COAST-TO-COAST

LegalDispatch 103

Jul 05, 2024

Howdy!

Apologies for missing last week’s newsletter. I was jamming on a script for a new Star Wars comic under the mistaken impression that the script was due on Monday when it really wasn’t due until Thursday. Oops.

IN ANY LIFETIME LAUNCH EVENTS

As threatened, we’ve put together two very exciting launch events for In Any Lifetime. The first one will be in New York City on Launch Day, Thursday, August 1. The second will be three days later and 3,000 miles to the west in Los Angeles on Saturday, August 3.

For the New York event, I’m honored to be joined by my good friend, fellow Star Wars writer, and fellow attorney-turned-writer — and #1 New York Times bestselling author — Charles Soule. We’ll also be offering flights of wine thematically tied to the book. (Wine is very on-brand for me.)

Tickets can be purchased here.

The Los Angeles event will be held at the Barnes & Noble at The Grove. I’m blessed to be joined by the far more interesting and charismatic Katie Cassidy for this one. I worked with Katie for eight years on Arrow — which she both acted in and directed — and we’ve remained friends ever since. It’s very kind of her to lend her time to my humble endeavor.

Tickets are available here.

Please come to one of these events if you can. We’ll have fun, I promise.

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SHOOTING MY MOUTH OF (SPECIAL UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES EDITION)

As I mentioned in the last LegalDispatch, I’m talking to anyone and everyone — accepting any and all podcast and interview invitations — to take advantage of any opportunity to chat up In Any Lifetime.

In some ways, every interview, however, is a bit of a game of Russian roulette: You never know when something you say is going to be taken out of context and used to feed the clickbait article industrial complex. I’ve talked a bit about this in prior newsletters.

A few months ago, I did an interview with The Showrunner Whisperer podcast which just went live this week. (The showrunner whisperer himself, Andy Behbakht, was kind enough to hold the interview until we were a bit closer to the launch of IAL.)

You can check out the interview here on YouTube. During our chat, I related a story about how the head of Warner Bros. Television took us out to lunch prior to the premiere of Arrow and took us through all the economic realities that were at play back then. The bottom line of which was that if Arrow didn’t find an audience, that would likely mean the end of the CW network.

Here’s how a lot of outlets picked up that little nugget (you can click on the screenshots to go to the specific articles if you’d like):

Oy vey.

IN ANY LIFETIME GOES LIVE

Regular readers of this newsletter (and my Instagram and my Twitter and my Facebook and my Bluesky) know that my novel In Any Lifetime drops on Thursday, August 1.

But what you might not know is that the book has already been made available to readers through Amazon’s “First Reads” program, which offers customers early access to new books across popular genres. This month, customers can choose two of the Kindle books selected by Amazon’s editors for $1.99 each, or FREE for Prime members. (Joining the program is free. Check it out here.)

Some readers have already posted some very nice reviews on Amazon. com. For example, ECP writes:

Parallel universe and romance plots usually seem to me at least somewhat similar to others I've read, and neither is a favorite. But I picked this First Reads as a flyer out of what seemed a meager array of choices for me, especially in a month I can choose two. Now, because I felt entertained, as well as educated - mostly from pausing to look up things (mainly concepts and places) - and because I much enjoyed the quick, fun read, I'm happily calling this a five.

Charles Bowles wrote:

I couldn't stop turning the pages!! Half-love story, half adventure, wholly entertaining!!

Of course, there are also some folks who compare it to Blake Crouch’s Dark Matter or Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness, but so it goes. You can’t please everyone or, it seems, prevent them from making comparisons you don’t agree with.

IN ANY LIFETIME GIVEAWAY

My friends at Goodreads are giving away 100 copies of In Any Lifetime. All you have to do is go to this website to enter — which is free!

FROM THE VAULT

A friend of mine from the comic book community recently texted me with the following question:

Was the plan for Diggle to actually suit up as GL? Obviously things got…weird with that arc, but what was the thought about his next steps?

Unfortunately, we never got the approval to go full “Green Lantern” with Diggle, but we were always trying to push the envelope as much as possible. For example, check out the proposed Season 8 costume for Dig that we weren’t able to slip past the powers that be:

We tried a more “subtle” version as well, but that got nixed too:

Oh well.

(Serious props to Costume Designer Brie Thorpe and Illustrator Keith Lau.)

BLACK, WHITE & BLOODSHOT

In upcoming comic book-ness, I recently wrote an 8-page short story for Valiant Comics’ upcoming Black, White & Bloodshot anthology, which is going live on Kickstarter soon. You can read more about it here.