the Lottery Party XV

the Lottery Party: Nostalgia

posted on February 25th, 2009 in Columns
by Richard Caldwell, Managing Editor

I remember the very first comic book store I frequented- it was called Musabelle’s, and it was then located towards the end of a strip mall in a small town outside of Houston, Texas.
Discovering the store in 1988, when I was maybe ten, the next four or so years that followed I spent as much time therein as any of the full-time employees, whose names time has somehow robbed from me.Musabelle’s was a true comic shoppe in that easily 95% of their inventory were actual comic books, with the remainder being relevant games and toys, manga but no anime. Nowadays it seems most comic shoppes are in actuality more hobby stores than anything else. While there was a single table in the back of the store for gamers, the staff of Musabelle’s catered ONLY to comic book fans, which is how it should be, for an institution to get away with truthfully calling itself a comic book store. To some of you this may be a case of semantics, but a spade is still a spade no matter how many unresolved Marvel plotlines you beat to death with it.
Musabelle’s was special though. What passed for my circle of friends at the time- we would make the walk straight from school everyday, most of us going two or three miles out of our way. In addition to the pull lists, we were allowed to read whatever we wanted, even to shop on credit. It was our library, our clubhouse, our home away from home. Our daily symposium would debate and critique everything on the stands. For guiding honest customers with suggestions to expand their growing tastes, we were allowed to deal with shoplifters our own way.
The owner and I pranked the store once. Spending a fifty dollar birthday check on a set list of comics, the very next day I gathered said books from the racks, from the longboxes, and very publicly ran out the door with my massive stash- seemingly robbing the store blind. I stayed away for a full week, my friends giving me daily updates on how the owner was out for my blood. They were scared at how I would recklessly get myself banned from the shoppe for life. When I finally returned, with the intentions of carrying through with a pre-rehearsed fight, the owner and I- making eye contact amidst a store full of people who were mystified at how and why I had gone so criminal- we burst out laughing so loudly that any newbies to the store must have thought we had gone mad as hatters. Great times.
On a return visit to the area in the mid-90’s, I found that Musabelle’s had changed location, as well as the majority of its staff. There were still a half dozen regulars sitting about like they were at home, but the faces were no longer familiar. The next generation was apparently up to bat, which was fine by me, as I had more than my fair share of past goofy memories. Memories of debating how Charles Xavier HAD to be the X-traitor, of weighing which of the books from this new company Image were really readable (I was a fan of Larsen and Valentino), to guessing where the respective Bat- and Spider- and Super- families of titles were likely headed with the next batch of kooky crossovers. Sharing in kindred geeky awe.
I share this in hopes of expressing how much I feel the comic book shoppe to be a valid link in the chain. Regardless, thanks in part to the growing dependency/obsession on increased technology as well as on the monetary woes of our national (and global) economy, such places are becoming dinosaurs. Everyone has heard of a comic book store, but these days, how many of you truly make use of such a resource? The personable experiences from such Mom and Pop outlets are never so adequately duplicated or matched by the anonymity of chatrooms and forums. And as the larger publishers faded out of the in-house subscriptions over the 90’s, mail order subscription services and pull lists have briefly filled that void, though with more online hosting and distribution, the trade of honest to god salesmanship is becoming a lost art. The comic book store has been and remains the pointman for the industry, the eye on the street and fly on the wall insofar as what the trends and waves are actually impacting.
This industry is still limited by too much of an apparent inferiority complex to ever be more than the sum of its parts, which means that every aspect must be tended to with the utmost of care and respect. The direct market has gone through a series of changes over recent decades, some good and evolutionary, and some merely the whims of greedy money men. Please, do not let the comic book shoppe die, not ever. Support your local store, support your local economy. Start your own damn pull list, and let your retailer know loud and clear exactly which of the plethora of books not Hollywood enough to be acknowledged by the Diamond Comics Distributors (read:motherfuckers) are worth their ordering.Failure to do this will NOT maintain any degree of diversity, not in modes of distribution, and certainly not in terms of creative offerings of what’s on sale every Wednesday.
Take a damn stand already. Create memories for the next generation that can be reached even when the zombies rise up and the internet dies forever.

