Out Today! Beasts of Burden: Occupied Territory HC

The fourth Beasts of Burden collection is out in comic shops today. 

Thanks to everyone who has been supporting the series, and who picked up the individual issues. The HC contains a back section featuring Benjamin Dewey's process images and notes. 

This is my last scheduled comics project for the time being. Unfortunately, sales have slowed down on beasts despite our putting more material out in the past few years than in the decade previously. Some things dragged us down that were outside our control, like the shutdown, some things were just messy, like the ten-year gap between the first and second collections due to circumstances beyond my control. Dark Horse has supported the series and I'm grateful, but things have definitely changed and the project is on hold until we can work things out to where I feel we can publish again. I'll be blunt, page rates/advances have been moribund, and while the industry on the one hand is trumpeting the bounce-back post Covid, the supposed buoyancy hasn't been reflected across the board. Sales and coverage of Beasts has been weak. Overall, the project has been profitable, much of that owing to the terrific sales on the first collection and foreign rights. 

We know losing co-creator Jill Thompson hurt sales and industry coverage, but apparently many people who were buying the series solely or mainly for Jill's art didn't support the second collection which was illustrated by her save one issue. I don't feel a need to "defend" Benjamin Dewey's work on the book, I think his work has been magnificent and more than up to the standard set. I'm grateful to Benjamin for essentially saving the book and making it shine again. Jill is a fantastic talent and we made great comics together, but if we waited for Jill to turn her attention back to the series we'd still be waiting for the second part of "The Presence of Others". It's just the plain truth. Also hurting sales, I'm sure, is the focus on the Wise Dogs rather than Burden Hill. I understand that, but I wanted to step back from Burden Hill while bringing in Ben, and while trying to figure out our next step the story for Occupied territory took off and was something we really wanted to move forward with. I wasn't expecting such a hitch in the project that we wouldn't go right into more Burden Hill material. Between the pandemic and the uncertain market and falling sales, the project has hit a wall.

My speaking out publicly about the schedule and situation obviously was not a good idea, even if I had handled things with less of an emotional charge. It clearly poisoned the well some and dragged negativity into the situation. You're not supposed to open up about these things, even in the nicest terms, which was not how I handled it. I've apologized to Jill more than once about my actions and outbursts. I still am in touch with Jill about things regarding the series, but the situation on both ends hampered our long friendship and that's a shame. I still feel badly about airing the dirty laundry on social media, but I basically canceled the book at one point, out of sheer frustration. You cannot keep a series healthy with ten-year collections cycles, someone on the highest level of popularity could do it, I'm sure. We're not on that level. And I had a family to help support, and seeing my only new success get squandered was nothing short of devastating. My therapists learned a lot about the comics industry during that time, another way the project drained me emotionally when we should have been benefiting from the book.

The first Beasts collection was a certified, money-making hit in 2010. We went through seven hardcover printings and had several international partners translating the work (France, Brazil, Italy, Spain, recently the Czech Republic and Russia). A film studio (REEL FX) optioned the work and dumped millions into pre-production (before the studio ended film production after Book of Life and that bizarre turkey time travel turkey performed below expectations). 

Then the bottom fell out when there was no follow-up. readers, retailers and foreign publishers lost interest, understandably. That kind of wait means a sea change in the audience. You lose a lot of original readers and gain fewer new readers with a schedule like that, the new book comes out and the first one is out of print, and not a good gamble to reprint. So, they mostly dropped the series. Neighborhood Watch and Wise Dogs and Eldritch Men haven't sold out a first domestic printing and both were largely ignored by the industry media. We very slowly regained partnerships with two or three international publishers (Brazil has been our best and most consistent publishing partner, they're promoted the heck out of Beasts and I'd daresay the book is now more popular in Brazil than the U.S.) Today's drop is barely registering online with the "comics press". I don't lose sleep over it anymore but it's not exactly life-affirming. Occupied Territory is a pretty terrific little addition to the library, in my opinion. I think we all were doing top work. Wise Dogs was really good, but the rev-up of Benjamin and I meshing made some things creak a bit. This one flows and is a better, more focused piece, overall. I'm very proud of it.

