It Begins Again

It's back, and this time, it's personal.

I've started Love and Capes #12. I've got not a lot of time to do more than a lot of work, as LNC#12 will be bigger than your average issue. After all, I have to marry the characters off, and that will take some doing. I'm not holding myself to a firm page count, except no more than 48. I'm expecting the book to go 40, and the rest will be back matter and pin ups, maybe a few surprises.

So, as is my tradition, I present to you the first page of the new issue, in its entirety. It shouldn't be a spoiler, and it's a little bit of a present to those of you who have just finished #11. But, you'll have to wait until December to read the finished piece.

December? Yikes! I'd better get working.

Comix4Site Auction

While I was at San Diego, I was asked to donate some art to the Comix4Site auction, raising money for John Ostrander's glaucoma surgery. It's a good cause, and John is a great guy, being kind enough to spend way more time with a younger version of me at a Mid-Ohio-Con years and years ago. The auction will take place in Chicago this week, and hopefully much good will come from it.

What did I donate? Being a comics heavy group, I thought that one of my obscure ideas would do well there. So, I gave them Black Lantern Cheeks.

Comic-Con 2009: Day the Last

And so another Comic-Con comes to an end. Well, it did a couple of days ago, actually. I'm only now decompressing for it.

I love doing Comic-Con. It's the pinnacle of the comics world and I'm in there swinging. That's all I can ask for. So, while I complain about the walking and the exhaustion and the blisters and the expense, it's still better than the alternative. A job.

The Con went extremely well. So well that my reports still have to be redacted. Sorry. But I can say that I'm doing a couple more businessy things in LA than I ever have before, and that I pretty well have locked up a gig coming out of the show. So that's a pretty good show.

Some things I can talk about:

I was a guest on This Week in Media. It's part of the TWiT network, which includes such other excellence as MacBreakWeekly and This Week in Tech. I was on talking about the Con and other media-ish experiences. It was a lot of fun, but I have to admit I was exhausted after Con. Hopefully I managed to bring the upbeat and coherent in it.

I was also a guest today on Dork Forest, Jackie Kashian's podcast. It was a double-treat, as the other guest was my friend Dean Haglund, of X-Files and Lone Gunmen fame, as well as being the inventor of the ChillPak. It was a blast. Jackie's a great hostess, and Dean's a great interview. I think I held my own.

And, the other part of my media blitz was an unexpected bolt of awesome: Fantastic Fangirls compared and contrasted Grant Morrison's run on All-Star Superman #3 with Love and Capes #10.

And, um, I came out on the winning side. How cool is that. Check out the full text here.

If this keeps up, I really will get the Shatnerian Ego I've been accused of having.

Comic-Con 2009: Day Three

Tired. So very tired. Between an insane amount of networking, selling and drawing, and preparing for the LA leg of my trip, I'm afraid I don't have a full report for you today. Later, I hope.

Comic-Con 2009: Day Two

I am very tired and hurty, and it's not even actually Saturday yet. I'm taking that as a sign of Convention Success. Lots of stuff happened, little of which I can share yet. I did meet an artist from Pixar and that was definitely one of the high points.

Sales are steady, too. At this rate, I'll have only a small number of books to bring back, and absolutely no trades. Win.

My only big star sighting was seeing Tony Todd. Didn't have a chance to say anything, but I wish I did. His "Visitor" episode of "Deep Space Nine" is one of the finest hours of TV ever.

Oh, and "Lost" fans were camping out last night, which I thought was kind of ironic. I'm sure Scooby Doo once showed a way to make a smoke monster out of dry ice and a film projector. I wish I had paid attention bevause that would have been an epic prank.

Comic-Con 2009: Day One

Three parties. One night. A ton of walking.

I don't know that I'll make it.

It's going well, though. At the very least successfully. Sales are crisp at the show, lots of people coming up and talking. The book is definitely getting notice.

And, I got to meet Dennis Miller, who was walking the floor with (I think) his son. Plus, I waved to Jorge Garcia (Hurley from 'Lost'). I didn't get a chance to talk to him, but it seemed the thing to do, dude.

So today it's another spell at the show. We'll see if any of the Twilight Girls come over to check out my booth. And a mixer and a party or two, of course. It shouldn't be as crazy as the partypalooza last night.

But you never know.

Comic-Con 2009: Day Zero

After Day Zero, I've got a feeling that most of my con reports are going to read like redacted national intellegence reports. For instance:

Yesterday, I spoke with a publisher I can't name and talked about doing a cover for a project I can't talk about. I think it went well, and at some indeterminate time in the future, I will let you know what it is.

I was at my booth for a little over two hours yesterday. I had to leave early to go have dinner with Bill Willingham, Bill Williams and some other friends. It was a great dinner and even better conversation.

Incidentally, Bill Willingham is the phenomenally-talented writer of Fables, which you should be reading, and Bill Williams is a likewise talented writer and inker. You may know him from SideChicks fame. You'll probably hear more about both of them this show, I think. But that's all I can say about that.

I did pretty well at the booth for such a short time, too. It hadn't occured to me that I'd be meeting some of the Love and Capes wedding attendees here. But I met three of them last night. That was really cool.

