BELGIUM! NO LIFE! COMICS!
Hi, everybody.
We are back from an ammmmmmazing trip to Belgium. We were invited to be part of the FACTS Convention and we are so glad we accepted.
This is one of the most beautiful places in the entire world, and the convention was amazing. The people were amazing. If I saw you... thank you for that. As I posted on social, it’s amazing seeing foreign editions of our books. And being that we were in Belgium, we were seeing German, French, Dutch, Finnish— all in one place.
We got to visit the legendary Comics Art Museum in Brussels. The entire place is packed with true international comics history.
And we got to eat an awesome dinner in the cinematic Bruges. It was just one of those amazing trips that reminded me how incredible this medium is, how worldwide it is, and how connective it all is.
Now that I’m back here in America, I have some treats for you…
LIVE EVENTS!
First of all, Matt, Kelly Sue, and I were recent guests on The George Lucas Talk Show. It’s one of my favorite things. I am so glad it was recorded and we can share it with you.
Coming up, if you live in Portland, I have a surprise FREE signing at Books with Pictures. All in celebration of the release of the PHENOMENA: BOOK 2 - MATILDA’S QUEST. This absolutely beautiful graphic novel is being released all over the place in just a couple weeks!
Join us at Books with Pictures on April 24th, 4 to 6 PM. There will be surprise giveaways for people joining. As always, feel free to bring anything you want to have signed. No charge. Ever.
Thank you for pre-ordering, thank you for supporting it, and thank you for spreading the good word. If you are in the Portland area, please do stop by! BUT if you can’t make it, we have another Portland surprise for you…
Both MATT FRACTION and I will be appearing at the legendary Powell’s Bookstore (downtown location) on April 27th!
For those of you who have attended other local events, you can count on some other friendly faces to stop by. Whether you can make it to the event or not, you can pre-order a SIGNED EDITION of PHENOMENA: BOOK 2 directly from Powell’s. You are supporting independent bookstores, independent voices, and— just in general— doing the right thing.
I am also using this signing as an opportunity to celebrate the release of Matt and Chip’s Sex Criminals: The Complete Edition. So come by and get that signed as well!
POWERS LEVEL UPDATE!
We’re going to send out another separate newsletter very soon about upcoming events for our friends subscribed to Powers Level. We have some classes lined up, our all-new book club is up-and-running and we’re going to be doing some “director’s commentaries” for Phenomena and other projects as well.
If you are part of Powers Level please stop by the Jinxworld Discord for exclusive access to a bunch of goodies. We are discussing tons of things, and you can be active in what subjects and books we will be discussing in class as we go forward!
NO LIFE!
Here is where I drop some highly recommended suggestions based on recent algorithm data pulling…
So in Belgium, I was taking the stage with one of my writing heroes Marjorie Lu, so I took it as an opportunity to revisit Monstress. Even though we didn’t get to anything I wanted to talk about, it did remind me what a masterpiece of a graphic novel series it is. Both her and Sana Takeda have created something that could only be done in comics and it is wonderful. Do check it out if you haven’t yet. Completely worth the deep dive.
Griffin Newman is part of The George Lucas Talk Show, and it sent me into a deep dive. He also co-hosts Blank Check with Griffin and David, and it is just about one of the best, longest, most spectacular, insane movie podcasts. They just released a 3 1/2 hour-long conversation about Last Action Hero with Paul Scheer and Jason Mantzoukas. Highly recommended:
Another new podcast home-run is the new Lonely Island & Seth Meyers Podcast:
One of my fave podcasts, Newcomers with Nicole Byer and Lauren Lapkus, ends a perfect season on Batman with the announcement that next season is all Scorsese!! Newcomers: Scorsese!! No one has to get me a birthday present this year. I got mine.
Steve! (martin) is a new documentary about the amazing writer and actor Steve Martin in two parts over on Apple TV+. Steve Martin’s Born Standing Up is one of my favorite books ever. I also love this very special documentary about a very special creative person. If you check out this documentary, and his new graphic novel (Number One is Walking: My Life in the Movies and Other Diversions) and the new audiobook, I think you can see that he has been spending the entire year releasing a massive autobiographical multimedia experiment.
POWERS and MURDER INC. Co-creator Mike Oeming has an outstanding new bunch of projects on the way, but I want to focus your attention on the very special William of Newbury, coming very soon from our friends at Dark Horse Comics. Mike has put his heart and soul into this and it is definitely worth your attention.
And I leave you with one of my favorite modern SNL sketches:
Lots more updates and fun stuff coming. Thank you for subscribing!
Talk to you soon.
-BENDIS!
