Lifeline Comics 2024 Recap + Top 10 Comic Books of 2024
Kat & Phil talk about the lessons we learned in 2024 as we recap all of the projects we launched this year. We also run through our Top 10 Comic Books of 2024!
Hi Lifeline Comics Subscribers!
As we approach the end of 2024, we have two big topics for this newsletter! Firstly, we’ll conduct our annual Lifeline Comics Year in Review to discuss all of the projects we launched and the lessons we learned throughout the year.
Secondly, we’ll list our Top 10 Comic Books of 2024 - talking about the Direct Market comics that have been our personal favorites. This will be the first of several year-end Top 10s we’ll be posting throughout December!
We’ll also let you know about our current Kickstarter campaigns, our fulfillment session with Pat Shand, and discuss our opinions of Moana 2 and Arcane Season 2!
Let’s get into it!
Our Current Campaigns
Before we give an overview of our entire year, let us take a moment to remind you of our final two campaigns of 2024 — one of which just ended yesterday but is still available for late pledges (sans the live campaign-exclusive items)!
The Witches of Oz #1-2
Our Mature Queer Romance continues with a second issue that dives into Glinda’s Origin Story while taking us to an exciting new location from the Oz novels: the Ruby Palace!
This campaign has already ended, but you can still support through late pledges! All the non-campaign-exclusive rewards are still available for late pledges, plus select add-ons!
LGBTQ+ Pins - Rainbow, Aro, Demi, Bears, & More
Our newest LGBTQ+ Enamel Pin campaign adds some highly-requested new pin designs to our library!
The campaign ends next Thursday, 12/12!
Lifeline Comics 2024 Year in Review
Phil: Kat and I like to end each year with a recap of what we accomplished throughout the year and a discussion of the lessons we learned.
Starting in 2023, we made this process an entire newsletter post to dissect the performance of Lifeline Comics with honest and discerning eyes.
And with 2024 now coming to an end, it’s time to take a look at the seventeen projects we launched and the things that each of them taught us.
What We Learned from the EverAfterVerse
CAMPAIGNS: Nightmare in Wonderland #1 (February 2024), Witches of Oz #1 (April 2024), Beast & Snow #2 (July 2024), Nightmare in Wonderland #2 (September 2024), and Witches of Oz #2 (November 2024)
The Beast & Snow #1 was the big surprise of 2023 for Lifeline Comics. We knew it would be big, but couldn’t have possibly dreamed just how huge a success it would become. In retrospect, it makes sense. The market loves solid NSFW content. And we already had a big queer (and particularly Sapphic) audience before launching our first Mature title. Snow’s success sent a message loud-and-clear: our audience was hungry for more Mature content. As so the EverAfterVerse was born.
We began work on Nightmare in Wonderland pretty much immediately after The Beast & Snow #1 campaign wrapped. It’s honestly a little hard to believe that the campaign (and the EverAfterVerse as a shared universe) launched in early 2024. We spend so much of 2023 putting Nightmare in Wonderland together that it feels “older” than it actually is.
Nightmare followed the success of Snow, becoming our (at the time) second-most-funded campaign. And it thus proved our hypothesis that the EverAfterVerse would be our highest revenue-generating campaigns.
We launched The Witches of Oz #1 only a month after the Nightmare in Wonderland #1 campaign ended. In a perfect world, we would have preferred to put a little more space between the launches of these two new titles.
But we knew it was important to get ahead of the incoming Wicked hype train that we knew was fast approaching (and which has FULLY left the Emerald City Station by now). At the time of our launch, the Wicked movie was just beginning its early promotional cycle. And we wanted our own Oz-inspired series to have some room to breathe before the movie of the year came out (more on that in a bit).
In the end, The Witches of Oz #1 matched The Beast & Snow #1 in funding and came pretty close in backer count — making every EverAfterVerse debut issue launch a huge success.
We originally had planned to launch The Beast & Snow #2 before The Witches of Oz #1. But because of the aforementioned desire to launch before the Wicked hype, the Beast & Snow #2 ended up coming a few months later.
