Welcome back to the Weekly Up-Dave! Yesterday Showdown #2 came out, I am typing this Newsletter in advance of the issue’s release so I am hoping that folks loved it. This was our issue focusing on Harvey Harlowe, South Harmon’s former football star, and son of the dead town Sheriff. He’s the one people feel is most responsible for the death of Michael Sullivan, Trish’s brother, and in issue 2 he tries to see if he feels that way too. It’s a deep character exploration and one I’m proud of.

I’m especially proud because I think our whole creative really coalesced in a beautiful way on this issue. We did a good job with issue one, but issue two felt like we were a much more cohesive creative unit. And I think that all starts with the artwork of Showdown co-creator Tadd Galusha. He brought Harvey’s whole history, his heartbreaks, and the places that are most important to him to life in this issue in way I think shows off everything is magical about comics as a storytelling medium.

Getting to call Tadd a collaborator, a co-creator, and a friend has been one of the best parts of Showdown, and I am thrilled to share an interview I did with Tadd about this most recent issue, the series as a whole, and some interesting tidbits about the man. Read on!

DAVE: Tadd, welcome to the Weekly Up-Dave! 

TADD:  Thanks for having me. Always good to sit down and catch up with ya!

DAVE: This interview is going up the day after Showdown #2 comes out. So we are free to talk about spoilers, the new characters in the issue, and quite frankly? Anything we want from the first two issues and maybe a dash of information about issue 3. 

I was very happy with Showdown #1. I thought you, Triona, Clayton, and I came together and made a very good debut issue. With issue two I thought everyone hit a creative groove and made something even better. I thought you were especially on fire this issue. How do feel about it?

TADD: Yeah. I share the same sentiment. First issues, at least for me, are always a bit of a feeling out process. I try and bring a slightly different lense to every story I work on. And sometimes that’s easier planned than executed. Really wanted it to feel visually intimate to emphasize the emotional journey we’re about to embark on. I think we did that. We set a vibe. Now we’ll see where it takes us, haha.

DAVE: Agreed! Fingers cross it takes us far. I wrote issue one of Showdown without knowing who was going to draw the series. You came on board a few weeks after the first issue script was done. As I have said on Podcasts and maybe here on the Weekly Up-Dave, our editor Jamie S. Rich asked me for ideas of who could draw the book. I submitted said ideas and he told me that he didn’t agree with my choices. And I loved his honesty. 

Then, he recommended you, I was into your art but I wasn’t sure how you’d handle the material. He told me to give him a few days. He gave you the script and you came back with two pitch perfect character studies of Trish and Harvey. They were almost exactly how I saw them in my head, and I was like “Let’s get Tadd.” 

DAVE: From issue 2 onward, I incorporated ideas you had or was inspired by decisions you made in the designs. Case in point. You gave Harvey Harlowe, one of our two main characters in the series, and the main focus of issue 2, a mullet. And I decided…Harvey used to get haircuts from his dad and then his girlfriend for a time. And ever since his dad died, and him and his girlfriend split up, he has no idea how to get his hair cut. 

So let’s ask the most important question first, how did you decide to give Harvey a mullet? 

TADD: The mullet has been in a “revenge" status for the past few years, and I had to give it its due.

To be serious, Harvey is, by old 90’s standards, a jock. I live in hockey country where it’s a pretty common hair style amongst the youth athletes, so I ran with it and it felt natural for the character. 

DAVE: Oh, wow! That makes so much sense, you’re right Hockey dudes have really kept that haircut alive.

Truly, you are the only person in the world who could have drawn this comic. I feel so fortunate to call you a co-creator on this project and a collaborator. One of the many things you did to make this work as a comic…every single character feels distinct visually. And I think at the outset because this book is grounded and doesn’t have any other worldly elements, most people would struggle to give these normal characters so much definition. What kind of things went through your head when you were designing the characters for Showdown? 

TADD: You’re way too kind hahaha! If I’m being honest, every page for me is bit of a struggle, or I should say battle, to get the storytelling where I feel it needs to be. Even then I’m still thinking, “damn”, I should of done this or that on the page. 

For Showdown I really had to get reflective and dig deep into the ol’ memory banks and remember what it was like to have the kind of raw emotions and bruised perceptions of youth. I went through some very similar life altering events as these characters, around the same age. So, I tried to reflect on that a bit and use it in the visuals.

DAVE: You definitely brought a kind of energy that I brought to the writing, both of us coming from honest places have made this comic feel raw in the best way possible.

