Cameron Chittock's Blog

Jim Henson Presents #4 is in comic shops today! The issue (and the entire series, really) features an incredible batch of creators telling stories from the worlds of Henson classics like Dark Crystal, Fraggle Rock, and Farscape. Cory Godbey and I were lucky enough to collaborate together on a tale from Labyrinth titled “The Babysitters”.

The story came about thanks to my experience re-watching the film for the first time as a dad. I was surprised to find that Sarah’s quest to save her baby brother Toby had me genuinely emotional (though to be fair, parenthood has made me emotional watching pretty much any movie).

The other thing that stood out? Jareth and the goblin horde had to take care of Toby for thirteen hours. I couldn’t help but wonder what sort of shenanigans unfolded off camera. While “Magic Dance” is an undeniable jam, I have a hunch it’s not an effective lullaby…

Toby testing Jareth’s patience…

It was a fun story to write and as you can tell from the snippets above, Cory made absolute magic of each and every panel.

You can find the issue at your local comic shop. Just keep an eye out for one of these gorgeous covers:

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Like so many people, Jim Henson’s work means a great deal to me and getting to write in one of the worlds he created was a special experience. Just as meaningful was getting to dedicate our story to the late Jim Formanek.

I got my start in comics working in editorial at Archaia and then BOOM! Studios. Throughout my entire time editing, I worked on the line of Jim Henson Company comics and graphic novels. Jim Formanek was my point person at the Henson Company--every step of the process for any comic we did went through him.

Even though he worked at an entirely different company, Jim was often one of the “co-workers” I spent the most time talking to or collaborating with. He was a kind, big-hearted goof ball who appreciated art and cared deeply about every project we worked on together. (Jim was also a fellow Midwesterner living in Los Angeles, which I’m sure is part of why we got along so well.)

When the opportunity arrived to write for Jim Henson Presents, I couldn’t help but think of my old friend. I like to think he would have appreciated the whimsy and humor in “The Babysitters”. At the very least, I know he would have loved Cory’s art (Jim and I were always in competition over being Cory’s #1 fan).

It’s only a ten page story, but it’s the best way I know how to say thank you. To Jim Henson, for the inspiring craftsmanship and care he put into everything he touched. And to Jim Formanek, for embodying the joy and camaraderie that can come from making art. That’s why it’s worth making in the first place.

Whenever I feel lost like Sarah in the labyrinth, those examples are often what guide me through.

Thanks for reading,
Cam
5.21.25

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After years of work behind the scenes, the news is out: my Mapmakers collaborator Amanda Castillo and I are teaming up again for a new middle grade graphic novel called Rivals. The book follows Anthony and Miles, two soccer-obsessed best friends. When Miles’s family moves one town over, the boys end up at competing schools and their friendship warps into a rivalry.

It took years to get to this point and it’ll take a few more for the book to actually arrive (summer 2027 will be here before we know it, right??) but Amanda and I could not be more excited about the project.

See below for the formal announcement and some awesome art Amanda put together to celebrate the occasion.

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After writing nearly 700 pages of a fantasy trilogy with Mapmakers, it felt like a good time to switch gears and tap into my love of sports. To my pleasant surprise (and relief), Amanda felt the same way.

While it doesn’t feature a single talking animal (regretfully), Rivals is in some ways a continuation of many of the themes we explored in Mapmakers. We’ll come at them from new angles and with the goal of reaching different destinations, but both stories revolve around friends learning how to understand and support one another during times of change. Miles and Anthony have their work cut out for them and I can’t wait for people to get to know these competitive, goofy, and (hopefully) endearing kids.

Rivals is also about sports (obviously). As someone who spent much of his childhood in a gym, on a field, or just pretending to be good at baseball in his backyard, sports was a huge component of my identity, routines, and friendships. While nothing in Rivals is an exact one-to-one with my own life, that experience certainly inspired the story in a myriad of ways.

We’ll be sharing more about the book as we get closer to its release, but with the script locked last month, I now get to sit back and experience the absolute best part of writing comics: seeing the art come in.

What Happens Between Now and 2027?

