I Love This Weekly Planner From Sugar Bunny Shop!

I'm friends with comic creator Lindsay Hornsby and subscribe to her Substack newsletter. In one email, she discussed how she was fond of planners from Sugar Bunny Shop. I looked into them, and besides being adorable, they are perfectly designed for my needs. I, actually, had designed my own little weekly sheet, which I printed that was quite minimalistic but similar in design, starting on Monday and going to Sunday, with it easy to note what week it was. This is just like that, but a lot more professional. The section for weekly goals and little notes looked handy as well. I ordered the frog-themed weekly planner and have been loving using it. Sugar Bunny Shop itself makes more than planners, doing everything from clothes to towels, cards to pins, and more. Based on the quality of their weekly planner, I am definitely a fan and will test out their other wares too. I thank Lindsay Hornsby for the recommendation, too!

"Avengers Inc." OR When a Good Series Get Canceled Way Too Quickly

Far too often Marvel will launch a series as an ongoing and then stealth-cancel it and pretend it was a mini-series all along. There were the eight issues we got of, "Nighthawk," and, "Mockingbird," in 2016. The 2019, "Loki," series went all of five issues. The list goes on and on with a really cool comic that just started-up sadly joining this grouping. Yep, "Avengers Inc." is canceled with issue #5. The series ends this January as quickly as it began.

A cool detective story featuring Janet Van Dyne AKA the Wasp and Vic Shade (the Vision but not) there were plenty of mysteries including a seemingly resurrected Hank Pym sans fused-with-Ultron body. From the first issue on I loved it. Unforuntaely, in his Substack it was revealed by Tom Breevort (an editor at Marvel) that low sales have resulted in the series crashing to a sudden stop with the fifth issue. Marvel didn't even give the title time to breathe and pick up readers! Imagine if this series--written by Al Ewing--was his, "Immortal Hulk," run and Marvel shut it down after a mere five issues? We wouldn't have that magnum opus of a work to admire. When a book is planned as an ongoing and has its metaphorical legs cut out from under it everyone suffers. The creative team, the readers, and so forth. I mean, why should people try out new series if they might get canceled? This means readers will skip a book and then it will end up canceled, it is a vicious cycle. At least we'll have five cool issues of Ewing and Leonard Kirk's series...I guess that's better than nothing?

The First Issue of, "Fishflies," is Enchanting and Surreal

"Fishflies," is a new comic written and illustrated by the immensely talented Jeff Lemire. I actually have read much of a version of this comic already, funnily enough. You see, the one and only Substack I ever bothered paying some money to subscribe to was the one Jeff Lemire had. He charged for it just for a year and via the Substack he talked about past projects, upcoming work, and shared pages of, "Fishflies," as it was in progress--with the warning that once it saw print alterations would be made. I loved reading, "Fishflies," while it was serialized online and was bummed it stopped being put in the Substack before ending. Then, I was overjoyed to see the whole thing would come out via seven 64-page issues published by Image. I'm glad issue #1 is out so everyone can see why, "Fishflies," is a great book.

"Fishflies," spends much of its time following a young girl named Franny Fox who lives on a farm in Ontario and ends up becoming friends with a fugitive--before things take a quite fantastical turn with a touch of body horror. The title of the comic refers to the insects commonly called fishflies that can cause quite a mess during their breeding season. They play a major role in the story and are the reason that the story goes from being a bit of a slice-of-life tale to a bit of a surreal sci-fi yarn. I'm being somewhat vague on purpose as the twist at the end of the first issue is quite attention-grabbing and will surely hook readers so that they want and read the rest of the series--spoiling it just feels mean for me to do as while I am someone who doesn't mind spoilers I know some folks do not enjoy being spoiled.

Besides a great story another massive draw for, "Fishflies," would be Lemire's art. Whether drawing the quiet emptiness of a farm or the eerie sight of a convenience store covered in fishflies, his beautiful illustrations always impress. I greatly enjoyed resisting, "Fishflies," and can't wait to read the entire story!

5 out of 5 stars.

Zestworld Brings in Big Talent for its Own Digital Comics Platform

Substack has become an interesting little platform for digital comics. It hasn't totally upended the comic-book industry by any means with its subscriptions to creators who put out newsletters and fun comics, but it has been intriguing to witness. Marvel has been doing more with digital comics via its Infinity-branded ones--of which even more projects were recently announced as coming. Now, we have another entity with its sights set on entering the digital comic space--Zestworld.

Zestworld is launching a digital comics subscription service and got 9.37 million dollars in funding to do so. This money has gone towards getting some solid talent involved and (one assumes) building a good way to read the comics, promote this new platform, and so forth. Some big names are involved such as, "Amanda Conner, Jimmy Palmiotti, Peter J. Tomasi, Eric Canete, Phil Jimenez, and Alex Segura among many others." Creators will own the rights to their comics, which is nice to hear. Whether Zestworld works out or falls apart will pretty much rest on the quality of the comics and how easy/difficult they are to read digitally. I am quite curious how this will work out.

I Know I'm Late to Discuss this, but the First Issue of, "The Nice House on the Lake," is Amazing!

I am behind on reading my comics. I have a big ol' stack of them that I've lately been trying to make a dent in. I finally had a chance to read issue #1 of, "The Nice House on the Lake," and goddamn was that a crazy comic. It starts slowly, as all these people arrive at a beautiful house by a lake, then as the comic nears the end of its debut an utterly insane twist (which I won't ruin so that you too give this comic a chance) is revealed and now I've already been in the process of finding issues #2, #3, and #4 that are out because this book is wild. I should've expected a great comic as James Tynion IV is the writer and he's been on fire with some stellar books lately. Alvaro Martinez Bueno illustrates everything amazingly too. I am so delayed in being amazed by this comic compared to everyone else but this first issue of, "The Nice House on the Lake," helped remind me why I love comics and why I love horror too.

