The three previous Signalverse books -- Orchid, Disreputable Persons, and The White Ribbon Runs the Red Lights -- all had super-powered protagonists (well, except for The White Ribbon's Kaden, I guess, but Kaden was a super-skilled martial artist, which in this kind of fiction is something like a superpower). For Champions Weekly, I wanted to get back to having an ordinary person as the protagonist; I also knew I wanted to say something about the intersection of superheroism and celebrity in this world, and since I'd already mentioned the fictional Champions Weekly magazine several times in the previous books, I thought that might be a good place to start.

Champions Weekly takes place in 2018, while most of Signal City's major heroes are having a big adventure in outer space (battling an alien monster called the Great Filter). Lots of stuff happens this summer; if I ever get around to writing them, both Signal Intelligence and the sequel to Orchid will also take place in the summer/fall of 2018. I'm very careful with the continuity of these books.

I ran a Kickstarter to try to fund the cover art for this one, but unfortunately it failed to meet its funding goal -- I'm not really very good at running Kickstarter campaigns, alas. So I wound up paying for it out of pocket; the art, as usual, is by Tom Martin, who did a great job with this one as well.