My friends, Showdown #1 FOC’s this Monday, April 6th, 2026. It is my first full creator-owned project. The book is being published by the wonderful people at Ignition Press. The book is written/co-created by Me, illustrated/co-created by Tadd Galusha, colored by Triona Farrell, and lettered by Clayton Cowles. Our editor is the legendary Jamie S. Rich, our assistant editor is fantastic Nora Ornstein.

Showdown follows a young woman named Trish Sullivan who goes back to her small town of South Harmon in order to challenge the man who killed her brother Michael to a fight. The killer’s name is Harvey Harlowe, and once upon a time he was the town’s football hero, son of the Sheriff, and someone everyone loved until he got away with killing young Michael. Trish wants to hurt Harvey and if she can’t, she wants Harvey to hurt her. They both have a shared sense of guilt and misery over the loss of Michael that they feel they can only silence with violence.

The series follows the two making a pact to fight, the forty eight hours they give each other to settle their individual affairs/examine their lives beforehand, and then the final battle. Each issue of Showdown will have a Showdown of some kind, often more than one. A physical fight, an emotional fight, and sometimes a fight with someone’s past. This book is everything I have ever wanted to do in comics and as a writer. I could not be more proud of the final product, and I encourage you to go to your comic store this week, and order the book.

If you don’t have a local comic book store easily accessible to you? My local comic book store Collector’s Paradise is doing a Signature Series with me. Where if you buy all five issues online, I sign them for you, and they will be mailed to you when the series is finished. You can follow this link to pursue that option, if it’s the best one for you!

The warmth we have received so far from folks online, retailers, and as you can see above other comic book creators has been immense. It feels like people believe in our book as much as we do, and that feels unbelievable. I want to thank Chip Zdarsky, Matthew Rosenberg, Steve Orlando, and Joey Esposito for reading the book in advance and giving us these tremendous quotes to show you. These are all folks I have an immense amount of respect for as creators. And I can tell you their creativity is only matched by their kindness. There’s a number of other creators who also reached out with kind words and support, I want to thank them too. Comics is an amazing community, and one where people come out and support each other in meaningful ways.

God did not make me a patient person, and that has been one of the recurring trials of my life. Waiting. A lot of sentences from people who care about me starting with “Someday…”, “In the future…”, “When you least expect it…” Things that are well intentioned that drive you mad.

Showdown has been one of those things in my life tested by my own patience and the universe’s timing.

I had the initial idea for the story over twelve years ago when I was still pursuing my undergrad in Creative Writing. In those years I wrote the comic as a forty page comic, a sixty-four page comic, a novella, a novel, a screenplay…any way I could to keep the story going. And then…Ignition Press enters my life. Jamie S. Rich, a fantastic editor who has been there for me through thick and thin in my professional life gave me the opportunity to pitch him mini-series ideas.

I had pitched Showdown before he showed up to not a lot of success. Folks were supportive of me, and thought the idea was cool. But had their reservations, and I don’t begrudge them that. I pitched Jamie Showdown and two other ideas. He called me and told me that two of my ideas were in serious contention. So I assumed that Showdown was dead. He told me the opposite, Showdown was one still in contention and Ignition wanted to hear more about it. So I sent them more, as much as I could give them, and to their credit they read everything and gave me the greenlight.

Jamie then paired me with artist Tadd Galusha who this book would not exist without. There was only person on the Earth could draw this book, and that was Tadd. He’s been an incredible partner and co-creator. I can’t wait for you to see the work he’s done. He’s going to be one of your new favorite comic artists, and I already can’t wait to work with him again. The same goes to our brilliant colorist Triona Farrell and our magnificent letterer Clayton Cowles.

I had to wait for this to happen. And it was frustrating, difficult, and there was many times where I didn’t think it was going to happen. But it did. And I couldn’t be more thrilled with the way things turned out. So my thanks to the universe for making me wait and giving me Showdown in the best possible way.

I have been all over the audio universe in the last week. Three, count them, three podcast appearances, with more coming up.

IDW has launched a podcast called Superlatives where two of their editors (I am doing contract editing work for IDW) debate a comic book topic and a moderating editor decides who the winner was. The first episode of the show posed the question, what is the best first issue. I picked Ex Machina #1 by Brian K Vaughan, Tony Harris, Tom Feister, JD Mettler, and Jared K Fletcher. IDW Editor extraodinare, overseeer of their Godzilla-line, and someone I am happy to call a friend picked The Department of Truth #1 by James Tynion IV, Martin Simmonds, and Aditya Bidikar. It was a great conversation and you can listen below and see how IDW group Editor Jake Thomas chose a winner.

And then the podcast promotion for Showdown began! You may remember a while back I was lucky enough to do my first ever podcast interview on Francis Lombard’s Portrait of an Editor, where he talks to comic book editors about the business of making comics, and surviving comics. He had me back on the show to talk about my freelance editing business and launching Showdown #1 as a writer. It was a great talk.

And then my friend, friend of this Newsletter, and excellent comic book writer Henry Barajas had me on his podcast Latinx Press where we talked about Showdown, making our own comics, working in comics, and trying to be present while also planning our careers. I love Henry, I had a blast talking to him. And YOU should take this opportunity to go buy the trade paperback for Henry’s excllent comic that he did with Rachel Merrill and Lee Loughridge Death to Pachuco, on sale now.

That’s it for this week.

You know what I’m going to say. Head to your local comic book store to get your orders in for Showdown #1 before we FOC this Monday April 6th. I appreciate you doing it. Every single order, every repost, every kind word about the book helps, and I cannot say that enough.

We will be back next week.

Until then?

Stay safe!

—Dave Wielgosz