HAPPY BIRTHDAY...

...TO ME! July is my birthday month, and I have spent it celebrating the best (and probably only) way I know how - by typing. I have written 750,000,000 words this month.

I am going hogwild on Novel 4! It's quite a process - this one is turning out to be by far the most ambitious thing I've ever written, and tbh I'm a little annoyed at Past Charles who thought it would be fun to write a book like this. But Future Charles is telling me it'll all work out, and that he's so proud of me for sticking with it and not getting discouraged, and that it's just one heck of a book. Thank you, Future Charles! You're much cooler than Past Charles, who I have had to grow beyond and distance myself from.

Since we last chatted, many things have happened! For example, the paperback edition of my #1 New York Times Bestselling novel Light of the Jedi was released on June 29.

If you haven't had a chance to check it out, or just want a somewhat smaller, more flexible version of the story to enjoy for a re-read, this is an opportunity to do so! In fact, I've made a small quantity of the paperback available in my store, and even a very limited number of the hardcover edition - which I can mail right out to you now, signed and maybe with a little sketch or remarque (a fun little quote).

Click here to get the hardcover or click here to get the paperback!

More below. MUCH MORE! From updates on my huge Boba Fett-centric comics crossover, to my latest High Republic project... keep scrolling, friend. JUST KEEP SCROLLING.

The REAL Book of Boba Fett

Okay, look. I am very excited for the Disney+ show featuring Boba Fett that's slated to air at or around the end of the year. But is it a book? No! It's a TV show! (Well, probably. Maybe Boba becomes a novelist in it. I don't know anything about it.) All I can guarantee is that there *is* in fact an actual "book" of "Boba Fett" available right now - the comic series WAR OF THE BOUNTY HUNTERS currently being published by Marvel Comics. It's the central series for a huge crossover involving almost all the titles in Marvel's Star Wars line, and I'm very thrilled to be writing it. It also kicks off something even bigger, which I've started writing and am even MORE excited about!

Three (monthly) installments of War of the Bounty Hunters have been released, with three more to go, and then the next thing will follow on right after. Since I'm not doing shows or appearances right now, I've decided to make signed bookplates available for WotBH and lots of other things I'm doing. I do a (bad but fun) drawing and include a quote on each. See what I mean here!

What's Next for Me in The High Republic?

THE BAD GUY, that's what. As just announced on the San Diego Comicon panel for Star Wars: The High Republic (which you can watch here if you missed it - lots of great reveals and info beyond just this particular announcement), I am writing EYE OF THE STORM, a comic miniseries for Marvel that will go into the backstory of the initiative's primary villain, Marchion Ro.

I created this guy in LIGHT OF THE JEDI, and I always had a pretty strong sense of where he came from and what he was trying to do and, most importantly, why. I'll be able to explore a number of those story points in EYE OF THE STORM, and I'm particularly excited to be able to do it in comics, because that means you guys will get to see a number of these elements. There will be things in this story that have never before been depicted in the High Republic era, and I think it will put a definitive stamp on the latest big jerk trying to tear the Republic apart. MARCHION RO. EYE OF THE STORM. JANUARY 2022.

(And no, this isn't my last story for the High Republic.)

Highway to Hell to Pay

We're still hard at work on HELL TO PAY - one of three new Image Comics series I have in development (plus, of course, the ongoing magnum opus UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY I'm writing with Scott Snyder, drawn by Giuseppe Camuncoli, which just reached issue 14)! I've mentioned it before, but the team is doing something a little different with this book - livestreams of the story being created over on the Twitch channels for series artist Will Sliney. It's a fun watch for process nerds. Here's a recording of the last time I and series colorist Rachelle Rosenberg joined his stream. We've got three issues done, and it all looks amazing.

As a way to support the project and pre-fund it (making comics is pricey work!), as well as offer something cool to y'all, we set up an exclusive variant edition of Hell to Pay #1 for our closest fans - Will's Twitch community, my newsletter subscribers, etc. You can get it here! It won't be available in stores, and we're also offering a limited numbered set of signed and sketched editions, which are almost sold through.

I feel like I've been talking about this book for a while but not shown much from it - it's a supernatural horror adventure, sort of like Indiana Jones meets The Conjuring. It's REAL COOL. But don't take my word for it - check out this sneak peek at a gorgeous page from Hell to Pay #1:

Shop Till You Drop

As mentioned above, I recently added a signed bookplate section to my store as a way to let people get a cool signed item from me since I'm not doing many signings for the time being. We set up a bookplate for just about everything I've done so far. We'll be adding more in the future, and if there's anything missing that you desperately need, let me assistant know (souleassistant@gmail.com) and we'll work on getting it added ASAP. Each bookplate is just $10 and features a terrible sketch (or a less terrible remarque) by me!

That said, if you want your actual physical book or comic signed, check out the info on this page and we can make it happen for you.

Besides bookplates and copies of LOTJ, I also have some other cool items available like the Swamp Thing Omnibus, my first novel The Oracle Year, my second novel ANYONE, & Undiscovered Country trades. Click here to see everything we have for sale.

Until Next Time

I will leave you with this lovely photo of myself and my Curse Words co-creator, [redacted] co-creator, and superstar bigtime good pal Ryan Browne, who I **actually visited in person** for his birthday at the end of June. It was the first time I'd been anywhere in a good long time, and I just showed up at his door to surprise him! I was the gift that kept on giving, for several days! (I'm guess I'm lucky he didn't send me back to the store.) We watched Wishmaster and Hausu and played video games and drank beer and I hung out with his powerful children. It was so nice.

July 2021 Updates!