(Edit: oh god I am so sorry the email looks weird. Apologies. The next one will be fixed. RIP.)

Newsletter time! Some overall updates- bear with me here:

  • The formatting of this newsletter is a little different now- it didn’t quite make sense to have my subscriber newsletter and the public newsletter be separate when they would essentially cover the same activities but have differing links/recommendation sections. Subscriber-relevant links will still be in all the usual places, but the newsletters are combined now! Public subscribers will still get the general round up, and subscribers will still have access to their subscriber rewards. (Also- hello, tip jar folks! You’re here now too. Feel free to unsubscribe if you don’t want to see these, though.)
  • This will still go out monthly! Maintaining two made that schedule difficult, though, especially with one being manual and the other being through a company (MailChimp) that is explicitly sex-negative and would continually and mysteriously lock me out of my account for months at a time. This newsletter is now self-hosted on my blog with distribution using a plugin called MailPoet. They have no control over the content of these newsletters. You’ll be able to see the newsletter archives here and follow through your RSS feed reader (though if you’re here, I’m assuming you prefer email over RSS).
  • I may occasionally send out a second newsletter if there’s a lot going on that month. Next year I’ll be doing more cons, so this may happen! I like to keep these brief, though, so expect any secondary ones to be even shorter.

Okay! If you’re still with me, back to all the fun stuff.

COMIC & ART UPDATES

WEDLOCKED

Wedlocked is now running on both the subscriber site and Slipshine! Slipshine is +20 pages ahead, but it’ll be serializing on both like Split Check was. Someone said that Willoughby has “chew toy energy” and I’m holding that comment like a little gem in my hands. That man is extremely chew toy.

A new update went up yesterday, and another is coming tomorrow.

ULTRAVIOLENTS

Ultraviolents updated today (Subscriber update coming later today… after I finish this newsletter!). I know I say this every time, but I’m very excited to see how people react to some of the upcoming scenes! Definitely imagery and conversations I’ve been thinking of since I started doodling character designs.

As a general heads up: this chapter is slated to end in Feb/March of 2025, then I’ll be taking a two week break as per usual. I’ve been mulling over the idea of having guest strips or running fanart again- not sure yet! Plenty of time to figure it out, at least. Suggestions?

Patreon subscribers– I’ll be opening for character q&a in November to run during the end of the year break in December/January. Start thinking about what you might want to send in, especially since there’s a much larger cast now! Worldbuilding questions are good too, but I love using the q&as to flesh out some character elements, haha.

Also: I’ve been keeping it quiet since I wanted to see how far I could get things with just sharing between friends, but! Ultraviolents has a TopWebComics voting page. I’ll be putting some old UV concept art in there as an incentive soon, so I definitely encourage you to vote if you’d like to see that kind of thing! If you’re unfamiliar with TWC, it’s how a lot of webcomics used to get traffic. Asking readers to vote pushes you higher on a leaderboard, which means that more casual viewers will have the chance of seeing your work. The website is, uh, jank, but it still works to a degree!

OTHER COMIC NEWS

39 Steps Underground is taking a break while I work on a new, spookier comic for Filthy Figments. Subscribers will see concept art and scripts for this soon! Even more sexy body horror, because this is just what I do now, I suppose.

A correction: Fuck Me Running will start posting in March of 2025, not December of this year. There’s a 5 year kibosh on posting digitally outside of FF (justified! I am fine with this!), and I misread thinking it was 4 years. My bad! Everything before 2020 may as well be in a different lifetime. Hahaaa. PDFs will be free for subscribers as per usual, and $8 for everyone else. Though… I am kind of leaning towards doing some newsletter specific discounts too. A treat! For YOU!!

I’m going to start posting my comic from Ambrosia instead in December! I know I don’t post a ton of illustration work these days, so I want to make sure folks get to see something new, haha.