We introduce three major characters in this issue. I want to focus on one of them…Big Tim. Harvey’s former football teammate who at first comes off as a very benevolent force and we learn quickly…that’s not who he is. This guy…you designed him to look kind of sweet and unassuming but at the drop of a dime on the page he can sell anyone out in a way that feels so believable. What went into bringing him to life? 

TADD: I kind of fell for the character’s “Eddie Haskell” gimmick. Way, way back I knew a guy, heavy weight wrestler, D1 offensive lineman, so a physical monster of a human. But the absolute nicest guy. Super gentle disposition. I pretty much based “Big Tim” off my memory of him.

DAVE: As we’ve discussed on the phone, my dad was a big Leave it to Beaver fan and would often reference Eddie Haskell when I was growing up, so that influence was definitely coming from both of us.

DAVE: We’ve been describing Showdown as a pulpy crime thriller, and as a bit of a modern day Western. Not only because our two characters are inevitably going to confront each other in a kind of duel…but also because of how you treat the environments. In Westerns the settings all have a mythic quality to them. The saloons, the sweeping vistas, quarries, the buildings in town…I really think you’ve rendered the setting of Showdown, the fictional small New England/Massachusetts town of South Harmon, with that same level of grandeur. In particular there’s a page where Harvey goes back to his old football field to reflect on where he currently is in his life that really underlines what I’m talking about. How do you bring the backgrounds to life in such a rich way? 

TADD: That’s a tough question, man. I don’t really know how to answer it. I think collectively it’s life experience. I try and insert places I’ve been or buildings I remember, then with reference and some fundamental drawing in there somewhere. It also probably helps that I spent like the first five years of my career JUST doing backgrounds as a ghost on books for Marvel, DC, Darkhorse, IDW, and list goes on. Put all that together and we get to what I can do now, LOL.

DAVE: You got your Karate Kid reps in on backgrounds, I can respect that!

So the second issue of Showdown came out yesterday, but I finished the scripts last year, and you’re working on the final issue right now. I told you this the other day on a phone call we had, but I’m going to miss this project when it’s done. Do you have things you’re going to miss about the characters and world we built here?

TADD: Probably Harv and Trish. Anytime you spend so much time with a couple characters you get really good at drawing them. Hopefully we’ll sell buku in the trade, and I’ll get to continue  sketching them for years to come.

DAVE: From your lips to God’s ears, my friend. I hope we sign a ton of these in the years to come and I would love if someone asked you to sketch these characters at a show.

I was an editor at DC Comics for almost a decade before leaving to write full-time and eventually do Showdown with you. I thought that for my first project I would have to use a lot of favors and reach out to people to work on the book? That was not the case. Our letterer Clayton Cowles, our main cover artist Steve Lieber, and issue one variant cover artist Joëlle Jones all joined the project because they knew and were extremely fond of you! And I am delighted I got to work with all of them because of you. Can you give us some Secret Origins about how you know those three amazing comic book luminaries? 

TADD:  I met Clayton when we were young men eager to take on the world and somehow found ourselves in a warehouse that was a makeshift Joe Kubert School in 2006, while it underwent renovations. We studied and even worked together until 09’ when we graduated. 

I promptly moved out to Portland, Oregon and thanks to a failed interview with Dark Horse Comics, was put in the direction of Helioscope Studios (then Periscope) where I interviewed with Steve Lieber for their internship program. I got it for that winter. And he has since been my biggest professional advocate in the comic industry. NOBODY, and I mean NOBODY, on the west coast wanted to give me a chance in comics for years, except for Lieber. I’ll forever be indebted to him. The man is quietly responsible for more careers in this industry than we’ll ever know. 

I met Joëlle back in Helioscope. She was always the artist you wanted to be like. Just top tier. Doing great, imaginative, work. We we’re both doing Oni books at the time that were organic and violent, so we shared some kindred belief in the ink gods hahaha. She even voiced for me to take over a pretty big series at that, which is about as high of a compliment you can get in the comic world, in my opinion.

DAVE: When we did the terrific Comics XF podcast together you listed four of your biggest comic artist influences: Joe Kubert, Sergio Toppi, Alex Toth, and Moebius. Four brilliant artists, but sometimes I think they are so foundational to comics that people forget they can go seek out the work they did. Do you have a favorite piece of work from each one? 

TADD: Joe it would have to be Tor vol. 3 and Jew Gangster. It’s just a master class in everything that makes comics fun and enjoyable.

Toth did a short story for “Star Spangled War Stories” called “White Devil...Yellow Devil,” that I always think about it. It might be one of the best examples of a completist storyteller, both artist/writer, in the comic medium. I lack the energy to expound as to why it’s so perfect, just read it and you’ll know immediately why. Also his short “Big Daddy in Surfside Saga,” is another example of comic making perfection on the page. 

