My week so far.
Another cover examination!
The Return of Chocolate Milk Reviews!
I’ve been behind on work. It’s never a good feeling in any job, but in comics it has an especially ominous feeling because the machine never stops moving. The comics are coming out with my name on them or not, and if they don’t have my name on them I can’t afford to eat. Well, I have enough savings to be able to feed myself. But I can’t afford something nice that I don’t really spend money on anyway, but would like to be able to.
I really burned the candle at both ends of the wick for the past 2 weeks to get back on track and pretty much managed to right the ship (you know it’s serious when the mixed metaphors come out). So with my work somewhat under control I decided to write this little newsletter yesterday…
And then I said “fuck that” and decided to go to the beach instead. I went up to the Bronx and porp’d around for a while. And then I… What’s the problem? Oh “Porp’d”? I had a dream once where my friend Chris drove me across country to introduce me to someone named Ro-Rin Porp. We finally got to the beach and he just stared at the water and yelled “PORP!” over and over. When I asked what he was doing he told me he was calling Ro-Rin Porp who was, in fact, a porpoise. When I said I wouldn’t have travelled across country to meet a porpoise he said “What did you expect? His last name is Porp.” Ever since that dream I’ve referred to any and all water activities as Porping.
Anyway, got wet, went to Arthur Ave for some pizza, missed hitting the dry cookies spot by like 4 minutes but that’s fine. And the karmic payback for my afternoon off?A conversation with my editor today where I found out that a script I outlined as 22 pages is actually supposed to be 40. Whoops. Hope you all like splash pages.
So obviously I am going to talk to you more about my new Image Comics series WHAT’S THE FURTHEST PLACE FROM HERE? with professional football fan and comic drawist Tyler Boss. But I liked talking about the cover Tyler did last week, so we’re going to keep that going.
So let’s back up. I’ve been a huge comics fan my whole life. I grew up a block from a comic store in New York. I started with Archie and Marvel and moved on to more indie stuff as I got older. At a certain point I was feeling pretty jaded on comics and was reading less and less. And then one day I discovered a book called POWERS by Brian Michael Bendis and Michael Avon Oeming. To say Powers reignited my love of comics is a wild understatement. I wasn’t just in love with this book, I was in love with comics in a way I never had been before. I remember reading an issue of Powers and just saying to myself “I want to do this.” I didn’t even know what “this” was yet, but I knew I had to try and do something with comics.
From Powers I started consuming everything Brian Bendis wrote. TORSO. GOLDFISH. JINX. FORTUNE AND GLORY. And finally I came back to reading Marvel books because I’d read everything else he’d made. I was hooked again. And now I was trying to make my own comics so it was becoming all consuming.
Jump ahead a couple years and I got my first self published thing together. I went to New York Comic Con and waited until Brian’s very long line was being capped and I managed to sweet talk my way into being the very last person. (Don’t do stuff like this, by the way.) When it came to my turn I nervously walked up and told him that he inspired me to want to make comics and asked if I could give him my comic. He could not have been nicer and more supportive, giving me advice and encouragement, and giving me his time. It meant the world to me, truly.
So here we are a few years later. I wrote a little under Brian at Marvel. I came to DC right after him. We’ve had to work in each other’s vicinities professionally and we’ve been some the same places socially. And in all that we’ve become friends. So when Tyler and I were putting together our dream list of cover artists, Brian Bendis was the absolute top of my list. Who else would you want to do a cover for your book than the person who made you want to make comics? So with incredible amounts of anxiety I texted him and asked if he’d do a cover. It was a crazy ask because I don’t think he’s drawn much of anything in…. a very long time. But much to my shock and awe he said yes. It’s not genuine shock and awe because all my experiences, and everything I know about the man, involve tremendous acts of generosity and kindness. But still, it doesn’t feel real.
When it came time to finally get the cover he messaged me to let me know that it was almost done, but he had enlisted the help of Michael Avon Oeming to finish it. I don’t know what that means really. I don’t know what Michael did, or how he helped, and I didn’t ask because BOTH OF THE CREATORS OF POWERS WORKED ON THE COVER TOGETHER!
Anyway, it goes without saying that I am so madly in love with this cover. Every time I look at it I am transported to the feeling of falling back in love with comics again, or the feeling of wanting to make things and just put a bit of yourself out into the world. It’s really special to me and I will never be able to adequately thank Brian and Michael enough for it. So I will thank them the way I always have, by buying every volume of Powers for the 5th time whenever they inevitably reprint them all.
If you like the cover, and you do, you can tell your local comic shop to order it for you. It will help me and Tyler, obviously. But if we sell enough maybe we’ll convince Brian to draw more. And to make your comic shop’s life easier you can give them this code- SEP210040. This issue is out November 10th.
Yeah. I’m back on my bullshit. Time for some chocolate milk reviews. Thinking about putting this part of my newsletter behind a paywall so you all have to pay for all my wisdom and insight into sweet drinks. How much would you be willing to pay for that? I’m thinking $10,000 a year.
HUDSON VALLEY FRESH CHOCOLATE MILK.
We’ll get the obvious out of the way first. They named their company after the place they are from and what they hope their product is. Hudson Valley and Fresh. I know a lot of you who may not work in creative fields will think this is lazy. I, as someone who has to name stuff all the time, am here to tell you this is lazy. And it rules. I wish I could put out a comic called New York City Good Comic Book. But I can’t so I’m jealous.
This was a 1 quart plastic bottle (stop using plastic, farmers!) with a picture of an accusatory cow staring at you on the label. She made me feel creepy but that’s probably more on me than her. Also, at some point we will address that drinking milk from other animals is creepy, so she’s right. But that’s not for today. This is a very good drink that I buy whenever I come across. It has a very rich flavor but it doesn’t have a lot of depth to it. That’s not a knock against it. If the flavors are good there isn’t always a reason to be fancy. And the flavors are good. It leans toward almost a darker chocolate but the creaminess pulls it back. It occupies the same space as a rich hot cocoa maybe, not overly intense. And like you want to drink a rich hot cocoa very hot, this is a chocolate milk best served very cold.
It feels heavy, with a lot of bass to it, but not in a way that feels unwieldy. This isn’t a drink to sit and ponder, it’s not going to present you with anything you didn’t get on the first sip. It’s much more of a chocolate milk for social occasions or to be had with a meal. I drank it at 3AM while writing a script and that worked great too.
I think if there is one takeaway from the Hudson Valley Fresh Chocolate Milk, besides don’t spend too long thinking of names, its that if you are good at something there isn’t a need to try and get fancy with it. There is no shame in simplicity.
Okay. That’s it for now. I’m going back to trying to figure out how to make 20 pages into 40 pages.
Listen to the new Turnstile LP. Stay safe. Take care of each other.
-Matthew Rosenberg
NYC 9/1/21
That BMB cover is killer. Congrats on getting that for the book
seems all cover variants are attractive