Despite the current crazy state of the world, I hope everyone had a nice (U.S.) holiday and— if you’re off work today— are able to relax a bit over the long weekend.
It was a big week over here, with the release of Radiant Black #29 and #29.5 as well as Rogue Sun #20. Next week will see the return of Moon Man along with a new track from Kid Cudi (!) to go along with issue 3 and the week after, C.O.W.L. 1964 #1 will be on FOC. But don’t worry, one week at a time!
In fact, as we finally start to get our footing back and our books back on schedule, we’re going to be working to get a regular weekly edition of the newsletter in your inbox going forward— we’re targeting Tuesdays, though there may be some slippage to Wednesday or Thursday from time to time. It’s a really small team of us who run the books, the newsletter, press, merch, etc. But with all the cool stuff we have coming up— more of which you’ll hear about at SDCC this month— I want to make sure we’re consistently communicating what we’re doing and putting everything in one place so it’s easy for everyone to stay in the loop.
And of course, we’re going to continue answering your questions, debuting previews, announcing Radiant Black voice cast (!) and giving an increased BTS look at aspects of our operation and how we build projects. So if you’re not already subscribed, now’s a great time! And it’s free!
There’s one other quick thing I want to mention up top this week as well, as we’ve gotten a lot of questions about it from our digital readers. Cutting right to the chase— unfortunately, as most of you probably already know, Comixology is beyond ruined. We’ve had a number of issues with them over the last year or two, from the wrong files being posted to issues just not appearing and this week we had another big one— it turns out that anyone who bought Radiant Black #29.5 did not actually get issue 29.5, they got a duplicate of Radiant Black #29. Comixology has told us that the problem is fixed, but it still isn’t. By the sound of it, they can’t actually figure out what the problem is and it’s that last bit that absolutely infuriates me. They’ve had the correct files since we submitted everything in early to mid-June.
Alas, one of the many pitfalls involved with selling a once-promising company to a megaconglomerate.
All that said, I can no longer in good conscience recommend Comixology as a comics platform to anyone.
So, who do we recommend?
Well, there are a lot of great alternatives out there but over the past year, all of us at team Black Market Narrative have been immensely impressed by the folks over at Omnibus. The user experience is fantastic, their design sensibilities are wonderful, and they actually offer customer support. Travis and the team are the ones behind our Moon Man website and going forward, we’re going to be building an even stronger relationship with them— specifically, we’ve got some exciting digital plans that we’ve been working on for The Massive-Verse.
So, starting today, I’m going to be including a digital link to each of our books… and it’s going to point to that issue on Omnibus.
Of course, you’re more than welcome to read your books on any (legal!) platform you choose, but Omnibus is the one that we all dig.
SDCC News
The Massive-Verse is coming to SDCC! Booth #4901
Yesterday, Image announced their panel and signing schedule for San Diego Comic Con! Here are the ones featuring The Massive-Verse and Black Market Narrative:
Thursday, July 26
IMAGE SIGNING: 12:30-1:30 p.m.: Kyle Higgins& Joe Clark (Deep Cuts) Image Comics Booth #1915
Friday, July 27
PANEL:Enter The Massive-Verse 11:45 a.m.-12:45 p.m., Room 6A Join Massive-Verse superstars Kyle Higgins (Radiant Black, NO/ONE), Brian Buccellato (NO/ONE), Melissa Flores (The Dead Lucky), Ryan Parrott (Rogue Sun), Joe Clark (Radiant Black) and more special surprise guests as the crew unveils exciting new developments and announcements in store for the Massive-verse this year and next! Moderator: Ryan Sidoti.
