Sean Maher presents The Zealot's Lore

The King is dead, long live the King.

2005-07-19T17:53:00.000-07:00

The End Is Near

2005-07-15T08:44:00.000-07:00

Jason Rodriguez is Cool

2005-07-05T16:40:00.000-07:00

Jason Rodriguez, who writes my bar-none favorite blog over at The Moose In The Closet and works as an editor for Hoarse And Buggy (of Elk's Run and Western Tales of Terror fame), asked me to write a story for him so he could go on vacation. That lazy bastard!

So I wrote one of my favorites, about the guy who turned me into a miscreant. Take a look. You can even check out Jason suspecting me of suckupery and trying to reassure everybody that having a girlfriend means I'm not gay.

No, Jason's never been to San Francisco, so he doesn't know any better.

Review: Jeffrey Brown's Any Easy Intimacy

2005-06-30T09:37:00.000-07:00

I've got a new review up at Bookshelf Comics, for Jeffrey Brown's latest, Any Easy Intimacy (a.k.a. AEIOU). Here's a little piece of it:

Many of these scenes are touching, or interesting, or discreet. On an early date, Brown and Sophia stop outside a store and look into the window – Brown exclaims, “Look at all the cool spatulas!” and the two share a smiling moment after the girl laughs. It’s odd, and quiet, and affecting. One of the things that makes romance really believable is when two folks who normally feel a bit strange suddenly find themselves comfortable when in each other’s company – this scene convincingly conveys that experience in two pages, a fine example of combining efficiency with subtlety.

The full review is at the link. While you're there, you can check out our new interview with Tom Beland of True Story Swear To God fame and acclaim, and if you check out the "Party Of Five" feature you'll find a brief essay from Mr. James Sime, whose brilliant Isotope - The Comic Book Lounge reopened at incredible new digs last night.

Review: Zombie Tales #1

2005-06-29T09:54:00.000-07:00

Zombie Tales #1 is released today by BOOM! Studios and Atomeka, an anthology volume collecting five short zombie-themed stories and the first chapter of a longer tale.

It features an impressive line-up of talent, including Mark Waid, Keith Giffen and Ron Lim (one of my favorites since his days on Silver Surfer), and a cover by the brilliant Dave (100 Bullets) Johnson.

But me, I’m pretty well zombie-d out these days, y’know? Seems like everywhere I turn somebody’s got their own damn zombie story.

What redeems this collection for me, then, is the humor. These stories are often grotesque and nihilistic, as living dead stories should always be, but there’s also an irreverent through line of comedy that freshens the book up and makes it worth reading.

“I, Zombie” by Andrew Cosby and Keith Giffen (he draws, too?) is about a zombie named Ted trying to find some food. The stilted “undead” narration plays a familiar card (“aren’t stupid people funny?”) but with a macabre twist and a couple pretty decent gags; there’s something surreal about watching a zombie smash his alarm clock in a surprised rage that I can’t quite put my finger on, but it made me smile. After a brief tour of the post-apocalypse, Ted ends up with the key to the apocalypse in his arms – it’s the only “To Be Continued” in the collection, but it’s a fun story and I’d be happy to see more of it. I was also surprised by how much I liked Giffen's artwork. I have a feeling his artistic chops are well known and I was just in the dark until now, but you can't blame a guy for learning, can ya?

“Severance” by Mike Nelson and Joe Abraham is a fun piece that really shows off what you can do with story density. We’re brought into the story halfway through an action scene, as things have gone wrong in the lab where a desperate scientist is researching a cure to the zombie disease so he can bring back his son. The tale jumps from plot point to plot point at a sprint, but because these are all familiar characters and scenarios it’s easy to follow – really, this kind of thing would blow me away if it took a longer format but maintained the density. It’s the sort of thing I hear Grant Morrison getting credit for all the time but this is much clearer, more direct storytelling. Again, there’s an undercurrent of smirking, cruel humor to the tale that doesn’t quite bubble to the surface but keeps things brisk and fun.

“Daddy Smells Different” by John Rogers and Andy Kuhn is basically a punchline tale, and a bit obvious at that, but I won’t spoil it for you. Not the best thing here, but it does what it intends to and Kuhn’s artwork is lovely.

“For Pete’s Sake” by Johanna Stokes and J.K. Woodward is about a lonely woman whose husband has become a zombie. She’s started a new sort of life for herself in the post-apocalypse and keeps her husband on a chain in their home. Again, it’s the underlying humor that makes this work – the dramatics of her loneliness didn’t really grab me, but the scene in which she prepares his dinner, for example, had some nice grossout laughs.

“If You’re So Smart” by Mark Waid and Carlos Magno is really clever – this and “Severance” are my favorite tales from the book. The idea of taking a test to see how well you’d survive in a world of zombies is funny and starts the reader trying to think of what sorts of questions should be on the test. The ones that Waid comes up with are all pretty funny, and the twist at the end is sick and clever. Magno also deserves credit for keeping things visually interesting, especially since the bulk of this short is just a girl sitting at a desk taking a test – I have to imagine that was a bit of a challenge, but this reads very smoothly without feeling flat. Great work.

“Dead Meat” by Keith Giffen and Ron Lim is the most conventional zombie tale of the bunch – my least favorite in terms of plot and script, especially since we come in after all the action has taken place – but this was made up for (at least for me) by the always-gorgeous Ron Lim artwork. I’ve always loved the way this guy draws monsters, so a zombie tale is a good fit for him. It’s not the flashiest script, doesn’t really let him show off the way Jim Starlin used to, but it’s still really nice to see his work again.

At 48 pages for $6.99, the book may seem a bit prohibitively expensive; the price-per-page isn’t any worse than if you’d bought two single issues of a 22-page comic, and you get a nice square-binding into the deal, but my feeling is that anthologies should offer a better price point than other books, being the gamble that they usually are. The stories here maintain a relatively high standard of quality, which helps, and some “big name” talent, which helps more - but I'm a bit of a price-watcher, so it still makes this more difficult to recommend than if it was $5. It's worth at least picking this up and flipping through - I enjoyed it quite a bit more than I expected to.

I’ve seen several reviews pop up over the last few days; if you’re interested, take a look at what Andrew Wickliffe had to say at The Stop Button, or check out the reviews from Adam Lawrence, Dan MacLeod and "The Consumer" Joe Rivera, all at the Isotope Virtual Lounge. Oh, and Randy Lander taken a look too, over on The Fourth Rail. Jesus, this book's getting a lot of press!

Cool indie comics in September

2005-06-27T16:31:00.000-07:00

Take a look at this thread I started over on MillarWorld.