Who knows! But I do know that this weekend I will be joining Amanda at the comic expo CAMP up in Portland, ME as a booth helper. I’ll mainly be working the register, fetching coffees, and manning the table when Amanda goes off to panels, but that’s the absolute bare minimum I can do to make up for some of the more ridiculous page layouts waiting for Amanda in the Rivals script. It’s the first year of what looks to be an awesome event and anyone in the area should come by and say hi. (Plus, there’s just never a bad reason to go to Maine.)

Thanks for reading,

Cam
4.3.2025

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Art from EC’s Cruel Kingdom #2 by David Lapham, with colors by Nick Filardi.

Real Life left me bailing water last week so I didn’t have the chance to properly shout from the rooftops that EC’s Cruel Kingdom #2 was on sale.

So…

::clears throat::

Behold! EC’s Cruel Kingdom #2 is now in comic shops, featuring a ten page story I wrote titled “The Seat of Power,” illustrated by David Lapham (!!) and colored by Nick Filardi.

Ever since Oni Press revived the legendary EC brand of anthologies, they’ve put together an incredible line up of horror and sci fi themed series. (They’re so good, even horror-averse scaredy-cats like me eagerly read each one.) Cruel Kingdom is EC’s first foray into dark fantasy, and as you can tell from the cover image below, they’ve had no problem adapting to the genre.

Adam Pollina’s truly perfect cover to Cruel Kingdom #2.

Following two princes vying for the throne, “The Seat of Power” is a touch darker than my usual fare (naturally) but I hope folks dig it. The real highlight was working with David Lapham, creator of the exceptional crime series Stray Bullets and a certified comics legend. (I’m happy to report that I felt zero pressure scripting for him. None whatsoever. No, sir. Definitely not…)

I always say that the best part of writing comics is seeing the art come in, and that’s before I ever thought I’d see David Lapham tackling the fantasy genre. The snippet at the top of the post is just a glimpse of the brillaint storytelling he and colorist Nick Filardi put together.

The issue is on sale now and the folks at Graphic Policy were kind enough to review the issue and our particular story, calling it an “intrigue-filled banger”. (I will never get a cooler pull quote no matter how hard I try.)

Special thanks to Oni’s Sierra Hahn, Jung Lee, and Matt Dryer for the opportunity and for guiding this story. Editing anthologies is a bear and the team behind EC pulls off a miracle month in and month out.

Ask Me About My Turtles

A couple of months ago I had the chance to go on the Turtle Tracks Podcast to talk TMNT x Stranger Things with series artist Fero Pe and host Brian VanHooker. Fero and I had only ever spoken through emails and scripts so it was a joy getting to finally chat with him in earnest. You can check out the episode below if you want to hear me talk about the making of the series and ramble like a madman about the merit of the original Eastman and Laird TMNT comics.

Okay, that’s enough posting from the rooftops. Until next time…

Thanks for reading,

Cam
2.18.25

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Warning: The writing inside these notebooks is not as good as the art on the covers.

Other than my comics and baseball cards, my most prized collection is made of the Field Notes journals where I do all my writing. (Should I do a post about my baseball cards? No. Will I? TBD.) I carry one of these notebooks with me at all times, usually peeking out of a coat pocket, accompanied by the pencil constantly stabbing into my chest.

The writing found inside ranges from fully fleshed out scripts to the incomprehensible scribbles of a madman. The photo above is the 2024 collection and in review, this year’s in particular seem stuffed with ideas that never went anywhere. Sometimes that’s by design--I go all-in on a flawed idea to get it out of my system so I can move on to more productive endeavors. Other times, pitches or scenes or ideas don’t make the cut but help the Good Stuff come together.

No matter what though, it’s always entertaining at the end of the year to go through the stack and flip through the good, the bad, and the ugly within.

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The 2024 notebooks include many of my short stories that were published this year in DC’s Spring Breakout, TMNT: Black, White, and Green and The Farscape 25th Anniversary Special. (Plus a few projects to come in 2025 and beyond.)

