilante story, sometimes. At least, for me.
But it reminded me of a Vonnegut quote (to bring it back around): "The two real political parties in America are the Winners and the Losers."
Anyway, back to our books, I am hoping to get out a single-edition trade of KILL in the next year, because I don't feel like it's going to stop being relevant anytime soon, and I feel like a big fat trade of it all would go over really well right now.
What else is going on? Me and Sean have a thing coming out in November from Image that I think a lot of you will want. I can't talk about it yet, but here's a tiny peek of the cover. I wonder what this could be...?
In other "things that entertained and moved me" news, I was lucky enough to see the new movie I LOVE MY DAD, which won SXSW this year, and it's so good that it feels like a trick. A really simple premise done with so much intelligence and style, and the first time I've ever been riveted by text messages in a film. I laughed, I felt bad, and then I laughed some more. James Morosini is the real deal, and he wrote, directed, and starred in this, with my pal Patton Oswalt playing his dad. You'll want to see this as soon as it comes out, trust me.
Here's an article about it, that has the trailer... and here's the poster...
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Our first question this time is from Justin Wilson, who says:
I was watching Columbo with my old man yesterday and it happened to be the episode called Try and Catch Me. It features an author, who tends to write murder mysteries, who of course ends up murdering someone. Nothing too new for a Columbo episode but it made me wonder..
..If they ever rebooted Columbo, and goodness gracious I’m not sure I would want that(it’d be weird without Peter Falk!), would you rather write an episode for it or be casted as a killer? Or both? Shoot I wouldn’t mind seeing you on there as often as Jack Cassidy was!
I also can't imagine Columbo without Peter Falk (and the fact that when Falk got old and sick he couldn't even remember who Columbo was still breaks my heart) so I hope they never reboot it, honestly. But if they did, and my friend Chris Levinson (whose father was Richard Levinson, co-creator of the show) was in charge, then I'd happily write an episode or two. I am not an actor (see: Capt America: The Winter Soldier) and hate to see myself on film, so I can't imagine wanting to be in it. But that episode you're talking about is pretty fantastic. I think Jack Cassidy actually played a murderous writer twice in Columbo, over the years (before his own tragic death).
Our next question is from Jake Howry...
Finally catching up on a backlog of Reckless while in Covid isolation and it struck me that the case Ethan is working at the beginning of Friend of the Devil when he meets Linh Tran is a lot like the Flitcraft story from Maltese Falcon? Is this an intentional homage or am I off-base here thinking too much about Noir while hopped up on Cold meds?
Well, you are definitely the first person outside a few crime novelist friends to notice that homage. That part of Maltese Falcon is my favorite part of the whole book (I think it's a true story from Hammett's days as a Pinkerton agent) and always stuck with me. So yes, that was very much a tip of the hat to Hammett. And probably not the only one in these books so far.
Okay, I'm gonna keep it short and simple this time, so I can get back to work. Send any questions for future newsletters to: criminalcomic@gmail.com and I'll be back soon.
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