Toppi is a different bird. Just pick a location of the world that you’re interested in and he’s probably got a collection of stories that are articulate, surprising, educational and historical let alone being the most unique compositional designs you’ll ever find on a page. It’s like he’s drawing the real world from another dimension. Grab anything from the Magnetic Press collection and prepare yourself. 

Moebius is the conveyer of dreams, the weird and strange. Start with Air Tight Garage if you can find it and then continue the walkabout into other worlds.

DAVE: You have your own podcast. The awesome Blue Tiger Revenge Podcast co-hosted by the wonderful Bryan Bales. When you host the show you also draw a piece during the conversation. When I was there you drew a great Supergirl. Can I recommend five characters I think you should draw in the future and get your reaction?

TADD: Sureeeeee.

DAVE: Ka-Zar, Marvel’s Tarzan and his trusted battle cat Zabu. You’re a very outdoorsy type of a guy. Of the Earth. I can see you succeeding with this type of character. 

TADD:  Yes please! All day!

DAVE: The Spider-Man villain The Rhino. I think if we put the Rhino costume around Big Tim people would dig it. 

TADD: I have a Rhino story that I always wanted to do, a slice of life comedy. He’s retired, reformed, and is late for his weekly “mandated” therapy session with Dr. Walter Langkowski.

DAVE: THE SASQUATCH for those at home not familiar with Langkowski’s Alpha Flight Membership!

The X-Men villain Sauron, he is a big dinosaur man. You love drawing dinosaurs. 

TADD: Okay, but we gotta get it straight, he’s an ancient reptile-man. Marvel continues this blasphemest campaign to mis-class his phylum and besmirch his dedicated research. He lives with and experiments on dinosaurs, but he is pterodactyl which is a reptile. It needed to be addressed. 
 
DAVE: That’s why we need to cut you loose on the character so you can fix the wrongs that people like me have been spreading about this man!

The DC Character Hawkman, a character Joe Kubert was famously integral to the history of. Just a big man with big wings, a cool helmet and a MACE. 

TADD: I like Hawkgirl better than Hawkman. There’s enough Hawkmen already out there, let’s go with some girl power.

DAVE: Hey, I’m a big Hawkgirl fan myself, I can live with that!

Gotham City’s most legendary police officer, Commissioner Jim Gordon, you have drawn a variety of incredible mustaches in the pages of Showdown and there is no more iconic mustache in comics than Jim Gordon’s. 

TADD: Gordon’s stache is kind of unmatched only the Selleck could compete.

DAVE: Tadd, I am so proud of Showdown, but the thing that matters to me about every project I do is “Would the other creators I collaborated with work with me again, and would I work with them again?” And as we’ve discussed privately, we absolutely hope to work together again in the future. I look forward to that, I look forward to the world seeing the remaining issues of Showdown, and I look forward to reading whatever you have coming up next. Thank you so much for doing this!

TADD:  Davey (I’m calling you this now) the feeling is mutual! I feel like we need to work on something again. You pushed me to find another gear as a storyteller and that’s the best thing I can hope for in a collaboration. SO, it would be a travesty if we didn’t do another project together. Maybe we do another creator-owned project like Showdown or I finally dipped my toe in the superhero arena if the rulers of superhero-dom aren’t afraid to unleash us on their most coveted of modern mythos (or C-list character too).  But yeah, man. I’m down.

Tadd Galusha rules, that guy is the salt of the Earth and I’m happy you all got to see a little bit of that first hand. Here are a couple links to where you can find him. First and foremost, to his podcast Blue Tiger Revenge with Bryan Bales, then his Instagram page, and Bluesky account.

This week I was on the Comics Discourse 114 Podcast talking about Showdown (Specifically issues 2 and 3), the Detective Comics Annual 2026, and my DC edtiorial past. I had a ton of fun on this show with Hassan, Brian, and Bryan. It’s a fun listen!

And you’ll be hearing me on at least two more podcasts in the weeks ahead!

This is as official as it gets. I will be at San Diego Comic Con from July 22nd-July 26th this month. It is going to be my very first time going, as both a professional and fan, and I could not be more excited. I will hopefully have an official schedule to post next week, but I can tell you that I will be at the Ignition Press Pavilion, across the street from San Diego Comic Con at 200 Harbor Drive selling and signing copies of Showdown, and a few other books. And I may also be around at their booth inside of the show too!

That’s it for this week. Next week we’ll be back with a little San Diego Comic Con talk!

Until then?

Stay safe!

—Dave Wielgosz