I wanted those publishers in the second half of the Previews magazine to get a little love. There's a lot of wonderful stuff that comes out of that bubbling cauldron of independent publishing, and it's always easy to miss a quality project in the roughage between Brian Pulido variant covers and Shonen Jump.

So I took a look at the Previews text file (September edition available here) and did some cherry picking. Turns out I've got plenty of company - a lot of people are calling out a lot of interesting books, and if you're looking for something new you could do a lot worse than stop by.

We even have Larry Young stopping by and ringing Pavlov's bell.

Marvel's new $1 flipbooks - a couple questions

2005-06-22T15:52:00.000-07:00

This is from my response to a great thread started by James Sime over on the IsoLounge, about the new, cheap Marvel flip-books.

When I was getting into comics (around age 8-11), I didn't read any of the "old" stuff. I read what was new at the time; PAD's Incredible Hulk, McFarlane's and Larsen's Spidey stuff, Silvestri's Wolverine, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - these were my bread and butter.

If you'd handed me a Stan Lee comic, I don't know how I would have responded. Never happened, so I don't know. Could have been anything from "WOW, this is awesome!" to "Jeez, this is campy and stupid. I'm gonna go watch Tiny Toons."

Much as we may appreciate Jack Kirby's art style now, to a pre-teen, it's all about Rob Liefeld, y'know?

So I'm curious if anyone has actually witnessed or recorded how kids respond to comics that are 40+ years old.

Don't get me wrong - I think this is an awesome move on Marvel's part, and I want nothing more than for these kinds of efforts to succeed and grow - but I'm unsure of the chosen material. After all, if they try this, and it flops because the kids aren't excited by Reed Richards' imperative mission to beat the commies in the space race, that's money that Marvel's lost on a "Hey Kids! Comics!' initiative without seeing any return. Which, if I were running the place, would make me feel pretty shy about doing something similar again.

Follow-up question: Any idea why they chose the material they did? Would it have cost a lot more to use, say, Jim Lee's X-Men run?

To answer my own question: It seems likely that comics this cheap are to Marvel as newspapers are to their publishers. That is, the cover price is so low that every sale represents a loss to the publisher, because that price is actually lower than the cost of production. In newspapers, this is seen as a portal to increased revenue from ad sales - "Hey, Nike - we've got 500,000 people reading our newspaper. Wanna take out a $10,000 ad?" But in this case, if Marvel used a more contemporary, popular comic, a huge portion of the sales would likely be existing readers, picking up a little piece of their youth on the cheap. So Marvel would not only be taking a loss (from all those sales to fanboys) without reaching their intended audience (the kiddies), they'd also be cannibalizing their own sales of things like the Spider-man Visionaries: Todd McFarlane trade sales - because if you could get two of those issues for a buck, why shell out a Jackson for nine issues?

Tough situation. At least they're not responding with inaction. Nice to see a little chutzpah in the face of a challenge.

Follow-up Review: Hero Camp #2

2005-06-21T18:17:00.000-07:00

A couple weeks ago I reviewed Hero Camp #1 and made some guesses about how issue #2 would work out for me. I enjoyed the clever, playful character designs from Robbi Rodriguez, and I liked the silly, almost vaudevillian humor from Greg Thompson’s script; my main gripe, on the other hand, was with Thompson’s hints that this would become a more serious story, a coming of age tale that I thought didn’t fit the tone and style of the book. Ultimately I decided it was worth the gamble to pick up Hero Camp #2.

It’s good news, today: Thompson must have gotten my letters and had Rodriguez bang out some new art mighty fast, because this second issue does exactly what I thought it should, and surprises me a little bit at the same time.

The first half of this issue is a really entertaining tour through the world of Hero Camp, presented as Our Hero, Eric, strolls around the campgrounds on a lazy Saturday, running into friends and seeing what they’re up to. I’ve already talked about how much I like Rodriguez’ entertaining character designs, but the spotlight shifts here as Thompson gets to show off his own clever sense of humor through several snapshot character moments. These scenes are breezy and whimsical, and when the plot (such as it is) kicks in halfway through, it feels like the more perilous elements of the story are meshing better with the book’s tone than last time around – this is probably because of three great new characters that are both well-written and wonderfully designed and rendered. They’re all basically the same character, but their presence on the page is charismatic and funny.

The back-up story was the strongest element in the first issue, but I think it veers off a little too much this time. I like the bits where the super-kids are talking about their childhood dreams, what they wanted to be before the super-hero path became clear. When the circle comes around to Eric, and he says he wants to be a writer – I’m sorry, no. I’ve read that scene, heard that monologue, and listened to that song a hundred times already. Hell, Neil Simon writes it in every single play. It’s a sweet scene, clearly intended to communicate Thompson’s passion for his craft and its possibilities, but it’s not nearly as imaginative a moment as I now know he’s capable of.

This is a hard series to pin down, and I’m surprised to find that out. Hearing the concept and reading the first issue made this seem like a fairly obvious book to me – Misunderstood Kid Finally Comes Out Of His Shell, right? – but at this point I don’t know where the series is going. This issue tells a self-contained story, which is pretty unusual in a four-issue mini with a built-in character arc in the premise. And where usually by this point in a miniseries the introduction of characters and ideas would have slowed down, if anything it feels like the new stuff is accelerating. It leaves me feeling optimistic about the rest of the series, hoping Thompson’s got the guts to just keep going whole hog and slamming out new stuff with abandon. This series doesn’t need a story, exactly; the story’s in the premise, and it’s been done – it should be the road, not the car. Right now I’m getting the idea that Thompson understands that, and I’m looking forward to finding out if I’m right.

Holy Crap

2005-06-20T17:32:00.000-07:00

Batman Begins was awesome.

I mean, I knew the cast was great, and it had one of the best new directors from the last ten years, and it was picking up elements from the greatest Batman story ever (Year One, natch), but I had no idea that:

Bruce Wayne's father was an interesting, powerful character with the charisma to effectively haunt Bruce as an adult.
There's a middle ground between Dopey Slam-Whiz Batman and All Knowing Asshole Batman? He's a complex character? No way!
Ra's Al Ghul lived in such stunning scenery - man, talk about evocative settings.
Liam Neeson was so goddamn amazing as a screen presence (just kidding, I did know that).
The script would be so sharp - I mean, a few corny one-liners aside (It's not who you are inside, it's what you do that matters...), this was really killer dialogue. It really hit home when Liam Neeson explained who's fault the death of Bruce's parents was - what a scene.
Michael Caine is funny as hell.
The Batmobile didn't suck, and actually worked in the movie a lot better than I'd guessed from the promo stills.
"Christian Bale is one hot hunk of man." I put that in quotes so you'll believe me when I say that Molly said that, not me. But I can't disagree with her. Jesus, now that's an action movie physique.

