UPDATES FROM THE FARM - NOV 9, 2021

Black Hammer Reborn, The Bone Orchard and More...

Hey Everyone. Happy Tuesday. I’ve got busy few days here as I’ll be doing a couple days of “virtual” writer’s rooms for the Essex County TV show this week. That seems like a good place to start the updates.

I’ve been working on the Essex TV show for the better part of four or five years now, I think. The first iteration of the show started back in 2016 her 2017 and we have been consistently working since then rewriting, rethinking and, hopefully, making it better as we go. TV takes a loooooong time compared to comics and it’s been a real challenge at times, but ultimately the finish line finally feels like it’s in sight. If all continues to move we will finally start filming the show in 2022 as a 6-episode mini series. Speaking of Essex County, the next instalment of my “From The Vault” feature here will go up tomorrow and will focus on the creation of the Essex County graphic novels. I decided to break that up into two parts and part one will be available to paid subscribers tomorrow.

THE BONE ORCHARD MYTHOS

Last week Andrea Sorrentino and I announced our ambitious new project The Bone Orchard Mythos, a shared universe of horror stories starting early next year. I wanted to clarify a few things based on some questions we have received since the announcement. First off when we say “shared universe” we mean that all the various books and stories we will do all take place in the “same world” and share a common mythology but Andrea and I will be creating all the books ourselves, I’ll write them all and he will illustrate them all and we won’t be working with any other creators. There seemed to be some confusion there.

We’ll be working in different formats, the first book is a hardcover graphic novel, THE PASSAGEWAY, the second a mini-series and the third another hardcover GN. But when we collect the mini-series we will unify the design with the GN’s and collect them as hardcovers as well so they can all sit nicely together on a shelf.

Coincidentally, Andrea and I both have Batman books coming out this week! Andrea illustrated Batman: The Imposter with the screenwriter of the upcoming Batman film and I wrote Robin & Batman with my Descender/Ascender partner Dustin Nguyen both on sale this week.

NEW SECRET DUSTIN PROJECT!

Speaking of Dustin Nguyen he and I have started work on our new creator-owned Image series and we will be announcing it here in about a month’s time. We’re both really excited about it. It’s very different from Descender and we’re both eager to share details with you. But for now a completely out of context sneak peek at one of the book’s character designs from Dustin…

NEW BLACK HAMMER STUFF!

Black Hammer Reborn #5 came out a week or two ago and I’m glad I can finally share some more artwork my the rotating art team of Malachi Ward and Matt Sheehan. I’ve been a fan of both of their work for years and it’s been great working with Malachi and Matt on Reborn. Here’s a steak peek at some art from an upcoming issue!

And the first of the new Substack subscriber exclusive Black Hammer projects is getting very very close to being unveiled here. In a week or two I’ll release all the details and the launch schedule. Here is the first look at the book from it’s artist Stefano Simeone!

MAZEBOOK!

And finally, Mazebook #3 is out this week! Here is a preview of the issue and the amazing variant cover by Gabriel Walta.

Gabriel Walta and I are still working hard on our own new creator-owned books as well. We want to make sure we get enough issues done that we can keep publishing it regularly so it likely won’t launch until later in 2022.

Okay that’s for me. Back to the drawing board to get a Fishflies page done before my Essex zoom calls. I’ll see my paid subscribers later this week for a behind the scenes look at the creation of Essex County and a critical new chapter of Fishflies that flips the book on its head and sets up the next chapter.

-Jeff