Let's talk about Neptune

A graphic novel announcement, a quick update, and a discount.

A Look at Neptune

I hinted at a book announcement in last week’s email and the publisher finally has officially made the public announcement so I can talk about it. For the last two years I’ve been on a journey with writer Michael W. Conrad, artist Nathan Ooten, and letterer Kyle Arends as we’ve grown the seed of an idea into a graphic novel over 120 pages long. It has been a real exciting process that I am excited to be able to finally share some behind the scenes from the editing process. Let’s take a look at the cover.

This is just one of many haunting images Nathan produced during the course of making this book. That eye staring back at you from the egg not only pulls you into the image, but they are also central to the story in a way that I won’t spoil. For a spoiler free description, I’ll refer you to the book announcement on CBR where Michael summarizes the story much better than I can. Instead, I’d like to share a beautifully illustrated page from the first chapter and an excerpt of my editorial notes back to Nathan.

Here’s an abridged excerpt from my notes to Nathan:

My favorite part of this page is the color orange. It makes Corey stand out through the page and is a representation of his incarceration and oppression he feels. We get one dab of orange with all of its emotional baggage in every panel. In the final panel he literally carries all that baggage out with him in the orange bag. This is a beautiful page.

I could spend the entire newsletter on this page talking about how the sketchy quality to the world around him represents his discomfort and how that shifts in each panel. Of course, this doesn’t even account for Michael’s script and the lettering that Kyle added after this page, but I think it is a great snapshot of an aspect of Nathan’s art. If you enjoyed this little peek behind the curtain please let me know in the comments and I’ll make sure to do more in future updates as we get closer to the release of the book.

A discount for my online store

In my last few updates I have mentioned that I was putting together my online store. This week I spent a little bit of time uploading a few books and sketch cards to fill out the rest of the store and it is now open. You can click here for a link to the shop and see what’s there this week, but take this discount code with you for 30% off your entire order for the rest of January: STACKER

Watch for a bonus posts this week

Short stories:

I’m working on completing and compiling a book of stories titled A Man Named Baby and Other Misadventures. While I won’t be releasing it for a while, I am going to experiment with using Substack as a place to release short stories and other writings starting with a smaller project I call Bad Animal Sounds. Since this weekly update is meant to be just that, a rambling update from my week, I’m going to test out different ways to deliver the short stories so they aren’t lost in the mix. Keep your eyes open for a midweek email with a very short story, more about the future of my writing on Substack, and  an opportunity to leave your feedback on how you’d like to receive that content. 

A quick thank you video:

During my last comic release I signed up for a service called Bonjoro which let me send personalized videos to everyone who bought the book. I really loved the process and I had a lot of positive responses. It’s rare to get an opportunity to thank my followers in person and Bonjoro gives me an opportunity to do just that. This week I noticed that the package I signed up for still has a few videos left in the account, so I’m going to use them here until they are gone. You’ll likely receive an email from me over the next week or two from Bonjoro. There’s no need to respond or reply, I just appreciate the opportunity to say hello to my subscribers, so give it a quick watch.

If you are reading this and you aren’t a subscriber, click the link below to sign up so you can get all my conent and your own personalized video while they last.

With that, I’m out, but not for long. I’ll be back soon with more of my nonsense. 

Zane Barrow