#138: Dec-Stack Year One

And a look ahead to 2024 projects

ALL THE LATEST

Happy New Year all! Hope ye all enjoyed the holidays. After handing in a chunk of work I managed to take some time off, read some comics, play a bit of a video game, read some of a a book and catch up with old friends. I was feeling nice and rebooted until I caught some flu so have been stuck in bed for the past two days. Woof. Anyway, new year; new projects! Here’s where I currently am with everything, going into the new year.

• PROJECT RAVEN pitch is being developed. This will [if approved] be a work for hire project taking up the first half of the year. I’m optimistic that it’s happening, but pitches have evaporated before so I guess we’ll see.

• OLD DOG [READACT TWO] is starting with a short story like my ‘Issue Zero’. I’m working that out at the moment as well as laying out the shape of Redact Two.

• PROJECT ARCA is the next creator owned project that I’m going to dive into properly by the end of this month. I swear!

• PROJECT EMERALD is a story for an anthology series. I handed in a cover for the project just before Christmas. This is a bit of a bucket-list gig, I must admit. Looking to get it done this month.

• THUNDERCATS is moving along nicely. More on that below.

• I also think I might be able to take an old story idea and make it into something this year. Wouldn’t be released in 2024, but would probably get into it properly after ARCA is finished.

-BOOM released my next cover for Ed Brisson and Luca Casalanguida’s THE DISPLACED #2

-IDW also released my variant cover for DEFIANT #12. I put a lot of love into this one, I’m sure it’ll be one of my favourites published in 2024.

-Today I’m going to be colouring the last cover I drew in 2023, for a Marvel miniseries. This month is mainly going to consist of writing, covers and ideally complete PROJECT EMERALD.

-A new TAPE DEC is up! With my good friend Simone D’Armini who I worked with on ELEKTRA: RED WHITE & BLOOD. He has a new MACBETH book out [go look it up, it’s stunning!] and near the end I reveal that we’re working on something together. You’ll have to watch to find out more!

I haven’t decided who to talk to this month yet. I like to tie it to a new release to help guests promote their new thing, be mutually beneficial. Ah, I’ll figure it out.

I meant to get more into what I watched/enjoyed over the holidays but getting sick for a couple of days nixed that. Maybe in the nest one.

A YEAR OF DEC-STACK

It was a year ago I moved Declarations to Substack. Over the holidays had a browse of the stats [because that’s what I do with time off, apparently] and saw that there was a big initial bump when I switched, a bump again in May, a bit of a drop after that but as it stands at the end of 2023 it’s definitely a step up overall from where I was when at Mailchimp.

I have liked the little bits of feedback in the past year, be they likes or comments and even the in-person compliments in the past year have been great. Always nice to know people enjoy this. Now and then I think of maybe making extra exclusive paid posts but on the other hand, it’s not like I have the time to be making exclusive work. Declarations I feel has been a success in that it keeps a lifeline between myself and you Decolytes, who I suspect are the backbone of any audience I’ve built over the years.

If you have any requests for things you’d like to see; see more of, see less of, do sound off in the comments. It would be interesting to see what you all think.

Anyway, again, thanks all.

THUNDERCATS

The THUNDERCATS hype train is well in motion, myself and artist Drew Moss did a couple of interviews at the end of the year, one for The Beat as well as another for Comicon.Com. More to come, I’m sure.

I’m currently working on the script for Issue Three and Four together. I’ve seen all the art for Issue One and it looks fantastic, really energetic and dynamic work by Drew, you can tell he loves drawing this book.

Just before the holidays Dynamite released the variant covers for THUNDERCATS Issue Two.

THUNDERCATS #2 covers by David Nakayama, Jae Lee, Declan Shalvey, Lucio Parrillo, Ivan Tao and Drew Moss

I know there’s more! I saw a Ryan Stegman one on his Instagram, a peek at a few others. Damn, they’re really going for it on this book! The licensor has given us a nice bit of freedom to do out own thing in this book, so I hope I don’t disappoint. I say I, as Drew’s doing great work and with the freedom mentioned, I have no excuses for the book to not be great. We’ll see how I’m doing in just over a month’s time as the book be out! *deep breath*

OLD DOG

With a little bit of a mental break over the holidays, I was able to mull more stuff. I have a clearer path for REDACT TWO, as mentioned above. I still need time to work out the specifics, but feel like I’ll be able to make more progress.

OLD DOG [REDACT TWO] begins with OLD DOG [OPERATIONS]

I can’t give you any more information… except maybe that there will be some other short stories. That’s it! Don’t want to any more until things are nailed down better. I’ve done some roughs for the cover, what do ye think? I’m, partial to 2 myself, though I realise it looks a little bit like the TIME BEFORE TIME trade covers, as he’s running left-to-right behind a tech background. Unless I’m reading into it too much?

I did a BIG edit over the DOSSIER just before the holidays. Feel like we’re VERY close to a final edit, when we have that I’ll have give it to some fresh pairs of eyes, to be safe. I’m gonna take a few days next week to get all the rewards arranged before I sign off on the final dossier.

ALIEN

As mentioned before, I’m all wrapped up on the book. I’m looking forward to getting my hands on the THAW trade [didn’t seem to get my comps]. Next issue is out Jan 17th. I love this cover by Javi Fernandez.

There’s also this verrrrry creeeeepy cover by Doaly

OUT SOON

January 17th

ALIEN #3 [W]

January 31st

THE RIBBON QUEEN #7 [C]

Feb 7th

THUNDERCATS #1 [W,VC]

February 14th

DISPLACED #1 [VC]

February 21st

TIME BEFORE TIME TP VOL 05 [W,C]