IMAGE SIGNING: 2-3 p.m.:Kyle Higgins, Brian Buccellato, Melissa Flores, Ryan Parrott, & Kelly McMahon (The Massive-Verse) Image Comics Booth #1915
If you’re in San Diego and you like all the outside-the-box stuff that we do, I cannot stress enough— our Enter The Massive-Verse panel is the one you’re going to want to be at. We’ve got some big surprises in store and everyone in attendance is also going to get something special from us ;)
In addition to the above, the team is also going to be setup throughout the weekend at our big Massive-Verse booth (#4901) on the main show floor. As I mentioned in last week’s newsletter, we’re bringing some very rare foil editions of Supermassive 2024 as a SDCC exclusive:
Limited to 300 units, we’re rolling out an even-more-stunning foil edition of our Tony Daniel and Igor Monti variant for Supermassive 2024, and it’s going to come triple signed by myself, Ryan Parrott and Melissa Flores.
We’re also going to be bringing out the remaining copies of our ultra-limited Black Market Narrative NO/ONE foil editions that we did for issues 1-3.
If you’re not able to make it to SDCC but either of these are interesting to you, we still have a few left that we made available early in last week’s newsletter. You can scroll to the bottom to find the links!
Available Now
Radiant Black #29 & #29.5 - July 3
THE CATALYST WAR continues! Things go too far. Nathan and Marshall make their choices. An outside force enters the game.
Hitting stands earlier this week, these are the issues we’ve been building to for the better part of three years, featuring the timelines now completely diverged and characters making and dealing with the fallout of their choices as we enter the third act of The Catalyst War.
Obviously, this eventhas taken considerably longer than any of us have wanted it to, but hopefully when you read these issues— if you haven’t already— you’ll see why. We’re putting everything we’ve got into these and the results… well, I think it’s safe to say they contain some startling twists and turns.
First up, Marshall’s timeline in Radiant Black #29:
Radiant Black #29 cover by Marcelo Costa
Preview:
Radiant Black #29 art by Eduardo Ferigato and Raul Angulo
Radiant Black #29 art by Eduardo Ferigato and Raul Angulo
Radiant Black #29 art by Eduardo Ferigato and Raul Angulo
Oof, am I right? Having just lost a significant portion of Chicago and hundreds of thousands of lives… Marshall is in deep. Can he find his way out? Will he be able to overtake Premier and Catalyst? This is one you’ll need to make sure you avoid spoilers for. You’re going to want to experience it for yourself.
And then, once you’ve read issue 29, hop over to issue 29.5 to follow Nathan in the aftermath of his own father’s sacrifice and the lessons it may-or-may-not impart on him:
Radiant Black #29.5 cover by Marcelo Costa
Preview:
Radiant Black #29.5 art by Marcelo Costa and Rod Fernandes
Radiant Black #29.5 art by Marcelo Costa and Rod Fernandes
Radiant Black #29.5 art by Marcelo Costa and Rod Fernandes
After this month’s Supermassive 2024, Radiant Black #30 and #30.5 serve as the finale to The Catalyst War and we’re expecting them to be out on September 18th. I can’t wait for everyone to see how it all ends— watching the way Eduardo and Marcelo are crushing it on these pages, I very much think they will be worth the wait.
Stretched to his limits, Rogue Sun encounters a mysterious new ally—but who is DIVINITY, and what dangerous secrets are buried in her past?
Also out earlier this week, Ryan, Abel and Natalia are joined by co-writer Nick Cotton for a hot new chapter of Rogue Sun. Ryan creates some of the coolest villains in comics and Divinity is no exception. Check out this intro:
MINISERIES PREMIERE It's 1964, and C.O.W.L.—the Chicago Organized Workers League, the world's first superhero labor union—is going national! But with the old team scattered and powerful forces moving in the shadows, will this union be busted before it gets off the ground?
Join the original C.O.W.L. creative team of KYLE HIGGINS (RADIANT BLACK), ALEC SIEGEL (HADRIAN'S WALL), and ROD REIS (New Mutants) for a new miniseries celebrating C.O.W.L.'s 10-year anniversary!
Last week, I showed off a few early pages from C.O.W.L. 1964 #1 ahead of July 15th’s FOC— this week, I bring you our stunning variant cover by frequent Massive-Verse collaborator Kelly McMahon!