It was very important to us to launch issue 2s for all three EverAfterVerse series in 2024. We knew that consistency was important for building a shared universe that fans could be excited for. And we also wanted to prove our dedication to continuing these stories and not just launching new issue 1s all the time.
Nightmare in Wonderland #2 came in October — a notoriously tough time for Kickstarter when there are A LOT of campaigns live. And while it was the lowest performer of the EverAfterVerse to date, it still made very solid numbers.
We were very happy with the backer count for Nightmare in Wonderland #2, but found the average pledge to be a lot lower than is typical for the EverAfterVerse. We attribute part of this to the difficulty of running campaigns in October. But also to our not having a “huge” cover artist on the book. Don’t get us wrong, we had plenty of amazing covers for this issue. But we didn’t have a Terry Moore or Stjepan Sejic-level legend who brings their own massive fanbase to the project.
The year ended with The Witches of Oz #2, very deliberately timed with the release of the Wicked movie. So deliberately, in fact, that in order to make sure that the campaign (1.) pre-dated the Wicked release (having some time to accumulate backings before the movie hype kicked in), (2.) overlapped with the initial hype of the movie, AND (3.) worked around Kat’s and my pre-planned vacations, we had the campaign run for forty days. While unavoidable in this situation, we definitely would prefer to avoid these types of longer campaigns in the future. The mid-campaign cancellations are rough when the campaign runs extra-long.
Nevertheless, our gamble worked as The Witches of Oz #2 hit all of the numbers we wanted it to do for a second issue in the EverAfterVerse — and got a lot of new backers (both to us AND to Kickstarter as a platform) thanks to the Wicked movie.
This year has been largely dedicated to discovering the identity of the EverAfterVerse. We think we’ve succeeded in our goal of introducing this universe and cementing its tone. The brand we try to aim for with our Mature titles is that readers do want NSFW content, but that they also want rich story and characters. And that is what we strive for with each installment of our shared universe — to deliver sexy content within a richer narrative and universe.
Another big lesson we learned from the EverAfterVerse in 2024 is to be more on top of our fulfillment. We managed to stay on top of things and deliver on-time for all of the EverAfterVerse books, but we definitely cut it close a few times due to the sheet volume of packages. The Witches of Oz #1 was our most difficult fulfillment job. We ended up completing fulfillment for that campaign less than a week before Issue 2 launched. It was unfortunate, but unfortunately unavoidable due to a surprise late acceptance to exhibit on the show floor at New York Comic Con (and all of the craziness that came into preparing two tables at the show), and our planned vacations.
While we were able to make it work and get everything done with some really long days and late nights, the lesson came in loud-and-clear to leave more lead time for fulfillment. Especially as we ease into launching EverAfterVerse books more frequently.
What We Learned from Transphoria
CAMPAIGNS: Transphoria (August 2024)
Entering 2024, we were already well into the habit of releasing at least one comic anthology per year. And a Trans/Nonbinary anthology was an idea we had been kicking around for well over a year. My brother, Dan Falco, who was an assistant editor on Bi Visibility: Still Bi is a Trans writer and, along with Kat and myself, a big proponent for Trans representation. So partnering with Dan to bring Transphoria to life has been in the works for quite a while.
The performance of the Kickstarter (our third most-funded/backed project) shows just how much Trans/Nonbinary readers need representation — especially now. One of the main reasons we create anthologies is to give different creators (whether they’re first-time creators or seasoned veterans) the chance to tell their stories. But another big reason is because representation is so important to us. It’s so important to us to provide both a vehicle for marginalized creators to share their experiences, but also to create a product that is both informative and fun.
Two other big lessons we learned specifically from Transphoria:
Graphic Novel Anthologies are incredibly valuable. We’ve done both floppy comic anthologies and graphic novels. The latter gives us a much bigger page count to tell different stories (and work with even more different creators), and also justifies a higher unit price to make up the cost of more pages.
