What better place for a Halloween party than the HOUSE OF MYSTERY? And guess what? You’re all invited.

This October we’re publishing our first ever Halloween Annual. This special 48-page book will contain a framing story by the regular HOM creative team, writer Matthew Sturges and artists Luca Rossi and Jose Marzan Jr. However, it will also included short stories from HELLBLAZER by Peter Milligan, Giuseppe Camuncoli and Stefano Landini and MADAME XANADU by Matt Wagner, Amy Reeder Hadley and Richard Friend as well as a special MERV PUMPKINHEAD tale (the first in over 8 years!) by Bill Willingham, Mark Buckingham and Kevin Nowlan.

What? That’s not enough?

You’ll also be treated to a yarn spotlighting a new monthly series!

Come back this afternoon for the second major part of this announcement.

It’s 9:36 am in New York City. Do you know where your freelancers are?

First up: coffee, check my email, see if anyone delivered the work they owe me. My day is divided up by time zones: Morning means Europe as they’re anywhere from 5-6 hours ahead, early afternoon means East Coast, late in the day, Left Coast. So as I prepare to call FABLES penciller extraordinaire Mark Buckingham, who lives in Spain, I realize that he’s probably finished with the pages he has on hand and he’s desperate (i.e. taking a siesta) for the balance of script for FABLES #87. And that can only mean one thing: Willingham’s name, once again, is mud.

I’ve been editing Bill Willingham's life intermittently since 1988. At that time, I was working for Comico, The Comic Company, a now defunct independent publisher that was located in Pennsylvania. Bill was writing THE ELEMENTALS -- apparently -- if I could find him. When I took over the editorial reigns on the comic book, he was somewhere in the mid-West in a mobile van avoiding me at all costs. When I finally tracked him down (sometimes through my keen deductive reasoning skills, often through the use of a private detective) he would deliver the most amazing scripts and it would all be worth it. The blood. The sweat. The many trips to Goomba¹s pizza (double dough, double cheese). The tears (of weight gain, of joy).

Speaking of Bill and his projects, for those of you who have been hiding under a rock for the past few months, PETER & MAX: A FABLES NOVEL is Bill’s first FABLES prose novel and it’s coming out this October. It’s a dark fantasy epic about sibling rivalry that infuses magic, music, revenge and murder. Spanning medieval times to the present day, the story of Peter Piper and Max "The Pied Piper" of Hamelin will leave you haunted as you watch two brothers come undone in the deepest dark that is the Black Forest. And prepare to be blown away by the many lush spot illustrations by FABLES inker Steve Leialoha who will not disappoint if you’re expecting an abundance of rats the size of cats.

And next time we meet, remind me to tell you about the time Willingham took the life-sized mannequin of Clark Kent from DC¹s 7th floor glass conference room and placed it behind my desk while I was next door in a meeting with my boss... And stay tuned for more strange and sordid stories about your favorite comic book writers and artists as I spill their deep, dark secrets with each and every blog entry.

Unless Bill strangles me first,
Shelly

Music to watch Deadlines go by:

1). All my Friends - LCD Sound System
2). The Big Boss Groove - The Style Council
3). Friday Night - Lily Allen

Now, check out some edited and final pages from FABLES #85 and PETER & MAX.
[gallery link="file" columns="2"]

War...again? This time it's within the confines of THE GREAT FABLES CROSSOVER as Mister Revise and the rest of the Heroes gather high power weapons and take on The Genres a.k.a The Villains in JACK OF FABLES #35.

Check out these fantastic two page spreads drawn by Russ Braun:

[gallery columns="2"]

What is Kevin Thorn about to write next? Will the Fables survive? Find out in THE LITERALS #3 next week with a sneak peek on Monday.