THE DEEP DARK cover!

I mentioned this on the final comic update, but DARKEST NIGHT is going to be published by Scholastic on June 4, 2024, under the name THE DEEP DARK. Preorder from your local bookshop if you’re so inclined!

I’ve spent the past few months turning those long scrolling updates into graphic novel spreads and cursing my past self for being so chaotic about how I layer my photoshop files. I also hand lettered everything, which looks so good that I’m furious because now I HAVE to hand letter all future projects.

I took the chance to dig back into the story and make some edits to dialogue and art - mostly small changes with the goal of making the world feel more realized, and emphasizing a few storylines that I didn’t explore as much as I wanted to in the webcomic. I’ve never worked like this before and it was surprisingly rewarding - I’m so, so excited to share this story with the world. Also, it’s 480 pages, so I can cross ‘book that could be used as a murder weapon’ off my list of career goals.

Finally, publishing a book means the dreaded task of designing a cover. Here’s my process for THE DEEP DARK!

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One thought during the design process was that I wanted this book to come across as older than my work on THE WITCH BOY trilogy (although as you’ll see I ended up using a similar motif). I was a kid who read adult books regularly and got a lot out of that, but THE DEEP DARK has, well, dark themes, and I wanted to make sure a kid wouldn’t pick it up expecting a middle grade story.

This meant exploring some more abstract, non figurative imagery. We discussed a cover showing the monster, so I did a few takes on that, but I really wanted Laura to be a visual reveal, so ultimately that was abandoned.

but ultimately I was like UGH I LIKE BOOKS WITH CHARACTERS ON THE COVER! So we explored another sketch:

I shot reference of a baggy jacket (why didn’t I take reference while drawing the comic?? i was doing it all wrong! alas), looked up an exact star map for the night sky in Joshua Tree in early January, did some text passes, a bunch of color passes, and finally…

THE DEEP DARK will be out June 4, 2024, in hardcover and paperback, and you can preorder here or from your local bookshop!