LOOKING AHEAD TO 2025 PART 1

Minor Arcana, Royal City, Phantom Road and more!

Greetings Farmhands. 2025 is shaping up to be a big year for me here on the farm, with multiple books launching and I’ll be starting on a number of brand new projects as well. I thought I’d take some time to go through what I have coming this year, and to try and tease some of the brand new books as well.

I’m going to split this post into two. This first part will focus in my creator-owned projects and later this week I’ll send Part 2 which will focus on my various DC Projects….

10 000 INK STAINS

Let’s start with the book I and probably looking forward to the most, my memoir/art book 10 000 INK STAINS. This project is a labour of love, and if you’ve been following this newsletter since the beginning you’ll have seen its genesis right here. 10 000 INK STAINS goes through my entire career, book-by-book and gives insight into the creation of each project, what was going on in my personal life at that time, as well as behind-the-scenes and never before seen process material for each. It will also reprint my very first mini-comic, ASHTRAY, in full, for the first time anywhere.

It will be a 200-page hardcover book from Dark Horse coming in JULY!

MINOR ARCANA

My main focus at the drawing table this year will, of course, be MINOR ARCANA, my ongoing series from BOOM! So what’s coming up in Minor Arcana?

Issue 5, out in January, will jump back to 1976 and start to reveal the story of Theresa’s enigmatic grandfather, a character who has haunted the series from the start. Then Arc 2 starts in Issue 6, where Theresa tries to reconcile with her lost love, Missy to unexpected results.

Both issues 5 and 6 are drawn by me. BUT in Issue 7 we welcome our new GUEST ARTIST Letizia Cardonici to world of Minor Arcana for a 3-issue run before I return on art for Issue 10. Given how many other projects I’m juggling, I’ll need to take periodic breaks from art duties on Minor Arcana and Letizia is an amazing new talent that I am every excited to welcome aboard. I’ll still be drawing the bulk of the series, but bringing Letizia on for guest spots helps me keep this book, and all my other books, on schedule. Here is the first glimpse of Letizia’s uncolored inks for Minor Arcana #7…

ROYAL CITY

One other big reason Letizia will be helping me out on Minor Arcana is so that I can continue to work on the sequel to ROYAL CITY. Happy to say that I finished drawing issue 3 of 6 in December! The book is coming along great, and I’m loving being back in the world of Royal City. Here’s a look at some never-before-seen art from Issue 3…

THE STATIC AGE: A Royal City Story will come out in 2026 as a 6-issue series.

PHANTOM ROAD

I just finished the scripts for Phantom Road issues 14-15 over the holiday break and Gabriel finished the artwork for Issue 12 in December! So ARC 3 of Phantom Road will be out starting in April ‘25.

Speaking of Gabriel, make sure to check out his artwork on ABSOLUTE BATMAN #4, written by my old friend Scott Snyder for DC (much more on the Absolute DC Universe in Part 2).

Issue 11 of Phantom Road will also feature a variant cover by my Black Hammer Spiral City partner, Teddy Kristiansen (below).

BLACK HAMMER

Speaking of Teddy and Black Hammer, Issue #3 if BLACK HAMMER: SPIRAL CITY will be out in January, written by me and illustrated by Teddy. Here is a look at some art form an upcoming issue…

NEW CREATOR-OWNED PROJECTS!

In addition to all of these books, I just started working on my next major collaboration with my DESCENDER/ASCENDER and LITTLE MONSTERS co-creator, Dustin Nguyen. This new project will be a long-form series, hopefully similar in length and scope to Descender. But this one won’t be sci-fi, instead we are playing with dark fantasy and the western genres. This one is just getting underway, so it will likely be an early 2026 launch.

I have also started writing a new 8-issue series for Teddy Kristiansen. This new book will likely be announced in the summer. It plays with the supernatural and detective genres.

I’ve also started making plans for more Black Hammer in 2026, and other exciting collaborations. But that’s about all I can say for now.

Later this week I’ll be back with a look at what’s coming up in JSA and some new teases and info about ABSOLUTE FLASH!

-Jeff