So, where does that leave us? Right now, we're in purgatory, pretty much.  Nothing is moving forward. One of the reasons I stepped back from comics was my because Dark Horse and I haven't been able to come to terms for the new, editorially-approved series of one-shots. A new series has been approved for some time, now. Long enough that two stories are likely being swapped out for new ones. So there's possibly six one-shots in my head that are taking up parking space (and weighing heavily on me as the days and weeks and months go by). 

The first story is still about the Swifties holding  wake for Muggsy (after the events of The Presence of Others, part 2). The second was going to be a murder mystery involving Red and Holstein at The Green Thumb farmhouse, with the pair acting as Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin to solve the death of a local dog. Now that might be bumped for a solo Ace story that deals with his lycanthropy in an interesting way (at least I hope it's interesting, I'm pretty excited about it). Another story in development was about the Grim, a character we haven't seen yet but who has been mentioned in hushed tones in several issues. That would now be bumped for a new "fetch" story, a crossover like the Hellboy issue, only this time a flashback to a botched fetch that caused headaches for the Wise Dogs. Meaning, another crossover, only this time a romp (the creator of the characters fetched has agreed to working with us). The remaining story is a Pugs Christmas special. All of these are viable in my mind, four of them will hopefully get produced before too long. We're still trying to come to terms. if the series was selling better, we'd have been finished with the new series by now. Basically , we're in negotiations. And negotiating doesn't bring in income, so I took that step back to concentrate on selling art and commissions. 

Everything has been complicated by recent events that I'm not at liberty to talk about, both professionally and personally. Some of this isn't actually bad news, just, well, complicated. Some of it is, well, bad news. We're dealing with a lot of rough seas here at the House of Fun. I lost almost all of October, work-wise, because of things that we have no control over, and have had a very serious impact on our lives. I'm just getting back up to speed now on commissions work. I spent weeks scrambling to raise the money to pay for two sets of expensive car repairs costing mid-four figures. And that was, believe it or not, the least of our worries.

Anyway, not complaining, and not blaming. Just explaining. It's hard to watch your projects stumble and falter and hard to keep people waiting who have been more than patient with you. I'm trying to catch up, which I know I'm always saying, but slowly, surely, the work does get done, and done well, if I may say so myself. I treat my customers the same way I treat my clients, in regards to the quality of the finished artwork. We're trying to save Blackwood (we might have some news on that, fingers crossed), we're working on continuing Beasts of Burden (I have more fingers crossed). Beasts is too good to be put to sleep, something will happen one way or another. Everything's been difficult to juggle with the life stuff and the late commitments. I'm doing the best I can to get things done and stay mentally healthy. Or, mentally okay. You know what I mean. Continue moving forward and not setting up a Dork #7 part 2, haha (joking, I am in better shape, on the whole. Mostly exhausted and overwhelmed and worried, like, well, most people, right? And with my arm and hand it would take me two years to do anything like Dork #7 now). 

Clouds part, eventually. There is potential good news in the offing. We will get through the things that have been thrown at us, however long it takes. I will be here as often as possible, despite being hampered by the glitch with the new computer keeping me locked out of my text files, and my slow acclimation to the Gimp photoshop program. Sarah's even more overwhelmed by circumstance than I am right now, so the former should be taken care of soon. The other is squarely on me for now. Oh, boy. What's a pixel?

All right, then. This was supposed to be a "buy our book" post and not a spiel. Well, that's me, right? Right. Righty right right.

Thanks for being here. We lost a number of backers recently, and while that's a bummer, I honestly understand if people need to drop out. We have to take care of ourselves and our own before we can reach out to others. This isn't medicine or research, this is some goof's comics and essays and "pro" tips. Things change, life ebbs and flows. There's a lot to deal with. I'll be here until I can't be anymore. I appreciate anyone walking alongside us for however long they can. 

I hope you continue to get something out of this site that makes your day or hour more fun or interesting.

More soon later.  Hope you're all well.