One of the first pieces of writing advice I ever heard, and have given repeatedly since, is “finish.”

MADAM, a new 164-page horror comic book by me and Pandamusk, colored by Ed Ryzowski with letters by Paul Allor, is a testament to taking that advice seriously.

Bur first, the sales pitch:

Business up front: we’re launching MADAM on Kickstarter on Oct. 14 and you can sign up for notifications about the launch now. The book is complete (you’ll hear allll about it in a second).

It’s full color with some stunning artists doing pin-ups and a Kickstarter-exclusive variant that we’ll reveal when the campaign begins in earnest. We’ll have great behind-the-scenes stuff. It’s going to be an affordable deal for a hefty book that goes right to the creators to keep doin’ what we’re doin’.

We’re looking for $7500, which will fund a solid print run along with some fun extras and cover shipping costs. We’ve funded this entirely out of pocket up until now, so we’re putting a lot on the line in terms of our return on investment. It’s not financial advice I would give, necessarily, but it’s what we did because you only live once.

Look at this incredible wraparound cover Panda made for the book (design by Carlos Mangual):

Getting to this point was a lot of ups and downs and the result is a living document of biting off more than you can chew and making it work. It’s over a decade of conversation, incremental progress, publishing deals gone awry, and then a pandemic that gave us some time to get things into the home stretch.

I won’t go into the nitty-gritty details, but Panda pointed out to me that we first talked about MADAM at PAX East 2014 in Boston. For personal context, that is months before I met Amanda, my now-wife of nearly 10 years, and probably one of the lowest points of my existence as a human, which is most definitely reflected in the black-hearted nature of Madam McQuillen and her world.

When a book has such a long production life and the artists involved grow and evolve, it’s incredibly tempting to go back and tinker. We did our best not to do that and instead make it a capsule of our journey as creators and collaborators and friends.

I have a feeling these are details nobody but us will notice, but much in the way McQuillen’s Book of Flesh is a living testament to her immortality, so too is the existence of this book to our creative spirit.

MADAM is mean, bleak, violent, cynical, and graphic. X-rated, even. It is not for everybody, especially if you prefer to ingest lighter fare amongst the backdrop of a real-world horror show.

But I like wading deeper into the darkness in dark times to investigate how things got this way — usually the horror genre comes back to the cruelty of humanity in one way or another, and I think that shines a pretty stark light on our current moment.

But I hope beneath all the vile details, readers will be able to appreciate a piece of work that explores familial betrayal, the constructs we build to protect those we love, and what happens when those false faces get smashed apart.

Sign up to be the first to hear when we launch.

Soup’s on,

-Joey
[email protected]
PO Box 1093, Bath, ME 04530
Buy my comics

UPCOMING SHIT

MIGHTY MORPHIN POWER RANGERS: ZORD QUEST: Announced in September was Project Helmet, officially revealed to be ZORD QUEST, a new MMPR 40-page one-shot by me and Gavin Smith! When editor David Mariotte commissioned this, he asked for something “Zord-centric” and I think we delivered in spades. Also, publisher Boom Studios showed off a bunch of Gavin’s black and white pages, so take a look, they rock. Final Order Cutoff is 11/17, issue on sale Dec. 31! Pre-order it here!

BALTIMORE COMIC-CON 2025: Sean Von Gorman (of Comics) and myself will be stationed at booth 119 slingin’ comics! We’ll have THE PEDESTRIAN and more! Come get a free Soup Dad Comics sticker or MADAM bookmark. Plus, I’ll be on the “Comics are for Kids” panel on Sunday, Oct. 19 at 11 along with some all-star comics folks! I may have some freebies to give away…

THE PEDESTRIAN VERTICAL SCROLL EDITION: Our pals at GlobalComix just launched THE PEDESTRIAN as one of them new-fangled vertical scroll comics! Which is funny, because the book was originally conceived that way until we adapted for traditional print. Full circle, baby! Check it out.

SOUP DAD MERCH!!! 

The Teepublic store for Soup Dad Comics, my self-publishing imprint, is going strong and I’ve really loved seeing our AI IS FOR HACKS & FASCISTS shirt catch on. Any money made from these shirts goes directly toward real, live, organic artists.

THE PEDESTRIAN THREADLESS SHOP is still available for all your PEDESTRIAN needs. And as always, if you haven’t snagged a copy of THE PEDESTRIAN yet, it’s available in my web store, online, and on GlobalComix. 

COOL SHIT FROM OTHER PEOPLE

SABRINA by Nick Drnaso

I’m quite a few years behind on this one, but Amanda read it a while ago and upon finishing told me, “I think this might be too dark for you.” And she was right! It’s very, very bleak, but also excellent. It’s a stunning analysis of conspiracy theorists exploiting grief for monetary gain and the slow, unnoticed boil of how faith in the news has been deliberately and successfully dismantled in our shitty post-social media world. And this came out in 2018. Things have only gotten worse. Buy it here.

THE COMICS COURIER

In another life, I myself worked as an entertainment reporter covering comics. There are a handful of great outlets still doing the legwork, but many of the places that were once staples (CBR, Wizard, Newsarama, ComicsAlliance, etc) have since gone defunct or were bought and turned into content slop farms. So Tiffany Babb’s ongoing crowdfunding of THE COMICS COURIER has been a delight — and there’s nothing that can beat a physical piece of paper in your hands. Back the latest issue on Kickstarter!

DIE SPITZ — SOMETHING TO CONSUME

I don’t think I’ve put anything other than comics in these slots before, but for me, comics and music are intertwined. I’ve been into Die Spitz since their TEETH EP, but had the chance to see them open for Viagra Boys recently and they fucking crushed it. Their official debut record, SOMETHING TO CONSUME, is out now and it absolutely rips. If you like to bang your head, this one’s for you. Check it out.

OTHER SHIT I’M WORKING ON

PROJECT SLICE-N-DICE (WFH) — I’ve turned in a draft of the oversized issue #1 and am awaiting feedback. I won’t lie to you, this one was tough to crack and took a lot out of me. Part of it was the deadline coinciding with some life things I couldn’t work around, part of it was ::gestures broadly:: and part of it was just that it’s a tricky tone to nail. Fingers crossed they dig it.

PROJECT HELMET (WFH) — See MIGHTY MORPHIN POWER RANGERS: ZORD QUEST above! I’ll be working on a lettering draft over the weekend.

MADAM — See main feature above!

THE PEDESTRIAN  — We’re excited about the upcoming Ringo Awards and that the vertical scroll edition is officially out there.

PROJECT PUKE — Had a positive meeting with an editor about this one at a publisher that I’m waiting to hear more on. There was some difficult conversation involved about certain aspects the project, which is a larger topic for a future newsletter for sure.

SHITKICKERS — I’m told Zoop sent out a notification that it would be shipping soon, which is what they told me months ago. So… we’ll see? I’m sorry if you’re still waiting for your stuff, trust that I’m being very annoying to them about it.

Thanks for hanging out. If you have any suggestions or questions, please feel free to drop me a line at [email protected].