That’s not to say that we wouldn’t do a smaller anthology in the future. But we’ve learned that the “middle-ground” page count is the harder anthology to turn a profit on. So in the future, we will likely either aim for modest-sized 40-48 page floppies OR 80+ pages graphic novels without landing in the in-between area.Allow more time for delays in the production process. We’re no stranger to scheduling issues. Working with 30+ people on an anthology, you need to expect that at least one person is going to fall behind schedule. And we build that expectation into our scheduling. But with Transphoria, we saw more than the average number of delays (at both the art level AND the production/printing level).
And while we’ll still be able to complete Physical Fulfillment for the project ahead of the Kickstarter Estimated Delivery Date, we plan to remember this lesson and to build even more lead-time into future anthologies — especially Graphic Novels, which are a lot more difficult to print.
What We Learned from our New Safe-for-Work Titles
CAMPAIGNS: The Last Case of Deven & Taylor #1 (April 2024), Mob Princess #1 (August 2024)
As we made a hard push on the EverAfterVerse this year, we also were very conscious of the fact that we didn’t want to lose our audience that isn’t interested in Mature content. As writers, it’s important to us to tell all different types of stories. We went into this year planning to launch two new Safe-for-work titles in addition to our two new NOT-safe-for-work books.
The Last Case of Deven & Taylor #1 was actually not planned as a Kickstarter book. We wrote the book intending to release it in the direct market and in collaboration with another publisher. But those plans ended up falling through in early 2023, so the book ended up making its debut on Kickstarter.
Going into the launch, we knew that Deven & Taylor didn’t have as “Kickstarter-friendly” a logline as some of our other titles. This was largely by design since it wasn’t intended for Kickstarter. But going into the campaign, we knew that future issues would have a lot more of a Kickstarter-friendly pitch that we could lean on to sell the book a different way (if you read the end of Issue 1, then you definitely know what we’re talking about 😉).
Deven & Taylor #1 taught us (or rather, reinforced) just how much Variant Covers matter when selling a book. The backer count for the campaign was great for a new issue 1 — a real testament to the dedication of our audience, for which we’re so thankful. But a lot of backers went for a Digital copy of the book or for the (admittedly very fun) Cover A. We think part of this relates to the Variant Cover offering for this campaign being a little weaker than usual. Don’t get us wrong, we quite like all of the cover options for this issue. But we didn’t have a “blows you away” cover option, and it showed in the much-lower-than-usual variant sales we saw for this book. That’s also not a comment on the quality of the cover art (which was great), but moreso a failure of Kat and myself to come up with strong cover concepts for the talented artists to use on the issue 1 variants.
Mob Princess #1 launched a few months after Deven & Taylor #1. This book actually started as a TV script (Kat has a Masters in TV Writing if you didn’t know!) that she had been on-and-off tinkering with for a couple of years. We knew that 2024 was finally the year to release Mob Princess as a comic.
And while Mob Princess #1 had a similar backer count to Deven & Taylor #1 (and a very Kickstarter-friendly pitch), it ended up raising much more funding than the new title that preceded this. This cemented our suspicion regarding variant covers. Mob Princess #1 had some really amazing variant cover options. And the sales breakdown of the covers compared to Deven & Taylor really shows just how important some killer covers are in turning a profit on a book.
What We Learned from our Continuing SFW Titles
CAMPAIGNS: Like Father, Like Daughter Vol. 2 (January 2024), “Slice of Life” Season One (February 2024), Slice of Life #5 (July 2024), Haunting #7 (September 2024), Like Father, Like Daughter #9 (October 2024)
As we’ve said in other sections: consistency is very important to us. We got into the comic business because we love reading and telling long-form stories. So as we launched four new series, we made sure to continue each of our existing series with new issues and collected volumes.
We began 2024 with two Graphic Novel collections as some of our first launches: Like Father, Like Daughter Volume 2 and Slice of Life Season 1. Both of these graphic novel collections performed very well on their respective Kickstarters. But the biggest impact of a graphic novel collection is the long-term one.
