Last Call for TMNT: Black, White, & Green #3

For the better part of the last two months, I have been hitting the pavement as hard as I can promoting my first comic as a full-time writer. A short story drawn by the brilliant Riley Rossmo, starring Raphael of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Black, White, & Green #3. Which is on sale 7/31/24. The Final Order Cut-Off Date is a few days from when this post is being published on 6/24/24. As previously discussed, if you go to your local comic store on 7/31/24 there’s a good chance you will be able to buy the comic, but if you order it in advance the comic store can guarantee they will have a copy put aside for you especially.

You will see above I made a graphic of all three covers for the issue. Cover A, the one that will probably be the most available is by the brilliant Jock who also co-wrote and drew a story in the issue. Cover B, reflects the short story I wrote and is drawn by my brilliant collaborator Riley Rossmo. The RI Cover is by the legendary cartoonist Paul Pope. If you get any of these three covers, you have purchased the correct comic. Covers A and B can both be ordered very easily by your store, you just have to ask for them. The RI cover, your store will only have that if they order 10 copies of the book.

If you would like to hear me and Riley talk about the story, we did a great podcast interview with Gatecrashers hosted by my longtime friend Dan McMahon, see below! Dan was a tremendous interviewer, asked us great questions, and I think it’s a wonderful listen. My family thought so!

I will of course be continuing to talk about the TMNT story in the weeks ahead and then again when the trade paperback collection comes out in November, but this is the last week we can get the numbers up at the stores. This comic is so important to me for so many reasons. It’s the first comic I have written and published that was not for DC Comics. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are amazing characters who are celebrating their 40th anniversary this year and were created near where I grew up in Northampton, Massachusetts. I got to work once again with the amazing Riley Rossmo and I think everyone should see the amazing work he did. And just to be frank…I’m proud of the story. I think it’s damn good and I’m thrilled to have it be the first of my full-time writing career. I want to sign a ton of copies of this issue this year and for the rest of my career. Hold me to that!

You Can Go Home Again, Especially for a Crisis

Last week, something very important was announced. This year’s DC Halloween anthology I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST CRISIS #1, is an 80-page giant featuring horror short stories set during DC’s various Crisis storylines and events. I will officially be making my return to DC as a WRITER with this anthology. My story is set during the Final Crisis event by Grant Morrison, JG Jones, Doug Mahnke, & Carlos Pacheco. The story is going to be about the unseen cold war between LIBRA, one of Final Crisis’s primary antagonists, and Lex Luthor, one of the most rambunctious members of the bald community. My collaborator on the story is a brilliant artist named Sid Kotian, who if you haven’t heard of yet, you’re going to know him very soon. I think he’s amazing, and he’s someone I hope I get to work with a lot more. As soon as I can, I will be showing you art by him for the story.

While leaving DC as an editor was an important step in my writing career, I had hoped against hope that they would invite me back to write more when the time was right. Getting the phone call from DC editor Andrew Marino asking me if I wanted to not only contribute to this anthology, but add to a story written by one of my great heroes Grant Morrison was intimidating, flattering, and the challenge I was hoping for if I was lucky enough to return to DC. This story was one of the most challenging pieces I have written yet, but the results are stellar, and I hope you will agree with me when you share the story.

The original story was drawn by some of DC’s greatest artists ever. JG Jones, Doug Mahnke, and the late great Carlos Pacheco? It’s a stunning work from all of them. And Sid Kotian lived up to those artistic influences. I think fans of the original story will feel the reverence we had for all the authors of the original storyline, while be delighted with the things we found to add. We will be talking more about the story in the weeks and months ahead.

Where Things Are Now, Heading Into the Summer

I have admitted previously that I thought last year as soon as I left DC as an editor that a ton of writing opportunities were going to come up for me to tackle. They did not. A lot of last year was instead spent learning how to manage my freelance career, and sending out as many emails as possible, hoping against hope that work would come in.

At the end of 2023, I set a goal. I wanted to be hired to write at least six comics professionally in 2024. We are almost at the halfway mark of the year, and while I am not at liberty to talk about everything yet, I can tell you I have gotten five comic writing jobs so far this year. One more and I reach my goal, and I hope that I exceed that goal handsomely with the remaining six months of the year ahead of us. I will write about it more in the future, but it took a lot of perseverance, hope, and luck to get here. However, it feels like things are going in the right direction with my writing work and I could not be more happy about that.

The last few years had some big bumps in the road. And I have been open about them with my friends and family. It’s important to talk about when you are going through a hard time. In that same spirit, I also think it’s important to talk about when you are going through a good time. Not to brag, but to remind people that life takes good turns and bad turns. Right now I am in the middle of a good turn and I am grateful for that.

Thanks for reading this week. Next week I will be checking in with my 2024 hopes and goals list and we will see how many I have accomplished so far, and how many are in the works.

Stay safe!

—Dave Wielgosz