Loved it. I don't think a comparison between this and Tim Burton's original works very well, because they try to do very different things - Burton's was a fantastical legend, and this was a dark character study. I loved both.

Running Wild

2005-06-17T16:24:00.000-07:00

I know I've been very bad this week. Please forgive. I'm in the middle of moving (into a lovely flat with the missus, which we're thrilled about) and life is hectic.

As an apology, I offer the comics-reflecting-life-reflecting-comics moment of the year:

Presto change-o!

I'll be back with my thoughts on Hero Camp #2 soon as I can manage it. Did it follow through on the strengths I saw in issue #1? Did it succumb to the aspects I didn't like as much?

Stay tuned to find out.

The Black Diamond

2005-06-13T17:42:00.000-07:00

I picked up an advance copy of The Black Diamond: On Ramp at the Isotope last week (it's released everywhere else on this coming Wednesday), which features a full issue's worth of teaser story to Larry Young's upcoming six-issue miniseries with artist Join Proctor, as well as a six-page preview of the Smoke And Guns OGN that will destroy us all.

Having read a few of Larry Young's books in the last couple years, I've come to expect two things from him.

First, an idea that delicately balances crazy imagination (I would have never thought of that!) with a broadly appealing, everybody-loves-a-good-action-flick angle (How come I didn't think of that?). The Black Diamond is full of car chase scenes and explosions and big guns - well, of course it is. But guess what? It all happens on an eight-lane transcontinental highway built 150 feet in the air and designated specifically for the kind of lawless apeshit that decent Americans don't want on their drive to work.

The other thing I expect from Young is a little meta-commentary, a little something that rises above the story and speaks directly to the reader. We get that here, too, in an interesting discussion of stories themselves. How many stories are there? I seem to remember, a long time ago, that some jerk told me there were only forty-two stories or something like that, though I never found out what those forty-two were.

It's a good thing I saved my time, because Young boils it down quite a bit more: there's "Just trying to get home" and there's "Stranger comes to town," and everything else is a variation on the theme.

See, that was compelling enough, because it got me thinking about a lot of stories and whether they fit into either category, but then Young pulls it down to just one. It's a thoughtful point that left me thinking, but without weighing the story down; no, the point is made while one character is loading a shotgun, and a scant four pages later we're treated to some really excellent explodo.

Which brings me to the artwork. This is the first thing I've seen by Jon Proctor, and the first color book from AiT/Planet Lar, and if this is any indication I hope I'll see plenty more of both.

Proctor's pencils are interesting by themselves - his layouts are manic, explosive affairs, instantly developing the frantic world of the story - but the real shining star here is the coloring. The palettes he uses here are really stunning, and they're richly reproduced; ripe, fat shades. Each page is like a meal.

On top of this, the Smoke And Guns preview is unbelievably gorgeous, and writer Kirsten Baldock has included a one-page "journal entry" detailing a typical night as a cigarette girl; this is really cool, because in the comic we'll be seeing an exaggerated, mob-scene version of the cigarette girl lifestyle, and it's fun to read that with the context of what work is actually like for these fine ladies.

Jesus, there's more here, and there's plenty more to say about Smoke And Guns, but I'm starving to death and I've got to do some more work on my upcoming move into a new home with Molly.

You'll do fine finding a copy of this to read for yourself, anyway. Because AiT/Planet Lar is shipping a bunch of extra copies to every retailer who ordered it. For free. Seriously. I read it here. Now that's pimping out your comics.

Review: Age of Bronze, volume 2 - SACRIFICE

2005-06-09T09:21:00.000-07:00

I've got a review of the absolutely amazing second volume of Eric Shanower's Trojan War epic, Age of Bronze, up at Bookshelf Comics today. Have a look and let me know what you thought; after reading this trade, I ended up picking up the most recent issue of AoB (#20) yesterday, as well, so I'll try and come back with some thoughts on it in the next few days.

Also got an advance copy of the Black Diamond / Smoke And Guns preview for the upcoming AiT/Planet Lar books (care of the Isotope), and it looks awesome. I'll come back with some thoughts when I've had the time to pour over it.

Review: Hero Camp #1

2005-06-07T18:48:00.000-07:00

Hero Camp was on my radar for a long time before the first issue came out a couple weeks ago, because writer Greg Thompson is a regular “face” over on MillarWorld and made sure to keep the book’s title on everybody’s minds. It’s a book I’ve been a bit anxious to read, honestly, because while Thompson’s online persona is charmingly unaffected and intelligent, the concept of the book doesn’t make it sound like my cup of tea.

See, while the last few years have really opened my eyes to how incredible comics can be, and I’ve been getting more and more excited about the medium, I’ve also been getting increasingly blasé when it comes to superhero books in particular. I don’t begrudge the genre its sales dominance in the industry, and I think it’s got a lot of great stories left to tell, but right now (with a few exceptions, like Invincible, Captain America and Supreme Power) I’m just not getting excited about superheroes. The idea of a summer camp for superpowered teenagers sound cute, but I wondered if it was just the kind of thing that was gonna leave me flat no matter how good it was.

So, does Hero Camp buck the trend?

There’s a lot here to like. Robbi Rodriguez’s character designs are really fun and distinctive for the most part, reminding me in some spots of Mike Allred’s work on X-Statix while showing us some of his own unique flavor with the issue’s villains and, surprisingly, with the inevitable standard big bruiser character (a la The Hulk), a kid named Block. I’d have guess this would be the hardest character to make distinct, since there’s such a long list of similar brutes. Perhaps it’s that challenge that pushed Rodriguez to bring his A-game to the character; whatever it was, he’s got a fun look, and when he first appeared in the issue I hoped he’d be getting some decent “face time” in the series.

I got my wish, because Block gets his own back-up story in the closing pages of the issue. It’s a hammy scene with a classic vaudeville joke that could easily slide down the line into cliché, but it plays well. Thompson’s dialogue is “comic booky” enough that I approach the story with different expectations, wanting something lighthearted and silly, and that’s exactly what I’m served.

There are also a number of fun tweaks of dialogue throughout the issue; the teenage boy superhero flying right behind a supergirl and exclaiming to his friend, “Dude! You can see straight up her skirt!” rings true and plays it with just enough restrained class to keep it cute.

Here’s the thing, though. There’s a limit to the effectiveness of cute and restrained, and it comes when we get to the serious character stuff. Our Hero, a boy named Eric, is the son of two famous superheroes and has shown no sign of powers, yet is believed to “secretly” be the most powerful kid in camp. While there are a number of obvious ways this could play out (he discovers his powers at the key moment, he finds a way to make a meaningful contribution without powers, etc.), this would still work if the character’s response to his situation was a little more personal, a little more specific to himself as a character. But as a result of the cute, iconic charm of the book’s style, he’s given nearly nothing to make him that specific a person; he’s got all the usual teenage boy trappings, like a loyal dog and a girl to crush on and so on, but that’s as far as it goes.

