SPECTATORS - Part Fourteen
Plus, the PAPER GIRLS tv teaser and your chance to win free comics!
How was your Mother’s Day, those of you who are/have one?
Brian here, and while many moms were celebrating with breakfast in bed yesterday, my wife woke her family early to march us up a mountain for a mandatory morning hike. I’m still sore.
But I’m also grateful for the number of new readers who’ve joined Exploding Giraffe in the last week. Just a reminder, you’ll be getting 100% FREE new comics in your inbox every Monday, and you can catch up on the past 40-plus pages of our serialized graphic novel Spectators anytime in the archives (though be advised that this work often contains graphic sex and/or violence, so you may not want to read on a crowded trolley or what have you).
I’d suggest starting with The First Thirty Pages, then follow that massive chunk of our story with Parts Nine, Ten and Eleven. For everyone’s convenience, co-creator Niko Henrichon, letterer Fonografiks and I are re-running Parts Twelve and Thirteen in this very dispatch, which will then roll directly into today’s Part Fourteen, one of the most beautiful double-page spreads I’ve ever seen. (And these images will always be followed by high quality files in multiple formats that you’re welcome to download, own, turn into your laptop background, etcetera; no pesky “DRM” here!)
Okay, everybody all caught up? Then let’s revisit the conversation between recently deceased spirit Val and her guide through this strange afterlife Lita, as our story takes yet another turn…
I recommend mirroring that last image to your television if you know how. Niko is unbelievable.
And yes, for those of you who’ve been looking for a way to describe our often indescribable tale, today’s fast-forwarded TIME JUMP offers some guidance:
Spectators - A ghost from our shitty present haunts our weirdly wonderful future… and her story is just beginning.
If that sounds like something your oddball friends might enjoy, please fee free to share this or any of our public posts with them, thanks!
Holy shit, the first teaser for Paper Girls dropped over the weekend???
Fellow Executive Producer Cliff Chiang and I can’t wait for you to meet this exceptional cast, who couldn’t embody their characters more perfectly. I love that this first brief video also manages to celebrate the work of our comic collaborators Matt Wilson (check out that spot-on color scheme!) and Jared K. Fletcher (his instantly iconic logo has never looked better!).
This awesome adaptation will be coming to Amazon Prime Video later in 2022, so please follow @PaperGirlsPV on Twitter or @papergirlsonpv on Instagram for more cool updates.
And if you haven’t read Paper Girls yet, our friends at Image have got you covered. Available at your local comic shop this Wednesday, a special new printing of our oversized first issue for only a single damn dollar:
But if a measly buck is still too rich for your blood, we’re also offering a chance to win one of these beauties for FREE. Just be bold enough to admit in the comments that you haven’t yet tried Paper Girls, and a few of you lucky commenters will be randomly selected to receive your own introductory copy.
Alternately, if you’re already a card-carrying member of the American Newspaper Delivery Guild, please just post your A.N.D.G. number in the comments, and you’ll be entered into a very special drawing to win all three of our foil-tastic hardcover deluxe editions, each signed by some meathead:
So… very… shiny…
Every Friday, we send out some exclusive bonus content and prize opportunities to our generous paid subscribers in what we’re calling The Tower.
Over the weekend, we had a fascinating conversation in our cozy private forum about favorite anthropomorphic animal fiction, and I was reminded of a novel called Scruffy by Jack Stoneley that I hadn’t thought about since third grade, when I embarrassingly wept in class as the teacher read it aloud to us. Anybody else traumatized by that one?
Regardless, thanks to those of you who participated in the chat, and for the promised winner of that Stan Sakai-signed/sketched copy of Usagi Yojimbo, we’ve randomly selected commenter… Lucas Cook.
Congrats, Lucas. Our intern/mascot Genesis the Exploded Giraffe will be in touch for your mailing address soon.
And if you recently signed up as one of our Founders, THANK YOU, and please know that Genesis will also reach out later this week about contact info for your Prize Package. We just lugged another batch of hand-drawn Niko sketches and signed Saga #1 scripts over to the post office, so thanks very much for your patience.
We love all of you kind readers here at Exploding Giraffe, but our monthly, annual and founding subscribers help make everything possible, so special thanks to those of you who recently upgraded to join us in The Tower.
Finally, like everyone in comics, I was crushed to learn about the death of artist George Pérez. Still, has anyone ever exited the scene with that much grace, dignity and fearlessness?
I always loved George’s obsessively detailed but elegantly composed work, especially this double-page spread (from the greatest Hulk story ever), which I must have studied for an entire summer:
Hank McCoy’s pelt!
I’m fortunate enough to own one small piece of original Pérez artwork in my strange collection, from a different collaboration with the great Peter David, a delightfully irreverent, creator-owned, mature readers series George co-created called Sachs & Violens, about a partnership between a fetish model and a Vietnam-era photojournalist. Bawdy fun, exquisitely illustrated, and highly recommended if you can still track down a copy.
George’s passing is another tremendous loss for the medium, and everyone here at Exploding Giraffe sends our deepest condolences to his many fans and loved ones.
All right, I think that’s about it for this Monday, but there are a ton of other amazing new comics being produced by our friends and colleagues at Substack, so if you’ve still got time to kill, I hope you’ll explore a few of our many Recommended Reads, and we’ll see you Tower types back here on Friday.
Have a beautiful week,
BKV
You might have said this before, so apologies in case it’s already been asked. Will Spectators get a physical print?
I’m sad to admit that I haven’t read any of Paper Girls yet.