In Stores NOW!

The long-awaited (at least by me) Love and Capes: Do You Want To Know a Secret collection is in comic book shops today! You can get it at your local comic shop, or at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or Khepri.com. All good places to get what, I hope, is a good book.

I have to say, it looks great. There were a couple of issues of the book that didn't quite match the coolness what I saw on my monitor. With this trade, that's all been fixed. The black lines are crisp, and the colors capture the subtlety that I intended. Really, it's just a joy to see.

On top of that, there's an introduction by Mark Waid, six pages of behind-the-scenes stuff, and a reprint of the "how a page is made" feature. Along with the required biography, all of it adds up to make a pretty great package. Perfect as a present. Now if only there were some big gift-giving holiday coming up next month...

Certified Cool, baby! It's official.

It's Diamond time again, and look what's in it: Love and Capes #9. And guess what, it's "certified cool" by Diamond Comics. Certified. It's official and everything.

Here's the actual cover to issue #9. Since #8 is out, I figure I can show it for realz now. I didn't want to spoil the "My Two Marks" aspect of the ninth issue until people had actually read the eighth issue. Yeah, I made one continued. Don't hate the player, hate the game.

The Certified Cool is always a pleasant surprise. Love and Capes #9 is being mentioned in the same breath with some really fine books, like DC Comics Gen 13 and Haunted Tank, Marvel's Scourge of the Gods, and IDW's Complete Terry and the Pirates. It also gives the book a little extra pop in the Previews section, which is always a good thing, especially given the volume of product in the catalog.

So, it's order code NOV084203. Order big. Free Comic Book Day is next!

Wizard World Dallas: Day Two (Now with pictures)

Day Two here at Wizard Texas was a little slow. Saleswise, it was a little better than yesterday, but off from last year. That’s okay, though. Things are going well enough, and the day had a lot of highlights.

I wore my Captain Hammer shirt, and I’m always surprised how few Captain Hammer shirts I see at these shows. But, for the people who know the excellence that is Doctor Horrible, it always gets a reaction. I met a guy dressed as the bad Doctor, and I posed for a picture that will inevitably appear above my biography in Love and Capes #9.

I also met a couple dressed as Captain Hammer and Penny. In a bout of coolness, she’d dressed as Dead Penny for Halloween. (Ooops, I hope that I didn’t spoil anything.) They asked me for a Captain Hammer and Penny commission. It was really the only one I did on Saturday, but man alive, did it come out well. And, because I brought my Wacom Tablet, and because Jesse’s nice enough to drive me to a FedEx Kinkos before the show today,they’ll be able to get their color commission today. No shipping for the win!

Plus, I figure any day you sell out of something is a good day. Well, I sold out of Powerful Women #2. If you sell out of anything, it menas people wanted it and you printed a good amount. Don’t worry, I’ll go back to press on it eventually, probably when I get a third version done.

I also did some business stuff on Saturday. Any day you can meet someone at a major publisher who’s been told to come over to see you by a mutual friend and they walk away with some copies of your book, it’s nothing but good.

I also did two different podcast interviews, with a third to come on the phone when I get home. Any PR isgood PR, and the more the better, especially with the trade coming out at the end of the month.

Speaking of which, I did get my first advance copies of said IDW trade paperback collection. It looks phenomenal! You all are going to be so happ when you buy your ten copies.

Jesse and I went to the Heroes For Heroes sketch party after the show. There were some phenomenal pieces there, including by Marko Can’t-Spell-His-Last-Name who worked on Daredevil. It’s just amazing to watch him work. He shouldn’t be able to do the things he does with a brush.

All in all, it was a pretty good day. I don’t know why, but I’ve got a feeling Sunday will be even better.

Wizard World Texas: Day One

I’m back in Dallas for WizardWorld Texas. It’s a great show for me, because I get to stay with my good friend Jesse Jackson. The con is a bonus on top of that.

There’s a lot of talk about WizTexas not doing well, and it always seems to be on the bubble of cancellation by Wizard. Last year I thought Wizard had reached that point of maximum compression from which they could build into a bigger show. With Friday in the can, color me ambivalent about that.

Friday’s a slow day in general. It’s hard to get a read on the convention in general based on that. I think any show that takes place outside the summer and has a Friday start is going to have some slowness. And this year’s WizTexas is no exception.

That said, I’ve made my table costs on Day One. Since there were years where I didn’t make that at the end of Day Three, I think I’m certainly in the win column here. I’ve got more stuff, and more popular stuff, than any year before, so I think I skew the results, too. Still, whatever worlks, right?