The idea here, I have to guess, is to appeal to a broader audience. Tom Petty once said he wrote lyrics by taking a personal story and removing detail after detail until anyone could see themselves in the song. There’s something to be said for that, and I think Thompson is employing a similar tactic here. But for me, he goes just a little too far with it. There’s some entertaining mystery behind the true nature of Eric’s powers, and the relationship between the lead villainess and one of Eric’s friends, but I’m not intrigued enough by either character to really have that hook in me that I need. It could also well be that the character arc Eric is facing is just not one that resonates with me; I learned long ago that my parents' confident expectations in me weren't important in defining myself, that just "being me" was enough for the three of us, and I can't help suspecting that Eric will learn this lesson in a friendly, affirming way that'll simultaneously comfort and tire me.

Those who are big fans of old school four-color super-hero books will find plenty to like here, but I’ll have to see the next issue to make a decision; if Block takes on a bigger role, or the villains do some more funny stuff, or the vaudeville angle gets a little thicker in the scripting – all of which show potential in this issue – I’ll be in. If it looks like this is shaping up to be a coming of age story, I’ll probably pass, because that kind of stuff just doesn’t often speak to me anymore.

Review: True Story, Swear To God volume 2

2005-06-01T16:42:00.000-07:00

I've got a review for True Story, Swear To God volume 2: This One Goes To 11 up on Bookshelf Comics. Take a look, I thought this was a really great book and it was fun to write about why.

Review: Jeremy Tinder mini-comics

2005-05-31T13:42:00.000-07:00

At last year’s Alternative Press Expo (APE), one of my favorite experiences was going to Jeremy Tinder’s table. It was the first one I hit, right inside the door and up the stairs, and I picked up one of his mini-comics and started reading. It was a short one, as all his comics are, and I loved it. I ended up getting, if I remember right, six mini-comics and a sketch of Blanka from Street Fighter II for five bucks. Nice!

This year, Tinder had upgraded. All his comics were two bucks, and while they weren’t any longer, they were printed with better cover stock. Behind him, mounted on the wall, were 50-some 4” x 6” paintings he had made especially for the show. The package deal this time around was $25 for all ten comics and a painting, plus he threw in a sketch of Mario riding Yoshi. It was the most money I dropped at a single table this year, and now I wanna talk about the great stuff I got for my hard-earned dough. Here are some samples of his paintings - I nabbed the one on the bottom right.

A word about Tinder’s style before I go book-by-book: his comics are generally 5 to 10 pages, drawn and written in a simple, crude style that should appeal to all the folks who tell me Craig Thompson and James Kochalka are great comics artists. While I’ve been entertained by Goodbye, Chunky Rice and Monkey vs. Robot, I think this style is best suited to the distilled whiskey shots Tinder provides. You can only play the crude-n-cute card for so long at a time before it begins to feel like an affectation, and Tinder strikes a perfect pitch that always leaves me both satisfied and hungry for more – and where Thompson and Kochalka both have a “deeper meaning” thing going on in their long-form books, these comics are lighter and funnier, a bit like Jeffrey Brown’s Miniature Sulk, which I recently reviewed here, and the moments of insight are more low key. While Tinder plays in an aesthetic sandbox similar to the folks I’ve mentioned, he definitely has his own voice, and it’s funny, sweet and pretty bizarre.

A Very Special Christmas Comic 2 is a good example; it’s the sequel to last year’s holiday Shaq adventure, though we go Shaqless this time around and instead get a zombie Santa. That’s right, a couple of kids find Santa dead in an alley and magically bring him to life. The result is sort of a creepy twist on the Frosty The Snowman story, and the ending made me cringe, laugh and smile in a matter of moments. Loved this.

Helmet Kid is about a young boy putting on a metal helmet and fighting crime with Kraft singles in his pockets. He’s a smartass and a doofus, and the dialogue works really well in this one. Funny as hell.

Shawn is basically a visual gag about an office employee who looks like Pac Man. Funny, quick read.

Rotten Eggs is one of those classic Kids At War In The Neighborhood stories. Tinder has a great grasp on the meaningless rage of children in groups, and this was both funny and oddly insightful without being precious.

Robots Don’t Say “I Love You” is a savage scene between a robot and his girlfriend. This was probably the meanest Tinder comic I’ve read, but it works (and cracks me up) because it’s completely ridiculous watching a human woman in a “relationship fight” with a robot.

Creepfolio: A Portfolio of Scary Drawings is exactly what it sounds like; it’s not my favorite, because I really enjoy Tinder’s writing and this is strictly an art piece, but these are indeed creepy designs and the monstrous dude in the Lindsay Lohan shirt is a classic.

4 More Years probably displays pretty accurately what last year’s election was like for a lot of people, as a group of friends sit on the couch watching the television results and cursing. I cringed at the start, as I’m generally phobic of political humor (which I find usually has no sense of humor about itself), but Tinder pulls it off with another absurd robot moment that had me laughing out loud.

What Do We Do Next? is a clever bit of self-reference, as this comic is the result of an experiment Tinder conducted with a class of high school students he teaches. Its basically a jam comic, with Tinder kicking it off with the first two pages and four of his students contributing pages that pick up where the last left off. This has limited success for me as a reader, because while some of the students’ work is clever and funny, some of it is just too crude to be clear, and one of them doesn’t seem to speak English very well. That said – how awesome is this? Jesus, I wish I’d gone to a high school where they did stuff this cool. I asked Tinder about it at APE and he said the school basically lets him teach however he wants to; hot damn!

Finally, Andy Saturday and His Dear Friend Jim in: Love/Hate is the most heartwarming of the bunch, and the most likely to appeal to those Thompson/Kochalka fans I was talking about earlier. It’s the longest story here and follows two friends through a day of misunderstandings (both angry and harmless) and realizations. None of the realizations are completely accurate, and at the end neither one of them knows what actually happened, but the resolution doesn’t suffer as a result – instead, it feels more real and resonant. It’s rare that two people completely understand one another, but that doesn’t have to stand in the way of friendship. This was a sweetheart of a story, perhaps a little too saccharine for some, but in the context of the rest of these comics I thought it capped everything off really well.

Tinder’s promised me he’ll be back at APE again next year, and I can’t wait to see what he’ll have for me. I highly recommend you take the time to track him down yourself and see if these don’t appeal to you as much as they do to me. In the meantime, you can check out his website at http://www.livejournal.com/users/jeremytinder/.

