James Tynion IV announces several new Substack projects

James Tynion IV has always had a full dance card when it comes to comics, so it’s no surprise that he’s ramping up to share even more new content this year via his Substack newsletter.

“The plan is set. All of the wheels are in motion,” he wrote today, which has been designated Comic Day on Substack. “There are no more months of strategizing in the dark. Now is when we’re going to unleash my evil plan onto the world and see whether or not it works. The Print Comic Book business is the core of my livelihood. I gamed it out, and there isn’t a month this year I have less than four comic issues with my name on them on the stands.”

In addition to his creator-owned work like House of Slaughter and The Nice House on the Lake, which returns in March, Tynion has one licensed comic set for this year — Nightmare Country, a DC Black Label comic that’s part of The Sandman Universe.

Other than that one, though, he’s focused on creator-owned titles, and he revealed several new ones he’ll be sharing via his newsletter later this year — as well as one that debuted today, The Closet.

He describes The Closet as “a horror novella in three acts.” Each issue will be roughly 30 pages long and shared with his paid subscribers, but even if you’re unpaid you can check out the first 10 pages, which went up today. Joining him on The Closet are Gavin Fullerton on art, Chris O’Halloran on colors and Tom Napolitano on letters.

Then in February comes The Oddly Pedestrian Life Of Christopher Chaos, with Tate Brombal, Nick Robles, Isaac Goodhart, Kurt Michael Russell and Aditya Bidikar:

“This isn’t a superhero comic, but it’s the closest thing to a superhero comic I’m working on, with vibrant, colorful teenage characters with bad-ass designs, and a world of horror at our fingertips, ready to explore,” Tynion said. “Tate and I have spent months building the world and its characters, and I’m so damn excited for you to see what we’ve built together.”

Like many of the titles announced on Comics Day on Substack, this will be free to all subscribers.

Then in April comes True Weird, an anthology series with several other writers and artists, including Klaus Janson. While Tynion’s Blue Book with Michael Avon Oeming has adapted true UFO stories, this will adapt stories from the “True Weird” genre — “Stories based on the accounts of people who bore witness to something strange or impossible.”

And speaking of Blue Book, it’ll return for a second season in July. He said he also plans to continue his Department of Truth: Wild Fictions series, where he teams with different artists for stories about cryptids.

“The opportunity in Substack has always lay in being daring, in trying a few things outside the box,” Tynion wrote. “That’s why my Substack is filled with all of my weirdo UFO and Cryptid stuff. That’s why, moving forward, you’re going to see me experiment with different ways to make and format comic projects. This is where I come to play, build, and try things out. This is where I get to be a bit of a mad scientist and make things that I want to make simply because I want to make them.”