The only problem I really had was that, stupidly, I left both my drawing paper and my brand new display rack, built by McGyverDad, at Jesse’s place. Jesse takes the role of my Ace Assistant here at these shows, so drove back to his place to cover my stupidity.

I could have lived without the rack, cool though it is and I’ll post a picture soon, but the art stuff was a neccesity. Commissions have become a huge chunk of my business at cons.

I did two commissions: a Princess Leia and an Invisible Woman. Both turned out well. I also sold the Mary Marvel piece that I did for the first Powerful Women book. I sold a bunch of issues of Love and Capes as well, including my seemingly-constant “first issue to a girlfriend who doesn’t read comics”. They’re there for all three days, so I expect that she’ll be back to buy the rest. I’ve seen it happen more than a few times.

I may have lined some work up out of the show, so that’s always good. And I’ve locked in some participation with the excellent Heroes For Heroes group, supplying comics and pop culture stuff to our armed forces abroad. Tonight they’re having a fundraiser which I’ll be going to. Last year was fun, and they promise tonight will be better.

Jesse and I had dinner with Mr. and Mrs. The Defuser, of Who Wants to be a Superhero fame. I ran into The Defuser last at Comic-Con, and we saw each other for a few minutes in a restaurant, but never hooked up again. We got to rectify that by going out to a great dinner at Po Melvins (Food so good it’ll make you want to slap yo mama, that’s their slogan. No, seriously.)

The Defuser told us more about his charity haunted house in Austin. I’m not much of a haunted house guy, but, man, it sounded cool.

So it was a pretty nice first day.

We’re leaving for the second day in a few minutes. I’m expecting to sell decently, and do more than a few commissions. If you’re bored or just have the equivalent of computer-based ADD, you can always check me out on Twitter to see posts live from the show.

Did I Mention?

I'm going to Dallas today (right now, as my plane is about to board) for Wizard World Dallas tomorrow. If you're in the area, come on down and see me… and buy some books.

All the leaves are brown

Page sixteen is done, which brings to a close our second lyrics quiz, too. I'll post those answers tomorrow, but I'll warn you I wasn't as good with it as I should have been.

This page came out much better than I thought it would. It was a little rockier in my head and when I drew it than when I scripted it. There were a couple of jokes that didn't make the cut, like when Mark made a goofy suggestion about the wedding. It would have gone like this:

Abby: Not my wedding.
Mark: I thought it was our wedding.
Abby: Not when you're talking crazy.

It's a cute scene, but it just didn't work for what I needed to accomplish.

With this page, I am officially on the Back Eight. Two-thirds of the way through. Time to get crazy and knock some more pages out.

Mid-Ohio-Con Charity Auction

When I was at Mid-Ohio-Con this past year, I participated in a charity auction. Many of the guests got together and drew something to benefit Make-a-Wish and The Hero Initiative. Well, the auction is live now. And, if you feel a burning desire to buy some Thom Zahler artwork, you can go directly to the Amazonia sketch.

Every different nation, Spanish, Hatian, Indian, Jamaican

I'm getting silly about this now. I finished this page late last night, technically early this morning, and then I plopped in front of the couch to watch Life on Mars. I got to bed pretty late, but the page got done, and I got my 1973 fix.

Here's my panel from page thirteen, which features someone you've never seen… well, you have, you just don't know it… screaming about wanting some peanut butter and jelly. It's not the best panel on the page, to be sure, but everything else reveals something about the upcoming issue that's too spoilerish to post. So here you get a guy in a Star Trek-style cell.

After I clear page twelve, things seem to speed to the finish. With eleven pages left to draw, there are three pages already written, so just eight blank pages left. That's not bad.

(And, to any new readers, especially from the aformentioned Mental Floss readers, I post a panel from every page as I get it done, and every post has a song lyric for a title. There's a theme tying them together. See if you can guess it!)

Mental Flossing

A month or two ago, I posted a link to the always-excellent Mental Floss magazine, which was having a Tuition Giveaway contest. I did this because it was a good cause, and the promise of a link back. Well, said link back has been posted, so I expect to be flooded with a bunch o' new readers. So welcome, fellow Mental Flossers. Sit down, stay a while, and be sure to check out the Love and Capes stuff.

I'm obnoxious and disliked, you know that, sir

Baltimore and Mid-Ohio-Con knocked me off my game with Love and Capes #9. But I'm back on the horse with page five. This is kind of a hard scene to write, since it's not as light and frothy as some of the other pages. Worry not, though, all is not as it appears.

Page six, by the way, will rock.