The highlight of my 2024, though, was celebrating something that was actually written back in 2021, long before this batch of Field Notes: Mapmakers and the Flickering Fortress, the conclusion to the Mapmakers trilogy.

The Mapmakers finale debuted in April and features what’s probably my favorite cover of the bunch.

Unlike the previous books in the series, I got to launch Flickering Fortress in April with artist/co-creator Amanda Castillo and series editor Whitney Leopard IN PERSON at The Kids Graphic Novel Festival hosted by The Silver Unicorn Bookstore.

The Mapmakers team: me, Editor Whitney Leopard, and artist/co-creator/friend for life Amanda Castillo.

Every year at this event, kids come out in droves for graphic novels. Getting to meet fans of the series or see kids discover it for the first time is a joy I can’t really put in words. So, naturally, I’m still processing getting to do that with the whole team together.

During downtime at the table, Amanda and I used one of my notebooks to see who was better at drawing random characters. I’ll let you be the judge:

My Pikachu is better and you can’t tell me different.

Later this year I might do a post or two about the Mapmakers series since it was completed before I started this newsletter. It was a labor of love and something I’m immensely proud of. (And boy did it teach me a lot about writing.)

If you haven’t read the series about a pair of best friends who discover a magical map and head off on a grand adventure to better understand the world around them, you can check it out HERE.

Help! I Can’t Stop Thinking About These Comics I Read in 2024 and Honestly I Don’t Want To

My comics reading diet can be broken up into three tiers: monthly comics, graphic novels, and binge-reading older series. Looking back on 2024,these are the reads I still have on my mind.

PUBLIC DOMAIN by Chip Zdarsky
With two arcs now complete, I feel comfortable saying that Zdarsky is crafting one of my all time favorite comics. Yes, it’s a tale about the history of the comics industry and the current state of I.P. entertainment, topics I’m an easy target for. But at its heart, Public Domain is a beautiful, funny, and at times heartbreaking study of how family and creative pursuits can break you down and build you up again.

THE HARD SWITCH by Owen D. Pomery
This is the rare graphic novel I would recommend to both pros and folks who typically don’t read comics. Its elegant sci-fi hook and clean line art make it an accessible read while also featuring ambitious cartooning and storytelling. I discovered this at the beginning of 2024 and a full year later, it was an easy pick for this list.

JUSTICE LEAGUE by Keith Giffen, JM DeMatteis, Kevin Maguire, et al.
This is one of those runs I’ve heard so many people rave about and seen panels posted about online so often that I was worried it wouldn’t live up to the expectations. And yet…the most fun I had reading in 2024 was blowing through this series in December, giggling and laughing with glee all the way.

News from the Writing Desk

Before the close of 2024, I turned in first drafts for my next graphic novel and a new short story. Both of these projects should be announced soon and I’m excited to share more about them when I can. (The two projects could not be more different.)

I have a comic series that should hopefully debut this year as well, but we’ll see how the timing shakes out.

Other than that, I’ll be cracking open new notebooks to see what sort of incomprehensible scribbles I can come up with this time.

Until then, I hope everyone has a wonderful start to the new year and as always…

Thanks for reading,
Cam
1.6.25

A taste of Cory Godbey’s previous Labyrinth art.

I’m writing from under the giant weight of an approaching deadline. This is my excuse for why this post arrives a month after the initial announcement. But! The exciting news: this December, Archaia is launching a new comic anthology series titled Jim Henson Presents, a celebration of some of Henson’s most beloved and imaginative creations.

I wrote a story in the world of Labyrinth, a film you remember for either the incredible puppetry or David Bowie being, well, David Bowie.

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Joining me for the story is Cory Godbey, one of my absolute favorite artists (and humans). Whether it’s a loose pencil sketch or lush illustration, Cory’s art sparks my imagination like no one else. Writing for him is like getting to vacation inside my favorite painting.

It’s still TBD which issue we’ll be in, but I’ll show off a preview of our tale on the day of release and share a little more about what the Jim Henson Company means to me.