Preacher and Beer (Spoilers!)

2005-05-27T13:41:00.000-07:00

“I tell ya, Molly, I’m gonna have to buy some Charlie Chaplin DVDs. I fuckin’ love that guy.”

“I don’t understand why Garth Ennis has such a problem with him.”

“You mean that scene in the bar—“

“Yeah.”

“—when Jesse and Cassidy are talking about him versus Laurel & Hardy?”

“Yeah.”

“That pissed me off, too.”

“Can I have a sip of your beer?”

“…”

“What?”

“Really? I mean sure, go ahead, but—

“Well—“

“—you’re drinking beer now?”

“Well, last night? When you were at the Isotope and I went to Zeitgeist?”

“You said that was a cool place, right?”

“It’d be right up your alley. They played Tom Waits twice in a row.”

“Hoo.”

“And it’s just the kind of place where you have to drink beer, and I think I’m starting to like it.”

“I thought you hated it.”

“I just hate it on your breath. But drinking it, I don’t know… it kinda makes you feel… healthy.”

“HOLY CRAP, you finally understand! Oh, it’s best with Guinness! You can practically feel your body thanking you when you drink it.”

“Anyway, that scene with Jesse where he’s talking about Chaplin… I mean, nine times out of ten, when he’s Setting Everybody Straight and he’s so fucking sure of himself, he’s right on.”

“Totally.”

“But that one time out of ten, he goes too far or it’s just something stupid—

“Like picking on Chaplin.”

“—like picking on Chaplin, and you start to wonder – Are you just blowing smoke up your own ass? I mean, he’s a cool role model character and everything, and you can tell Ennis sure has has a fuckin’ boner for him, but it’s just too much sometimes.”

“I’m telling you, it's Cassidy's story.”

“I know.”

“That letter he writes Jesse at the end? The P.S.?”

“I know.”

“That letter’s made me cry more than once, y’know.”

“I know.”

“And the part where Jesse takes his hand and he punches him—“

“OH, GOD!”

“—I felt like throwing up. I was physically sick.”

“I know just how you feel. It was totally… it was like you said in your blog, it was totally visceral.”

“Hey, do you still wanna do your idea?”

“You mean—“

“Yeah, the Preacher idea? Take a long weekend and some chairs and go sit in the sun with a bottle of bourbon and some ice and just read the whole series?”

“Well, I thought we could make a road trip out of it. Go somewhere like up in the mountains or something.”

“We gotta do that.”

“Soon as the weather gets better, baby, I’d love to.”

“Okay. I’m gonna go get a beer - you want one?”

“No, I just like sipping yours.”

“All right, well I better get two then. Hey, you wanna watch some Charlie Chaplin with me this weekend? Maybe The Gold Rush?”

"Sure, baby."

Interview with Elk's Run artist, Noel Tuazon

2005-05-26T13:33:00.000-07:00

Elk's Run is an incredible new series from Western Tales of Terror publisher Hoarse & Buggy. You may have read my glowing review of issue one way back when I got a hold of an advance copy; you may have seen all the amazing support this book has gotten on messageboards and from creators like Warren Ellis, Brian Michael Bendis and B. Clay Moore.

Or maybe you haven't been so lucky just yet.

If you've never heard of the series before, take a look at my review and browse around the H&B website for just a minute; this is an excellent new book that really deserves your attention. One of the selling points for me has been the incredible artwork, and that's why it was such a pleasure to be able to interview the series' artist, Mr. Noel Tuazon. Let's have a look at what he had to say.

Sean Maher: Let's start by giving our readers a little personal information. Tell me something really embarrassing about Elk's Run writer Josh Fialkov.

Noel Tuazon: Josh is a BIG fan of pan flutist, Zamfir.

SM: Now it's your turn. What about you?

NT: The most embarrassing thing about me is that I waited almost 2 hours just to get Ace Frehley's autograph.

SM: How did you become a comics artist? What drew you to work in this medium?

NT: I guess it started back in college (Erindale and Sheridan College). A friend, Dominic Bugatto, who's a wicked illustrator, introduced me to works by Jeff Jones, Mike Kaluta, Wrightson, Sienkiewicz, etc. This was kind of new to me since when I was younger I tended to care more for the characters or the book's subject matter rather than the artists of the comic books. From there I began drawing the odd strip for the college newspaper. The drawing style tended to lean more on the cartoony side. Towards the end of college I was sending samples out to editors and comic artists just to get their opinions and also hoping to get the odd assignment. Unfortunately I've yet to become a full time illustrator and still do my full time job working in a warehouse.

SM: Who's your greatest inspiration? Not your biggest influence, not the person who's work you admire or want to emulate the most. I mean the person who keeps you fired up, who fans the flames of that passion for comics. When you're feeling down and tired, the thought of them gets you back on your feet and ready to fight. We all know that comics self-publishing is full of those difficult moments, so you've got to have a secret weapon somewhere in your life. Who or what is it?

NT: What drew me to comics was that it was easier than making a movie. I guess working at a series of boring, non-art related jobs gets me still fired up when it comes to my passion for comics (and, add to that, children's books and editiorial illustration). I just don't want to end up becoming the type who does his or her 8 or 12 hour shift then goes home for a meal then down on their asses watching reality TV shows.

SM: How did you get involved in the Elk's Run project?

NT: I think it was a link on Steve Niles' web site which connected me to Hoarse and Buggy Productions. I saw their project, Western Tales of Terror, advertised and decided I should show my comic page samples in hopes that I would be able to illustrate WTOT stories. Josh saw my work and decided I would be suited for his little project, "Elk's Run".

SM: Describe your working relationship with Josh Fialkov. What's your collaborative process like?

NT: So far it's been Josh e-mailing me the scripts. I read them, draw character designs if they're needed, then it's off to doing the roughs layouts in inks. These roughs are then e-mailed off (five to six pages at a time) to Josh and Jason for evaluation. Once they're approved, it's off to the good paper (Bristol) for the final version.

SM: What can readers find in Elk's Run that they can't find anywhere else?

NT: Readers of "Elk's Run" will find no silicone breasted women.

SM: What do you think is special about the book?

NT: What's special about the book is that its "heroes" and "monsters" are not in costumes but rather in everyday clothing and settings. Plus, of course, no silicone breasted women.

SM: Is Elk's Run your first professional work?

NT: My first professional work was actually in a Cerebus reprint in 1989, which featured single page comics as backups. Other works include the two issue "Arianne" (written by Rafael Nieves) for Slave Labor and later reprinted by Moonstone Books and some anthologies (Taboo Especial, Dennis Eichorn's Real Stuff, Reactor Girl, Drawing the Line, Frecklebean Comics, Fleshrot 2, and Fleshrot Halloween Special). So, it's been off and on between me and comics within the last 16 years.

