Hello again!

It's been quite a while, but I have a good excuse.

In the interest of not burying the lede, I have a bunch of books coming out!

The trade paperback of New Rat City will be out in stores on November 15th! If you haven't picked it up through Kickstarter you can (please!) preorder it here (please!) (thank you!).

And I wrote a Cthulhu book for Zenescope called Rebirth of Hydra! I think the final order cutoff for that one has passed, but it will be out in shops later this year. The artwork is looking truly fabulous for that one, and it was so much fun to write the big squid guy himself.

I also have a new miniseries from Zenescope kicking off next year! It’s called Holmes and Houdini, and the first issue will be out on January 24th. If the great-great-granddaughters of Sherlock Holmes and Harry Houdini solving mysteries sounds as neat to you as it does to me, ask your local comic shop to order a copy.

There are four beautiful covers, but here’s my favorite (Diamond code NOV230947) from Igor Lomov:

Finally, keep an eye out for another Future Shock in an upcoming issue of 2000 AD from yours truly — it was inspired by prairie madness, which I learned about while driving across Nebraska. But I do not like Nebraska, so it’s prairie madness in space.

Also, speaking of 2000 AD: they did a lovely interview with me earlier this summer, which you can read here: https://2000ad.com/news/2000-ad-creator-files-honor-vincent/

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Life stuff!

Now that that’s out of the way, a brief hello! I said that this time I had a good reason for taking so long to write a letter, and I do. In July I had a baby, my first, and my attention has been very much taken up with him ever since. I was also plodding, physically and mentally, along for several months before he was born, so I’ve fallen behind on updates.

Being a mom is wildly different than anything I’ve ever done before, and I was honestly pretty scared of motherhood for most of my life. I thought most of my brain would turn to mush and the few solid parts I’d be left with would be wholly devoted to baby-surveillance and baby-care. That is a ridiculous impression to have, especially if you know my mother (or any of the women in my family, for that matter) but there I was. I am pleased to report that I was wrong, and my brain and son are both doing just fine! That’s not to say that he isn’t an all-consuming pain in the eardrums sometimes — my husband and I have been exchanging sidelong glances when someone beams at us and tells us to ‘enjoy the newborn phase!!’ But most of the time he is extremely cute, and there’s something about having him around that’s soothing. Like, the gang’s all here, finally.

Mushiness aside, that brings me back to Andraste. While I was pregnant, I felt the most blocked working on it of any of my projects. At its core it’s a story about motherhood and daughterhood, and I think I subconsciously paused because I was just about to find out what motherhood felt like. I absolutely intend to finish the series, and I’m excited to come back to it after these many months of field research. (And a big thank you to Unai for being patient with me!)

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What I’ve been reading

I, a fool, have avoided picking up manga for most of my life. I do not know why — I think the length of some of the series scared me because I like buying physical books but do not like the idea of going the way of the Collyer brothers. This year I picked up Uzumaki and Sensor by Junji Ito and. AND. I’m so late to this party, but holy shit. They’resogood. Then I started reading Kentaro Miura’s Berserk, which didn’t grab me from the jump as much as Ito’s work did, but it keeps getting better. I’m now several volumes in and loving it dearly.

All three are rough, disturbing, gory stories, so if you’re not into that kind of thing your mileage will vary. One thing that really jumps out to me about both Ito and Miura’s work is the pacing — nothing about the stories feels rushed or cramped, but nothing feels too slow, either.

It’s pretty exciting to have this whole new genre (or art form?) to pick at now — if you have any favorites I should check out, let me know!

- H