SPECTATORS - Part 133
Plus, the final Artopsy from NIKO HENRICHON!
What did I miss?
Brian here, back on the grid after taking a small sabbatical from screens. It was nice.
While I was away, looks like the news (in the very loosest sense of that term) broke about my next screenwriting gig, an adaptation of one of the most innovative and influential science fiction films of all time. I wish I could tell you more, but at this very early stage, I am… forbidden.
I will say that this won’t change the amount of comics that I’m working on in 2025, and now that I’ve written the final page of Spectators (coming your way in a few short weeks!), I’m already full speed ahead on my next comics project, which my collaborators and I will blab about as soon as we’re ready, thanks for your patience.
But enough of my confounding coyness, let’s get to something more tangible, like a few new NSFW pages of Spectators from artist/co-creator Niko Henrichon and letterer Fonografiks, as our intangible protagonists make a new acquaintance.
To be continued.
How astounding is Niko’s storytelling? His artwork for this scene gives me fucking chills. And invisibly perfect balloon placements from Fonografiks, as always. I’m the luckiest writer in comics.
As I mentioned, the three of us are in the home stretch for this epic graphic novel, which we hope to complete here at Exploding Giraffe before Christmas. Our story will remain free to read in these weekly vignettes, but the upcoming 330+ page Complete Digital Collection of Spectators (and all final contests, including Niko’s last big giveaway of his original art) will be exclusively for you generous paid subscribers in The Tower.
But we giraffes are a generally gregarious group, so no judgment if you’re a longtime lurker who decides to drop five bucks for a single month just to join us in time for our grand finale. All are welcome…
Speaking of The Tower, in a recent chat thread, a few members in the U.S. mentioned that their stores never received copies of Battle Action #1, the British anthology that features a self-contained Kids Rule O.K. short story I collaborated on with mind-melting artist Chris Burnham.
Well, fellow septics, I’m happy to report that, after what sounds like a wildly complicated international shipping situation, this issue has finally started arriving on our shores, so please ask your friendly neighborhood comic shop if they still has any left.
If not, you can still purchase a legit digital edition of the book from the 2000 AD Shop.
Very proud of this mean-spirited little tale, sorry again for the wait!
Before I turn things over to Niko for his final and perhaps finest Artopsy, it’s time for one last edition of…
My Friends & Colleagues Are Annoyingly Talented
First up, this past Friday, while you were suffering through Netflix’s boxing debacle, I was at the Geffen Playhouse enjoying a riveting new production of Waiting for Godot, starring my old pal Adam Stein (the dashing chap on the right) as Lucky:
As mentioned in the below installment of Exploding Giraffe, Adam and I once co-wrote a batshit Vietnam-era sci-fi television pilot called Invisible Men…
…but he isn’t just one of the best writers I know, Adam is also a world-class actor, as noted in this rave from The Los Angeles Times:
Stein’s Lucky, carting Pozzo’s luxuries like a beast of burden, matches Lovett with a physical eloquence. When he eventually explodes into thinking, delivering a monologue of disordered intellectual half-thoughts and rhetorical tics, the stage convulses in Lewis Carroll absurdity.
Damn, I wish I had physical eloquence.
Anyway, a wonderful night at the theater, highly recommended for those of you who happen to reside in the surreal purgatory of Los Angeles.
Next up, you probably only know about Exploding Giraffe because you were first a fan of Jonathan Hickman’s insanely ambitious Substack 3 Worlds / 3 Moons with Mike del Mundo, Mike Huddleston, Nick Spencer, and many more, but if not, now is the time to jump aboard with 3W3M’s massive new Kickstarter.
Back in 2021, we launched an ambitious new project called 3 Worlds / 3 Moons. The idea was to create not just a book or a single story, but an entire universe, a fully-realized setting that could serve as a backdrop for countless stories, not just from us, but any creator with an idea. And we wanted to build this universe in front of, and in collaboration with, our audience. In the three years since then, we’ve done exactly that over at 3w3m.com, with a community of over 30,000 subscribers, producing over a thousand pages of comics and world-building lore so far.
But we always knew that this universe-building phase would come to an end, and it would be time to launch what we’d made out into the broader world, as the focus shifts from theory to practice, lore to ongoing narrative, and from concepts to characters. We’ve been looking forward to that for a long time.
So, today, with the launch of this Kickstarter, we’re thrilled to announce 3W/3M [ONE], the ultimate starting point to our new universe. This opening volume- available as a beautiful deluxe hardcover or as a collection of three standalone prestige editions- contains the core stories that set the stage for everything to come.
I love/am maddeningly jealous of everything about the concept and execution of this wholly successful big swing, and I’m just sad that I missed out on the Kickstarter tier that offered original artwork by Hickman (shit!).
But there are plenty of other cool rewards still available, not to mention the beautiful books themselves, so I hope you’ll give them a gander.
While you wait for those tomes to arrive, you can check out more new comics from my friends at Panel Syndicate RIGHT NOW, always for whatever price you want to pay (including zilch).
As my dear friend Marcos Martín wrote (right before the election):
A New UNIVERSE!
And I’m not talking about the new universe that might be upon us depending on today’s US elections. No, that might end up resembling more of a hellish dystopia, so we decided to treat you to a full 52 page issue filled with beautiful Albert Monteys’ art especially designed to please your retinas instead. You’re welcome.
In this newest issue we’ll explore the boundaries of the mind (and of capitalism) in a silent tale that will leave you speechless... So much so, after reading it, I had to ring up Albert and ask him if he was okay.
In any case, the one thing we know for sure is this is an awesome comic that will question all you ever thought you knew about mining in Jupiter’s moons.
And finally from me this evening, one last reminder that Pia Guerra has consigned her first four pages of original art from Y: The Last Man #1 to this week’s 2024 November 21 - 24 Comics & Comic Art Signature® Auction, so get ready to bid, support one of the most incredible artists working, and maybe bring home a piece of modern funny-book history.
That’s it from me today, but I’ll see you Tower members in Niko’s chat, and the rest of you back here next week for one of our classiest giveaways yet, as well as more free Spectators.
Take it away, Mister Henrichon…
Hello, everyone!
As we’re slowly but surely going toward the final segment of this amazingly unusual story, I thought I could share a little bit of what I’ve been cooking on the other side of my office.
Many of you have probably noticed I also have a passion for painting and illustration. Whenever I’m solicited for that kind of work, I try to find room as best as I can to fit these jobs in my schedule. Today, I will share three of my latest.
First, this comic book came out last week:
Amazing Spider Man #61, story by Joe Kelly and art by Ed McGuinness.
I’d been asked to do an epic double double-page spread of a flashback scene. Four pages is a lot of space, but Joe’s script is pretty dense, so it was a bit of a challenge to cram in all these elements and still make it visually appealing.
Here are the layouts.
These spreads were composed to form a sort of giant panoramic, image but I didn’t have the guts to paint them on a single extra large sheet. That kind of madness needs a much bigger space than what I have now.
One day maybe!
When I’m doing a new piece of colored work that I’m not familiar with, I try to do a quick test to get a basic feeling of the colors I want to work with. I use that as a reference for the coloring step.
Finally, these two spreads are drawn and colored in my classic technique.
These two art pieces should be available soon at my usual art dealer website: https://essentialsequential.com/
(Small advice: there will be a 20% discount sale between Black Friday and Christmas!)
Secondly, I did this recent Usagi Yojimbo/Power Rangers crossover cover.
Similarly to a lot of my colleagues, I think, I’m a big fan of Stan Sakai’s creation, so this was a nice occasion to have fun with the beloved main character.
Here are the multiple different layouts I submitted to the publisher…