FINAL ORDER CUTOFF.It approaches.
What’s final order cutoff? It’s a term unique in publishing, reserved only for the insane economy of comic books. It’s the last day a retailer can order from a distributor a particular issue of a comic book. If a reader seeks a particular issue of a comic series, they’re guaranteed to get it on its day of release only if they let a retailer know by a certain day. That day, because of how comics distribution works, is two months before the book is available.
In no other publishing market must a reader do so much affirmative work to read something. It’s also unfair to the retailer, who bears all the risk of ordering comic books—which means buying them; unlike book distribution, there is no consignment for comics—and won’t get market/reader feedback for months. Final order cutoff is a gamble.
And I need it to pay off for me.
NO ONE ESCAPES THE DIALECTIC#1’s final order cutoff is Monday, September 21. I’m trying to do something real ambitious here. Comics legends like Greg Rucka, Annie Nocenti and Deniz Camp love it. Since they endorsed it, I got some more accolades. Here’s Jackson Lanzing (Thunderbolts, Clayface, You’ll Never Leave This Place Alive):
“Queen & Country for people who love neither. Hacktivist but it fucks. Ultimates but no one wears spandex and people get killed with toilet lids. A breath of mean, dark, weird, and above all, true fresh air.”
His emphasis. And I have to interject, because Jackson mentioned Queen & Country – did you see that jaw-dropping Leandro Fernandez illustration above? That’s Leandro’s variant for our first issue. Tell your local comic shop you want it!
Then there’s Chris “That Texas Blood” Condon, whose work I’ve featured in this very newsletter. Says Chris:
“No One Escapes the Dialecticis a timely political thriller of the highest degree, calling to mind those masterful paranoid conspiracy thrillers that dominated the cinema of the Nixon era. Spencer Ackerman is THE writer to take us on this dark journey through shady, fascistic governmental organizations and the resistance they inevitably generate. If there is a comic book for the Trump era, this is it.”
How about Charles Soule? What did the writer of comics such as Daredevil and Star Wars think? “An excellently-crafted, intense and thrilling commentary on the world outside our window—if we can bear to look.” Who am I to disagree? The Daredevil: Born Again TV show couldn’t exist without Charles’ run on the character. [This is true! It’s not just the Frank Miller Show!—Sam.]
There isn’t really a one-click experience for getting your order in ahead of Final Order Cutoff. But League of Comic Geeks is the closest thing I’ve seen. They’ve got tools for you to digitally select your store, then select the books you want from a catalog of what’s available and upcoming, and they’ll make the necessary connections. As you can see above, if you preorder #1, any subsequent issue, or you add the series to your reserved copies of comics at a store, I will give you a free year of FOREVER WARS; and I will be writing paid-subscriber-only commentary here exclusively, so take advantage of that offer!
With Final Order Cutoff looming, I’ve gone on a podcast blitz to talk about NO ONE ESCAPES THE DIALECTIC. Our friends Danny Bessner and Derek Davison hosted me on American Prestige to talk about the series, as well as the peculiar economics of comics that gave rise to this final-order-cutoff concept in the first place. That episode is available to their paid subscribers—that should be you, it’s one of the best foreign-affairs podcasts out there, and it pairs perfectly with this newsletter—but starting Friday the 18th, it’ll be available free to everyone.
Then I joined Morgan Ward and Dean Coburn on Mutant Studies 101.This conversation is far more batshit. We also talked about an aspect of the comic that’s been overshadowed by the whole vigilante-hunting-a-winter-themed-security-agency thing: NO ONE ESCAPES THE DIALECTIC features a lot of basketball nonsense.
A more serious discussion of the book can be heard on The FAQs Project. James Boyce, the host, engaged with the book very deeply, and I’m grateful to him for it.
I can’t emphasize this enough. NO ONE ESCAPES THE DIALECTIC is going to appeal to each and every reader of this newsletter. You may not be interested in comic books. But NO ONE ESCAPES THE DIALECTIC is interested in you. Pre-order this book. If I’ve built up any store of trust with you as a journalist all these many years, let me cash it out on this series. And let me get you to do it by Monday. You get a free subscription out of it!
RIGHT: JOURNALISM. I do that too.
But for now, let me just pass on some recent, 9/11-timed appearances of mine.
I was honored to speak alongside Colin Clarke, Amb. Elizabeth Richard and Razia Izbal at Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs. You can watch the video of our talk here.
Peter Beinart had me on for a dialogue with Iyad El-Baghdadi and I could have kept talking for hours. If you know who Abu Musab al-Suri is, you’ll like this one.
Living legends Amy Goodman and Nermeen Shaikh let me do my thing on Democracy Now. A clip from this summarizing the War on Terror went not-quite-viral.
The CBC’s prestigious Front Burner podcast had me on. If you haven’t read REIGN OF TERROR yet, this might change your mind.
Jewish Currents cut out the part of this interview where I compared this year’s post-Zohran resurgence of Islamophobia to the scene in Boogie Nights where Dirk Diggler panic-cries in the mirror as he watches himself fail to stay erect. But it’s still pretty good.
It’s been a pretty busy season. I’m just getting started. THE DISAPPEAREDis just over the horizon. But for now, before Monday, tell your comic-book purveyor you want NO ONE ESCAPES THE DIALECTIC#1!
LAST THING BUTby no means least. Way back in February, this newsletter told you about an upcoming book that was something really, well, special. That was The Midnight Special: The Secret Prison History of American Music, the second book from Colin Asher, someone closer to a brother than a friend to me, and the frontman of my teenage punk band. We put a button on FOREVER WARS to make sure that you didn’t miss out on Colin’s latest.
Well, yesterday, The Midnight Special was longlisted for the National Book Award.
I want to make a joke about my tastes being vindicated, but I’m too full of pride in Colin. If you haven’t read the book yet, read it before the award ceremony.
MATT BORS is back like he never left—with a new series of Toxic Avenger! This time, the goated political cartoonist turned comics writer pairs with the excellent artist Felipe Sobriero for Toxic Avenger vs. Noxious Offender, whose first issue drops October 7—but because of the dysfunctional way the comics market operates, you should right now let the friendly staff of your local comics shop know that you want it!
Connor Goldsmith, the telepath behind the Cerebro podcast (and one-half of The Kibitz), makes his comic debut with DID YOU HEAR ABOUT MIMI GREEN?, a fantastic thriller meditating on fame, social media and body horror! You have to read this!
Check it out!
WALLER VS. WILDSTORM, the superhero spy thriller I co-wrote with my friendEvan Narcisseand which the masterful Jesús Merino illustrated, is available for purchase in ahardcover edition! If you don’t have single issues ofWVWand you want a four-issue set signed by me, they’regoing fast at Bulletproof Comics! Bulletproof is alsoselling signed copies of myIRON MANrun with Julius Ohta, so if you want those, buy them from Flatbush’s finest! IRON MAN VOL. 1: THE STARK-ROXXON WAR, the first five issues, is now collected in trade paperback! Signed copies of that are at Bulletproof, too! AndIRON MAN VOL. 2: THE INSURGENT IRON MANis availablehere!
No one is prouder ofWVWthan her older sibling,REIGN OF TERROR: HOW THE 9/11 ERA DESTABILIZED AMERICA AND PRODUCED TRUMP, which is available now in hardcover, softcover, audiobook and Kindle edition. And on the way is a new addition to the family:THE DISAPPEARED: A FATHER, A SON AND THE WAR ON TERROR.
