SPECTATORS - Part Sixteen
Plus, new SAGA this Wednesday, and we announce our next podcast guest!
How are you feeling this moody Monday?
The line was way too long at this weekend’s L.A. County Fair to sample the nightmarish Cherry Kool-Aid Chicken Sandwich, but the family and I nevertheless had a swell time.
Now the kids are at school and the house is quiet (except for our tiny dictator Hamburger periodically barking demands), so I’m looking forward to an action-packed day at the keyboard.
As always, huge thanks to the international team of artist Niko Henrichon and letterer/copy editor Fonografiks (who once again caught one of my outrageously stupid typos) for finishing today’s pages of Spectators while I was snoring away last night.
When last we left our ghost Val, we learned that she never stopped haunting New York City after her untimely death in 2022. We’re now in our distant future, where the voyeuristic Val is hopeful that she’s finally found a compelling new storyline to follow.
Most of you seem to dig this new format we’ve been using, so we’ll again rerun one page from last week to help get you back up to speed before rolling directly into this week’s new pages. Those images will be followed by PDF and CBZ files that you can download/upload/reload/whatever, so please enjoy…
I laughed out loud the first time I saw Niko’s hysterically ominous final panel. You don’t want to miss next Monday’s installment… or maybe you do! Viewer discretion is advised, etc.
And feel free to revisit previous installments of Spectators anytime in our convenient Exploding Giraffe Archives.
As always, Spectators is 100% free to read, but if you’d like to help support the completion of this epic graphic novel (or if you just want more bonus content and/or cool prizes), thanks for considering becoming a paid subscriber.
Speaking of you generous paid subscribers in what we’re calling The Tower, thanks so much for participating in this weekend’s exclusive chat, where everyone volunteered “something interesting” about themselves. And holy fuck are you folks fascinating!
We have an amateur blacksmith who made his own pirate sword, someone who was married by Community actor Joel McHale (after he and his wife won a contest judged by Sir Mix-a-Lot?!), and one reader who’s 1) seven feet tall, 2) has bowled a 300 game, AND 3) golfed a hole-on-one.
And that’s just a few of the hundreds of extremely kind, thoughtful and hilarious people Niko and I are lucky to interact with every week. It really reminds me of the best days of the old “BKV Cabal” message board, with its diverse group of relentlessly positive, comics-loving humans. Knowing that we have such intelligent, worldly, badass readers is slightly intimidating, but it also makes the creative process less lonely, so thanks.
All of our monthly/annual/founding members are also automatically entered in a monthly contest to win an original page of Niko Henrichon’s full-color artwork, and this beauty is going to… reader Smokeyling. Congrats, Smokey!
Condolences to those of you who didn’t win this one, but there’s always next month. In the meantime, consider cheering yourself up with a potentially haunted antique clown, a weirdly genius business started by Tower member Jake Penzell, who will also anonymously send one of these terrifying artifacts to your loved ones and/or mortal enemies.
You get what you deserve when you set up a Google news alert for your own dumb name, and this narcissistic writer was delighted to learn yesterday that I singlehandedly ruined Wolverine (or at least his skeleton)… seventeen years ago!
I’d completely forgotten every aspect of this story, but I apparently gave “ultimate” Logan a unique weakness, which was inspired by my college friend Billy, who had a weirdly specific fear about being struck in his xiphoid process, a cartilaginous extension of the sternum that normally doesn’t ossify until adulthood, which my paranoid pal was convinced was basically a “human off-switch.”
Anyway, I guess I tucked that gem away for a rainy day, and exploited it for this scene with Lady Deathstrike in Ultimate X-Men #60:
I have no idea what the hell any characters are talking about, but check out that gorgeous Immonen artwork! One of the best storytellers I’ve ever had the honor to collaborate with.
Anyway, thanks to the author of what was actually a pretty fair article for taking the time to revisit work I thought had long ago been lost to the quarter bins. Here’s hoping future Wolverine writers will reveal that the “X” in X-Men has stood for “xiphoid” all along…
Speaking of my self-obsession, thanks to dear friend and We Stand on Guard collaborator Steve Skroce for giving me a heads-up about a recent episode of The Endless Honeymoon, a podcast from married comedians Natasha Leggero and Moshe Kasher, in which their guest Patton Oswalt had some very kind things to say about Paper Girls.
It reminded me that I wanted to ask: What podcasts are currently helping to distract you from (or inform you about) the horrors of modern existence?
We’ll leave the comments open to everyone today, and randomly select a couple of you kind responders to receive a signed copy of Saga #59, available at your friendly neighborhood comic shops this Wednesday!
Okay, ‘Burger is howling for his blanket to be properly adjusted to his demanding specifications, so I should get to it.
See you Tower types back here later this week for another awesome exclusive, our second installment of my podcast-thing Mature Readers. And this episode’s special guest is one of my absolute favorite creators: writer/artist/all-around amazing person BECKY CLOONAN!
Stay tuned for more details about how you can listen in LIVE!
Can’t wait,
BKV
I'm loving SPECTATORS... with each page we want more and more hahaha
Conan O'Brien Needs A Friend, or Smartless are both always funny and never concerning current events.