SPECTATORS - Part 108
Plus, BKV's favorite novel of the year (so far)!
Say, were you also at EDC this weekend?
Brian here, and a few weeks ago, I’d never even heard of the Electric Daisy Carnival, but an adventuresome friend invited me to tag along, and though I suspect I was the oldest attendee by at least a decade, this weirdo had a joyous time listening to music and gawking at laser drone shows in the middle of the desert.
While I was on my wacky getaway, Spectators artist/co-creator Niko Henrichon was attending the classy-ass Lake Como Art Festival, which I hope he’ll tell us all about in next Monday’s Artopsy.
For now, because of our various travels, we were only able to get one (beautiful) new page to letterer/international man of mystery Fonografiks, but I promise we’ll be back with much more of this new scene between Val and Sam in our next dispatch…
Snap.
Thanks again for being here, especially you generous paid subscribers who’ve helped keep our lights on for the last two and a half years.
Oh, and confidential to one of our original “Founders” Larry P.: loyal intern Genesis the Exploded Giraffe has been trying to get in touch with you about your rewards since 2022, but we still haven’t received a response, so if you (or anyone else who’s still waiting on prizes/swag) happen to read this, please check your sp@m folder or reach out to Genesis directly, and we’ll get you your goods straight away: explodinggiraffesubstack@gmail.com
Huge congrats to all of the nominees for the 2024 Eisner Awards, including my dear friends Marcos Martín, Muntsa Vicente and Ed Brubaker, the creative team behind Friday.
I believe this was the sixth Eisner nomination for Panel Syndicate, a site that Marcos has almost singlehandedly kept alive for over a decade (during which time multiple larger comic publishers have launched and folded).
The final issue of Friday should be coming very, very soon, but while you wait, here’s an update from Marcos himself about one of the many other 100% creator-owned titles proudly “hosted” by this pay-whatever-you’d-like site:
Surprise Super-sized Special!
That’s right, this caught us completely by surprise, but when our resident superstar Victor Santos asked if we would be willing to host his latest comic GINGER’S REVENGE, we couldn’t say no!
Ginger Lewis’ mother has passed away after a long illness. When Ginger was only a baby, she and her mother were abandoned by her father, a low-life thug called Dennis Russell. Russell is now a successful crime lord and he is married again, but he never helped his former family. And Ginger blames him for her mom’s death.
Dennis Russell is going to discover that nothing is more dangerous than the rage of a teenage girl.
It’s clear that Victor takes no prisoners and neither does Ginger, our disgruntled teenage protagonist. This 57-page crime action tale of vengeance and retribution is now available at panelsyndicate.com for whatever price you want to pay, including zero!
And remember, hell hath no fury like an angry teenage girl!
Whoa, it’s almost Memorial Day?
I had no idea, but was reminded of the ceaseless march of time by our friends at Threadless, who just announced a Memorial Day sale (with most tees available for just 13 bucks, plus up to 40% off everything else) that’s somehow already happening right now over at the Official Saga Merch Shop.
You can get that tidy discount on exclusive designs by co-creator Fiona Staples (like the “orbital” shirt above) until next Monday afternoon, so please don’t delay, fans of officially licensed totes, onesies, etc.
And if you’re impatient to know more about this year’s coming arc of Saga, the solicit info and Fiona’s extraordinary cover for August’s Chapter 68 are probably somewhere online by now (along with the cover of 67 we already debuted here).
I prefer not to give too many hints about what’s to come until closer to each issue’s release, but I won’t judge if you want to hunt down a quick first look on your own…
Sorry, I know how needy this sounds, but do you have any questions for little ol’ me?
Each year of Exploding Giraffe’s existence, I’ve managed to kill one week of content with an edition of “BKV/Q&A,” where lovely readers like you can ask me anything you want (though I probably won’t reveal spoilers for upcoming stories, discuss my boring private life, blah blah blah).
This next Q&A will mercifully be the final edition, but anyone whose question gets selected by Genesis will win something from the Saga Shop, and you can see which Q’s have already been A’d in our previous two installments:
We’ll run your winning questions (and my losing answers) sometime in June, when I’ll also be interviewing a spectacular writer, as well as revealing my favorite comic books from the first half of 2024.
Finally, whenever I wasn’t doing my poor approximation of raving this past week, I was reading, and I inhaled what’s easily my favorite book of the year so far.
I’ll tell you lucky members of The Tower all about this (non-graphic) novel after our regularly scheduled paywall, but everyone else, have an electrifying week, and Niko, Fonografiks and I will see you back here next Monday evening for more free Spectators.
Thanks for still being here, literate pal!
Several years ago, the folks at Goodreads asked me to share my Top 10 Favorite Books, which is obviously an impossible challenge, but I took my best stab.
One of the authors whose work I mentioned happened to release a new novel recently, and I couldn’t have loved it more.