Me, Myself And I

Once again, I forgot to do the newsletter until the final final moment - because another comic with my name on it is out TODAY! So what is it?

WHAT'S OUT THIS WEEK?

Venom #30, that's what!

This one's called "The Royal Rumble", and if last issue was a cerebral character piece built around a formalist conceit... this one isn't. It's about PUNCHING! And MORE PUNCHING! And maybe a surprise guest from another book, too, making an entrance as only they can! There's just a pinch of existential timey-wimey angst, too - we're still in the Time Shenanigans Era of Venom, but I can reassure readers who've had about enough timeyness - and, indeed, wimeyness - that it's a plotline that's building to one hell of a head. CAFU, Rafael Pimentel and Frank D'Armata bring you every knuckle of the action in beautiful hi-definition technicolor.

What else? Well, I have about ten minutes for a trip back to 1939...

MARVEL COMICS PANEL BY PANEL

Horton's weary brain bulges with thoughts as he attempts to relay the relevant data to his fellow scientist. But this is beyond science - even Horton can't understand this strange phenomenon. I had a whole riff here ready to go on "spontaneous human combustion" as a paranormal phenomenon linking the Torch to magic and the otherworldly - trouble is, "spontaneous combustion" is a real thing that happens with compost and oily rags, and there's a whole wiki on it. Here we fall into the problem with MARVEL COMICS PANEL BY PANEL - some of these panels aren't really built for meaty analysis.

Luckily, in the background, we have the robot V.I.N.CENT from the Disney movie The Black Hole, first shown in theaters in 1979, almost the exact halfway point of Marvel's existence. What is this apparition from the future doing here, serving as silent witness on behalf of its corporate overlords? Who can say, it's 1939 and you are a small child who until recently was in possession of a shiny dime. Also, it could be the TARDIS. We're done here.

WE'RE DONE HERE, I SAY

So time to shut this down until the next comics release. Love and strength to all who need it, and I'll play us out with "Mermaids" by Florence And The Machine.