070 C.O.W.L. is Officially Back
Your first look at The Massive-Verse's original series! Plus, Moon Man, new Kid Cudi music and merch!
Hey everyone!
Happy just-under-two-weeks-until-San-Diego-Comic-Con day!
This time of year is always a bit stressful for the comics industry— on top of racing to get books out the door, publishers and creators alike are also scrambling to put together convention plans, exclusives, announcements, etc.
Over here, we’re doing all of the above. As I’ve been mentioning in the last few newsletters— we’ve got big plans for this year’s show, including our own Massive-Verse booth (#4901) where we’ll have a host of exclusives including limited edition Supermassive 2024 and NO/ONE foil variants, Kelly McMahon’s gorgeous Massive-Verse pins— including a brand new SHIFT (!!) drop— Tom Whalen’s limited edition Radiant Black and Rogue Sun screen prints, plus TPBs, prints and other awesome stuff.
Oh, and with C.O.W.L. about to make its triumphant return, we’re also going to have these beauties:
(and here’s SHIFT, for good measure)
(And, apologies for the image quality— these are photos that the manufacturer sent. We’ll get better photos posted as soon as I have the pins in hand!)
Next week, I’ll be announcing our signing times at the booth but in the meantime, here’s all of my non-booth events— including our massive Massive-Verse panel.
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
Saturday, July 28
IMAGE SIGNING: 11 a.m.-12 p.m.: Bear McCreary & Kyle Higgins (The Singularity)
Supermassive 2024 Black Market SDCC Exclusive Foil
AND SPEAKING OF THOSE SDCC EXCLUSIVES— we’ve made 50 copies of our Supermassive 2024 Black Market SDCC Exclusive Foil available early for newsletter subscribers at a special discounted price ($50 instead of $60) and there’s less than 20 copies left! Here’s a link to snag yours now!
And with Moon Man selling out left and right, now’s also a great time to grab yourself a copy— we’ve got variants on Moon Man #1 as well as the ultra-rare Kelly McMahon x Black Market Narrative edition!
In a bit of positive personal news, on Thursday I was officially cleared to walk again! It’s slow going and there’s a lot of strength to build back, but it’s crazy exciting to finally turn a corner and be able to turn corners.
Now it’s about continuing with PT and seeing where I land over the next week and a half. There’s still a good shot I’ll be doing SDCC in an electric scooter and/or a brace and crutches. But things are definitely better than I was expecting them to be.
Anyway, let’s talk about some books, shall we?
Available Now
Moon Man #3 - July 10
As news of the Moon Man begins to spread, Ramon starts to test the limits of his abilities—but an old friend coming back into his life makes everything more complicated.
After a bit of a gap between issues, Moon Man is back with issue 3. For those who don’t know, this is the series that Black Market Narrative makes with Mad Solar. I write the book with Kid Cudi (Scott), which is illustrated by Marco Locati, colored by Igor Monti and lettered by Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou along with editing and design from Mr. Never Misses, Michael Busuttil. That last term is how Moon Man character designer Chase Conley refers to Michael :)
Issue 3 also features two stunning variant covers by Greg Tocchini and Jim Mahfood.
In addition to the book, Scott has also been making new music and releasing tracks alongside key issues of the comic, as a part of a new album called The Soundtrack of Moon Man.
This week, Scott dropped his latest track, title DREAMS I SEE, and Variety had the exclusive debut, which also featured this killer new visualizer version of the song:
We’ve also integrated the music into the Moon Man site via Spotify and Tidal playlists— you can head to MoonManComic.com right now to read the series digitally, find your local comic shop, and score a link to some killer, limited-edition apparel that Scott has made to go along with issue 3. My favorite of which actually features a version of this first page…
Preview:
Final Order Cutoff
C.O.W.L. 1964 #1 - FOC July 15, on sale August 7
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 along with our stunning variant cover by frequent Massive-Verse collaborator Kelly McMahon, ahead of Monday’s final order cutoff.
