It's A New Dawn, It's A New Day, It's A New Year For Meeeee...
...And I'm feeling good.
Happy New Year everyone! I hope you all wrapped up 2025 in whatever manner you intended and 2026 is starting off on the right foot for you. After being off for the holidays on a father & son trip to NYC with my oldest, I’m just now figuring out what I do for a living again. Instead of a year-end recap of things you all already know I did, I will focus a bit more on the year to come. Out with the old, in with the new and all that jazz.
SKETCHES
I swooped in at the end of ‘25 with a few weeks of daily sketches using one word prompts. I was happy to get back in the habit of those again and finding my momentum was great…until I had to press pause due to holidays, some not-so-fun family stuff, and a week in NYC with my oldest son. I didn’t like losing that steam, but like I tell my kids, I’m going to keep my eye on the positive and not going to focus on the negative part. I’m going to jump back on the daily ride of sketching. In fact, I’m going to try to get on one as soon as i’m done with my morning coffee and writing this news letter.
YouTube
With the help of Jamie Wood, I was able to really relight the fire under my YouTube channel and seeing the growth in the second half the year was really awesome. I plan on making that a more regular part of my work week and give you all some fun things to watch and think about. If there any topics you want to know about feel free to drop them in the comments below.
I HATE FAIRYLAND
Wow, this book has been the best ride! Brett Bean crushed on the art for the series for a few years and then rode off into the sunset to launch his creator owned book D’ORC! (I’ll have a cover for that so be on the look out!) Then the brilliant artist Derek Laufman surprised me by agreeing to take on the job of drawing the book next. He has wowed us all with his beautiful shapes, lines and storytelling. It’s a real treat.
We’re heading into this year and running towards the benchmark issue 50! I Can’t believe it. It’s gonna be fun and I’ve convinced some banger artists out there to jump in on the fun. My cover lineup is BONKERS! Here’s a look at just a FEW.
THE MAIN MAN!
This past fall came the announcement that I am launching and writing a new LOBO series at DC Comics along with my long time art partner and brother Jorge Corona. Don’t worry, the rest of our team is along for the ride too. Jean Francois Beaulieu will be coloring and Nate Piekos on letters.
There’s not a ton I can show you or tell you about just yet so for now but we have already gotten a lot questions about whether I’ll be doing any covers for this series. The answer is YES! We’ll be doing an exclusive cover for Lobo #1 here at Stupid Fresh Mess! And because I’m kinda the writer and stuff, I’ll have a bit of insight on where things are going and when a good time to jump in on another exclusive cover might be. I’m focused on writing this book and the regular covers are in good hands with Jorge.
I’ll just give you a peek at the mad science Jorge is creating. I couldn’t be more over the moon with what he’s doing with these pages. PURE INSANITY.
BOY AT THE END
Another year has passed and I didn’t make the amount of progress I wanted to make with my Boy project, but that’s okay. Again, focus on the positive and what’s to come and not on the past. I’m still chipping away at that project and have made a few choices that should open my schedule up to get me closer to my goal of getting a Bot At The End book into your hands.
AND MUCH MORE!
I’m gonna wrap newsletter up with some quick teases for somethings that are coming but can’t really show or give dates for just yet.
The follow up series for TWIG by me and Kyle Strahm is still being worked and it’s crazy beautiful. As we get closer to a release date for that I’ll start filling your brains with info.
Megan and John have some cool stuff coming for you here at Stupid Fresh Mess. I’m gonna let Megan give you the rundown on some of that stuff in a different newsletter. And we don’t have all of our conventions or signings locked in yet so she’ll let you in on that stuff as we know more.
We do have a cool FIRST coming your way in 2026! I’ll have a book launching through Kickstarter! Yup, that’s right! I’ve wanted to do something on that platform since the day it launched. Me, Jake Parker, Jason Howard, Ryan Stegman and many others would sit around on Skype years ago and study every comic kickstarter campaign. I could see how powerful of a tool it could be and have been waiting for the right project and time to do it. That time has come! You’ll know more in the coming weeks and months.
Alright. That’s all I got for you right now. While you’re waiting on all this stuff to come to life you can run over the SkottieYoung.com for my past creator owned books, original art, stickers and so much more!
First off Happy New Year to you Skottie, and the entire SFM family. I hope everyone had an amazing holiday season and new years. So much excitement for 2026 I genuinely cannot wait! I was so thrilled to see the daily word promt sketches become a thing again, and eagerly waiting to see what's up your sleeves with the remaining prompts on your list. The updated YouTube page has been amazing and you guys have been knocking it out the park with the shorts and full videos, always love seeing the start to finish progress of the work. I feel the anticipation and joy is seeing I Hate Fairyland get to issue #50, such an amazing accomplishment and so excited to see what's in-store for Gert, Larry and the Fairyland crew moving forward. As for Lobo, oh man.. the sheer amount of happiness knowing youre finally getting the opportunity to write one of your favorite characters stories I know this will be an amazing run. As for the boy at the end, definitely cant wait for this to come to fruition.
As always, thank you so much to everything you all do at SFM, from Skottie to Megan, John and everyone else on the team. I hope everyone has a great rest of the day/week!
A happy new year to you and the Stupid Fresh Mess crew Skottie! Super jazzed to read the first Substack of the year and as always there's so much to take in.
First off, I'm sorry to hear about the not so fun family stuff. Hoping things are better for y'all though.
I Hate Fairyland has been such a blast!! I don't need to tell you that though haha. But the build up to issue #50 is so exciting and these covers are already looking fantastic!!
Not to mention more sketches, Lobo, Twog, Boy at the End AND a Kickstarter?! We're gonna have lots to discuss on Skottie Talk this year and I can't wait! Cheers to you and the crew and can't wait for yet another exciting year of yours and the teams work!