November 2021 Updates!
THERE AND BACK AGAIN
I know, you're probably thinking "Hobbit reference? What is this, Kieron Gillen's website?" NO, it's mine! Charles Soule's website! If it were Kieron's I would have led off with something about RPGs, Warhammer or both. (That said, Kieron's newsletter is excellent and you can subscribe here - but you already know that, because if you didn't then this entire paragraph would be pointless and as we know... I don't do that. Every word is gold around here. That's the Charles Soule website guarantee.)
So - WHY did I make a The Hobbit reference? Because since last we spoke, I did in fact go "there" and came "back again." The There is Los Angeles, and the Back Again is here, to my house. It was great, but weird. I haven't been many places in the past few years, and going to LA was particularly odd because I used to visit quite often, all things considered. I know a lot of people in that town, including some very close friends I've known for decades. I got to see them, had a fabulous night out with some comics folk, had productive movement on fronts connected to adaptation of my various projects... some of which moved ahead substantially since last month's update.
I think the reason it felt a bit strange is that I thought it would be different in more obvious ways. I think I'm a profoundly different person after the past 2 years-ish, and it felt like LA should reflect that. It felt disrespectful of my journey that the city kind of felt the same. How dare you, Los Angeles?
I did do something I'd never done before, though - I visited a groovy car museum, the Petersen Automotive Museum. I'm not a "car guy," though I like them and have ridden in and even driven them. But I am a "cool stuff" and "beautiful design" and "art" guy, and this place had all of those things in great quantity. Recommended if you're ever out that way.
Beyond that... well, Halloween was great as always (saw a double feature of Scream and Scream 2 and went to a Halloween party at a magical fortress among other highlights). Got some huge work off my plate. Committed to doing another comicon this year... and more. In fact, let's get into all of that. READ ON!
NOVEL 4 IS DONE...Kind of, Sorta, Not Really
If you saw me at NYCC and thought "Charles looks distracted, he must be thinking about 18th century ship manufacturing," you were utterly correct. I recently turned in the first draft of my next novel (title TBA) and the response so far from the initial readers has been very strong. That is, to put it mildly, a massive relief. I swung for the fences on this one in terms of scope, theme and even structure, and as all the novelists reading this know, there comes a point in writing these damn things where you have no idea if anything you've written is worth a damn. Getting positive reactions to a draft I consider about 85% there means I can drill down on that final 15% - which is where the magic happens. We're figuring out publication date now, but we're probably looking at around a year from now.
Here's a short, fun, and mildly cryptic list of some of the topics I had to dive into to write this book:
Major trade industries of the late 1700s in the former American colonies
Most common depression-treating drugs and their side effects
Scientific innovations of the late 1700s
The average time it took to build a ship in 1780
The history of "mental viruses" like the infamous dancing and laughing plagues
The rise and fall of the spiritualist movement in the 1800s
The history of the Royal Society of London
The layout and history of Boston harbor
Influential inventors from around the world throughout the last 200 years
Doomsday cults
The Hubble Space Telescope
Parisian salons in the late 1800s
The textile industry
The hydrogen bomb
Post-crackdown Hong Kong
American carrier groups
Private jets
Oof. This is stressing me out remembering all of this. Anyway, all of that ties together. Trust me. When I get a little closer to release we'll do something really fun for it, I'm sure. In the meantime, to celebrate this milestone, I have restocked my store with hardcovers of my other three novels to date: THE ORACLE YEAR, ANYONE and LIGHT OF THE JEDI. (Click on the title to order, all come with free signature.)
The copies of The Oracle Year are particularly noteworthy - as far as I know these are the last that will be available unless HarperCollins does a hardcover reprint... which is not likely. If you want one, get it now. I have no idea when or if I'll ever have more.
WHERE TO NEXT?
I have a few appearances coming up! You can catch me digitally later this month on Rare Drop's Commix show with my Rise of Kylo Ren and HELL TO PAY co-creator Will Sliney. We will be going live on 11/20 at 1PM EST and are ready to answer your burning questions. You can watch that live here!