New graphic novels for these series really changed the game at Conventions and as Add-ons on other Kickstarter campaigns. A lot of the time (ESPECIALLY AT CONVENTIONS, readers only want to check out one issue/volume of a book before committing to a long-running series. And having a more expensive graphic novel option means that the average sale for the series more than doubles for folks looking to “try out” the book. We’ve also found people more likely to go for a “full catch-up” when multiple graphic novels are available — promising a lot of content for your buck.
After the Graphic Novel collection campaigns, we set our sights on continuing our existing series with new issues. Slice of Life #5 learned a lesson of Slice of Life #4: The Kiss last year of branding new issues around a particular topic. Just “Slice of Life #5” doesn’t tell me, a potential buyer, anything I haven’t already heard from previous issues. But branding it as “Slice of Life #5: A Coming Out Story” gives the new issue its own identity that can be appealing to both new and long-time readers.
This issue was largely centered around Lucy’s coming out story and culminates in her finally accepting her sexuality (after four issues of grappling with it), so it made sense to brand the newest issue as a big coming out special — especially with this campaign launching on the heels of Transphoria. And it ended up being our most successful Slice of Life campaign to date!
We closed out the year on continuing series with new issues of our longest-running titles: HAUNTING and Like Father, Like Daughter. And while we personally love both issues and we’re happy with the performance of their campaigns, they came with an important lesson: some things, like time of year, are out of your control.
We talked in a previous section about how October is a difficult time on Kickstarter. And November isn’t much easier — especially this November, which was perhaps the bleakest month in our collective consciousness since pandemic times. And both of the campaigns underperformed a bit compared to our expectations from previous issues, at least partially we think, due to factors that we can’t control.
The good news is that even when a particular issue underperforms slightly, the loyal fanbase for a long-running series comes through for you. So while we saw little growth in the “new backers” department, it was very heartening to see the fans of the series come out to support them. And while these campaigns came a little short of our expectations, both still performed well. So while we chase the absolute best performance possible for these two series that are so close to our hearts, these new issues were so very far away from a failure.
What We Learned from our Enamel Pin Campaigns
CAMPAIGNS: LGBTQ+ Fox/Wolf Pins (April 2024), Rainbow, Aro, Demi, Bears (December 2024)
As we’ve said in past newsletter posts, we never planned to build an Enamel Pin business. It was just something that kind of…happened.
We created our “Bi Visibility” and “Slice of Life” pins to tie-in with our existing comic properties. But the demand from fans (on Kickstarters, but ESPECIALLY at Conventions) for more representation and more identities was a call we heard loud-and-clear.
And so, we try to expand our Enamel Pin Library two or three times per year with new pin offerings. Most often (as is the case with our currently-live Pin campaign), we seek to expand our offering with new identities that haven’t been covered by our existing library (i.e. Aromatic, Demisexual).
But earlier this year, we experimented with a campaign that was branded around a particular animal. Our Fox/Wolf Enamel Pins have always been our most popular pins by far. So it only made sense to have a campaign that expanded the offering of Fox/Wolf pins across even more identities which we had already covered with different animals in different pin sets.
The Fox/Wolf pin campaign was our most successful — which makes sense considering it has the most mass appeal between all of the identities represented and the popularity of the animals featured.
This is an important lesson we’ll be incorporating into future expansions of our Pin offerings. Some campaigns will have the goal of expanding our offering to identities that we have not yet gotten the chance to cover. While other campaigns will center around popular animals/ideas and give even more pin options to the identities we’ve already covered. Both halves of the equation are very important to us.
What We Learned from Exclusive Variant Covers
CAMPAIGNS: NYCC ‘24 Connected Covers (August 2024), Exxxotica ‘24 Connecting Covers (October 2024)
It all started with our December 2023 HAUNTING/LFLD “Pride” Variant campaign. We really wanted to have an exclusive cover to sell at our Pride Fest events in 2024, but wanted to give our Kickstarter backers who don’t get the chance to see us in-person at events the chance to grab the cover as well. And after the success of that first campaign, we knew we wanted to follow the same model with future Event-Exclusive Variant Covers.