I've revealed as little as possible about the plot on purpose, but I will talk about how surprising it is this book is at DC under its Black Label as opposed to Image or BOOM! Studios where Tynion has his other works. As I understand it, this is a rare example of a new creator-owned book at DC. Long ago, in the early days of the Vertigo imprint (may it rest in peace) DC had that, but then Vertigo quit letting creators own their books and everyone went to Image whilst Vertigo withered away. Tynion has a hit book at three publishers right now, "Something is Killing the Children," is dominating the charts with BOOM!, "The Department of Truth," is a smash with Image, and now we've got, "The Nice House on the Lake," over at DC. Plus, he does self-published work with his Tiny Onion Studios and has a popular Substack. The man is on fire.

Anyways, I'm sorry I am so late to the party when it comes to singing the praises of, "The Nice House on the Lake." I'll be trying to get the issues that have come out so far post-haste so that I can immediately enjoy them!

5 out of 5 stars.

Marvel is Launching a Line of Digital-Only Comics Titled, "Infinity Comics," and That's Interesting For a Few Reasons

Marvel Launches New Digital-Only Comics

Marvel has a digital comic service known as, "Marvel Unlimited," that you can subscribe to and read a ton of Marvel comics. Now, there is not anything that has come out in the last six months as Marvel doesn't want to cannibalize print sales or piss off comic shops too much. There have been occasional digital-only comics, but nothing like what Marvel just launched. Titled, "Infinity Comics," these are free if you have Marvel Unlimited. They are in continuity (whatever that means these days) and have some pretty well-known creators writing popular characters. This is intriguing for a few reasons.

Three Reasons Infinity Comics is Interesting

1. There is no extra fee for these digital-only comics and they will be plentiful. They are included with your Marvel Unlimited subscription and as I noted, feature some big creators (Jonathan Hickman, Declan Shalvey, Skottie Young, Dax Gordine, Alyssa Wong, Nathan Stockman, Kelly Thompson, Gerry Duggan, Lucas Werneck, and Jeffo, according to Marvel’s news release are kicking things off). There are already 27 comics as of today and plans for over 100 to exist before 2021 wraps. These things are not lame little bonus comics by creators you've never heard of about characters who are unknown. These have those names writing X-Men, Deadpool, Captain America, Shang-Chi, Black Widow, Venom, Carnage, and more. This has become a major selling point for Marvel Unlimited.

2. The comics are read in a vertical scroll form which is a lot more friendly to tablets and especially phones. Trying to take physical comics and make them, "Work," for a phone can be tricky when you've got a big double-page splash and are trying to put it all onto a phone's screen. By designing these explicitly for digital and having them be in a vertical scrolling format these comics are basically meant to be read on your phone with ease.

3. The elephant in the room here is Substack. A lot of comic creators are going to Substack as it is offering some appealing deals in the form of a ton of cash and creators maintaining control of their intellectual property. The thing is, Substack really wasn't created with comics in mind and has been a bit unwieldy to read comics within. It's just kind of comic pages awkwardly crammed into a newsletter. When these newsletters feature creators writing in-depth about their creative process it's cool (I subscribed to Jeff Lemire's Substack to test the whole thing out), but as soon as actual comics get posted it is a bit strange. Perhaps Marvel is trying to subtly show it can do online comics, "Right," with these Infinity Comics. Now, Marvel doesn't mention Substack at all in any of the promotional text about this, but its shadow looms large.

What Will the Future Hold?
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This, "Infinity Comics," is going to be interesting to watch and see how much success Marvel has with it.

What is this, "Substack," Comic Creators Are Talking About?

If you like to follow specific comic creators you may have heard about more and more doing something called, "Substack." Scott Snyder revealed he signed a lucrative deal with them, James Tynion IV just announced he'll be leaving his work on titles such as, "Batman," to focus on creator-owned works for various publishers and Substack. Jonathan Hickman is involved. What is Substack, though?

Substack is basically a paid newsletter. It can have essays, articles, and whatever else along with comics. When it first emerged on the scene the focus was as a way for journalists to earn money for their hard work creating informative content, but then Nick Spencer spearheaded a new initiative. He came to Substack with an idea where comic creators will make comics for subscribers and these creators will be paid by Substack while keeping ownership of their work. Creators get a bunch of subscription revenue, Substack takes a small cut, and followers of creators they like get a steady stream of quality comics delivered to their inbox. As Comicsbeat details, there is a mixture of excitement and dread from all this.

An upcoming comic on Substack.

If you like digital comics this is interesting. If you prefer physical comics, it maybe doesn't appeal as much. Should you be a huge fan of a certain creator who is moving towards Substack you might feel tempted to subscribe. This could be the next huge thing or it could implode horrifically. One thing I and others have noticed is that this is mainly people known for writing comics now making the newsletters. They will have various popular artists working on titles with them and those artists will have ownership of the comics, but the, "Name," attracting subscribers is a comic-book writer. One exception to this is Molly Ostertag, but a lot of the folks are primarily writers (yes, Hickman drew some of his earliest work, but he hasn't illustrated many things beyond his interesting infographics for some time).

So, there you go. Substack is a paid newsletter service that has attracted some popular comic-makers with some juicy deals. Now we wait and see if the subscribers will be there to justify all this.