Got my comps today for CATACOMB OF TORMENT #10, folks can pick up a copy tomorrow at their local comic shop on New Comic Book Day. For the third time Lukas Ketner, Francesco Segala, Sabrina Del Grosso and Comicraft's Tyler Smith have collaborated with me on a story. This time around it's called "Death Groove", and it involves murder, a dark synthwave band, an indy record pressing plant/label and the birth of a ghostly online urban legend. And vengeance from beyond the grave, an EC tradition.
I'll be happy to sign copies of CoT #10 during next month's NERD INFERNO tour, and any other place folks can find me. Not in my house. Or Stop & Shop. Or HL market. Etc.
Furthermore...I was taking a break from pitching stories to EC but yesterday while promoting the new issue on social media I got a bug to type up an idea that's been in my head for many months. I typed it out and sent it to my editors and this afternoon woke up with the news that it's passed the first step and is in the queue for the folks at EC to give it the yea or nea. This is not the way I usually operate. Usually I ache over and second-guess these things and wait a while to send them. Or I don't send them. I guess I'm getting too old to go through that rigamarole. At least this time around. Who knows how much time you have left when you roll into your 60s? I'm definitely feeling very weird and morbid lately, with my birthday coming up, a ton of my old work being repackaged, and a recent scary family health emergency (not in our household, fyi). I don't know when I'll find time to write the script if it gets the go-ahead. So I don't mind if it sits a while. But it was a good feeling to just do something and get it out and not bend myself into shapes worrying about it. Four decades to reach that point, but point reached. At least this time around.