| | Happy Halloween! I'll be going low tech this year with a costume inspired by the movie May. Which essentially means I'll be carrying around a cooler filled with body parts.
The letters for page two of The Reckoners are complete. You can take a look at the updated page right over there.
Oh, yeah, and this is just spooky. |
|
| Appropriately for Halloween, an interview I recently conducted with Mike Carey about his latest title, Faker, has gone live over at Silver Bullet Comic Books. Faker is a complex tale of paranoia that is exactly the type of adult oriented story that most people think that comics aren't capable of delivering. The story is frightening, not because it has zombies or a machete wielding maniac, but because it asks some hard questions about identity and the things that can affect it, change it, or end its existence. Carey sits down and talks about his inspiration for the story, its characters and where it is headed in the latter half of the story arc. |
|
| You'll forgive me for dragging up a piece of old news, but I find this fascinating. On the sixth of September, Israel launched an airstrike into Syria. Now, these two nations have been bickering over their borders since Israel took the Golan Heights in 1967, so typically if there's any sort of border infringement, one side or the other kicks up a fuss. At the least, diplomatically.
However, in this case, nobody said a thing. In fact, it took them the better part of a month to even admit that there had been an airstrike. Both sides have been incredibly tight lipped about what, exactly, it was that the Israeli bombing had destroyed within Syria. To add to the intrigue, it seems that Syria is cleaning up the bombed area with the intent of hiding whatever was formerly there.
Theories abound as to what it was – a nuclear reactor, North Koreans, missiles bound for Hezbollah – but even with satellite imagery, only a handful of people really know. So that leaves the rest of us to imagine. Which is the really fun job anyway.
If this type of stuff intrigues you, I highly recommend Frederick Forsyth's The Afghan. While it contains an interesting, if highly improbable, espionage story, it also contains a very interesting historical breakdown of the war on terror from 9/11 to the present. While that may sound dry, Mr. Forsyth is a master of his craft and conveys the information in a very entertaining fashion.
Page One of The Reckoners has been lettered. Thanks again to Jaymes Reed. |
|
| How many generations of children have grown up with G.I. Joe? I know my father did, I did and most likely whatever I spawn will have some passing knowledge of the plastic figures with the kung-fu grip. However, even in my own childhood, America's best went through several iterations. There was the comic book, which tried on some level to be a serious war book about a small counter-terrorist unit. Then there was the TV show, which started out as a fun action pulp serial, but ended up being half-hour long commercials for the toys (which, I'm sure on some level, was the point to begin with).
Which all brings me to Mark Powers, the current writer for Devil's Due Publishing on the latest G.I. Joe. Mark is working with much of the original cast from the '80s, but has returned the license to its comic book roots rather than the silliness of the late TV show.
He has done so well with this, that he has been able to launch his own title, Drafted, in which the human race is dragged into an interstellar war. He took a few minutes to talk to me about the project and our discussion can be found at Silver Bullet Comic Books. |
|
| I recently put out some feelers for artists that might be interested in GC-7 and got a pretty strong response. So far, these are the artists I'm looking at as possible partners for the project.
Diego Candie
Pow Rodrix
Cristian Valdes
Diego Tripodi
Adam Jolly
Marcello Balao
Gade Makako
Juan Silva
Ozzy Longora
Luis Guaragna
Jose Fonollosa
Lou Mana
Dario
These names aren't in any particularly order and don't even represent all of the interested parties. I've got an inbox filled with emails that I have yet to go through yet. What's going to be tough is separating those who are genuinely interested in the project from those who are willing to say that they are in order to get on a project. I think that in order to distinguish any project from the mass of competing projects, a genuine enthusiasm is going to be necessary. |
|
| So the Colorado Rockies are going to be in the World Series. I'm such a nerd that I didn't even know they were in the playoffs. On top of that, I didn't find out they were headed to the Series until I picked up my paper and saw two Rockies players on the front page, hugging each other like children. I've never been a big baseball fan (obviously) but you have to love that type of enthusiasm.
I may not be a manly, I-like-baseball man, but I still love a good Western. Page Four of The Reckoners is up. |
|
| There is such a thing as taking your art too far.