EVENTS & APPEARANCES

PARADISE LUST LAUNCH PARTY 10/3 6PM

OUTSIDER COMICS presents...  A Launch Party for PARADISE LUST!  with editors  IRIS JAY, NERO VILLAGALLOS O'REILLY, & HYE MARDIKIAN  Discussing the creation of the second entry in their series of deluxe, occult-themed LGBTQIA+ artbooks This is an age +18 event! THURS 10/3, 6PM 223 N 36 ST, SEATTLE
Artwork by Iris Jay.

Seattle folks! My co-editors on the Paradise Lust book will be at Outsider Comics today (!!!) in Fremont to do a short talk about the creation of the book. I’ll also be drawing in the Early Bird tier copies there while we talk. Come hang! It’s a small store, so definitely get there early if you can. Masks are required (and Outsider carries some if you lose yours). You can also pick up a copy for yourself or a friend from Outsider directly. Backer copies are shipping soon!

SICKOS SELECTION #1

Bundle artwork by Ram Lightly.

I’m a part of the first edition of the Sicko’s Selection! GC Houle put the whole thing together and wow, what a selection. Of sickos, even. My 2019 sketchcomic collection is in there! If you haven’t read that yet, now’s a great chance. Also: check out all the amazing artists in there! I love every single one of em, no lie. There’s 15 days left!

HALLOWEEN HORRORS BUNDLE

Bundle artwork by Mariah Currey.

The co-op is running another themed bundle- Halloween this time! Bookmark it here. It goes live on Monday and features 50 comics for $35. Phobiaphilia is in this one, if you don’t have a PDF copy of that yet.

WEBCOMICS ROUNDTABLE ON YOUTUBE

WEBCOMICS ROUNDTABLE: Drawing Boys Kissing Online for Fun & Profit Nero Villagallos O'Reilly DarkChibiShadow Citrus Con EK Weaver Bob Appavu AUGUST 24 3 PM EDT

The webcomic panel I ran at Citrus Con is now up on Youtube! Patrons saw this right after the event ended, so I’m excited to finally plug this publicly.

COMIC ARTS LA & THOUGHT BUBBLE

Poster art by unknown.
Poster art by Anatola Howard.

My books will be at the Cartoonist Cooperative’s Thought Bubble table in November (save on shipping, UK folks!), and I’ll have a table (with some new items!) at Comic Arts LA in December.

RECS & LINKS

  • The Online Comics & Zine Fair Webring is live! I set this up as an easy way to keep track of all online-only comics and zine fairs- when COVID hit in 2020, everyone wanted to have an online event. Now… not so much. Which is disappointing for a lot of reasons! But if you know of or help organize any online-focused or online-only events, please forward this along! I think it could be a really helpful resource and would love to see more on there.
  • Doujinshare is the archival website of an artist, Lukadian, dedicated to cataloguing his entire collection doujin online. There’s also a bunch of links out to other similar websites. Really neat slice of comics preservation here!
  • Pious is a comic I’ve seen go around in a lot of monsterfucker circles lately. It’s refreshing to see something like this where the author clearly isn’t afraid to actually draw monsters. You can’t just slap horns on a dude and call it a day, people! I love my dudes with horns but the word monster implies something… well. Monstrous.
  • Land of Obscusion has a two part post about bands that have done songs for anime that were truly one hit wonder bands. Love this guy for his dedication to hyperspecific history.
  • The Day We Met is a very classical mid-2000s Gay Furries In College comic, but it’s extremely cute. Definitely worth a read over coffee- its second chapter has just wrapped up! The art is charming as hell.
  • The yearly Shortbox Comics Fair is live! I’m not in it this year, but I do have a lot of comics in my cart that I want to get. Next newsletter at the end of the month will have some recommendations for sure. (I can, however, state for sure that both Blue Delliqanti’s BLEED ANY% and Seosamh Dáire’s The Solar System are fucking fantastic comics, though.)

That’s it for now! Thanks for sticking around.

See you next month.
-Nero