Want new SPECTATORS art signed by Niko & BKV?

Plus, our hardcover print edition is finally in comic stores THIS WEEK!

Behold, the moment you’ve (maybe?) been waiting for has finally arrived!

Brian here, delighted to share that the hardcover print edition of Spectators—featuring more than three years’ worth of gorgeous work by my dear friends Niko Henrichon and Fonografiks—will be in comic shops this Wednesday, September 10, somehow costing less than 30 bucks for all 344 pages of hand-painted loveliness.

(Spectators will also be available via other booksellers later this month, but your local comic store gets first dibs.)

I’ll be doing several signings across the globe in support of our book over the next few weeks, starting with this one on Saturday:

Here’s hoping my fellow Angelenos were able to snag a ticket to this event before it sold out, but if not, you can still order a signed copy for cover price directly from the nice folks at Collector’s Paradise.

And if you’d like something signed by Niko as well, our friends at Image Comics will be sending out several thousand hand-signed bookplates (featuring sumptuous new artwork by Monsieur Henrichon) exclusively to comic stores that bravely ordered at least 20 copies of our very graphic graphic novel.

It took me four complete Cleveland Guardians games to scribble on all of these. You’re welcome.

But if your friendly neighborhood retailer didn’t quite make the cut, don’t despair!

I held onto a few dozen of these bookplates, and if you’d like a shot at winning one, please just share a photo of you holding up your comic-shop-purchased copy of Spectators to Instagram, tag Niko and/or yours truly in the image, and you’ll be automatically entered in a drawing to receive a FREE signed bookplate.

Even cooler, one lucky poster will be randomly selected to receive a very special bookplate on which Niko drew an original sketch of everyone’s favorite spectral cowboy, Sam!

And if you’re not on Instagram, feel free to share an image of you with your hard copy of Spectators to TikTok, Twitter/X, Bluesky, Facebook, Ghlorbo, or whatever the hell kind of social media you’re using these days, and then please tell us you’ve done so here in our comments section:

Thanks so much to you mature readers for supporting your local comic shop AND for helping to spread the word about our adults-only supernatural sci-fi romance (before it inevitably gets banned).

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I’ll share more details about future signings (including ones at Third Eye Comics and Baltimore Comic-Con) in our next email, but for now, I can say that I’ll be doing another Los Angeles signing, this one at Skylight Books…

…before heading to New York City to sign at The Strand!

While I’m in NYC, Niko Henrichon (who should also be credited as my equal co-creator in those ads; apologies!) and I will both be stopping by New York Comic-Con, and we’re trying to schedule at least one free signing while we’re there.

Stay tuned for more info, but I wanted to let you know that whether or not you’ll be attending NYCC, Niko has opened a Commission List over at Essential Sequential, where you can request a Henrichon original for as little as $100, up to $1,000 for a full-color 11 x 17 masterpiece featuring multiple characters of your choosing (with several options in between!).

I’m sure Niko’s list will fill up quickly, so head over to Essential Sequential NOW, won’t you?

In an upcoming dispatch, Niko and I will also let you European giraffes know about some very exciting signings happening in Italy and France! Can’t wait to put on twenty pounds eating my way across that leg of the tour…

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While you’re at your comic shop this Wednesday, be sure to pick up a copy of the one-off “apocalypse romance” Closer from artist Steve Lieber and writer Kieron Gillen, the latter of whom was nice enough to write about Spectators in the back of this excellent standalone story:

And don’t forget to reserve your print copy of superstar writer Chip Zdarsky’s seventeenth installment of Zdarsky Shop News, which I’m sure will feature a very flattering cover story about none other than…

Oh, god.

Why did I ever agree to this?

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Right, time to get back to work on our explosive next arc of Saga AND my first new ongoing series (!) since Paper Girls.

I hope you were able to find some joy this summer, and—despite the generally dreadful state of our world right now—that you have a lot more good stuff to look forward to this fall.

Thanks again for welcoming us into your inbox, and extra-special thanks to those of you who were part of The Tower here at Exploding Giraffe. Spoiler alert for this print edition: Spectators is dedicated to YOU (and our beloved intern Genesis), without whom none of this ever would have been possible.

Peace,

BKV