Issue 27: Voyager Homecoming, roller derby, pets, and pitch meetings!
The year’s almost over (and thank goodness).
How can that be?
Surely this year was over six months ago, because these twelve months have been a century.
NEW STUFF
Star Trek Voyager: Homecoming issue 3 hit the stands last week (what “stands”? do newsstands still exist anywhere?), and the response so far has been fab!
SciFi Pulse: 9.5/10! “The moral dilemma Janeway faces by the end of the issue is exactly the kind of impossible choice she so often confronted during the series, making it feel authentically ‘Voyager’ in every sense.”
Ian Cullen
Comics Beat: “Voyager – Homecoming #3 demonstrates that the entire creative team — writers Susan Bridges & Tilly Bridges, artist Ángel Hernández, colorist Charlie Kirchoff and letterer & designer Neil Uyetake — continues to understand the assignment. I very much hope we get to see this ‘Voyager Season 8’ story continue beyond the fifth issue of this limited series!”
Beat Staff
Flickering Myth: “Simply brilliant storytelling… easily one of IDW Publishing’s strongest Star Trek titles… one of those comics I’m impatiently waiting for as each month crawls toward its end. I honestly don’t know what I’m going to do when this run finally concludes.”
Villordsutch
Geekie Brummie: “…continues to deliver heartfelt storytelling and rich character work… Susan and Tilly Bridges craft a narrative that feels authentic to Voyager’s legacy, exploring emotional fallout and political intrigue with nuance.”
Keith Bloomfield
Superpowered Fan Cast: “Susan and Tilly Bridges continue to create a thrilling, engaging story in this issue with plenty of twists and tension to keep me excited. There is not only great dialogue throughout the issue as well as awesome action, but the story builds to a fantastic choice for Janeway to make and raises the stakes for her and the rest of the crew as it forces her to constantly confront how far she is willing to go to bring her crew home.”
Deron Generally
Get Your Comic On: “Star Trek: Voyager – Homecoming #3 is relentless, high-stakes Trek at its finest. The Bridges balance impossible choices with character-driven drama while Hernández delivers the most visually stunning issue yet.”
Neil Vagg
Nerd Initiative: “This book is such a fun run… but do the ends justify the means? That’s always been a big thing for me, when it came to Voyager… So I can’t wait to see what comes of this whole series.”
We’ve once again got signed copies of all covers up in our Ko-fi shop, including a few extra of the rare variant… the no-logo Janeway with coffee image on the front, and a black and white version as the back cover! Get ‘em while we’ve got ‘em.
Haven’t mentioned this here before, but Tilly joined a roller derby team this past summer and has been in their training course all year. She’ll be appearing in her first ever bout… full of all the newbies that have been in the same course! It’s in Burbank, CA on Dec. 6! And if you want to see some very good roller derby and not just a whole lot of Tilly and other newbies falling down a lot, you’re in luck because it’s a double-header with a real game afterward!
And it’s all to raise money for Point of Pride, a charity that helps trans people in the San Fernando Valley get the meds they need. Come out for a fab time in support of a good cause… and to see the debut of Captain Painway. Yes, that’s Tilly’s derby name, because of course it is. She’ll be on the Milky Way Maulers!
And if you’re not in Los Angeles but still want to watch, we’re told there’s a 95% chance it’ll be streamed on the league’s Twitch channel! Saturday, December 6 at 5 pm pacific!
Susan is volunteering as a grant writer for Real Good Rescue, a small organization in Los Angeles that pulls dogs from shelters that need medical care and/or are older dogs who might not otherwise be adopted.
They’re having their annual fundraiser, so Susan signed up. Through the end of December, your donation is doubled! Also, Susan will draw your pet (or an animal of your choice). The drawing will not be good. Examples above (and link below) if you’re interested in helping out some very good dogs!
WHAT WE’RE WORKING ON
We did the revision on the one-shot comic we’ve been talking about in the past few newsletters. It’s now in for final notes from editorial and the IP holder.
