Greetings from Hyde Park.

It’s getting warmer, and I’m slowly getting out of my winter funk halfway through spring. There’s been a lot of activity on my end, though, so here’s some updates.

Small Bites #2 comes to Kickstarter on June 16!

While J and I finalize art for Free Hands #3, I’m excited to announce that my second collection of horror, fantasy & sci-fi stories, SMALL BITES #2, will launch on Kickstarter on June 16. This collection will feature four brand new stories with art by Dave Fowler, Austin Darby, Jack Van Thomme, Richard Kemp, and Brian Balondo.

Join the prelaunch here!

This book serves up some weird ones, and is heavy on historical settings: A group of bandits stumble upon a seemingly utopian town in the old west, an 18th century sailor tries to escape from a British press gang, a man in a rut stumbles upon a mysterious shack in the woods, and a woman finds out her coworkers are sentient meat bags unknowingly concealing insectoid aliens, all in 32 pages. That’s a lot of entertainment for five dollars.

Free Hands #3 has been delayed, but is launching on Kickstarter on August 4, 2026 with a new artist

Free Hands, an ongoing pirate series I’ve been working on for a few years, has been delayed for some time. The original artist, Matt Rowe, has been extremely busy with adjustments to his professional life and family, and after discussing it, we have agreed that it’s not feasible to continue on the project together at this time.

Rowe may still contribute variant covers and pin-ups from time to time. He’s a fantastic artist and collaborator, and we both remain open to pursuing smaller projects together in the future.

In his stead, Old Devils artist J. Schiek has stepped in to continue the story, and will take over as the primary artist for issue 3. Preregistration is open now on Kickstarter, and we’re really excited to show new art and get this next long awaited chapter in people’s hands. The campaign will launch on August 4.

This issue sees the crew of the FREE-HAND begin to fray, directing them toward the final showdown with the British Navy and each other. Plus, an all time high number of swordplay-per-page as they board a resistant French vessel.

Upcoming appearances

Not a lot of opportunities so far this year to meet readers, but I did have a really fantastic experience at CodCon 2026 in Hyannis back in April.

I’ve been pretty busy with a work project for the first half of the year (more on that later), and so I’m missing Wicked Con in May, but come August, you can come see me in the wild across Massachusetts!

PAGES & PINTS SMALL PRESS EXPO
Sunday, August 16, 2026, 12pm-5pm
Mayflower Brewery
12 Resnik Road, Suite 3
Plymouth, MA 0236
Presented by Inebri-art

PLASTIC CITY COMIC CONVENTION
Saturday, August 22, 2026, 10am-4pm
Doubletree Hotel Leominster
99 Erdman Way
Leominster, MA 01453

Come hang out! I’ll have all my books in hand, including Old Devils #2, which I’m expecting to have physical copies of by end of month.

Incidentally, are you running an event, market, or program that you’d like me to table at? Or have any recommendations of events in the New England area? I’d love to get out and meet more folks, so shoot me a response with suggestions!

Ruckus! at the Old South Meeting House

In other creative work, I have been diligently working on a new immersive theater experience that will be opening at Old South Meeting House in Boston this July.

Ruckus! is the culmination of years of work, and even more time trying to convince someone to do a project like it. We’ve installed state-of-the-art projectors, transparent OLED screens, gobos and fixed lights, and a 14 channel sound system into one of America’s oldest and most significant historic sites, the building where the Boston Tea Party started, to give folks a ~24 minute experience to familiarize themselves with the history of Boston in a really fun and entertaining way.

Not to shill too hard for my day job, but this project means a great deal to me. It was extremely fun to explore the history of my city through the perspective of two rats. I genuinely cannot believe Revolutionary Spaces let me do it, and I implore you all to come see it as soon as you can. It opens July 2, 2026, and will be open for the foreseeable future. I’m pretty confident that no historical site in the United States has made this kind of investment in its infrastructure to tell a story using the architecture of the space. I’m particularly excited about how we maintained the site’s integrity—when the show is happening, it’s all encompassing, but when it’s off, the building reverts back to its old, 18th century self.

As my readers might imagine, and my friends well know, I like history a lot, and I think that any way to get people excited about it is a worthwhile effort. I respect and appreciate formal academic work, and the staid, tried-and-true approach of putting objects in cases, but I came up as a tour guide, and I believe that for most people, the best way to hook people is a good story and a show.

This is an incredibly ambitious installation, and I believe it’s a good one. So come see it, and while you’re in town, make sure to say hi.

Get tickets to Ruckus!

Other Stuff

I’ve finally had it with Amazon. After deciding to change their policy on downloading content you already bought last year, they’ve now discontinued support for old, perfectly functional Kindles, so to read books I’ve already purchases, I am expected to buy more of their junk.

So I bought a KOBO e-reader, loaded it up with public domain stuff from Gutenberg Project, some books I’ve picked up from Humble Bundle over the years, and pirated editions of books I’ve already bought but am now prohibited from using because Jeff Bezos is a greedy piece of garbage, and I’m happy to be weening myself off of one of the world’s technocrats.

Same for streamers—I’m off everything except Peacock and Criterion Channel for a while, and have been buying physical media, utilizing the public library, and going record shopping most weeks. Doing less subscription-based stuff, and spending more time with physical things—books, records, paper and pens—has been really helpful. I’ve even been writing letters back and forth to some friends, which has reminded me how nice it is to get mail that isn’t a purchase or a bill.

I’ve also been carrying around a cheap film camera, and am looking forward to developing what I’ve been collecting over the past two months.

Obviously, some internet tools are useful (and others we are forced to use to function in the world), but I’m happy to see what seems like an increasing inclination by people to engage in the real, physical world more, and to connect with each other.

Alright. Sermon over. Thanks for reading.

Until next time

To recap:

• Please follow to the Free Hands #3 prelaunch today!

  • Kickstarter goes live August 4

• Please follow the Small Bites #2 prelaunch today!

  • Kickstarter goes live June 16 and is only 3 weeks long

• Come check out Ruckus! on July 2 and beyond

• Go outside and read a book

Thanks for checking me out.
Matthew Wilding