Reviews on #11!

Reviews are starting to float in for Love and Capes #11. I guess on the West Coast it was delayed a week. I don't know why. But the important thing is that the book's out now and you can buy it!

Anyway, reviews and comment. First from Blake Petit at Comixtreme.com:

Words just can’t express how much I love this book. Each issue is steeped in superhero trappings, but the core is invariably about the heart, the relationship, and everything that comes with being in love – both the good and the bad. Zahler is a brilliant storyteller, both in words and visually, and Love and Capes is the smartest, sweetest, and most honest love story I have ever read in comic book form.

And from Dave Van Domelen:

…there's loads of conflict that flows naturally from the setting and characters while not involving fistfights (which mainly happen off-screen). Oh, and love the Nick Castle reference. Strongly recommended.

Come to my Window

I've been reading the Walt Stanchfield lectures, which is the first drawing book in a while where I feel like I'm learning something. Not that I'm so good that mere books cannot teach me. Lord knows that's not true. But so many of them are a beginning to intermediate level. The Stanchfield books contain his Disney lectures, and are aimed at the working cartoonist.

Honestly, I just want to put them in a blender and drink them up. I read the books and find myself saying "Get in my brain faster!"

I'm trying to incorporate what I'm learning in the books into this issue. One of the things he teaches is pushing the pose. So I'm trying to loosen up and get some nice body language and images working. I think Abby's pose here has a lot of energy. You can feel her whipping around and looking worried.

It's a little thing, but you have to keep pushing, right?

Page Two

Hey, I've already got page two done, too!

Of course, it's a three panel page, so it wasn't as hard as it could have been. Still, more pages the better. And, as odd as it sounds, I take heart in the fact that I had other jobs I probably should have done before this page. That kind of obsessive "I need to get this page done" feeling is essential in getting issues of Love and Capes done and on time.

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.