Attendees of big events like New York Comic Con and San Diego Comic-Con LOVE exclusive items. A big goal of ours heading into 2024 was to capitalize on this more by producing more limited-edition items for these big events.
Crowdfunding these Exclusive Items on Kickstarter ahead of the events is a major win-win scenario. It gives Kickstarter backers a chance to grab these items outside of the event in question (for a very limited time) while also helping the creator cover the costs of producing these exclusive items (because nothing is cheap).
After the success of our Pride 2024 and New York Comic Con 2024 covers, the opportunity to collaborate with Pat Shand on connected covers for Exxxotica Edison 2024 was just too good an opportunity to pass up. We had to pull that one together pretty quickly, but it was so worth it. A fantastic way for both Pat and ourselves to reach each other’s audiences while offering a pair of beautiful new covers. Big lesson learned: Event-Exclusive items are great. But they’re even better when they’re a collaboration with another extremely talented and prolific creator.
BONUS: What We Learned from Work-For-Hire Gigs
CAMPAIGNS: Bombshell & Atomica #1 (February 2024), Bombshell & Atomica #2 (December 2024), Two Unannounced Projects
We talked about Work-for-Hire in detail in a previous newsletter post, but we would be remiss not to quickly mention our experience with writing comics that we don’t publish ourselves through Lifeline Comics.
Work-for-hire is great because you really get to focus on the writing part of creating. You may be involved in the art, marketing, and publishing process to some extent, but it’s nothing compared to the amount of work that comes with being the publisher of the book. It’s honestly so refreshing to get paid for writing work while someone else sits in the driver’s seat for the other million things that go into publishing a book.
In 2024, you already know about our work with Bad Bug Media on the first two issues of Bombshell & Atomica (the second issue of which is crowdfunding right now). It’s been such a pleasant experience working with the Bad Bug team. Every WFH experience is different, but we’re happy to report that Bad Bug is consistently professional, timely, communicative, and very open to new ideas. Working with them has honestly been such a smooth process that it really doesn’t disrupt our schedule at all. We’ve even begun work on Bombshell & Atomica #3 in advance because it’s such a fun and easy book to write.
In addition to our experience with Bad Bug, we’ve also done work on some IP books that we can’t talk about just yet. But we should be able to announce at least one of these in early 2025, so we’re excited to talk about it!
One of the big goals we set for ourselves at the end of 2023 was getting work on Intellectual Property comics. Unfair as it is, there’s a pretty big portion of the comic (and entertainment) community that just doesn’t take you seriously when you haven’t done IP work. So it was another goal of ours to talk to more publishers and put feelers out for this type of work. We’re excited to share what we’ve been working on when we’re able to do so!
Conclusion
We try to look at every campaign as a learning experience. And the end of the year is the perfect time to reflect on the successes of the year as well as the lessons you learned from each venture taken.
One of the biggest things we want to never lose sight of is the loyalty and dedication of our backers. We have a fantastic returning backer rate for our projects, and we’re incredibly grateful to all of you for making that possible. So grateful, in fact, that we’re planning to announce something pretty big in our next Substack post. We won’t say too much about it here, but we’ll tease that backers who support multiple Lifeline Comics projects throughout the year can look forward to some really cool free items!
And in the Substack post that follows, we’ll be announcing our slate for 2025 and talking about exactly how we plan to apply all of the lessons we talked about in this post. So definitely hope you come back to check out that post at the end of December!
Kat’s Top 10 Comics of 2024
Honorable mention to DC’s “All In” initiative and all the Absolute titles but I want to see how they grow in 2025 before putting them on a Top 10 list.