In the meantime, I can pass along a few of the gorgeous covers:

Jim Henson Presents #1 Cover by Derek Kirk Kim Jim Henson Presents #1 Cover by Jorge Corona

When I first saw Labyrinth as a kid, I remember being utterly perplexed (and slightly scared) by this strange world. In some ways, I couldn’t make heads or tails of it, but I also couldn’t look away. The creatures and set pieces conjured by Henson and his team were mesmerizing, and they stuck with me ever since.

Each time I revisit the film, I come away with a new level of appreciation for its ambition and craft. That was particularly true when prepping for this short story. Full disclosure: I’m 100% one of those people who had children and now weeps at even the most remotely emotional scene involving kids. And yet, I was still surprised by how Sarah’s quest to save Toby moved me this time around. (I will neither confirm nor deny if tears were shed in a movie featuring “the Bog of Eternal Stench.”)

There is genuine pain in the scene where Sarah wishes her baby brother away and joy in watching her persevere on his behalf. For all the wild creatures and effects that captured my attention all those yeas ago, it’s Sarah’s emotional journey that grabs hold of me now.

Yes, the puppetry still amazes and Bowie paints the screen with charisma like only he can, but Labyrinth carries real soul, too. While our upcoming story will be short and goofy and weird, I hope some of that soul can be found in its pages, too.

News from the Writing Desk

Did I mention I’m currently under deadline? It’s only the first draft, so it’ll be far from perfect and plenty of work will need to be done once I get feedback from [REDACTED] and [REDACTED], but a looming deadline for a 200+ page script turns my brain into a jumble of page counts and scenes still to be written. With two weeks to go, I am on target…but there’s plenty of work still to be done.

It was nice poking my head out for a moment but now, I head back into the writing mines. See you on the other side.

A live look at Cam in the Writing Mines.

Thanks for reading,

Cam
10.30.24

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Moya in all her glory, illustrated by Ornella Greco.

This year marks the 25th anniversary of one of the most ambitious sci-fi TV shows of all time: FARSCAPE.

To celebrate the occasion, BOOM! Studios put together the FARSCAPE 25TH ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL, a comic with over 60 pages of stories, retrospectives, and glorious art. I wrote a tale called “Do Leviathans Dream of Biomechanical Sheep?" Moya is asleep at the wheel and the crew is left to figure out how to wake her up before they crash.

The main draw of the story (as always) is the art and this one is illustrated with buckets of charm by Ornella Greco. I tried to fit in as many characters of the sprawling cast as I could and Ornella captures the heart of each one beautifully.

Farscape 25th Anniversary Special #1 Cover by Steve Morris.

If you’re a fan of the show, I hope you’ll give the comic a shot.

If you’ve never followed John Crichton’s journey through a wormhole before, Farscape is currently free to stream on Tubi and I cannot recommend it highly enough. It is a joyously weird show filled with puppets, made-up swear words, and a surprising amount of alien flatulance. While the puppets are some of the finest creations made by the storied Jim Henson Creature Shop (I once got to see the Pilot puppet up close and it was a sight to behold), the main draw of the series is its ability to time and again push its characters to the brink in devastating, surprising, and deeply satisfying ways.

They truly don’t make ‘em like this anymore.

(Editor’s Note: On Farscape, things are rarely “alright.”)

News from the Writing Desk

The past few weeks have been busy with crafting new pitches and dusting off old ones to see if they have any life in them.

Writing pitches is a strange process--you spend a few weeks falling in love with an idea and then…most likely nothing happens with it. Typically, editors want to see a handful of pitches to choose from so even if you’re lucky enough that a publisher wants to move forward with one, that usually means three or four others are left abandoned.

That said, there’s something energizing about diving into different genres and characters for these intensive bursts. Even if nothing comes of them, the process is worth it and you usually learn a thing or two about your writing along the way.

Part of why I’ve been so focused on pitches is that I officially started scripting my next graphic novel this week. There’s nothing to be revealed at the moment, but an official announcement should be coming soon. In the meantime, I’ve got 224 pages to write by mid-November so I better get to it.

