Launch week FAQs
It’s been an amazing week launching Copper Bottle, and there's lots more to come. But today I wanted to slow down a bit and answer some questions that have come up as we’ve shared our news with the world.
WHAT WILL COPPER BOTTLE PUBLISH?
Over the course of the coming year we plan to publish at least two new ongoing comics series - one of which, TERRORWAR, has just been announced. We're also cooking up a series of short stories -- brief but sweet collaborations with top comics artists. And there are other secret plans which can only be revealed down the road...
HOW WILL COPPER BOTTLE PUBLISH?
New comic pages will be delivered by email weekly, viewable directly in the email newsletter or on the site. They’ll look great. But we're also already working with other creators and with Substack to find ever better ways to make the reading experience as beautiful as possible.
WHEN WILL COPPER BOTTLE PUBLISH?
We plan to drop our first comics in early fall!
WILL COMICS PUBLISHED BY COPPER BOTTLE BE AVAILABLE IN PRINT?
Eventually! But our ability to do this long term is dependent on subscribers, so we want to reward our most ardent supporters by making sure they're the very first to get the books. The subscription model is a great way to do that.
DOES THIS MEAN YOU'RE NO LONGER WRITING FOR MARVEL?
It does not mean that. I absolutely intend to keep writing stories in the Marvel Universe and other fictional worlds. Have some awesome announcements on that front coming soon!
IS SUBSTACK YOUR 'PUBLISHER?'
No. Copper Bottle is an independent publisher using Substack to mail its comics directly to subscribers. The work published by Copper Bottle will be co-owned by myself and the artists.
DON'T YOU HAVE CONCERNS WITH SOME OF THE OTHER WRITERS WHO ARE USING SUBSTACK AS A PLATFORM?
I haven't said enough about this yet, so I want to take some time here.
The short answer is I have more than concerns, I have beef.
I have skin in this game and it isn't an academic question for me. It sometimes gets lost in the discourse, but many of the bigots in question started out going after Arabs and Muslims. In some cases I watched them make careers inciting that hatred. Notably, I watched them do it on mainstream platforms. I've absolutely seen the cost of some of these writers' agendas personally and viscerally. I'm intimiately aware of the dangers of sharing a platform with dark forces. I'm talking about on a physical, gut-deep level.
I'm also aware of the danger of ceding platforms and resources whole cloth to those forces. And to be as blunt as possible, every project I've ever taken on that's had any sort of audience has been about that split awareness -- a dance between compromise and reclamation. I've been paid to read antiracist poems at universities founded on slavery and tried to to tell anticapitalist stories in billion-dollar corporate universes. Every time I take a Hollywood meeting there's a pretty good chance someone on the call has been involved with a project about killing "terrorists." Complicity is everywhere. How do you make good work that actually reaches peoplein a world like that without doing harm? How do you own what your labor produces and make sure those you work with are paid fairly? All of the answers have their grim side.
That said, and to be perfectly clear, I completely understand and respect anyone not agreeing with the compromises I make on any given prject. There are valid reasons to take exception with — even to avoid — any of the several homes my work has found. I wouldn’t dream of insulting folks by telling them when and where to do so.
That’s it for today. Up next: talking influence, collaboration, and TERRORWAR with artist Dave Acosta!