10. Grommets (Image Comics/Giant Generator)
Written By: Rick Remender
Art By: Brian Posehn
We don’t get enough slice of life comics in the direct market. And when we do, they tend to be targeted for a younger audience or for other platforms like WEBTOON. Grommets proves there’s a place for the genre in the direct market with comic all-star, Rick Remender, at the helm.
He targets a time that’s relatable for many Wednesday Warriors, the 80’s, with a personal look at skating culture, taking pieces from his own childhood to allow for any reader to connect to this world and characters.
As a girl born in the mid-90’s, I won’t say I can completely relate to everything the main character goes through BUT a good slice of life story is about connection not relatability. You don’t have to be a 80’s kid to enjoy this story. There’s some wonderful human elements and plot twists that make Grommets an exciting pick up for any reader.
9. Feral (Image Comics)
Written By: Tony Fleecs
Art By: Trish Forstner, Tone Rodriguez
I’m not a cat person, but Phil and his family has made me become…cat adjacent. Cat lovers will understand the little quirks of Feral, but fans of horror will be sucked into the zombie allegories through the POV of household cats having to deal with a rabies epidemic. It takes the “Disney” inspiration that made Stray Dogs a massive success, while still finding its own voice by focusing on a different side of horror.
8. Green Lantern (DC Comics)
Written By: Jeremy Adams
Art By: Xermánico
Like many comic readers, I really started to get into reading DC Comics on a weekly basis at the height of Geoff Johns’ Green Lantern run. He made Hal Jordan an A-list hero and created a true mythos that led into the creation of several corps.
This run reminds me a lot of that golden era. Adams and Xermánico use the building blocks from Johns’ run to develop not only Hal as a hero, but the lanterns around him. I especially love the spotlight given to Star Sapphire/Carol Ferris where she’s able to become a hero of her own outside of just being Hal’s love interest.
There’s something truly special here, and I can’t wait to see the storytelling heights it takes in 2025. Let’s have Hal and co. become the center of the DC universe again!
7. Wonder Woman (DC Comics)
Written By: Tom King
Art By: Daniel Sampere
I love Wonder Woman, but it’s always been hard for me to invest into her ongoing titles. There’s a lot of history. There’s a lot of mythology. How do you reinvent a character that has been around for so many decades?
Tom King and Daniel Sampere make me truly excited to read Wonder Woman on a monthly basis - making Wonder Woman an enemy of the state, feels refreshing for the character. All while, King and Sampere allow for fan favorite supporting characters like the Wonder Girls to show up on a regular basis, creating new favorites with menacing villains that hold the lasso of LIES and, of course, introducing Wonder Woman’s mysterious daughter, Trinity, as a linchpin to it all.
6. Uncanny Valley (BOOM! Studios)
Written By: Tony Fleecs
Art By: Dave Wachter
Tony Fleecs makes the list again with a story very different from Feral or Stray Dogs. Uncanny Valley follows a boy who finds out his family are actually cartoon characters, which, of course, makes him “the chosen one”. The series is a celebration of Saturday Morning cartoons using their “rules” in our real world. It’s a metatextual series that uses mystery to keep the reader on the edge of their seat. I’m glad that BOOM! decided to make this series even longer by ordering more issues to the run.
5. Superman (DC Comics)
Written By: Joshua Williamson
Art By: Dan Mora, Jamal Campbell
From #9 in 2023 to #5 in 2024! Superman continues to be one of my favorite superhero titles on stands. Having a long running superhero series with the same creative team can be a challenge. How do you keep the story fresh? If you have so many issues to play with, how do you handle pacing?
Superman is the perfect balance of classic storytelling with a modern twist. Every issue dives into the rich history between characters, all while building a foundation for new storytelling. I especially love Williamson’s redemption arcs as he makes characters like Lex Luthor and Doomsday even more complex. Superman has been a nearly perfect run in 2024 with set up for even more exciting storytelling in 2025 as Lois Lane becomes a hero of her own.
