New Year, New Home, the New New

It took me about a year and a half, but I’ve finally managed to find and implement a new newsletter. By “it took me a year and a half” I mean, I vaguely thought about it, and then instead of doing it I just stopped newslettering until I finally spent a few afternoons actually thinking about it, and then a single hour and a half actually doing it.

This is, unfortunately, also a common approach to writing as deadlines in the distance suddenly speed their way to the front of my brain. And phone calls. And chores. And all these things we have to do to live.

Okay, this is turning into a downer — but that’s not how I mean it. I’m not a big resolutions person, but part of 2024 is learning to be honest with myself about how I move through my life and then to think about how I can be successful and happy within my own context. Having goals that are achievable for me and not for the me that I might have wished that I was.

Well, now this is turning into a livejournal entry so, let’s get back to the newsletter thing.

Words, Words, Words

I have several words-words-words projects coming out this year — the first of which just kicked off on Marvel Unlimited¹ this week!

I, alongside artist E.J. Su, colorist Frederico Blee, and letterer VC’s Clayton Cowles, have a six issue Spider-Boy run on the Marvel Unlimited app under the SPIDER-MAN UNLIMITED INFINITY COMIC title. Our run starts at issue 19 and is loosely tied in to the Gang War event currently on-going on the print comics side.

This is my ninth Infinity Comic for Marvel, and as a longtime reader of far, far too many Webtoon comics, it’s been really fun to think about how the stories change in a scrolling format and where we can get those “page turn” impact or the panel breaks when we’re beholden to a more vertical perspective. One of my go-tos is definitely, “A character will be falling” because it works in a way specific to the action of the book you’re reading² .

1. Marvel Unlimited is Marvel’s comics subscription app — it has their backlist library and comics they create exclusively for a vertical, scrolling format application.

2. Please tell me if you all want to see actual process points for the comics — script > art, etc.

Now, if you’ve been following me for any length of time on any of the various social sites we’re all on you may have heard that my debut YA novel is coming out later this year. Payal Mehta’s Romance Revenge Plot is actually the book I quit my full-time job to write and sell back in 2019.

I promise to tell the full story as we get closer to publication, but please know that in true Aries-fashion, I wrote this book out of spite because of a boy I met at a party in the early 2000s.

It’s an enemies-to-lovers rom com (hands down my favorite genre of rom com), and it, much like me, tries to use humor as a defense mechanism until it can’t.

Things I’m Into That You Might Be Into

I kicked the year off in the midst of my re-read (listen) of Nicola Griffith’s truly incredible novel Hild in anticipation of Griffith’s release of Menewood, a continuation of Hild’s story. Hild is a fictionalized account of a real person who existed in 1400 years ago in England. It’s not at all biographical, Griffith is very clear on that, there’s very little primary material on Hild or her life — but we do know she existed and that is where Griffith starts her journey with us. It goes onto a beautifully told story of a young girl saddled with An Important Voice, and how she not only navigates a society that is shifting in front of her eyes — but how she influences it. It’s a story of that shift — political, religious, linguistic — and the human interaction with change.

I’m about 22% into Menewood now and despite the ten years between its publication and Hild’s, Griffith has brought the same rolling tone and poignant, intentional language to the second volume of Hild’s life. I am enamored.

After bragging about all my Webtoon reading above, I should offer up at least one or two recommendation for anyone wanting to dip their toes in. This is a fairly new one to the app, called Here U Are, it’s a translation of a queer young adult Chinese manhua, written and drawn by creator D JUN focusing on a budding romance between an extrovert and an introvert and all the complications in a university setting. There are only 9 issues available for free reading as of publication, so it won’t be a daunting task if you’re considering it.

The second rec might feel significantly more daunting (the most recent episode is #264), but I think exemplifies what a digital, vertical scroll series can be. Lore Olympus is a long-running comic on Webtoon, one that is already being adapted into print and selling volumes on its own. It’s a take on Greek mythology, centering Persephone and Hades, but is only a really a re-telling in the most surface level version of the word. Rachel Smythe has created an entire world of her own within the Green pantheon, allowing modernity and classicism to exist side by side in every panel, whether it’s through character fashion or dialogue, or the thoughtfulness and care Smythe brings to updating some of these brutal stories.

Cool Things from Cool People

Every month, I’m going to turn a section of this space over to someone else to talk about a project you readers might be interested in. Today comes from my good pal Eric Smith. Eric is a literary agent and author, and knows how to sell a book better than anyone I know. I’ll let him tell you about his upcoming webinar for nonfiction writers:

EndorFUNs

Doom scrolling is back with a vengeance (or maybe it never really left), but I think I’ll end every issue with something that gives me good endorphins.

“Sher Khul Gaye” is a new song from the movie Fighter. It is the perfect mix of the following songs: “Dynamite” by BTS, “Stayin’ Alive” by the BeeGees, “Kar Gayii Chull” from Kapoor & Sons, and “Oh Mere Sona re Sona” from Teesri Manzil. Like, literally, I am imagining the duo of Vishal-Shekhar just physically dropping those cds into a blender and this is what comes out. I cannot stop listening to it or attempting to do the dance in my kitchen.

Highly recommend trying it out yourself. Lots of laughing.

That’s it for my first reentry into the news lettering world. Let me know if there are other things you want to see from these notes, or if this is what you were looking for. Otherwise, smell ya later, fellow nerds!