Showdown #1 comes out on May 13th, 2026, which is not very far away! That day I will be at the Collector’s Paradise store in North Hollywood, California, from 5-8PM signing copies of the book. If you are in the LA area, I hope you come out. Nothing would make me happier than having a large turn out, signing a bunch of copies, and heck I’ll sign other stuff too!

Please come out if you can. And if you have friends in LA who loves comics? Tell them to come too! The more the merrier!

Also, yesterday our Showdown Ashcan hit stores. On Saturday I went to Collector’s Paradise North Hollywood and signed one hundred of them. If you got one at Collector’s Paradise North Hollywood or another comic book store? I hope you enjoyed it, I hope it got you excited for our real first issue, and I hope you’re now ready for May 13th!

New Movie I Watched: Lorne, directed by Morgan Neville. As a pop culture obsessive and a guy who did improv comedy in LA for five years…of course I love Saturday Night Live. I have for my whole life. I have watched every other documentary about it, read books, and listened to a large amount of the podcast interviews cast members and writers of the show have done. The documentary Lorne set out to shine light on Lorne Michaels, the show’s creator, and perhaps the most mysterious and important figure in American comedy for the last fifty years. If I hadn’t been such an SNL obsessive I would give this a higher grade. It’s really well done, there are pieces of behind the scenes show-making that were a delight to see for the first time, but a lot of the history it goes over about Lorne and the show I had become privy to form other sources. It’s an entertaining watch, and it is the worth the price of admission for two interview segments with former SNL writer, five time host, and one of the biggest comedian’s in the world John Mulaney. One that had me laughing like a hyena, and the other that brought a tear to my eye. When this hits streaming, I think on Peacock, it’s going to be absolutely worth throwing on when you have a quiet night and want to relive the history of the greatest television show ever created by a Canadian?

New TV I Watched: The Pitt on HBO Max, St. Denis Medical on NBC, and Shrinking on Apple TV Plus. Folks, we are in the TV season finale part of the year. In the next weeks I need to catch up on Rooster, Kamen Rider: Zeztz, and most importantly The Boys/Gen V (working on that now), but I am caught up on all my shows about people taking care of us. I loved The Pitt Season 2, St. Denis Medical Season 2, and Shrinking Season 3 this year. I loved that we got episodes every week, I love that they are shows shot in California, they have phenomenal casts, and this season all of their shows deliver a round of applause for delivering sensational guest actors.

There was a lot of press about Michael J Fox coming onto Shrinking this season, which was absolutely deserved. I adore Michael J. Fox, he was great, it was awesome watching him have scenes with Harrison Ford who are legends of equal stature to me, and having him reunite with Spin City co-creator Bill Lawrence was awesome. One guest casting that didn’t get as much press was Jeff Daniels as the father of Jason Segel’s character Jimmy. I am a huge Jeff Daniels fan. And I would say for the last fourteen years most of the Daniels characters we have gotten, and many of them are awesome, are corporate titans, government figures, and media personalities. In Shrinking Season 3 he plays a cool laid back dad that plays guitar but slowly reveals himself to be a deeply narcissistic and emotionally negligent figure. He’s absolutely brilliant. Him and Jason Segel have two or three of my favorite tv scenes together this year. Including one that I desperately need to be on Youtube so I can show people who do and do not watch the show how great it was.

New Comics I Read: Of The Earth #1 by Chris Condon & Andrew Ehrich, Charlie Adlard, Pip Martin, and Hassan Otsmane Elhaou from Image Comics.

Chris Condon has become one of the most sought after, critically acclaimed, and prolific comic writers we have over the last few years. And that’s for good reason. He’s a damn good writer. He’s shown he has an incredible handle over the crime, western, and thriller genres. He’s given us great runs on mainstream super hero books like Green Arrow and Ultimate Wolverine. And in his creator owned work I think he takes bigger and bigger swings with each project. With Of The Earth, co-written by Andrew Ehrich and drawn by the legendary Charlie Adlard we get a timely eco-thriller western that dazzles with it’s taut pace, and almost certain impending doom that’s going to come for it’s main character. I was on the edge of my seat reading this first issue. And Charlie Adlard, no shock, drew the absolute hell out of this. I thought the colors by Pip Martin were terrific and Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou continues to show why he is one of comic’s premiere letterers. This one is out on May 20th, 2026.