The graphic novel that’s nearing completion (and for which an announcement is imminent) continues to inch closer to the finish line. We’re reviewing the last twenty pages of art and colors, and will soon do the lettering pass on the last two chapters. Full preview text (which is really nice! Good job, marketing person who wrote that!) has appeared on its listing, along with full credits for the book, but still no cover. On the listing, we mean. We have seen the cover and it’s lovely!
Hopefully you’ll be hearing full details soon, because the major book distributor’s listing for it… lists a release date! We don’t know if it’s official or correct yet, so we’re not gonna mention it, but if it’s correct, you will definitely be hearing about the book soon so pre-orders can begin.
No news on the other graphic novel we completed writing last year, other than art is also likely wrapping up, we’ve seen some cover ideas, and will probably get into the lettering pass in the first few months of 2025? That’s just a guess, though. Again, this book is slated to release in 2027, so it’s all still very up in the air.
The animation exec that we had a general with a month or so ago, who asked us to send her some ideas, and then asked for more on those ideas? Well, we guess she dug them because she set a pitch meeting with us… for three different projects.
This is… wild? Bizarre? Bananas? It’s hard enough to pitch one thing, live, to an executive. To have to pitch three things, all during the same meeting, is… we don’t even have the words. It’s extremely unusual! Doubly so that our meeting is next week, and most of the entertainment industry does absolutely nothing between Thanksgiving and New Year’s.
So either she really likes us, or she’s really bored and just wants to be entertained by two writers trying to excitedly pitch her three different projects in an hour. We’ll let you know how it goes!
Though we might not even know how it goes for months, so…
In any case, we’ve had to write out these pitches, in a sort of bullet-point form covering the concept and our connection to it, the world, the characters, the pilot, some episode ideas, and how it would work as a show. And then we have to practice them, so yeaaaaah the new pilot script’s on hold again.
But it’ll be there waiting for us to get back to it, and making us feel guilty every day, probably.
TRANS TUESDAY UPDATE
The Lisa Frankenstein trans allegory examination continues, as we talk about our dreams of realizing our true selves, the passive-aggressive form so much bigotry can come in, how our subconscious holds the truth, and how our first encounter with our true self can be kind of terrifying!
Tilly Bridges
Tilly Bridges
RECOMMENDATIONS
Okay so. So.
Pluribus is, um… well.
Pluribus is.
Apple TV has been absolutely killing it with their sci-fi shows, and this is no different. It’s a very grounded sci-fi, but trust there is fi in that sci. And it’s just incredibly compelling on every level, and afterward makes us keep asking questions and wondering how (or if) different aspects of humanity can even exist in that world.
You gotta check it out. It’s bananapants (complimentary).
THE DIRTBAG DISPATCH
These two are as tired as we are.
Is 2025 over yet?
And just to quickly note, in past newsletters we’ve mentioned that we’ve had to come up with nicknames for Dirtbag Henry, so he doesn’t catch on to when we’re trying to grab him to clean his eyes or check his chin (that he keeps getting zits on from dipping it into his wet food and then not properly cleaning his own face because he has only one perpetually overclocked brain cell). We’d moved to “Meatball,” but he eventually caught on that this also meant him and would run and hide.
Well, a new champion has emerged: Dustbox Samuel.
Hope he never catches on to it, because calling him that is just super hilarious (for us).
WHAT’S IN THE BIG TIME?
Big Time issue 27 goes into the delicate art of the follow up, and how to walk that fine line between waiting too long, and not waiting long enough (and includes a cringe-inducing story of us getting some bad advice). And there’s the first half of a Star Trek Voyager: Homecoming issue 3 audio commentary!
Sign up for it at birdguestbroadcast.com and help us pay rent and eat food and stuff!
THE END
Did you know?
Pie is good.
Have more pie, you deserve it.
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http://birdguest.com