A couple other short notes:

The biggest change at Con this year is the Tent City that's formed around Hall H. I don't want to paint them all with a broad brush, but they're mostly Twilight fans, near as I can tell. They've been in line since Wednesday to be in line for Hall H to see the Twilight people. It's like abunch of perky, freshly-scrubbed homeless people.

And I shall not tease them! (Well, aside from the homeless crack, I guess) We've all got our passions, and I did spend five hours and a day off from work in a line to get Star Wars: The Phantom Menace tickets. I love seeing that kind of devotion. In fact, I gave them some copies of Love and Capes with my booth number scrawled on the cover and the only instruction being that when they got done reading them to pass them down the line.

Okay, that may have been enlightened self-interest. But hey, they like romantic stories with guys with powers, and that's Love and Capes, isn't it?

And, I have to give crazy props to the Hilton Bayside Starbucks. My coffee addicition is legendary, especially here at the Con where I try to see just how few hours of sleep I can get and not go insane. This Starbucks got HIT with people. And they were ready for it. A full crew of people, tons of pastries (try the banana nut muffin, by the way) and as fast as possible.

I've done a lot of shows, and often places like that aren't ready for the onslaught of con goers that follows. This one was.

And they played superh-hero themed music, too. The Danny Elfman Spider-Man theme, Particle Man by They Might Be Giants and so on.

For that matter, the hotel's been exceedingly prepared, too. They've got box lunches and specials and all sorts of goodies for the con crew. I think they're making a play to become the de facto convention headquarters hotel, and given some of the things I've heard about the Hyatt, I think they can pull it off.

Just about an hour now until I head back over for Day One. I've got like eighteen parties I have to go to tonight, but I don't know what will happen at the show itself. But then, that's part of the fun.

Comic-Con 2009: Day Negative One

Oddly, today was not negative at all. It was actually exceedingly pleasant. But tomorrow is Preview Night, and that’s Day Zero in my mind, so, in order the first day has to be Negative One, positivity aside.

I managed to pack yesterday with little rush or fuss. As a result, I managed to not forget anything. Well, I take that back. I didn’t remember to bring a baggie of laundry detergent, but I’m going to bet that I can pick some up somewhere in LA for a relatively reasonable price. And even so, it’s so minor compared to other things I’ve needed FedExed from the Buckeye State that I’m considering it a win.

I woke up at the unThomly hour of 5:30 without any real effort. I even slipped to Starbucks to partake of Free Pastry Day. I had the banana chocolate chip cake, and it was quite tasty. And it had the icing of freeness on it, which is always good.

My flight out was great. Not too many screaming kids, an aisle seat. Things were going so swimmingly that I started exaggerating on my Twitter feed just to make it interesting. So, if you were wondering why I said I was sitting next to a New York cop who was going to Nakatomi Plaza to see his estranged wife, now you know.

Bob picked me up at the airport, we grabbed a bite at In-n-Out (Damn you, Eugene, for addicting me to their delicious burgers and fries!) and headed south. No traffic to speak of, no hassles, just pulled into the hotel without issue.

Man, this is a boring report, isn’t it?

Fine, we went to visit with Chris Ryall over at IDW. He’s got some cool things to reveal at the show. I can’t tell you what, but if you, like me, thought Cop Rock was cancelled too early, well… I’ve said too much already.

Have I mentioned that IDW publishes the Love and Capes collection? And that it is gorgeous and you all need one? I think I don’t say either thing enough.

Bob and I then set up my booth at the show. No issues getting badges, did the whole set-up in one trip, and things even seemed to be going well for my booth mate, Paul of Toon Tumblers.

Did I mention that Paul does the awesome Toon Tumblers glasses? With new characters, like Iron Fist, Spider-Woman, Silver Surfer, Doctor Doom, the JLA, JSA and Green Lantern coming out? I really should mention that more.

Bob and I headed to Mission Beach for a late dinner and sunset. We did our Con Shopping, buying water and pretzels. And we even kind of stopped at Ghirardelli’s for a little ice cream repast. And now I’m back here.

I suppose it’s a variation of the old “it’s quiet… too quiet” thing. But it does seem like this has been the smoothest start to a show yet. Let’s hope it continues.

Love and Capes Cover Update

If you signed up to be on the cover of Love and Capes #12, you should have received an e-mail from me with details on how to see a proof. If you haven't, please let me know.

We're Going to the Chapel… soon

It's been a long haul with over 100 guests attending (and, by extension, 100 caricatures to do) but I finished the cover for Love and Capes #12. There will be two versions, the "Love" verson (featuring Mark and all other superheroes in civilian garb) and the "Capes" edition (featuring Mark as the Crusader, and superheroes in the congregation). They'll be a 50/50 split, but if you're an attendee, don't worry. You'll get the one with you on it. And I'll be e-mailing you soon about it.

The full cover images will be released sometime during Comic-Con next week. Hey, everybody else is making announcements, why can't I? But for now, enjoy the little thumbnails I've shown above.

All in all, the wedding cover promotion worked better than I could have hoped, and I think it's a really strong image. Thanks to everyone who participated!