What is happening with Tomm Coker and "Black Monday Murders"?

[Yohei72]

Hi, kids. I've had one of my occasional periods of falling off the comics bandwagon and haven't paid much attention for a number of months, and am starting to dig back in. I know the last arc was delayed by Tomm Coker's illness.

Any news on how Coker is doing? I see he was posting stuff on Instagram as recently as October.

And on plans for the last arc of the series?

I'm still finding nothing more than a smattering of contradictory information with some online searching. Forbidden Planet even has a cover up for issue #9 (link), but it says "Discontinued." According to the google search results, that page is from 6 days ago, though I know that can be misleading. I can't find any other clear information.

Has there been any hint from Image or either of the creators?

[OceanMachine]

I'm in on a FB group for The Black Monday Murders, and Coker was, as you say, occasionally popping into that group to let us know that he's still plugging away at the final arc of issues. Pretty sure his most recent remarks were around November, including a tease of a page he had recently completed. I've attached it below. Although I'm less sure about the more recent news, some other users seem to have had it from Coker that he's currently taking a break from social media, in order to bang out this (and maybe other) projects.

If you haven't heard anything about this last run, Hickman's info on it (from a while back) was that each of these final four issues is more like a double issue, in terms of length. If so, we've got some good storytelling still to come, and this also helps explain the timeline for producing the art. My hope is that a solicit is somewhere in the not-to-distant future.

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[Yohei72]

Fantastic news - above all, of course, that Coker is well, as I presume he is if he's banging out various projects.

I did hear that the final issues are double sized. And that Hickman has finished the scripts, so there shouldn't be much in the way of delays once they start publishing the finished books.

And that art is beyond tantalizing.

I am reassured and happy. Thanks, OceanMachine. Good avatar, too.

[numberthirty]

Thinking back, it seemed like the pair wanted to have their work completely done before putting anymore issues out.

Could be that he is sticking to that.

Which, honestly?

Is probably the smartest call.

[Yohei72]

Agreed. That book takes enough effort to follow even without several months between issues.

[your_name_here]

I’d rather it just come out as one big hardback at this point. I can barely remember a thing from the first issues now. How long ago were they?