Recently in Mexico City, aspiring writer Jose Luis Calva was arrested after police found his girlfriend's dismembered torso in his apartment closet, her leg in the refrigerator, bones in a cereal box and flesh in his frying pan. Calva was apparently doing some research for his unfinished novel, Cannabalistic Instincts.
Is it wrong that when I read stuff life this I'm somewhat relieved America isn't the only country with people this crazy?
On a cheerier note, Page Eight of Mirror Man is up. More indecipherable psychedelics for you! |
|
| Busy, busy week. Among other things I had the pleasure of speaking with Mike Carey. We mostly talked about his latest project, Faker, but he also recommended a book entitled The White Darkness. His exact words were that the book was, "fucking brilliant." I plan on picking it up as soon as I finish Spook Country.
Page Three for The Reckoners has been updated. Gabriel has made some changes to the layout of the farm we discussed and inked the lines, making the page very different than the original sketch. |
|
| You can be forgiven if you've never heard of Red 5 Comics. It's a small, independent publisher that I might have missed if I hadn't received something by email regarding my editorial duties for Silver Bullet Comic Books. It'll be featured in Wizard Magazine this month, though, so hopefully a lot more people will know the name soon.
Anyway, Red 5 is putting together some interesting titles – fun stuff, suitable for all ages, which I think is a great thing in and of itself. My favorite of the titles coming out this month is Atomic Robo, a humorous, adventurous book that is two parts Indiana Jones and one part Iron Giant. The creators, Brian Clevinger and Scott Wegener were kind enough to sit down with me for a few minutes and talk about the project. You can read about it right over there.
In the mean time, I'm gearing up for my next rejection. You can check out the finalized Page Seven for Mirror Man. |
|
| Anyone who's knuckleheaded enough to think that science fiction hasn't become an art form in and of itself isn't paying attention. As evidence, I submit to you the following. | | While it may look like something out of The War of the Worlds it is in fact Mamam 1999, a sculpture created by Louise Bourgeois. Madam Bourgeois, I'm sure, would agree with me in my supposition that science fiction has embedded itself (perhaps beyond repair) into our collective unconscious.
The pencils for Page Five of The Reckoners is up. What do Westerns and science fiction have in common? Absolutely nothing. Unless you read Fear Agent. Which is great stuff. You should. Read it, I mean. |
|
| There's an interview up over at Silver Bullet Comic Books that I conducted with Brian Azzarello. Brian is a pretty busy guy, but he was kind enough to take some time out of his schedule to talk about his work on the titles Loveless and (my personal favorite) 100 Bullets.
Now with Azzarello being a prominent comics industry figure, I naturally took some time to do research before the interview so I wouldn't make a fool out of myself. During this research I had come across the rumor that Brian was a "difficult" interview. If you've heard such a rumor, allow me to say that it's a bunch of bullshit. Like most writers, Azzarello is a bit reticent to talk about himself. However, that doesn't translate into genuine assholery if you don't come into the conversation with your own preconceptions.
I think that's true of a lot of situations though. |
|
| Through the years, lawyers, poets, insurance adjusters, philosophers and even accountants have all wrestled with a basic question; what is the price of human life? How do we measure its value?
In the case of Colorado Crazies, you do it in candy. And it's worth about $25.
If you're not familiar with Colorado, you've most likely never heard of Greeley. It's a small cow town in the northeast part of the state. Typically, the only danger you would be in around Greeley is if you were standing downwind of the pastures. However, over the weekend a couple of officers ran into an equation that the country as a whole is trying to deal with; crazy people and guns equals bad juju.
Sent to an apartment complex to investigate the theft of $25 worth of candy from a local grocer, the two officers were greeted by gunfire when the resident opened his door and immediately began shooting with a pistol. While one officer was injured, fortunately both of them survived. The resident and purported candy thief wasn't so lucky. Whether he was killed by the officer or killed himself has yet to be released to the public. I'm not so sure it matters much.
I don't care if there's a significant portion of the citizenry of this country that wants to own firearms. However, is it too much to ask that we keep them out of the hands of the dangerously unbalanced?
The pencils for Page Three of The Reckoners is up. The brutal Stockholm climate has not kept Gabriel from producing some fine work. |
|
|