C.O.W.L. 1964 #1 B cover by Kelly McMahon
And, a new two page preview— complete with lettering by the legend, Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou!
Speaking of C.O.W.L. news, back at C2E2 when we announced the new miniseries, we also announced that next year we were going to be doing a compendium edition that would collect issues 1-11 of the original series plus the new 1964 miniseries. However, with our decision to add a fourth issue to the 1964 mini— and the fact that volume one has been out of print for at least the last year— we’ve decided to set the compendium on the sideline for now and focus on two things—
Giving C.O.W.L. 1964 its own TPB
Reprinting C.O.W.L. volume 1
On this last point, I’m thrilled to be able to tell you that the volume one reprint is moving forward and should be in stores alongside C.O.W.L. 1964 #1!
We’ve also updated the cover to a purer blue that should print beautifully, along with some streamlined design and this volume will also feature the new pages for C.O.W.L. issue 4, which Rod has gone back to illustrate himself:
Q&A
Today’s Q&A features questions from The Massive-Verse Discord!
For those who don’t know, The Radiant Black Podcast crew run a really lovely Discord server focused on The Massive-Verse, which frequents pop-ins from most of our creators.
What would you say has been the most difficult part of putting together the Catalyst War (thus far)? -Anømaly616
The scope, scale, and schedule have all been equally challenging. Going from one book a month to two books a month has its own challenges, but add in to that the way that each issue needs to be independent of while also linked to the other, is a tough balancing act to pull off. Plus, as I’ve mentioned before, life sometimes gets in the way— whether that’s health stuff, personal stuff, etc— and that has made all of this A Lot.
And, you know, it’s not like the creative on this has been simple, either (laughs). Joe and I have spent a lot of time designing this story and the character arcs across the entirety of it all, how they may-or-may-not interlink with the other, plus knowing where this is all going to end up after the results of the vote are revealed, my plans for the title after The Catalyst War, how everything relates to our larger mythology… it at times makes juggling 200 Power Rangers for Shattered Grid feel quaint :)
But, absolutely zero regrets— this is the story I’ve wanted to tell since day one of this book and I could not be more proud of how it has all come together. And now that we’re in the midst of the final two issues, I could not be more proud of the ending we’ve arrived at. Very excited for you all to read it :)
How do you think the Massive-Verse community has changed within the last year? Also, given the success, what goals do you have for the future? -NoahM
The community continues to grow, which is a pretty remarkable and inspiring thing to all of us. With the continued growth of our collected editions as well as foreign editions of the titles, people are constantly finding our universe and we’re all very excited for that to continue.
Things like the upcoming Radiant Black Audio Book, as well as some other endeavors that we haven’t talked about yet, are designed with this in mind— we’re always looking for ways to help raise general awareness around what we’re doing, both in the direct market as well as the larger book market, in the hopes that the community will continue to grow and we can keep doing all these outside-the-box things.
Do you think you can top the dual timelines concept in Radiant Black in future stories? -Eccentric_Radiantø7
Absolutely.
The Black Market
Supermassive 2024 Black Market SDCC Exclusive Foil
We made 50 copies of our Supermassive 2024 Black Market SDCC Exclusive Foil available at a special discounted price ($50 instead of $60) and there’s less than 20 copies left!
Oh, and there’s also a few Moon Man#1 variants still available as well…
ProgCore Fantasy
One last thing before we go— friend of the newsletter and Ben Kern himself, Todd Stashwick has a super cool Kickstarter going on right now called ProgCore Fantasy. If you’re an RPG fan, I highly recommend checking this one out! They’ve got some killer rewards!
Just read Catalyst War part 8 & 9. WOW.
Bravo to the whole Radiant Black Team. Especially Eduardo & Marcelo. Incredible work.
Wishing you all the best Kyle and the whole team, thank you for all you all do, so excited for more of everything!