4. Ultimate Spider-Man (Marvel)
Written By: Jonathan Hickman
Art By: Marco Checchetto
We’ve all been asking for it! When will Peter and MJ get back together? The Ultimate Universe is not only a love letter to that relationship, but the Spider mythos as a whole. As we get to see a new side of Peter’s relationship with Harry Osborn, an alive Uncle Ben, and a newspaper with real hard-hitting journalism to explore how the Ultimate universe works. Ultimate Spider-Man is a thoughtful book, that as a HUGE Spider-Man fan, gives me everything I want on a monthly basis from the character.
3. Zatanna Bring Down The House (DC Comics)
Written By: Mariko Tamaki
Art By: Javier Rodríguez
Either if you’ve never read Zatanna or if you’re a super fan, Bring Down the House will be for you! Rodriguez visuals make this a distinctive looking book, all while Tamaki brings a lot of personality as Zatanna brings her show to Vegas - a setting we don’t see nearly enough in comics.
For DC magic lovers, there’s a really interesting commentary about Zatanna’s relationship with her magic all wrapped into the illusion of a magician show.. There’s an underlying mystery that really colors in her relationship with her father, and makes you want more with every passing issue.
Bring Down the House is a very special series that I’m sure I’ll be referencing for years and years to come as the perfect jumping on point for a cult favorite character.
2. Power Rangers: The Return (BOOM! Studios)
Written By: Amy Jo Johnson, Matt Hotson
Art By: Nico Leon
This is a PERFECT series. There I said it.
As a HUGE Kimberly and Power Rangers fan it hits all the marks for what makes her such a beloved character, but the series also leaves a lot of room for new readers to learn about the franchise. I’ve had a few friends become Power Rangers fans because of this very series. It also helps that BOOM! used both the direct market and Kickstarter to help push the title and get it in front of many readers’ eyes.
What makes this book work as well as it does is that it’s just so personal to Amy Jo Johnson. You can tell that she’s working through her own feelings towards the loss of Jason David Frank and Thuy Trang through this book. It’s a series that’s both introspective and mythos building.
1. Exceptional X-Men (Marvel)
Written By: Eve L. Ewing
Art By: Carmen Carnero
I haven’t been this EXCITED about a title in a VERY long time. As a Kitty Pryde super fan, this is everything I’ve ever wanted from a Shadowcat series and more. Kitty Pryde is back in her hometown trying to find herself outside of the X-Men. We get to see her bartending again, rooming with her childhood friend, and even trying out dating apps as she explores her bisexuality.
But it’s Kitty Pryde, the X-Men are always going to find her. As the once youngest X-Men, Kitty is now the mentor of a set of new mutants with Emma Frost and Iceman tagging along for the ride. Exceptional X-Men is a true love letter to the character that celebrates the past, present, and future of Kitty Pryde with a spotlight she desperately deserves.
What have we been up to?
Let’s take a moment to talk about how we’ve kept busy these last couple of weeks!
Fulfilling Exxxotica ‘24 Variants with Pat Shand
Phil: Last weekend, we made the trip out to Long Island to fulfill our Exxxotica ‘24 Variant Cover campaign with Pat Shand and his team!
It was great seeing Pat’s fulfillment set-up (seriously, he’s got packing down to a science). And there’s no better feeling than wrapping fulfillment of a campaign in a single day.
After wrapping the fulfillment, we went out for dinner with the Space Between Entertainment Team — who are all so wonderful and fun.
With our 2024 collaboration now fully-fulfilled, here’s hoping we can make a 2025 collaboration with Pat a reality!
Media
We’re keeping it light this week on Media since we talked about so many comics in the main portion of this newsletter. So let’s quickly talk about our thoughts on Moana 2 and Arcane Season 2!
Moana 2
Kat: Some movies just really don’t need sequels.
This felt more like a direct-to-DVD movie setting up for a Disney Channel TV show than a full feature. The songs are lesser regurgitations of the first, while the story has almost the same exact theme as the original, except now Moana is looking for human bonds instead of finding her connection to the water.