SM: What's your "day job"? How do you pay the bills while you're fighting the good fight and making comics? How do you balance the two?

NT: My day job is as a shipper and receiver for a small bridal gown company and the only art related full time job I've ever had was doing storyboard revisions for an animated company here in Toronto called Nelvana. I manage to balance the the day job and illustration by dedicating about an hour or two on the comics during the weeknights and five hours or so on weekends.

SM: Describe your process, and get into some detail for our aspiring-comics-genius readers. Everybody's got a technique that works best for them, a pattern they work with; what's yours?

NT: The technique I employ when starting on the final art is roughing out the pencils with blue non-photo pencil including the panel borders themselves. Then I straighten the borders with a ruler before going over them with a thick marker. Sometimes I'll even start inking images in the panels before inking the borders. I should note that I rarely draw tight pencils but just go straight into the blue pencils.

SM: What have been your most important resources as an independent comics artist? Influential books, sources of information, mentors, materials - what could you not do this job without?

NT: For influence and inspiration, I've looked at the works of Jeffrey Jones, early Wrightson, Kaluta, Mazzuchelli, and now within the last two to three years it's been EC reprints featuring artists such as Wally Wood, Al Williamson, Frank Frazetta, etc.. Additional books include ones on James Montgomery Flagg, Charles Dana Gibson, Andrew Loomis' instructional drawing books, and, last but not least, the drawing instructors at this small animation school in Toronto called Studio M.

SM: What is the most important lesson you'd like to pass on to other independent artists, based on your experience thus far?

NT: The most important lesson is to probably expect to do some projects for small wages or even for free. Also, keep practicing on your drawing skills even if it's only for a few hours or minutes per day. Keep away from manga!

SM: Do you have any other projects lined up after ER? If not, what kind of material would you LIKE to work on?

NT: No projects lined up for now after ER's run but I do have an illustrated story appearing in one of Graphic Classics' anthologies (Adventure Classics: Graphic Classics Volume Twelve) sometime in July. It's an adaptation of a Damon Runyon story.

SM: What is your greatest ambition in comics?

NT: My greatest in ambition in comics is to draw anything from weird fiction to even superheroes.

SM: Finally, tell me your drink of choice and name something horrible (or hysterical) that happened once when you were drinking it.

NT: My apologies for my boring answer to this one but I'm more of a water and juice drinker. As far as I can remember nothing horrible or hysterical has happened to me with regards to those drinks. Whew! I need a drink.

Stray Bullets Volume 2: Somewhere Out West

2005-05-23T21:13:00.000-07:00

David Lapham continues releasing Stray Bullets in trade collections that are smartly organized and value-priced – veering dramatically from his previous trade program in both regards – with Stray Bullets Volume 2: Somewhere Out West, which contains the second seven-issue story arc in this brilliant crime series.

This arc is easily the most outlandish of the four-and-a-half that have been published thus far, centered (as the title suggests) somewhere out west. Four characters – Virginia Applejack, Beth, Orson and Nina – have fled from Baltimore, where the last arc took place, and experience their new life on a skewed, surreal level, in a desert town where the populace expect the coast of California to sink into the ocean ANY DAY NOW and leave them soaking in the luxury of beachfront property. The artwork begins to take on a more impressionistic style (though only when appropriate) and a number of new, cartoonish characters appear to balance the relative normalcy our heroes bring along with them.

Lapham begins a number of important developments in the series with this arc, beginning with the real introduction of his second-most-important character, Beth. We first met Beth very briefly in the first arc, as she barged into the life of young Orson, a buttoned-down mama’s boy who had just started to learn what the violent world of Stray Bullets had in store for him. We got the vague impression then, and it’s developed at length here, that Beth is savvy to something the rest of us are not; she’s a flawed character, to be sure – arrogant and selfish and addicted to danger and adrenaline – but there’s also a fierce confidence that suggests she’s seen some unbelievable situations in her time and that she's learned how to handle herself under fire. What’s most impressive (and effective) about this is that nothing is explicitly spelled out. There are a few odd references to the past, vague allusions to her past relationships with characters and rough situations she’s obviously survived, but for the most part this impression is made entirely through her response to the here-and-now of the story. It’s incredibly layered storytelling that manages to not only develop the character and add an explosive, exciting ingredient to the story being told, but it creates a sense of history that always draws me into a story. I’m always completely sucked in by stories that clearly exist in a world bigger than themselves, that leave cracked-open doors to legends and wide expansive futures. Stray Bullets began doing this with its first issue, but Lapham’s grip on his craft had grown so much by the time he got to these stories that the reader doesn’t see him at work anymore, and it feels seamlessly built into the stories’ present.

As I said, Beth will prove to be the series’ second most important character, an adult foil to its very most important – young Virginia Applejack. Virginia’s influence in these seven issues is relatively small, and she disappears almost entirely in the third arc, but her role here is an important if unobtrusive one. For now, she’s here to observe. While the story told in this arc is self-contained and exciting and crazy, it will also serve later in the series as a premise, an element of Virginia’s past that not only lets us know what’s going on with her character, but will also give us a vague idea of what Beth’s past was like; we’ll use the experience we’ve seen Virginia go through to estimate what Beth has been through, and the mistakes Beth makes as an adult become a sort of ominous prophecy for Virginia. We suspect, though, that Virginia has some greater reservoir of intelligence than Beth, and that’s the central tension of the series – will Virginia live the same destructive, doomed life as Beth? Is that her in the trunk in the series’ first issue?

We’re driven to truly care because we can see how the world of Stray Bullets tests its characters; Beth, bold and strong though she is, is clearly a product of her environment, a changed person for all she’s been through, living more by trying to outfox the rules that have been set for her than by her own rules. Virginia’s on the other end of the spectrum for now, watching everything unfold through her child’s eyes and calling foul where she sees it, unaware of any real need on her part to change. Stuck between these two is Orson.

As I said above, we last met Orson as he was completely freaking out. He’d just started to really see the uncontrollably violent world in which he lives, and he was scared out of his mind and angry. When we meet him again in this arc, we see a good boy trying to be a bad man; he’s in love with Beth and, for now, Beth only cares about herself and her fun. Again, we get vague reference to history – Orson, in an amazing night of drunken bravery, has somehow pulled one over on the series’ ubervillain-in-absentia, Harry. They’re on the run now, and Orson has sobered up, and must wrestle with his fearful desire to maintain a low profile on the run from Harry and the certain death he represents, while Beth barks at him about being a real man, complaining (as does everybody who knows him, it seems) that he’s a boring dork. With his life on the line, but the woman he loves pushing him, what choice can he make? Orson’s story is the real tragedy of this arc, because he’s so clearly out of his element, and he has a much more grounded, pedestrian moral compass than any other character. He’s completely unequipped to deal with the dangers of the life he believes he’s chosen, though he’s obviously been pushed into it by forces both more powerful and more adult than he is.