Thanks for reading,

Cam
8.28.24

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Art by Michael Shelfer

The third issue in TMNT: Black, White, and Green debuts in comic shops today. The series is an anthology of Turtles stories by a whole host of creators and I was lucky enough to be invited to the party with an eight pager titled “Green Means Go,” illustrated by the incredible Michael Shelfer.

Part of Black, White, and Green’s charm is the disparate storytelling styles of the creators involved. No two tales look alike, and that’s particularly true of this third issue. The visual hook tying them all together is that each story can only be drawn using (you guessed it…) black, white, and green.

Under that premise, I tried to come up with a pitch where green is integrated into the conceit. Hence, our set up: the Turtles chase Baxter Stockman who has rigged all the street lights in New York to green to create maximum chaos.

Car chases are notoriously difficult to pull off in comics but luckily Michael was on board as the artist. We’ve been hoping to work together for a while now so it was a blast to finally make that happen.

Here’s another sneak peek at some of the brilliance he put into each page:

Michael Shelfer drawing action sequences: A+. No Notes.

We hope you give it a shot! The other stories feature Dave Wielgosz, Riley Rossmo, comics legend Jock (!), and more.

You can find a comic shop near you here, or read the issue digitally. If you’re more the book type, you can also preorder the paperback edition of the entire series set to debut in November.

One of the big takeaways I had from writing TMNT x Stranger Things was how unabashedly fun it was writing the Turtles. It was joyous, and that was once again true even in an 8 page story like this.

That’s partly just the nature (and genius) of Eastman and Laird’s creation, but it’s also because I’ve loved these characters quite literally longer than I can remember. I could spend an entire newsletter waxing about why I adore Donatello (don’t tempt me, I really just might) but the truth is you’d have to ask Toddler Cam why I was drawn to the thoughtful, purple clad, stick-wielding brainiac in the first place.

Any chance to help keep these characters alive, even for 8 pages, is a dream come true. And however you find your copy, I know at least one person who will be happy you did:

Cam circa Halloween 1993. Once a Turtle, always a Turtle.

Thanks for reading,

Cam
7.31.24

PS. Shout out to Amanda Castillo for drawing my new icon image. Amanda’s fee was that I have to write them some Lord of the Rings fan fiction so I look forward to putting an inordinate amount of thought into that sometime soon.

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The complete Mapmakers series. Covers by Amanda Castillo.

For the last five years, my creative headspace has been primarily consumed by working with Amanda Castillo on the Mapmakers series. At any given moment, some portion of my brain was thinking about talking animals, magical doors, and not screwing up the ending (honestly, there are worse things one can spend time thinking about but more on that later).

A few months ago, Mapmakers and the Flickering Fortress debuted and the series reached its finish line. I couldn’t be more proud of those three books, or the experience collaborating with Amanda.

But, as with the ending of any creative endeavor, pride only lasts so long before the overwhelming insecurities of “now what…” take over.

Apparently, “now what” includes a newsletter.

The bad news: This means that in theory I have an outlet to write about the other things that occupy my brain. The Star Wars Prequels (they’re kinda bad, but what a gift they exist!), Baseball (the dumbest sport, I love it so much!), the comics I spend every dollar of disposable income on (with no regrets!).

The good news: You will be spared all of that (mostly) because there are a number of new projects on the way which is primarily what the newsletter will cover.

The first of those arrives in a few weeks as I crawl back into the NYC sewers in TMNT: Black, White, and Green #3 with a story illustrated by the incredible Michael Shelfer.

TMNT: Black, White, and Green #3 cover by Jock.

Then in August I have a story in the Farscape 25th Anniversary Special, celebrating one of the best and weirdest (he said with deep affection) sci fi shows of all time. I’m not sure I can say who the artist is yet, but I saw the inks yesterday and they are unfathomably charming.

Farscape 25th Anniversary Special cover by Steve Morris.

I’ll share more on both of those when we get closer to their release dates, along with other surprises in store for the back half of the year. More announcements, more short stories, and the debut of my next (currently secret) comic series are still to come.

In the meantime, the writing continues (thankfully) and for better or worse, that now includes a newsletter.

Thanks for reading,

Cam
7.18.2024

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