The Art

I have sporadically been writing a series of reviews for The Beat called Self-Published Saturdays, wherein I take a look at some of my favorite comics being made and published directly by the creator. And I do it on Saturday.

One of these pieces was about The Jump by Wesley Griffith. You can read the review here, but I started following The Jump originally via Wesley’s Instagram during the release of the fifth issue. It’s fun stuff, a crime comic with big visual moments and nice minimalist cartooning.

At the end of last year, Wesley also opened up for commissions, and so I asked him to draw one of our characters, The Responsibili-Teen (more on him in a second).

This is Wesley’s piece, unique among these newsletter commissions so far in that he sent it to me in the mail…

So yeah, definitely follow Wesley’s Instagram and make sure to buy some of his comics.

As for The Responsibili-Teen, if you read Death of Comics Bookcase, Vol 1, you maybe remember that the character was the star of an 8-page short about the ick factor of AI, the product of a collaboration between myself and artist Nick Cagnetti.

As you’ll learn next month, The Responsibili-Teen is back for Death of Comics Bookcase, Vol 2, albeit in a very different context. I was proud of the first story featuring the character, which was predicated on a big last page twist, the sort that gives shape to one-off short comics. And I didn’t expect to do more with the character past that, intially.

But Nick’s cartooning — and in particular the character design — were so strong, it felt like we had to at least explore doing another story. I don’t want to tip it here, but we had an idea for this next one that I think really works well, giving better shape to the character past just being a riff on AI.

I’m really proud of this second story, and I think it may be the best short we’ve done in Death of Comics Bookcase yet. Nick and I are also working on something much longer with him, but it’s way too early days to say much more about that.

Another feature in Publisher’s Weekly + The Comics Courier / Comics Staple

Opportunities are weird.

Way back in 2016, when I first really got back into comics after a long break, I would have loved to do comics journalism in any capacity, but I didn’t really know how to find an opportunity for it, despite being a career journalist. This led to me starting my original Comics Bookcase website to begin with.

That is no longer the case. Since I started getting serious about making my own comics in 2024 with the publication of the first Death of Comics Bookcase, I have in the back of my mind wanted to wind down my involvement in comics journalism.

And now the opportunities just keep coming.

I recently wrote and reported a second long-form feature for Publisher’s Weekly, in print and online, with an interesting subject: how do comics publisher’s stoke excitement for their series after the first issue? I talked to a half dozen leaders in the industry for it, too.

Here’s a clip…

And I’m starting this month on a third feature for the magazine that will publish in the fall. So, that’s exciting. My hope is to keep doing this work as I continue making comics, and maybe scaling back my daily comics journalism to make room for it (I have to scale something back, let me tell you).

And if that weren’t enough, I have a piece about the great horror/comics artist Richard Corben (an inspiration to the film director, Guillermo Del Toro) in the next issue of The Comics Courier, which is on Kickstarter right now. That’s a newspaper-style print publication filled with comics criticism and analysis, led by Tiffany Babb. I’m also one of the writers for Tiffany’s upcoming monthly comics zine, The Comics Staple, which tallied a massive Kickstarter backer count earlier this year, of 803 (!!).

So that’s all exciting, and also a monument for my inability to walk away from the journalism side of the industry.

Macabre Valley #2

Finally, it is not lost on me that a good number of you are here because you backed our Macabre Valley Kickstarter campaign last fall (thanks again!), and I have some news on that front, too.

First of all, Macabre Valley #1 is now available online for the first time outside of kickstarter, via my personal Etsy shop. So if you missed the campaign — or want to snag an issue for a friend! — you can do that now.

Second, I had a script written for the second issue as we finished the first, but my co-creator, the great Anna Readman, went back to school to get a master’s degree. But I’ve been using the time to polish and improve the script, and it’s now leagues better than the first draft.

We just need to work out a schedule now. With Death of Comics Bookcase, Vol. 2 launching in the fall, a spring 2027 campaign for Macabre Valley #2 is a very real possibility…

That’s it for the newsletter this month! See you back here in July for the actual Death of Comics Bookcase, Vol. 2 announcement!

Cheers, be well, and please forgive any and all typos above!

-Zack Q.