Sweet Tooth creator Jeff Lemire will reveal "what it's really like to work for DC and Marvel" in a new illustrated autobiography from Dark Horse

The cover art for 10,000 Ink Stains showing Sweet Tooth and other Jeff Lemire characters.
(Image credit: Dark Horse Comics)

Sweet Tooth, Fishflies, and Gideon Falls creator Jeff Lemire is set to tell his life's story for the first time in a new illustrated memoir to be published by Dark Horse Comics. 10,000 Ink Stains: A Memoir takes a book-by-book approach to Lemire's career and will feature what sounds like a treasure trove of previously unseen material including sketches, essays, and archival reproductions of the very first comics that Lemire self-published at the start of his career.

As well as focusing on Lemire's work, Dark Horse promises that the book will delve into Lemire's personal life "and [how] his struggles with his mental health informed his most iconic works including Sweet Tooth, Essex County and The Underwater Welder." And if you're after behind the glimpses at life working for the Big Two then "Lemire's accounts of what it's really like to work for DC and Marvel Comics" and "Lemire's struggle to maintain his own voice while taking on some of comics most iconic characters" will also be a part of the book.

Jeff Lemire's cover art for 10,000 Ink Stains.

(Image credit: Dark Horse Comics)

Sweet Tooth was a cult success for DC's Vertigo imprint when it first published in September 2009. It has since gone on to become a hit streaming show over at Netflix and the new book also offers insights into the TV adaptation, which ran for three seasons, as well as "an unprecedented look at Lemire's creative process through never-before-seen sketches and archives and how he built the worlds of Descender, Black Hammer, Gideon Falls and more."

10,000 Ink Stains: A Memoir  is published by Dark Horse Comics on July 15, 2025.


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Will Salmon
Comics Editor

Will Salmon is the Comics Editor for GamesRadar/Newsarama. He has been writing about comics, film, TV, and music for more than 15 years, which is quite a long time if you stop and think about it. At Future he has previously launched scary movie magazine Horrorville, relaunched Comic Heroes, and has written for every issue of SFX magazine for over a decade. He sometimes feels very old, like Guy Pearce in Prometheus. His music writing has appeared in The Quietus, MOJO, Electronic Sound, Clash, and loads of other places and he runs the micro-label Modern Aviation, which puts out experimental music on cassette tape.