More history updates and a hint at what's coming next!

Happy 188th birthday, Jonah Hex!  To mark the occasion, we've got some fresh updates to the Jonah Hex history project, with Part 5 being completely redone, and while Part 4 got the honors back in April, I did just add a few new lines to that and to Part 3, all courtesy of the TwoMorrows book Comic Book Implosion.  If you're unfamiliar with it, I advise getting a hold of the book for some great in-depth reporting on the state of the comics industry in the late 1970s.  It's been invaluable to me in detailing the ups and downs of our favorite bounty hunter during the first few years of his self-titled comic, along with some other DC Western titles that never even made it to the racks.

As always, I was hoping to be further along in the project by now -- two updates in one year is pretty good, though! -- but I am getting more work done than I used to thanks to seriously cutting back on the ultimate time-killer that is social media, and I credit it all to a fella named Victor.  He's a fellow Hex-nut who contacted me earlier in the year with a fanfic idea that kinda lit my brain on fire (he also informed me of another proto-Hex ad, this time in Star-Spangled War Stories #160, so that section in Part 1 has been updated accordingly).  Nearly every morning, I check messages, then get right to work, either doing history rewrites or spitballing scenes with Victor.  The latter has been a blast, by the by.  What started as a "Wouldn't it be fun if..." idea has expanded into a 6-part tale, which I daresay will be novel-length by the time he and I are through writing it (the first part is nearly done and will likely clock in at 50 pages!).

Now, I'm sure you're wondering what this oh-so-spectacular idea is.  I'm going to keep the details vague, but I will tell you that this will be the next storyarc for "Jonah Hex: Shades of Gray", which I haven't worked on since...let's see...2017?!?  Boy, I am horribly overdue.  I'd promised at the end of the last chapter that we'd be moving on to something called "Color War", and this project with Victor ain't it.  It'll come around, just not yet.  Nope, the next SoG arc is going to involve two characters who've already made brief cameos, and are now going to be front and center for the next few chapters.

That's right, kids, The Shade and Bat Lash, together on the page for the first time ever!  Jonah Hex will be there too, so don't think we're kicking him out of his own fic, but you know these two like to be the center of attention, so humor 'em for a bit, will ya?  I did have vague plans for both of those fellas since the beginning of SoG, but once Victor made his pitch, I threw those ideas out the window because he had a much better one!  We want to have a couple of chapters in the can before we begin posting, so expect to start seeing it soon.

One last tidbit before I go: the title of the arc is "Dead Men Walking".  You'll learn what that's about when the first chapter goes up next year.  See ya then!