SPECTATORS - The First 200 Pages
Plus, SAGA prizes galore!
WARNING: This graphic novel may not be for you!
Brian here, enormously proud of these first 200 pages of Spectators that artist/co-creator Niko Henrichon, letterer Fonografiks and I have been working hard on over the last 20 months, but I also recognize that, like all of us, you’ve probably been helplessly observing a horrific amount of death and destruction in the real world of recent, so a story about two spectral protagonists doing much the same (even in a fictional far-flung future) might be the last thing you want at the moment.
Still, I’m extremely grateful to the nearly 17,000 of you who’ve opted to follow us on this journey, and if anyone in your life shares your unusually high tolerance for graphic violence and/or sexuality (though always gorgeously hand-painted by Niko), and you think they might also appreciate our unconventional ghost story, please feel free to invite them to join us as we continue to create this planned 300-plus-page epic in “real time.”
And if you’ve been with us every week from the start, THANK YOU, and I hope you enjoy how our rather uniquely paced story now reads in collected form:
To be continued with several shocking new pages next Monday, as Val and Sam’s story nears the beginning of its final act.
In last week’s conversation with you generous paid subscribers in The Tower, we were discussing precious pieces of our pasts thrown away by parents/guardians (inspired by a scene from the graphic novel Fair Weather by the late Joe Matt), and some of your responses were HARROWING.
Reader tcduff wrote:
Early on in my college years, I visited home and discovered that my mom had burned my baseball cards in the incinerator in the back yard. She just assumed they were worthless and of no interest to anyone my age. Included in the collection was a mint condition Mickey Mantle rookie card. A Mickey Mantle rookie card sold last year for 12.6 million dollars.
Ouch.
Adding insult to injury, our intern Genesis the Exploded Giraffe didn’t even select poor tcduff to win that copy of Fair Weather, a prize that was instead awarded to randomly selected Tower member Jonathan D, who shared:
When I got into comics in elementary school, my mother made me a promise that she would never throw them away. When she was younger (she’s 83 now) she had the first thirty or so issues of Mad Magazine. When she left for college, my Grandma threw them all out with the trash.
She still wistfully talks about them and wishes I could’ve seen them. So, now my problem is I never throw things away-and my wife worked as a professional organizer for a while. (But we make it work)
Jonathan, I think you AND your Mad-loving mother (and maybe even your professional organizer wife) will really dig Fair Weather. Congrats, and Genesis will be in touch for your mailing address soon.
Oh, and the comic industry’s most beloved letter column contributor Reed Beebe added:
In 1986, in an uncharacteristic fit of manic housecleaning, my mother threw away my copy of THE OFFICIAL HANDBOOK OF THE MARVEL UNIVERSE DELUXE EDITION #3, which was devasting, because in those pre-internet days, it was my only source of information regarding the origin and pathos of Doctor Doom.
I grew up in rural Louisiana, with no access to a local comic shop (I had bought my local drug store’s sole copy of the HANDBOOK). I never did buy a replacement copy…
Say no more, Reed. For your tireless dedication to our medium, look what we found for you.
It’s only in “fine” condition, but I hope some pathos remains.
Anyway, along with getting to interact in these fun-filled weekly chat threads, Tower members get full access to exclusive weekly bonus material and dozens of hours of past interviews, screenplays, and more in our Exploding Giraffe Archives. Hundreds of these loyal Tower members have also won signed comics and/or invaluable pieces of original artwork from Niko Henrichon, and more cool shit is headed your way in just a few paragraphs, so why not join up today?
Monthly membership normally costs five bucks, but for the next week only, if you sign up for a full year, it’s only $3 per month!
Thanks again for being here (and thanks to my own dear mother for never throwing away a damn thing of mine).
Recently, I was visiting family in Albuquerque, and on my way to the outstanding Ihatov Bread and Coffee, I spotted this fine fellow literally running across the road:
Isn’t she beautiful?
Later that evening, I heard a strange bird call coming from a nearby backyard, so I raced to my normally reliable Merlin Bird App, but even it was unable to identify this apparently alien song.
Could it belong to the roadrunner I’d spotted earlier, or perhaps to some even more fantastical feathered friend native to the strange desert planet of New Mexico?
Finally, after I was spotted silently holding my cell phone aloft outside like a lunatic, my father-in-law said, “Brian, that’s a chicken. Our neighbors have chickens.”
Ah.
I see.
That rare and exotic creature I consume approximately once a day.
Well, this city slicker might be a fucking buffoon, but I absolutely rained hell on the rest of my extended clan in a ferocious game of Wingspan, so I like to think my avian honor was partially restored.
For our question of the week, all this got me wondering: What was your most interesting recent encounter with an animal?
Genesis will randomly select a couple of you Tower responders to receive some cool swag, including your choice of one of several new Saga sweatshirts (designed by the legendary Fiona Staples herself) from our white-hot Threadless shop…
…AND a signed copy of the relatively rare second printing of the sold-out Saga #66 (thanks as always to Fonografiks for the killer new logo treatment!), which your friendly neighborhood comic shop should have on shelves this Wednesday, October 18.
Before I get back to my current Saga script, I wanted to highly recommend a beautiful comic to you Y the Last Man readers from one of my favorite artistic collaborators (and a valued member of The Tower) Goran Sudžuka.
Created with writer Darko Macan, their book is called Martine Moon, and I’m delighted to let you know that the entire first issue is available RIGHT NOW from my pals at Panel Syndicate, where you can always name your own price (including $0.00!) for some of the best digital comics anywhere.
“Beautiful, bold and only slightly bitchy, MARTINE MOON would like nothing better than to enjoy each new day, champagne and shrimp cocktails, but aliens, gods, terrorists and scum from every corner of history keep showing up and making her life impossible.”
Originally published in France and Croatia, this three-issue action adventure story—presented in a gorgeous, widescreen, black-and-white format like the best old newspaper strips—is something special, so if you’re able, I hope you’ll support these two richly deserving creators.
And from his most recent newsletter, here’s Panel Syndicate founder and professional curmudgeon Marcos Martín with an exciting update:
Well, both Ed and I have already started working on the ninth and final chapter of FRIDAY and we’re now only waiting for the last few colored pages of Chapter 8 to come back from Muntsa. So you should be expecting the penultimate issue to drop anytime between now and... Halloween, maybe?
In the meantime, you can kill time rereading our last chapter and refresh your memory in preparation for the upcoming surprises... And yes, this is absolutely an excuse to include a picture here. Words suck!
Also, in what’s undoubtedly proof of my middle-age crisis, you can now find me at Panel Syndicate's Twitter page (yes, I refuse to call it “X”, Elon) where I’m currently undergoing my own sad attempt at Inktober by randomly posting originals from throughout my career, such as this one:
Jesus.
Nothing sad about that splash, Marcos! Be sure to check out his TwiX or whatever for more glorious original pages from an awe-inspiring body of work.
Finally, like everyone in comics, I was very sad to learn that we’d lost essential writer/artist Keith Giffen… but how badass that he went out penning his own hilarious epitaph?
Perfect.
Sending much love to everyone he ever made bwah ha.
Peace,
BKV
Edited because I think I "rained" hell, not "reigned" it, right? What a dimwit.
Not recent, but stands out in my memory as the most elegant heist I've ever witnessed by a crew of monkeys. I was staying in a treehouse lodge in the Amazon rainforest and watched as two jumped on the lever handle of the door to the dining hall, so the rest of the monkey gang could rush the breakfast buffet, grab as much as they could and rush out just ahead of the screaming staff.