Lyric Header Answers, Part the Third

It's time to give the answers for the final lyrics quiz of issue #9.

17. You can windsurf into my life
Get Here by Oleta Adams.

18. From door to door and a house to house
Jane by Jefferson Airplane

19. The stars are shining for you, and just like me I'm sure that they adore you
Baby, Baby by Amy Grant

20. It's a city of shadow, it's a city of crime
Original Sin by Taylor Dayne, from The Shadow soundtrack. Written by Jim Steinman.

21. Isn't there a white knight, upon a fiery steed
Holding Out for a Hero by Bonnie Tyler. Also written by Steinman. I loves me some Steinman.

22. Jimmy quit, Joey got married
Summer of '69 by Bryan Adams. Dee corrected me that it's "Jodi" and not "joey." My bad. I blame it on Bryan's Canadian accent. Yeah, that's it.

23. You've got the moves, you know the street
The Touch by Stan Bush, from the Transformers soundtrack. Animated, not Megan Fox version.

24. I tried so hard, and got so far
In the End by Linkin Park.

What do they have in common? For once, it's not the lyrics, but the artists: Oleta Adams, Jefferson Airplane, Amy Grant, Taylor Dayne, Bonnie Tyler, Bryan Adams, Stan Bush, and Linkin (nee Lincoln) Park. They're all presidents. John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Ulysses Grant, Zachary Taylor, John Tyler, John Quincy Adams (why Adams was used twice), George Bush (41 or 43, take your pick), and Abraham Lincoln.

It won't be long before I start issue #10. More contests as I think of them.

It's Only Six Months Away…

Love and Capes will again be part of Free Comic Book Day. Issue #10 will be available, completely free, on May 2nd. It's a brand-new, complete story. I think FCBD should be about actual stories, not just samplers, and I've never understood offering a book that you made people pay for three months ago as a free version. So, LNC#10 will be free.

Now, if you miss it, or don't have a comic shop near you, or they run out of the FCBD issue (as does happen), there will be a retail edition released shortly thereafter and available on the website. The only difference will be a variant cover. Otherwise, it's identical to the FCBD issue.

In the meantime, tell your comic shop you want them to make sure you get a copy of the FCBD issue. It's going to be a good one. I think it's my strongest free offering yet, and it'll surprise some people.

I'll announce later where I'll be for the day in question. I will be doing a signing at a comic shop somewhere, but I can't announce where yet. And, if you're a comic book shop and need some kind of love for that day, give me a shout and I'll see what I can do.

I tried so hard, and got so far

And here's your mystery panel from the last page of issue #9. That's it. I'm done.

Well, there's a fix or two to be made. And doubtless some typos to be fixed. But it's as done as I need it to be right now, and I'm pretty happy with it. There's going to be a lot of interesting in this issue, and while it's not continued per se, it does have a plotline that teases the next issue.

Geez, next issue?

The next issue will be out for Free Comic Book Day in May. It's a couple weeks later than it should be, being a quarterly book and all. But, you can get it for free, so I'm going to guess that you all will be okay with it.

You've got the moves, you know the street

Just one page to go. And, at this point, LNC has taken over my entire brain. So no clever posts or witty anecdotes, unfortunately. Page 24 is going down, today most likely. My brain should clear after that.

Jimmy quit, Joey got married

There's a line from the never-aired pilot Heat Vision and Jack, starring Jack Black as an astronaut who was exposed to inappropriate levels of solar radiation and became a super-genius in daylight, where he says "The human brain is like cookie dough." It expands when baked to fill the available space. Love and Capes is like that. With only two pages left, it's almost all I can think about. In fact, as I'm wiring this, loose pencils for page 23 are already on my drawing board.

Page 22 sets up the last sequence of the book, which takes place with Abby and Charlotte in Paris. It took a shower, a drive, and a cup of coffee, but once I hit the line "theraputic shopping", I think it fell together. Let's hope so.

Sadly, I Know This Moment Will Pass

I'm Number Two on other list,too. I'm on Dan Grendell's Top Five Books of the Moment. Dan is one of the Comics Pants brigade, and obviously a man of impeccable taste.

Isn't there a white knight upon a fiery steed?

I can see the light at the end of the tunnel that is the completion of issue #9. I just finished page 21, which I think has, on average, the most jokes of any page in this issue. On this page, we get to see why Mark and Abby will have a trying marriage. (Just kidding.)

From a techie point of view, I was able to use the bookstore storeroom set, which always speeds things up. There's one more sequence in here, and then some Paris scenes again. I shouldn't have to reinvent the wheel to finish the end of the book. We'll see, though. I'm never one to make things easy on myself.

And hey, the collection is in comic shops now. Have you seen it? If not, you really should.

I'm Number Two!

On the most recent Comic Book Pipeline Podcast, the Love and Capes collection is podcaster/reporter Augie de Bliek's number two comic book pick of the week, beat out only by Valiant's Archer and Armstrong.

You can listen to the podcast here. And I'm gunning for you, Archer and Armstrong!

Oink Oink!

I had an really irritating day yesterday, which involved a lot of me being out and about and not fulfilling my higher purpose: to draw things for money. In my many travels though, I did find something that brightened by day when I wound up at a Target and found this little piece of plastic awesome.I was on the show. It's a Batman figure, based on the This Little Piggy episode.

AND IT COMES WITH WONDER PIG!

You can buy it here.

UPDATE: I went up to Target to buy it for my Goddaughter as a Christmas present, and they were all gone. Gone, I tell you!

It's a city of shadow, it's a city of crime

I found out earlier this week that reruns of the syndicated Who Wants To Be a Millionaire? are airing on the Game Show Network. Why is this important? Well, in April of 2003, I was on the show. It means that sometime, they'll be reairing my episode. I'm in reruns, baby!

Even though I was on the version with Meredith Viera, I think Regis Philbin was on my mind when I colored Mark's suit in page twenty. He's definitely wearing a Regis-inspired outfit. I haven't shown Mark working his civilian accounting job much in the run of the series (only twice, I think) so I wanted throw in a nod to the fact that Mark does work for a living. Plus, I'm experimenting with how grays print with a newly revised black-line printing technique. Anyway, I think it looks kind of cool.

Also on page twenty, Abby's new hire, Jason, shows up again. He's been dreadfully absent from the book since his introduction, and based on his first scene in this issue, I had to make sure he showed up to put a button on his mini-arc.