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Out this week!

This week sees the release of Batwoman 17. It’s a bittersweet thing for me. I’ve been living with Batwoman for a good 3+ years, maybe 4. I’ve been heavily immersed in her world visually for this entire time.

Back when we (Haden and I) were offered to take over Batwoman’s direction after Greg Rucka’s departure, there was a certain sense of elation and trepidation in saying yes, and a certain kind of responsibility. Batwoman is an important character, and a socially important one that has meaning that extends well beyond the printed pages of the world she lives in, reaching out into ours possibly affecting those who encounter her story. At the time, we quickly said yes to telling her story, but then had the arduous task of putting that puzzle together, while having it be an expansion from what Greg and I had already set in motion.

After weeks of planning and plotting, figuring out just how those pieces moved and fit into a bigger construct, we knew where we were going with her, where the bigger fantastical story interacted with more personal aspects of Kate Kane’s life. So the current few issues of the tale have all been set up since the beginning, since Batwoman’s first Issue 0 (yes, there has been more than one). And it’s all culminating now, into issue 17 that is out now. It’s an important issue in many respects, not just to Kate’s story, but to ours as well. But this is really only phase 1, while this new chapter brings lots of things to a head, it’s also the beginning of phase 2.

So back to why this is bittersweet. Although this issue is a culmination of many things that we had set out to do at the very beginning, it is also the marking of a change creatively. It serves as my final duties on Batwoman interior art for quite sometime to come as I move over to handle Sandman with Neil Gaiman for awhile. But it’s not the end of my love affair with these characters that inhabit Batwoman’s world by any stretch. I’m remaining as writer along with Haden, so we will still be her voice, telling more of the bigger picture. And I’m still doing art for the covers beginning with issue 20. Joining us starting with issue 18 will be Trevor McCarthy, we would like to give him a big warm welcome to our team, visually chronicling her story starting with issue 18. Trevor is no stranger to Batwoman’s world, having brought scenes to life during arc 2 and 3, To Drown The World, and issue 15’s Interlude 2. So we’re happy to have him on board.

And that said, I felt the cover to this issue needed to be in answer some way visually to the cover of issue 1, acting as it’s companion, but thematically opposite in some ways. Issue 1 was water, this new one is fire. Giving it all a sense of change, an ending of an arc, while setting up drama and presence, that Batwoman more firmly than ever before, stands her ground.

Here is the rough for editorial approval…

Here is the black and white…

Here is the color version. This is where I needed to add and enhance a lot of the elements. Bring in more snake bones, paint colors over the black backgrounds, add intensity and detail to fire effects, and add flecks of floating burning embers…

Here is the logo version. I needed it to mimic the logo position of issue 1 as well, to further sell the idea of them being companion pieces…

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