After a number of more surreal (and often silly) adventures in this western hideout, with Orson shuddering at every loud noise for fear that they’ll be caught by the evil forces they’ve run from, he and Beth are finally called to answer for what they’ve done in an explosive 48-page closing issue. This is a climax as they should always be done, full of uncertainty and terror, action and blood, defining character moments and permanent consequences. The action takes us all around this new world they’ve built for themselves, crossing paths with all the new characters and doling out cruel fates with heartbreaking levity. When it’s finished, we realize the silliness of this arc had an intangible thread of gravity running all through it, and the consequences echo throughout the rest of the series.

It’s an exciting and powerful conclusion to the arc and reminds us that Stray Bullets serves dual purposes – to entertain and to engage, to make us think and feel while we’re shouting “Holy shit!” at every amazing turn of events – and caps off Exhibit B in my ongoing argument that this is the best series currently in publication.

Reference: my review of Stray Bullets Volume 1: Innocence of Nihilism

Bookshelf Comics

2005-05-23T08:58:00.000-07:00

A fun new website has launched called Bookshelf Comics - full of information and reviews for squarebound comics - prestige formats, OGNs, TPBs, HCs, and whatever other acronyms you like for describing comics you put (crazy as this might sound) on your bookshelf!

I'll be contributing reviews, and I'll link to 'em from here every time I do. Today I've got a new review up for Jeffrey Brown's Miniature Sulk, so take a look and explore the site!

Of course, I'll be continuing to update here on The Zealot's Lore with reviews and more, starting with a follow-up to my review of Stray Bullets Volume 1: Innocence of Nihilism with a review of Volume 2: Somewhere Out West. Watch for it later today.

War Cry

2005-05-19T22:42:00.000-07:00

I love the hell out of comics. I love ‘em so much I started up a blog just to write about ‘em whenever I could. In the spirit of putting some gas back in the Zealot’s Lore tank – that is, juicing myself up for a second wind of more regular entries – tonight I’m gonna talk a little bit about why.

First of all, comics are unbelievably entertaining. They can take me anywhere, show me anything, any time I want. As I discussed in this entry, they strike a unique balance between providing the world of the story for me and demanding my participation in its creation; my mind is the motor and comics crank it up. All I have to do is let it run. Unlike film, I’m never irritated by the special effects being choppy here or too flashy there, and I’m not at the mercy of the artist to sit through anything – I can pick it up and put it down and move the whole story at the pace that best fits for me. And unlike straight prose, I’m not visualizing something by myself in the dark; I know I’m seeing what I was meant to see. And the potential there is unlimited. I’ve never found a medium that took me to so many different places with such smooth flexibility.

Comics make me feel like a kid. I read The Incredible Hulk and I feel the same sympathy for poor persecuted Bruce Banner I felt when I was eight; and I feel the same elation when he rises from within himself against the world that torments him to show he is the strongest one there is. I believe the Hulk is the strongest one there is, like other people believe in great football teams, and his every victory is my victory. Everyone’s got a super-hero that means something to them, who they’re always rooting for, and who’s silly spandex fights get their blood pumping. A lot of folks really identify with poor bad-luck Peter Parker. For some folks it's Batman or Wolverine. The Hulk is mine; and like any kid, I'll put my favorite up against your favorite any damn day of the week!

At the same time, comics make me feel uniquely grown-up. I’m in on something nobody else is in on. And it’s smart. They’d like to fool you by putting pictures in with the words, sure. But I’ve never read a prose book like Stray Bullets, or Sin City, or Planetary, that communicated in such a complex language, balancing the plain and the subtle in so exciting a way. I’ve never seen a movie as shockingly visceral as Preacher or The Ultimates or White Death – oh, film can physically shock me in a way impossible for comics, sure, but the flipside to that coin is that I know the limits of what’s happening in a movie; if the alien jumps out, I know just what it looks like and how scary it is. The Saint of Killers is limited only by my brain’s ability to imagine fright. The closing pages of White Death are as terrifying and hopeless as I’m able to conjure in my own mind. Most other adults don’t get the opportunity to realize that. And they never push their imagination beyond what the movie tells them.

I love comics because they’re pretty much the only medium that can get away with being totally ridiculous and still taking itself seriously. The Infinity Gauntlet was one of the best times I ever had in my life, and it’s totally absurd. I’ve laughed out loud reading Shaolin Cowboy, which has to be one of the dumbest things I’ve ever seen – but it’s absolutely, unflinchingly itself, and it has nothing to apologize for.

I love comics because of the community that’s sprung up around them. I love talking about comics with my friends, enjoying everything about them that I’ve already said and more, and I love the truthfulness behind people’s passion for it – folks might get into movies to become famous, or into music to get laid, or into literature to get respect; folks get into comics because they love the shit out of ‘em.

Just like me.

A free set of ADAM STRANGE #1-8

2005-05-15T13:29:00.000-07:00

I'm giving away the complete Adam Strange mini in a thread over on Millarworld - all you have to do is buy some other awesome comics and I'll hook you up. Check out the link for details:

http://www.millarworld.net/index.php?showtopic=49042

Review: Malsaine #1

2005-05-03T21:54:00.000-07:00

Tonight I’m taking a look at Malsaine #1, written by Manny Blacksher with art by Barry Hughes, and published by Imprint Comics.

The superficial stuff that occurred to me immediately: it’s a fine value for the dollar. The cover price is $2.95 for 32 pages without ads. The story itself is a bit shorter than that, depending on what you consider “the story” – there’s a lengthy text-only introduction that reveals itself to be the opening lines of the story, which is an interesting tweak. And at the end, there are a few pages of mock-up old-timey advertisements, and a one-page faux newspaper story. It’s printed on a nice, thick paper with a glossy coating, just slightly smaller than the standard 7” x 10” format, and reads in the “landscape” format as opposed to “portrait,” and thank God, it’s stapled accordingly (can’t tell you how irritating it is when this isn’t the case and I have to read a comic like I’m looking at a Playboy centerfold).

As for the actual content – it’s unusual. I’ve not read anything quite like this recently, though I have a feeling it’ll strike a familiar chord in many readers. On the surface, this is about a kid named James going to a new school in a town called Malsaine in the southern United States. He challenges his English teacher in a class discussion of Huckleberry Finn, meets a pretentious jazz aficionado named Lucius and gets invited to a concert. As the issue closes, he thinks about going to the concert. Along the way, publisher Dave Hendrick tells me, “The book's about all those things we went through as adolescents, finding your identity, falling in love/lust, isolation and rebellion, there's also a hefty amount of magic realism, ghosts, jazz and foul mouthed ravens to keep everyone happy.”