The Dogsitter #1 by Jamie S. Rich, Megan Levens, Nick Filardi, and CRANK from Ignition Press.

Before Jamie S. Rich was my editor, and even before he was one of the best bosses I had at DC, I knew him as a comic book writer. One who wrote awesome romance comics and adventure comics. With his amazing collaborator Megan Levens, Jamie returns to the romance comic genre that he knows so well with The Dogsitter. Comics is a medium for every type of story, including romance. Jamie and Megan remind of us that with this wonderfully executed, intensely charming, flawlessly crafted first issue. You will in love with the characters, the richly rendered settings, and how damn good Megan Levens is at drawing dogs. They feel real without ever slipping into a terrifying uncanny valley. It’s one of many acts of cartooning genius she has in these pages. Nick Filardi’s colors are bright and magnificent. CRANK’s letters as crisp as ever. I love having a romance comic on the stands, I want more of them, I want more from this team, and I am glad to be working with a publisher like Ignition Press that is willing to give books like this a real shot. This book comes out on June 3rd, 2026.

Old Comics I Read: Young Avengers Omnibus by Allan Heinberg, Jim Cheung, Justin Ponsor, and others from Marvel Comics. On this newsletter I have talked about how I was fortunate to be start reading comics in the mid-2000s when there was a lot of great teenage super hero comics, and of course when I was a teenager. My favorite of those comics was Young Avengers by Allan Heinberg and Jim Cheung. So much so that I wrote Allan Heinberg a fan letter on Myspace and he respnoded. I kept that response in my locker, it was something I looked at whenever I got discouraged about being a writer. I got the Young Avengers Omnibus over the holidays. It includes the original twelve issue series by Heinberg and Cheung, their follow-up series Avengers: The Children’s Crusade, and all the comics Marvel did with other creators starring the Young Avengers in between. I was so afraid I was going to love these comics a little less because I had gotten older. I didn’t I loved them more. These are great Marvel Comics, done by a writer who inspired me to write, drawn by one of the best super hero comic artists of my life time Jim Cheung, it has a cast of characters I love like my own friends, and it reminds me of a time in my life I miss greatly. So great. And the colors by Justin Ponsor were ahead of their time. He was a brilliant colorist and one of the most influential super hero comic colorists of his generation.

Black Widow by Chris Samnee & Mark Waid and Matt Wilson from Marvel Comics. I had read this run when it was released in issue and I liked it, I didn’t love it. Waid and Samnee had just come off a legendary Daredevil run before doing this and compared to that I was like “This is solid work.” However, recently, this run was released in an omnibus alongside Mark Waid and Chris Samnee’s Captain America run (which I adored when it came out and adored now) and man…my initial read on this was all wrong. This comic book RULES. It is just as good as their excellent Daredevil run and their excellent Captain America run. It is a deep, character-rich, awesome super hero espionage comic with AWESOME new villains and mythology for one of our great Avengers, Natasha Romanoff. And…some of the best action sequences I have seen in modern comics. I am so happy I read this run again, it was an absolute treat I didn’t see coming. And I had to tell the editor of this comic, Jake Thomas, how wrong I was when I originally read this and how I have finally seen the light.

Music Moment: NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert series on Youtube has been on a tear this year, having on bands and musical acts I love. A little over a week ago they had one of my favorite modern bands Mannequin Pussy on. They rule. You rule too. So you should listen/watch.

That’s it for this week, team!

Next week, I think we are going to have a Showdown #1 preview for you, and more Media Diet.

Until then?

Stay safe!

—Dave Wielgosz