From Northampton With Love

My mom’s birthday always falls somewhere pretty close to Mother’s Day. There have been years where it was the same day, the next day, the day before, you get the picture. And some folks say “Well, you can get her one gift for both, right?”

No way! Not only is it lame to delete somebody’s birthday, but my mom…she’s one of the greatest moms of all-time. For my whole life she woke up at 3 AM on weekdays to go work a full-shift at the hospital, and she got out of work in time to get my brother and me from school, take a little break to watch her Soap Operas, and then help us do our homework. She’s a superhero.

Then as a teenager when it was clear I wanted to make comic books my main hobby, she bought in. Every Saturday as I have mentioned on previous posts she would drive me and my brother a few towns over to Northampton, Massachusetts and we would get new comics from Modern Myths and a pile of graphic novels/trade paperbacks from the Forbes Library. My mom watched movies and TV shows with us. She told me to start watching Smallville because it was about Superman. And when I was a teenager she let me watch any movies I wanted to because she trusted me, with the exception of one director who I will not say, and I kept that promise to her until I was in college and had to watch some of their films as a part of a class. And even then I called and said sorry.

I love my mom very much, I owe a lot to her, and I wouldn’t have been a writer or found so many of the things I love without her. She lives basically a whole country away. I talk to her often, but…there are days I wish I could just go home, and hug my mom. I’m not afraid to admit that.

My mom also made Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Nation #6 coming out this week so special. The story I wrote, that Vitor Cafaggi drew, “Northampton Ninja” was set in Northampton, Massachusetts where I spent so much time with my mom. And over the Christmas break we went up there together, took pictures, and she told me a bunch of stories from her youth. Stories I am sure she tried to tell me when I was younger but probably didn’t have the emotional intelligence to hear. The story gave me a full day with my mom, and somehow the universe made sure the comic came out the day before her birthday. I think she’s going to get the copies I mailed her today and I hope she’s happy with it. I hope you were happy with it too if you got to check it out!

Readers, things have been busy. I have been working almost non-stop, which has been an honor and privilege, but also…a little tiring. I have a few weeks before a few big projects wrap up, I take a week off to hang out with my family, and then it’s back to wrapping up another big project and ideally lining up some more for the back-half of 2025. This week’s post and next week’s post will be a little shorter because I am hard at work, but also because I am a few weeks out from being able to share stuff with you. But here is a reminder of what projects I have coming up, and a sneak peak at the content I will be providing here based on those projects.

• On July 9th, 2025 Hello Darkness #12 from Boom! Studios comes out and it features my first original comic story “Tiny, Little Men” Drawn by the great Riley Rossmo. The Final Order Cut-Off for that is on June 2nd. I’m going to see if Riley would be game for me to interview him about that one.

• On July 30th, 2025 DC’s Kal-El-Fornia Love, the DC anthology focused on the Superman family having adventures in California during the summertime, in which I wrote a story about Superboy (Conner Kent) and former Superboy turned Superman (Jon Kent) as they go on an adventure together, drawn by the brilliant Joey Vazquez comes out in stores. The Final Order Cut-Off for that is on June 30th, 2025. I am going to interview Joey about that, we’ve set that up!

• I think the summer is going to offer a few more comics from me…but I cannot talk about them just yet.

• I am going to be tabling at two comic book conventions. One this Summer and one this Fall, more information about both in the weeks to come. But I’ll tell you this…I could not be more excited.

• This Fall I know there will be at least one…possibly more new comics from me. Like I said…the work has been happening!

It’s really been an exciting time. While I am a little more tired than I would like…it’s been a great joy getting to work this much and knowing that work is going to be seen by you and other readers very soon. Stay tuned to this Newsletter, there is great stuff ahead, and again…if you like this Newsletter, if you like me, consider sharing it, and telling like-minded creative people about it. By the end of the year I am trying to make it to 100 subscribers. This week if we got three more subscribers I would only be 30 people from my goal, and 30 in a little more than six months sounds realistic, right?

That’s all for now. I’ll see you next week.

Stay safe!

—Dave Wielgosz