This week, I’ve got a longer preview for you all featuring the return of a classic C.O.W.L. villain, one of the original members of The Chicago Six, Skylancer.
But he should be dead, shouldn’t he? Hmmm… I wonder who this version is…
Preview:
We’ve officially sent this one to the printer and, honest to God, I could not be happier with how it’s turned out. It’s crazy to come back to a world ten years later, nearly twenty years after you first started building it. Rod, Alec and I are all over the moon with the direction this book is taking and— as a now-fixture of the Massive-Verse— the threads we’re able to weave that will pull through the universe in unexpected ways over the years to come.
And if you’ve never read the original C.O.W.L. run, of which this four issue miniseries is a continuation, don’t worry— we’re running the above recap page at the start of the 1964 book and we’ve designed the mini to tell you everything you need to know about the characters, in story.
That said, if you want to take the proper dive… good news! We’re also doing a new printing of volume one, on sale the same day!
C.O.W.L. Volume 1 - on sale August 7
We’ve updated the cover to a purer blue that should print beautifully, along with some streamlined design and as I mentioned last week, this volume will also feature new pages for C.O.W.L. issue 4, which Rod has gone back to illustrate himself:
And not to be outdone in the cover design department, later this fall, we’ll also be doing a new printing of C.O.W.L. volume two.
Q&A
Sorry if I've missed it elsewhere, but are there plans to collect the SUPERMASSIVE one-shots in TPBs or HCs down the road?
-Ross Binder
Hey Ross! We are planning to collect the first three Supermassive one-shots (2022, 2023 and 2024) in a trade paperback sometime next year. The fun thing about these three is that while each one was designed to be a standalone one-shot story, there’s an arc across all three that I’m quite excited by. This will make more sense when Supermassive 2024 hits stands in a few weeks (July 24).
Hey! I'm a huge Radiant Black fan and I was wondering if your team had plans of making figures of the characters? I love the design of Radiant Black (both Marshal and Nathan) and would absolutely love adding them to my collection!
-Declan C
No plans for figures, no. We get this question quite a bit and the answer is unfortunately the same as it’s been— we all love action figures and would love to make them at some point, but we want to make them the right way and unfortunately, figures are very, very expensive to produce. Also, just speaking frankly, we’re not big enough yet as a brand for any major toy partners to be interested. But, one day!
Last time I submitted in a question it was slightly heavy with how the delays to Radiant Black might've affected its growth and excitement, so this time I'm submitting in a more fun one. I know this isn't a Black Market Narrative title, but what are you most excited for people to see when Ultraman X Avengers releases later this year?
-Owen Seyler
Honestly, we’re most excited about it finally coming out! I was thinking about this yesterday— Mat and I first started planning the story that has become the Ultraman x Avengers crossover exactly two years ago, while Mat was in town for SDCC. We then wrote a super detailed outline well over a year ago before everything went on hold while some behind the scenes things got sorted out. Thankfully, that’s all been handled and the first issue has already gone to the printer— Francesco killed it— and I have to give mad props to Mat for doing the real heavy lifting on this crossover. It’s a beautiful story that celebrates the characters and one that we’re both thrilled we finally get to share with people.
Okay, that’s going to do it for me this week! Next week, more SDCC details and an early look at our new Across The Massive-Verse sampler TPB!
Stay Radiant!
Kyle
Los Angeles
Super excited to hear what’s in store! Recently got back into comics after a 30 year hiatus and the massive verse has been nothing short of amazing. I might a bit biased though as I’m from the Chicagoland area, so seeing all the locales really makes it special for me. I’ve not seen anyone else do the things you all are doing and I just want to say, don’t stop. Between the alternate RB issues of the catalyst wars, to the choose your own adventure of Rogue Sun and the flip book, and lastly the podcast companion of No/One, you are all killing it. Much love!
Will we be able to buy the COWL badge after the con?