Meeting Of The Minds
Well, it's another late Tuesday night, ready for the Wednesday to come. And there are comics to announce, so let's dive in...
WHAT'S OUT THIS WEDNESDAY?
X-Men Red #11, that's what!
We're back from the Sinister future in time for a long, long, long-awaited confrontation - as Storm and Professor X finally talk about Magneto's last words. I won't spoil how it goes, but I will say that, out of all the data pages I've designed and built myself - and there have been a few - this issue contains the pair I'm proudest of. Meanwhile, the rest of the cast are in relaxation mode - beautifully drawn by our pre-FoX artist Jacopo Camagni, with color art from Federico Blee - until an unexpected visitor threatens to throw things into turmoil. Is everyone ready for the Genesis War...?
COMING ATTRACTIONS
An announcement - I'm going to be in Stockholm this November for Comic Con! My first trip to Sweden! I will wrap up warm.
More info here, and I'll post more about it nearer the time.
MARVEL COMICS PANEL BY PANEL
It's a biggie - as the Torch is finally unveiled!
Such a moment deserves the biggest panel yet - and yet it's oddly distorted, an L-shape, sinister non-Euclidian geometry intruding on the normal format. Looking at it in isolation, I'm wondering if this was originally planned as two panels - one for the Torch exploding into flame, one for the shocked reaction - and then run together into one, to give both more space. The result puts the torch on a literal higher plane - the journalists are cramped, boxed in by their own balloons, while the Torch, despite being trapped in a tube, has the room to soar.
And what balloons! Pink Suit - whose face is still entirely hidden from us - is capitalizing his exclamation Old-Timey Bible Styles. Meanwhile Green Suit, whose green suit is getting further ahead of its time every second - the man belongs in the Coffee-A-Go-Go reading Kerouac or possibly taking Timmy Mallett's job out from under him – has raised the stakes to civilization-destroying heights. In the same breath, this maniac - who we have previously characterized as a steaming cauldron of primordial rage - is at once conferring personhood, calling Horton's homunculus a "man", and then taking it away with the reductive pronoun "it", reserved for objects, and then without even beginning a new sentence he denigrates the Torch further, from object to bomb. And he's the most active he's been so far while he's doing it - check out that jabbing finger action! Horton's stiff as a board in contrast, but his giant "NO!" speaks volumes. Even the background is getting in on this, sprouting scientific-type coils and doohickeys which will sprout further in the next panel. Of which more soon - can you wait? I can't. It took six or seven panels to get here, but the story's rattling along at an incredible clip now, and we're not even out of page one.
AND ON THAT BOMBSHELL
On that note, we've got to the end of another newsletter, so this is still the place to find me. Am I looking at Bluesky? I'm keeping a weather eye on it, I hear it's where Weird Twitter went. I kind of feel like original Twitter has degenerated into Dr. Hyde's Evil Serum at this point, and the Brain Genius Business Launchpad Everything Master, Speak His Name With Reverence For He Is Truly The Brightest Mind Ever Produced In These Times, is just... huffing that stuff like paint. Just snorting it up. Anyway, love and strength to all who need it, and I'll play us out with QUEEN and "HAMMER TO FALL".