But I can also accept that this movie just wasn’t made for me. It was a surprising box office smash, and I’d bet money that a big reason is because it’s targeted to a younger audience. The movie leans heavily on mindless action and easy jokes that just feels more catered to children.
I’m just disappointed because Disney has always been able to find that balance between kid entertainment and true all-ages animation that Moana 2 just fails to deliver.
Phil: You can really feel every minute of the 100-minute runtime for Moana 2.
I think I lost all hope for this sequel when 20-minutes in, after already padding the runtime with a recap of the first movie, generic cute animal scenes, and generic cute baby sibling scenes, the movie pads the runtime again with…a dance battle.
This is a theatrically-released sequel that somehow has a thinner plot than 90% of the direct-to-video Disney sequels that dominated the ‘90s and early 2000s. The most common criticism I’ve heard for Moana 2 is that it feels like a TV movie that was mistakenly released to theaters and…yeah. It does.
Like Kat said, Disney is usually great at striking a balance between “enjoyable for kids” and “enjoyable for adults” with their content. No such balance exists for this one. It feels like it was only made to rehash the first movie without adding anything new or meaningful.
Arcane - Season 2
Phil: Arcane Season 1 was one of the big surprise hits of 2021. I don’t think most viewers expected the League of Legends-inspired series to deliver such a powerful, well-written, and beautiful animated experience. But that is exactly what they did, and the result was near-universal acclaim.
Three years later, Arcane returns with a second-and-final season that, while not as absolutely perfect as the first season, serves as a worthy successor with an absolutely AMAZING ending.
Starting with the negative (since there isn’t really much of it), the biggest criticism I’ve seen being thrown around for Arcane Season 2 concerns its pacing. The first two acts (Episodes 1-6), in particular, have gotten a bit of heat regarding how they utilize their runtime. I can agree that certain elements from these first two acts feel needless or, at the very least, undercooked.
It doesn’t help that there was such a large gap between seasons. It takes a minute to get acclimated back into the world and all of the characters. In fact, there are so many main and supporting characters that I had to pause my watch a few times during Act 1 to remind myself who certain characters were. And the way that certain character weave in and out of the story can feel a little disorienting.
But that said, I’ve seen shows with bad pacing. And Arcane isn’t one of them. Particularly as the season moves through Acts 2 and 3, it doesn’t pull any punches. Beautiful animation and action throughout — with each episode getting at least one amazing fight sequence, oftentimes scored to some real banger music. Strong writing and a ton of lines that make for great quotes. And a consistent weight and tension that is difficult to achieve. Arcane is a success because it puts character first.
The consequences of Jinx, Vi, Caitlyn, Jayce, Viktor, and every character’s actions are felt dramatically throughout the season. In long-form storytelling like television, it’s an easy trap to fall into to “rug sweep” characters back to their most base/recognizable form — to effectively disregard the big moments, reveals, and mistakes they make and to not give them the proper, lasting consequences. But Arcane Season 2 is maybe one of the best of examples of having character live with their consequences and have to adapt to a “new normal” and changed relationships.
Arcane also continues to be stellar queer representation. The relationship between Vi and Caitlyn is so layered. It’s beautiful without feeling sanitized. And both characters are able to make mistakes and have human flaws without sacrificing the strength of their relationship. We also get an AMAZING scene in Episode 8 between the couple that I think might be a first for Sapphic representation in animation. On the other end of the queer spectrum, Viktor and Jayce continue their trend from Season 1 of getting as close to gay as you possibly can without officially crossing the line. But honestly, it works for them. And the conclusion to their story was one of the emotional highlights of the season.
The clickbait headlines will tell you that Arcane Season 2 is a decline from Season 1. And is this sophomore season as good as the perfect first season? Well, no. But it’s damn-near close. And some of the highs we hit (particularly in Act 3) surpass even my favorite moments from the first season. If you enjoyed Season 1, you should definitely jump back in for Season 2.
In Closing
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Tiny correction on Grommets creative team. Brian Posehn is co-writer not artist. Artists are Brett Parson and Moreno Dinisio