NEW YEAR, SAME PANDEMIC

a/k/a "Meet The New Year, Same As The Old Year" - LegalDispatch 0.15

Hey there!

Happy New Year.

I can’t believe it’s 2022 already. For much of December 2021, my soul was experiencing massive cognitive dissonance every time I glanced at a calendar. December, felt right(ish). But 2021 had to be a typo.

Don’t even get me started on 2022.

THIS PAST WEEK

This week was dedicated to drawing together some loose strands from the end of 2021. Among them was a new draft of Prophet based upon some very well-taken notes from my amazing producers. They’ll be getting that new draft a little later on today.

This week, Ubah Mohamed and I created the official first production draft of LA Law on top of Zooming with potential key hires and more virtual casting sessions.

I’m also endeavoring to finish by the end of today the sixth issue of PROJECT ENCORE which will complete our first arc.

RYAN BODENHEIM

Over the holidays, I took a rare glance at Twitter (as I’ve previously noted, my review of Twitter has dropped precipitously since starting this newsletter) and read the news that comic book artist Ryan Bodenheim had suddenly passed away.

I was gutted.

Ryan and I collaborated a number of years ago on a graphic novel called Halcyon.

My favorite double-page spread from Halcyon. As it happens, Ryan gifted the original pages to me just a few months before his death. (Colors by Mark Englert.)

We reconnected during the pandemic and started collaborating on a new super-hero series called Greycroft. At the time of his passing, Ryan had completed work on the first 15 pages. The work is simply stunning. I’d love to have it lettered and colored and publish those ten pages online as a tribute to him, but I don’t feel comfortable doing so without his family’s permission. I did, however, post one page to the memorial page in his honor — go here to check it out — so I’ll post that page here:

Believe me when I tell you, it’s just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the awesomeness he was creating.

In the meantime, I remain stunned by his sudden death and find myself grasping for some form of closure. A random death is particularly hard to make sense of when one doesn’t know its cause. Making matters even worse is that I have a profound fear of what that cause might have been and the mere possibility tortures me. I hope the coming months bring some clarity and, hopefully, closure.

THINGS I LIKE

At the risk of a sudden whipsaw in tone, the holidays brought a few things that I really liked which I thought I’d enumerate here in no particular order:

• Cloud Cuckoo Land: A Novel . I’m absolutely in love with Anthony Doerr’s prose but the massively-ambitious interwoven story across three time periods is what makes this book really stand out.

• Hawkeye (the Disney+ series). This one really caught me by surprise. Just a joy from start to finish. Is it possible it’s my favorite MCU TV series?

• Bowflex SelectTech 552 Adjustable Dumbbells. Not that I needed Covid to keep me from setting foot inside a gym, but these adjustable dumbbells have been a wonderful — and wonderfully space-efficient — game-changer for my at-home workouts.

LAST FLIGHT OUT

So, after a brief hiatus, Last Flight Out is returning with Issue 4 which goes on sale on Wednesday, February 2nd. So why am I mentioning this now? Well, Monday is FOC (final order cut-off) for Issue 4. So if you want to make sure the book doesn’t sell out, mention it to your comic book store this weekend.

This morning, I got in the first batch of Natalia Marquez’ colors for Issue Five, which I’ll dangle here:

STAR WARS: HAN SOLO & CHEWBACCA

I don’t feel at liberty to share previews of David Messina’s glorious Han Solo & Chewbacca art yet, but he’s been sharing some glimpses over on Instagram:

I have a very good feeling about this…

AM(A)A

A reminder that I’ll occasionally use this space to answer any questions people might leave in the comments. Operators are standing by…

That’s all for this week, folks.

Be good to each other.

Best,

Marc

Encino, California

1.7.21