There is an argument to make that Long John is about telling stories. From the stories you tell about yourself or are told about you, to how a story is told (and who is telling it), it’s an idea that’s woven throughout the series. This page, however, is explicitly a callback to Chapter 3 as Bishop was trying to get Juan John to come out from the cabin of his own volition. Similar to then, he’s playing with his prey a bit, using the power of language to create the power dynamic between them.
The callback Bishop is making from Chapter 3.
But this page also speaks to the narrative power of page design when it comes to comics, specifically. It’s a narrative choice whether to have 8 panels on a page versus two or three. Or, in this case, one. Due to the poster-like nature of the page, we give the power to Bishop that he alleges to have since he dominates the composition and there are no other panels on the page to distract from his power play. In the book, this is an even-numbered page, meaning that it’s the first thing you see when you turn the page.
As a creator, you do have control of the narrative, no matter how much we want to give that power to abstract and nebulous things like “the muse” or “inspiration.”
With that, Long John, Chapter 6 will be taking a slight hiatus until 2026, starting up again on Wednesday, January 7. In the meantime I’ll be putting in the orders for the Volume 6 books (thank you everybody for preordering!) and getting those shipped out with their associated goodies in January. There’s still over 30 pages to go, so we’ve got a lot more Long John before this whole thing comes to a close. I hope everybody has a happy holidays and a great start to the new year! See you all in 2026!
Thumbnail drawing for this page. Click for larger version.
We’ve got one week left in the preorder, and I wanted to start the week with a bit of an update and a NEW add on opportunity!
First, I want to thank everyone who has preordered the book so far! I can’t wait to get it into your hands! It warms the heart to see people coming out to support the book.
Secondly, I’ve had people asking about an option to include all the books with the preorder, so now is the time to request! For an additional $40 you can get a copy of the previous 5 books with your order––all signed!
Again, preorders END this Friday, 12/19! So, head to LongJohnBook.com today if you haven’t secured your copy yet!
The time has come to bring the story of Long John Walker to a close, in physical form! Starting today, Monday, December 8 through Friday, December 19, preorders are open to procure a copy of Long John, Volume 6 for a mere $20. Here’s what you get for your money:
A copy of Volume 6, signed
Mini-prints of Volume 6 art
Exclusive access to a 2026 Kickstarter tier
Long John Coaster
The print run for Volume 6 is going to be fairly limited, there to satisfy the long-time readers and collection-completing fiends alike. The bonus of jumping in on this preorder is that it also gives you access to an exclusive Kickstarter tier for when the one-volume version of Long John Kickstarter goes live sometime in 2026 (supporters will be contacted through a valid email address).
Furthermore, Volume 6 is on track to be the largestLong John book ever. With 59 pages of story content and incredible pinups from Melissa Pagluica (Monster Heart and Above the Clouds) and Jon Berg (SKAB) as well as original art and writing from series creator, D. Bethel, all line up to making this the biggest Long John book ever.
With the new chapter beginning to update on Monday, October 27, it seems like a fair point to reveal not only the title of Chapter 6, but also the cover for the upcoming book.
The cover for Volume 6. Click image for larger version.
Admittedly, I have been very lucky over the last few books when the ideas for the covers for “Making Smoke” (volume 3), “Dead Words” (volume 4), and “Parting Gift” (volume 5) came to me rather quickly and early (or, at least, naturally) in the process.
The cover for “Sunza” was a last-minute swing to scrounge together a cover for a book that needed one. I discussed the ramshackle process for that cover earlier, but I can’t emphasize enough that it was not a thoughtful process. The cover for “Bird’s Eye” was also a kind of “time has run out” kind of thing and sketched out that idea in a moment of panicked inspiration.
The cover for the final Long John book is a mixture between the two extremes.
As of this writing, this cover didn’t exist at all three days ago. Part of the delay was surely the enormity of the occasion––the last book should have an incredible cover, right? However, I wanted to keep it of a theme with the design of previous books: simple, austere, interpretive. But I also wanted it to be celebratory and epic. So, I vacillated between ideas of simple graphical designs to a more “movie poster” style idea; however, nothing actually manifested in my sketchbook.
The very first Long John cover I ever did was for the Crocker-Con preview book back in 2014, which was more “movie poster” styled. While it doesn’t match the rest of the books, it became the image I used on my banner and other promotional pieces.
So, during an in-class writing activity my students were doing for a large portion of the class on Monday, I had my sketchbook and just drew shapes, quickly landing the image of the scythe with the banner tied to it and, after a few different ideas, Long John posed in the manner he is in the final image.
It was all really sketchy and I wasn’t sure if it would work, though. So, that night I took my iPad up to bed and decided to work it out. An hour later I had the cover image pencilled. I printed the pencils the next morning and had it inked before going to work. By the end of Tuesday night, it was colored and titled.
There was also a very light pattern I was low-key adhering to throughout the designs that I’ve never talked about before. I really view Long John as two halves, with “book 1” being Chapters 1-3 and “book 2” being 4-6; distinct arcs in their own regard. To that end, the color scheme of the colors of each book for each arc were designed around similar color schemes: Volume 1 & Volume 4 are red-coded, Volume 2 & Volume 5 are blue-coded. So, part of what stalled the design of Volume 6 was the unspoken desire to have it be orange/brown coded like the cover of Volume 3 was. But the drawing didn’t call for that, so I decided to break the pattern and I’m happy I did.
All six of the covers gathered together. They make a nice set, in my opinion, at least.
Looking at the gathered covers throughout the series, despite how seat-of-the-pants some covers were and how inspired others were, I’m really happy with the cover work I’ve done for Long John and, to me, are major parts of the tone and voice of the series overall.
As for the imagery, its meaning, and relevance, that’s for you to find out when Chapter 6 starts updating on Monday, October 27. Three pages will go up a week here on the website (with informative blog posts attached to each), but will also be posted to the Long John Facebook page, my Instagram profile (and its associated Threads account), and Bluesky.
A cunning mercenary who currently gets his paycheck from Rich Jack Langstrom, Bishop is a man who always finishes the job. He is less a gunslinger and more of a manipulator, who gets his way less through brute force than through his wide network and years of mysterious experience...and getting them to do the dirty work.
Reprinted from an 1879 column published in The Chico Morning Chronicle-Record:
'Famous gunfighter––though currently riding under the guise of a bounty hunter––"Long" John Walker's stoic, monolithic presence draws the attention of every room into which he steps, even in spite of his severe penchant towards laconicism. The apparent contradiction extends to his dress, as his already massive frame is extensively layered beneath strata of wool, leather, and cotton garnished with smaller adornments made of ivory and precious stones. As the ostensible leader of the trio of "bounty hunters" known colloquially as "The Johns" (after the fact that all three members share the name, though the record is unreliable), he commands through nuanced gesture, threatens through twitches of the eye, and famously shoots running targets at rifle-distance with his standard Colt model P (I can personally vouch for this feat and while many of his other popular descriptors are the work of dime novels, this claim is irrevocably true). While his motives are kept close to his dandily clothed chest, there is no doubt that no man alive wants to be on the bad end of his gun's sight-line.'
