A very special FOC

Hey gang,

I am sure you remember we are doing that fantastic Detective Comics by Ram V Omnibus EXCLUSIVE variant including a SIGNED PLATE and I am here to tell you two things (actually a few things, but those two are really important):

1. We've promised to include signed plates to all the pre-orders, and until now we can actually keep our promise. But since the pre-orders go so well, we need to make a cut at some point. Ram V and Evan Cagle are nice, but we do not want to take advantage (actually we do, and will try, but no guarantees!).
2. FOC is today, my friends. You'll still get the super-low preo price until the weekend, and then it jumps to the on-release price. You know the drill.

Now that we have the (fomo-inducing) info dump out of the way, I can finally move to the confessional part.

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Batman: Detective Comics by Ram V Omnibus

I mean, you all know this about me by now: I have not finished this run. I started it, really dug what I read (that art! these colours by Dave Stewart!!) and then, as always happens with me and anything longer than 22 pages, life, meetings, warehouse stuff and then more meetings happened. My colleagues mock me for this regularly. It's a real and documented problem. But I do get second chances to finish stuff all the time!

So again, I REALLY liked it, but it was also a little bit of a slow burn. So the Omnibus will be the perfect format to experience the whole "gothic opera" (as they promote it), in its fullest. You're not waiting a month between issues anymore, you just keep going. So if you like your DC/Batman lore a bit more literary and "Black Label-ish", you will devour this one (which still plays nicely into the overall continuity!).

Ram V is joined by Simon Spurrier and Dan Watters on backup stories that build into the bigger picture, plus art from Rafael Albuquerque, Ivan Reis, Dani, Stefano Raffaele, and a small army of other very good artists. And Evan Cagle's covers throughout the original run are stunning, in case our exclusive didn't already convince you of that.

1096 pages. Last few dozen signed plates. FOC this Wednesday, July 1st.

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Indiana Jones: The Further Adventures Book 1 + 2

Look, I don't know why Marvel never made oversized omnis out of this material before, maybe the scans weren't good enough? Turns out they actually did exist already, just not from Marvel: Dark Horse put these same issues out as regular trades back around 2009. So this is genuinely the first time they're getting the deluxe treatment.

But I know I loved these as a kid, and this might be the only chance you get to own them like this. Book 1 covers the Raiders and Temple of Doom adaptations plus the first half of the original Further Adventures series; Book 2 picks up the second half and adds the Last Crusade adaptation. Leatherette binding, debossed covers, ribbon bookmarks... they clearly put some actual care into this. And let's be honest, we're not pre-ordering these to marvel (!) at fine art in oversized format. It's pure nostalgic joy, and that's okay.

Pre-order numbers have been surprisingly high, so I assume most of you have already locked yours in, but if not: please do. With Marvel printing so close to FOC numbers these days, you really don't want to be hunting this one down after release.

Book 1: 528 pages.

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Quacky by Jim Woodring

And now for something completely different, dear ladies and gentlemen. If not for this newsletter, I would've probably missed this one myself. And since I'm a big Woodring fan, I'm genuinely happy to tell you about it.

For 35 years, Woodring's silent weird creature Frank has wandered his nightmarish, hallucinatory world without saying a single word. Quacky is the first time that changes and Frank gets an interior voice, told through narration and his own thoughts, while the rest of the regular cast comes along for the ride.

The format is the other fun part. Woodring built this as a tribute to 1930s "Big Little Books": tiny, palm-sized, a drawing on one page and prose on the facing one. So it's thick in page count but genuinely small in your hands, which is a nice little contradiction for a book about a guy whose entire world doesn't run on normal logic anyway.

One more thing: Fantagraphics is including a free minicomic with their first 475 pre-orders. We don't know yet if we'll get a slice of that pool, but if we do, we'll gladly add them to the pre-orders!

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That's it gang.

Enjoy the sauna-weather. Enjoy the complete FOC collection. FOC is today, but we won't change the prices before Friday ;)

Best
Walt