Issue 28: best comics of 2025, festival wins, and just so many project updates!
We stumble ever forward.
There’s no choice, really.
Time stubbornly only goes in one direction (rude).
NEW STUFF
As you might’ve guessed from the header image, Star Trek Voyager: Homecoming is on The Beat’s list of best comics of 2025!
“… thanks to Voyager — Homecoming, we also have a continuation of the story that began when the U.S.S. Voyager returned home. Drawing upon several subplots from the show, including Species 8472 and B’Elanna Torres’ pregnancy, Voyager — Homecoming feels like a few bonus episodes of the series.
… I hope we get to see writers Tilly Bridges and Susan Bridges continue to play in the VOY sandbox, preferably in an ongoing series — but I could also stomach a spinoff focused on Seven of Nine, and her journey to Star Trek: Picard. Latinum on the table, IDW!”
Beat Staff
This caught us entirely by surprise, doubly so since there’s still two issues to go, and there’s so much juicy stuff in there nobody’s seen yet. But we’re so incredibly flattered and honored to be listed among so many truly incredible creators!
And speaking of one of the best comics of 2025, there’s been a bit more press about it!
Strange New Pod did a catch-up joint review of issues 2 and 3!
“And of course, there’s Janeway. God-tier Janeway. Knocking out 8472 soldiers with bioelectric circuits? Deleting critical data to keep a singularity from opening that can lead Voyager back home? Making split-second decisions that would make other captains fold? She’s in full command-mode glory, and her crew (mostly) has her back without hesitation. It’s everything I’ve ever loved about the character, turned up just a bit.”
Julian Brown
CBR did another article about all the moral dilemmas we’re saddling Captain Janeway with.
“…writers Susan and Tilly Bridges made Janeway make an impossible decision, and yet, somehow, in this third issue of the series, they found a way to go back to that dilemma and give her an even MORE difficult decision. ... You can be in a "safe" situation at one point, but then you could instantly be thrown into an EXTREMELY dangerous situation at a moment's notice. I really liked how well Susan and Tilly Bridges get that point across in this story, as things are CONSTANTLY moving, so that there is no chance for anyone to feel TOO comfortable.”
Brian Cronin
There’s also an interview with us on the Alternative Spaces episodes of the Strange New Pod podcast, which definitely touches on Voyager: Homecoming but it’s also more broadly about our career as writers, and how we always try to push representation forward as much as we can.
Strange New Pod | A Star Trek Podcast
Relatedly, this is the last “regular” newsletter of 2025 (the next one, in two weeks on Dec. 31, will be our annual roundup timeline of everything writing-related we did this year), and so it is vital we remind you:
Issue 4 of Voyager: Homecoming releases on January 7!
But! Before that issue’s even out, we have the final order cutoff for issue 5 on Jan. 5!
And this is it! This is the one! They’re going home and it’s got those reunions everyone’s been waiting for, so do not miss it. Get those orders in!
Also, The Animation Guild recently did a little feature on us for their Member Mondays, so check that out!
Keyframe_admin
Long Away is an official selection of the 2025 Hollywood Independent Filmmaker Awards & Festival! And that’s not all, it won the Silver Award in both the LGBTQ Narrative Short category, and the Sci-Fi Narrative Short category.
This is extra notable as it’s the first time it’s placed anywhere outside of a LGBTQIA2S+ festival or category! Having it be awarded also as a sci-fi film really warms our hearts.
WHAT WE’RE WORKING ON
The graphic novel that we’ve been talking about (that we finished writing last year and that will be out in 2026, and should be announced soon), had some… uh, developments.
We found out last week that our editor on the book has been laid off from the publisher due to “restructuring.” We’re absolutely gutted, because she’s so lovely and has been wonderful to work with, and she’s been with us on this book since before we even signed the contract back in February of 2024!