A lot of you have been asking about the signing I was supposed to do in October at Midtown Comics - good news! it's been rescheduled! I'll be signing at Midtown Comics Downtown on 12/8, to celebrate the release of CRIMSON REIGN #1, the next big thing I'm doing in Star Wars. It'll be a great time!
I will also be attending Chicago's Comic-Con, C2E2, from 12/10-12/12. I'll be there with my Curse Words co-creator RYAN BROWNE where we will be unveiling our next project together. We've got a panel at 5:15 PM Saturday where we'll talk about it (and dish on each other oh yeah LOTS of gossip). We'll have something special for C2E2 attendees to take home in connection with that new book. More on that next month!
So, what, exactly, are Ryan Browne and I up to? A CLUE: #8BG
And some beautiful images!
TO MY LOYAL, PATIENT CUSTOMERS
The Curse Words Kickstarter Omnibus shipping debacle helped me realize that I have some very patient, understanding fans. But patience has a limit, and so I wanted to provide an update on the shipping status of various items. Let's start with the item with the longest outstanding wait time - the CURSE WORDS CONCEPT ALBUM. It's a full-length, ten track record that I am composing, producing and playing all instruments on except live drums. I've done this before, but not for a while, and it's been a challenge alongside things like writing novels and comics and trying hard to stay alive. I promise I am hard at work, and it's VERY COOL, basically a rock opera. I showed my assistant Tommy a couple of the songs - his response: "Charles, why are you making this this good?" My response was, of course "FOR THE FANS YOU PHILISTINE" but I also took that glowing review to suggest that the time I've been taking on this means it's what I want it to be, which is more than just a funny gimmick. I think it'll be very much worth the wait!
Next oldest thing - the HELL TO PAY #1 variant (which you can still purchase here), will be available in the Spring. Will and I are so excited to share this story with you, and it's getting bigger and better with every issue. We do want to make sure it launches alongside the regular version of the series from Image Comics, along with the sketches and everything else you've ordered. Basically, it's done, and has been for a while - but we just want it to hit at the same time as the series. If you haven't ordered it yet, go ahead at that link, but make sure to read through all the information on that page as we had to separate some things to make shipping as easy as possible. If you have any questions, reach out to my assistant at souleassistant@gmail.com and he can help you out!
If you're waiting on the signed sets of my Star Wars and/or War of the Bounty Hunters comics, most of those will be going out this week! I had a lot of fun writing the short stories that I put on the Star Wars sets, and I hope you like them too. Feel free to share on social media, if you got one. I actually have just one of these sets left, a single set of the second arc of the series - and I'd love to unload it, to satisfy my OCD if nothing else. If you want these issued, signed and with an original short story written across the covers, click here!
I am also taking pre-orders for my DARTH VADER and DAREDEVIL omnibuses that will be coming out in December, each of which collects EVERY ISSUE of these runs. I got very limited quantities, like low single digits, so if you want a signed copy from me, click on through.
As always with anything you get from my store, you'll get an email with tracking information once they've been sent out.
WE ARE ALL...
Wow, this has been a long one, eh? (This is another reason I'm considering a paid tier - I don't know how much news you guys actually want, and going partially paid would let me do smaller updates more frequently and make sure people are only getting as much as they want. Anyway. TBD.)
I want to share one last thing that made me really happy. On Twitter, I got this in my feed:
(I'm not including the handle in case they don't want to be tagged on some random writer's post.)
That line on the UPS delivery notice - "we are all the Republic" - it's a line from my novel Light of the Jedi. The point of the phrase was to suggest a philosophy for the High Republic era - a sense of "even if we have many differences, we are all trying to build something together, trying to achieve a shared goal." Seemed like it could be a resonant idea in these, uh, fractious times.
So, to see that the line had percolated far enough into the universe for something like this to happen, for a delivery driver to know it and to use it and... well. It made me happy. We are all the Republic.
See you next month!
(And feel free to respond with feedback, questions, comments. etc.)
--Charles