Turning Toxic Waste to Wine

I'm back from ComicsPro and ready for my Mutant Era

I’ve been hibernating a bit this winter, having consciously pulled back from social media and newsletter writing while I toil away on some major projects. At the same time, my home in small town Canada has been buried under many feet (“meters”) of snow, keeping me homebound and helping to draw my focus tight.

So getting out to sunny Los Angeles, widening my aperture to meet with hundreds of comic store owners and mill about with dozens of professional creators (in outdoor patios, no less) was a shot in the arm. I returned home this week to a big thaw, befitting my mood. I sounded by blowing horn: time for a newsletter!

ComicsPro is an annual convention for brick-and-mortar comic shop retailers to get together and talk about retail minutiae, industry headwinds, tariff anxiety, and hear from publishers and creators about their upcoming slate of projects while shoring up our mutual symbiotic relationship in a niche industry. A niche industry that is shrinking, growing, dying, or thriving depending on who you talk to, but at ComicsPro the vibes are always up. It’s where you can watch industry titans like Jim Lee and humble mid-tier hustlers like myself announce our next big projects.

I absolutely love it. Through ComicsPro I’ve found my ride-or-die shops, made friends with wisened industry vets, and gleaned countless insights from the deep shop talk and granular marketing psychosis you can’t find at comic conventions tabling for the adoring, or vaguely uninterested, public.

My friend Aubrey Sitterson, who is launching a fantastic new comic at Image, worked the retailer roundtables: a gauntlet of ten minute pitch meetings that change over at the sound of a bell for hours on end. It’s certainly not for every cartoonist, and are largely run by marketing teams, but as a guy who has done everything from publishing a magazine to hand-lettering comics, I thrive in it and prefer advocating for my own work, face-to-face, with humans who share the same inexplicable, dangerous devotion to comics that I do.

I attended last year and did the roundtables on behalf of Ahoy to announce that we were bringing The Toxic Avenger back to comic shops. Below you will get a hint of what I shared with retailers this year, though not even close to the full dosage. Only hardened retail warriors, raised on constant publishing hype cycles, could handle the full news drop in a single 10 minute sitting.

As you’ll see below, I’m fully in my Mutant Era now. The Comics Journal was kind enough to write about my pivot from political cartoons to my weird little dystopian genre comics like Toxic Avenger and Justice Warriors. That article may give you some insight into where I’m at and where I want to go.

The Toxic Avenger #5 is in stores this week

Get out to a comic shop and grab this one. I’m incredibly proud of what the team has done here, particularly artist Fred Harper, who had an absolute madman (me) throwing a barrage of details, characters, action, and scenery his way and delivered without quarrel. If you haven’t been reading monthly, well, the trade paperback will be out shortly and you will have your chance to get caught up. And catch up, you must!

This is the final issue of this series, concluding our story with Toxie’s triumph over his bullies and Biohazard Solutions, a glorious and gross double page spread you have to see in print, and a final page that will give you a strong indication of where we're headed next. Here are the covers by series artist Fred Harper, myself, and Zander Cannon. Oh, and the poly bagged version with an exclusive trading card features my Absolute Toxie homage to Nick Dragotta’s cover for Absolute Batman #1.

The Crossover Event of the Anno Domini Era

To answer a question I’ve been getting: Yes, there will be more Toxic Avenger comics. We’re only getting started. I pitched an ambitious publishing plan to Troma and Ahoy in late 2023 and, to my continued amazement and gratitude, no one blinked. Having secured the open road, now we hit the gas. First up will be the crossover you didn’t know you needed: The Toxic Avenger and Jesus Christ. Two huge intellectual properties, with peculiar fanbases, coming together for the first time. The miracle lands in shops June 11.

That cover by Fred Harper is, to me, a buy on sight comic. I’m not even writing it! That would be Mark Russell, whose Second Coming comic features Jesus walking the earth with a more traditionally normal superhero. It’s part of Toxie Team-Up, a five issue series pairing Toxie with different Ahoy books, such as The Wrong Earth by Tom Peyer and a little book called Justice Warriors.

That’s right: The Toxic Avenger and Justice Warriors crossover is happening later this year. Ben Clarkson and I are plopping Troma’s boy right in the middle of Bubble City with a payload of radioactive waste. I’m sure the cops will respond normally.

Toxie Pin-Up Special

There’s even more without me getting to the real surprises later this year. On May 14, we prime the pump for the summer ahead with a pin-up special. An entire issue filled with hilarious, violent, and/or tastefully crude drawings by a murder’s row of talent. Also featuring a five page story by me and Fred Harper. Call your comic shops and pre-order both of these books because they will sell out—I didn’t attend those roundtables for nothing!

Listen to my sonorous voice yap about pop culture bullshit

I went on two podcasts recently with creative compadre Ben Clarkson. First, we went on Struggle Session to talk about political thriller movies, a huge starting point for Justice Warriors: Vote Harder. Then we appeared on The Talking Simpsons Podcast to discuss the classic episode “Marge Gets a Job” with a kind of exhaustive depth you can only get on a hyper-specific podcast run by highly conversant devotees of the show.

The newsletters just may keep coming, folks. I’m thawed out and blowing my horn over here. I’ve been drawing more, on paper, and even for fun sometimes. Soon I’ll share some with you!