We were doubly worried because this comic is very queer and very trans (and not just allegorically, it has a trans man romantic lead), and those projects are often the first to go. Our lovely editor was no longer there to protect it and fight for it, and it’s been so hard to get anything visibly queer through… anywhere. It also sucks that she lost her job! Hopefully some smart publisher snaps her up soon.
We were told we’d get a new head editor after the holidays, and in the meantime one of their executive editors is scrambling to find out where everything with the project is at as it was supposed to go to press soon (the “restructuring” was so abrupt they apparently did not have time to even get informed on where all our editor’s projects were at). She’s pushing things forward, which puts us a little at ease.
But then we got even better news that we have a full creative team meeting with the publisher’s marketing folks in January to discuss promoting the book! So it looks like it’s still going to happen (knock on all the wood for us).
In the Big Time version of this newsletter (we appreciate you supporting us!), we talk in-depth about what it's like to have this very thing happen to you, and what to do if you're unlucky enough to have to deal with it. Because it sadly happens a lot.
In the midst of that, we found out the editor at another publisher who was going to take one of our pitches to the Deciders to get a green light… discovered she was actually too busy to bring in any new projects right now, and so that pitch is effectively dead there. If her schedule lightens up in a few months hopefully she’ll come back to it and us, but who knows. Understandable! But it sure sucks for us.
Our one-shot comic script is finalized and off to the artist, so that’s nice.
And the meeting with the animation executive that we had to prep three pitches for seemed to go really well! She seemed engaged, and laughed at the funny bits, and asked good questions. However, she works at… WB. Perhaps you’ve seen them in the news recently!
As such, she has no idea how that’s all going to shake out or what their new mandates for projects are going to be. So she asked us to send her documents with each of the projects’ pitch info for her to reference again once all that gets settled. She also said she had a good feel for us as writers and the kind of stuff we’re interested in and like to write, so she’d keep us in mind for other stuff that we might be a good fit for down the line .
We don’t think she was just being nice to not make it awkward, she seemed genuine. And we only ever got good vibes from her, so don’t think she’d say that if she didn’t mean it.
Hopefully it leads to something down the line!
TRANS TUESDAY UPDATE
We’ve kept rolling right through the trans allegory of Lisa Frankenstein, seeing how the people we thought cared about us really act when they discover our truth, and start rejecting all the kinds of people we don’t want to be as we progress through transition.
Tilly Bridges
Tilly Bridges
RECOMMENDATIONS
Fallout (the show) is back! Today! We’re so excited because we loved the first season, but also because we’ve just been huge fans of the franchise for forever, going back to the very first video game.
The show captures its unique brand of humor and horror, the beautiful amid the destruction, so perfectly. It kinda kills us we aren’t writing for it, actually, so thanks for bringing that up and rubbing salt in the wound! How could you.
THE DIRTBAG DISPATCH
It’s non-denomenational winter solstice holiday tree time again, and you know what that means… cats ruining your shit.
Last year baby Izzy chewed up so much of the tree and broke so many of the lights, we had to get rid of it. We’ve got a new one, and we’ve got a (safe for cats) deterrent spray we put on the low branches to disabuse them of their “destroy the tree” notions. It works, but… it doesn’t last long and needs constant refreshing. And so we get this perfectly innocent picture of innocence:
We assure you, he is never innocent. Of anything.
Izzy, meanwhile, is just so happy. So happy. This tree is just for her! We’re so thoughtful, she loves it so much. (Important to note that she has still never once slinked a human, but the tree?! Every day.)
WHAT’S IN THE BIG TIME?
Big Time issue 28 talks about the perpetual danger of losing the person who championed you and your project, and helped get it made… and how dangerous that can be for anything still in production. And and and, it also has the second part of our audio commentary on Star Trek Voyager: Homecoming issue 3!
Sign up for it at birdguestbroadcast.com and help us pay rent and eat food and stuff!
THE END
Happy new year, babes.
Here’s to 2026 being better.
For all of us.
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http://birdguest.com