Strange, no? I’m not used to comics stories being told in such an ambling, relaxed pace. I think it works, though, and largely because this style belongs in this setting; Malsaine itself seems a relaxed Southern town, content to move in its own time and hiding massive secrets that only the erosion of time will reveal. The story reflects that personality, and it’s a consistency I always enjoy. The old-timey American gothic feel is also voiced in the scene between James and Lucius as they discuss music; we expect James to respond to the namedropping of Charlie Parker and Miles Davis with contemporary examples (say, Queens Of The Stone Age) but instead he names Chuck Berry and Jerry Lee Lewis; whether this is meant to characterize James as an old-fashioned sort or establish the world of the story as vaguely timeless is unclear, but either way it brings a funny air of respectability to the tale, as well as a clear division between the world of the story and the world of the reader. Again, odd, but comforting.

The artwork, like the writing, is unusual but feels familiar. It’s a very blocky, impressionistic style, and the colors are rich and alternatingly psychedelic and mundane. I’m not sure what impression this is supposed to make, honestly; for the moment, it serves mostly to reinforce that sense of relaxed anxiety the book is promising. The style doesn’t convey action or sequencing very well, but we’re not given any content that requires it; instead, it reinforces the tension between movement and rest. The consistency between these two creators is remarkable, especially given their geographic distance from each other (writer Blacksher being an American southern gentleman and Hughes being a Dubliner).

The opening pages, as I mentioned earlier, are a written introduction that turns out to be narration. Whether this intro is meant to be an omnipotent “writer’s voice” or the internal monologue of our Hero isn’t clearly spelled out, but it functions much the same either way: this book clearly aims to be a story about stories, literary analysis made literature. It’s not at all like Neil Gaiman’s similar effort in the Sandman epic, but fans of that series may enjoy what is on the table here. The narrative builds suspense that is then left in the background for the remainder of the issue; discussion of the classic fairy tale tropes, the location of the forest as a testing ground where characters are clearly determined to be good or evil, lends some suspense to James’ distant window-gazing into the woods near his home.

Other themes are introduced here, but aren’t much developed yet. James’ monologue about the travels of Huck Finn and Jim the slave makes an interesting point about Mark Twain’s take on society, but it’s not clear how – or if – this is supposed to apply to this story. Similarly, the scenes between James and Lucius don’t seem to really have a purpose; am I being too goal-oriented? Too impatient? Perhaps. Could very well be; I am, after all, a Yankee. It may be that the creators are trying for now only to set the mood and introduce the players, and in that regard they do fine work here. And while I found the mock-up "Society Page" at the end pretty dull, I really dug the closing line: "Only the Future will tell, and I for one can hardly wait to hear it speak."

I don’t believe this is readily available in the United States, but the publisher seems happy to send individual copies across the pond. If you’re curious, shoot an e-mail to malsaine@imprintcomics.com, and tell them I sent you.

Filthy Lying Irish

2005-05-02T20:17:00.000-07:00

"Hey, honey - did you finish writing your review for tonight?"

"No, I think I'm gonna do it in the morning. I had a rough day at work today and I really just wanna veg out."

"What? So you're not gonna write anything?"

"Don't really feel like it."

"You should write something about me."

"..."

"What?"

"You're not a comic."

"Just go on there and say I made you spend tonight with me. Tell them about all the garlic I got ready for your salmon. Or tell them how I just shaved my legs!"

"Um--"

"Just put me on there. People like that kind of thing. You have to put some of yourself into these blogs, so people get an idea of who you are."

"I guess you're right. I just feel like kind of a wanker writing a blog about how my day went and people I know and shit like that."

"Just shut up and go write something about me."

"Okay, baby."

"I'm gonna go put on Les Miserables In Concert."

"Okay. Can we watch The Wire when I'm done? I heard it's really good and I rented the DVD."

"Sure."

"I love you."

"I love you too, baby. Now go write something while I make a bagel."

When the beating of your heart echoes the beating of the drum...

Mmmm... hotlinks...

2005-05-02T08:53:00.000-07:00

Just received an e-mail from Phil Parr over at "Hey Grown Ups - Comics!", letting me know he's giving away the Complete 30 Days of Night slipcase hardcover, the first Sandman hardcover, and the first twelve issues of Supreme Power.

I'm not real familiar with his site, but I thought it might be worth your time to check out his contest and maybe get some free comics.

Stay tuned later today for a new review... this one from across the broad Atlantic.

Meantime, I've got some weekly bought-n'-thought reviews up on Millarworld.

Oh, and the Jimi Hendrix of color flatting, rising star Josh Richardson has been interviewed over on Sequential Tart. You've heard of In The Trenches, right? The column detailing a foot soldier's advance through the ranks of professional comics? If not, check it out right this minute, and start with the archives. Once you've done that, take a look at the gentleman's first interview.

Nominated for a Squiddy!

2005-04-27T13:46:00.000-07:00

Well, I'll be damned. I've been nominated for something!

I appear under "Best Comics Reviewer" in the "First Pseudo-Nominee List" for the 2004 Squiddy Awards. Click here for the full list of nominations.

If you'd like to cast a vote, all you have to do is check out any of the newsgroups listed below or send an e-mail to votes2004@squiddies.org. Here are the groups where you can find a "ballot":

rec.arts.comics.dc.lsh
rec.arts.comics.dc.universe
rec.arts.comics.dc.vertigo
rec.arts.comics.elfquest
rec.arts.comics.info
rec.arts.comics.marketplace
rec.arts.comics.marvel.universe
rec.arts.comics.marvel.xbooks
rec.arts.comics.misc
rec.arts.comics.strips

There are also a host of fun nomination categories, and some great stuff has been nominated. Demo sweeps with about a million nominations, and I'm glad to see Western Tales of Terror get a nod for best comics anthology - it's been a fun book, with cool short stories from the a host of great talent including Phil Hester (if you haven't read The Coffin or Deep Sleeper, check those out ASAP), Ryan Ottley (who's been knocking me out on Invincible), Jay Faerber (who writes Noble Causes, a great super-family book for Image that I just started reading), and of course, Josh Fialkov of Elk's Run fame.

Go take a look. And while you're there - vote for me!

(Need to do a little digging and make sure I'm up to snuff? You could go back and check out my reviews of 1000 Steps to World Domination, the Sin City movie, the new Stray Bullets trade, David Hine's Strange Embrace, or this week's advance review of Fragile Prophet for starters.)