Comic book stores rock.

richardcaldwell@comicnews.info

Shrapnel: Aristeia Rising 2

Comic Book Reviews: Shrapnel: Aristeia Rising

posted on February 14th, 2009 in Reviews

Shrapnel: Aristeia Rising #2
Created by Mark Long & Nick Sagan
Written by M. Zachary Sherman
Illustrated by Bagus Hutomo Rahardjo & Leos “Okita” Ng
Published by Radical Publishing
Reviewed by Richard Caldwell

The story of Shrapnel is excruciatingly epic in scale.
Set amidst the tail-end of an interplanetary war, the Earth Alliance is closing in hard on the last free colony, on Venus. Bombarded by Marines, the Venusian colonists are losing fast, until one woman- Samantha Vajaya, is forced by extreme circumstances to reconcile her past for the future survival and freedom of everyone around her. Vajaya was once a Marine herself, and is haunted by the brutal memories that years of war tend to provoke in persons possessing of conscience. Regardless, she is made to realize that her skill, her experience, are the only chance the colonists have.
This is epic, really. This is high-quality, high-concept science fiction at its very best.
If you were a fan of the short-lived television series Space: Above and Beyond, from creators Glen Morgan and James Wong, then this may well be for you. If you were disgusted by the drivel that director Paul Verhoeven instilled in Robert Heinlein’s Starship Troopers, this may well be for you.
As the United States Marines are fulfilling the role of aggressors here, enforcing the laws of the Earth Alliance for “the betterment of all mankind” and so clearly and violently overlooking the freedoms of those who see things differently, is this a timely meditation on the arguably synonymous and ongoing Middle Eastern conflicts of today’s real world? No. I believe this is a thoughtful meditation on the difficult decisions, the shear ugliness prevalent in ALL wars. Nobody ever sees themself as the villain, though lives are lost no matter which side is pulling the trigger. War is hell, in the obvious terms of physical devastations though also in terms of the emotional, as personably executed here by the strong character of Vajaya. Her internal war is every bit as abrasive and impossible as the alien fields of armored monstrosities and explosions through which she must now guide the colonists.
The imagery of this comic is astounding. Though at times the finer details of the story may be a bit lost in the widespread scenes of Venusian battlefield confusion and armored soldiers blasting each other to kingdoms come; the frames seem so much more like shots from a big budget science fiction movie than from a four-colored traditional comic book experience. While the setting may be of the fantastic, the dimensions are kept quite realistic- the people look like people, and indeed the quiter scenes seemed to have more of an impact on my reading experience. Do not get me wrong, however- dark and storm-clouded, this is what a future war SHOULD look like.

Shrapnel: Aristeia Rising promises to be the start of an epic space fantasy. Like Vajaya herself, this work looks to be off and running in the right direction. Superb.

the vagaries of equilibrium

In general annoyance of the holiday, my energies are focused on more realistic concerns.

Twouldst seem that my hard work and time spent on the interview with Mike Grell have been well met. The success of that piece will directly affect the chances for my number two in the Spotlight series hatched by myself and the good Alex Ness. Grell is a fantastic human being.

I have two other interviews in varied stages of dress, both with creators whose work I honestly believe deserve further attentions. In a niche dominated by the rampant Uncle Tomfoolery and unashamed cocksuckery of the larger media sites (newsarama/comicbookresources/aintitcoolnews), I am pleased that our growing staff at comicnews.info are fighting the good fight. Randy Myers, one of my finds, has had a column spin off into a thread at the Whitechapel forums. Good for him. And now we have our thirteenth, in the lovely form of the business-minded Ms Belkis, whose blog Gary and I have been faithful followers of for some time now.

We are nigh finished with hammering out the last of the glitches in the new template for the site, and the end product suits us well, I think. Gary has realized his preference for unearthing film news over comic books, just as I have realized I would rather pull back from reviews; all of which will lead to some minor alterations in routine for the core team at play. So as of now, the staff and roles executed shall be:

Gary Rodrigue, Editor in Chief, weekly column- the Sunday Stroll;
Richard Caldwell, Managing Editor, biweekly column- the Lottery Party, monthly side column- Gaslights Web'd;
Jaymes Reed, columnist, irregular column- Digital Captions;

Andrew Bearden, reviewer- biweekly film & television (teevee, cartoons, dvd's, video games, movie reviews);
Joseph Copeli, reviewer- comic book reviews;
Philip Eaves, reviewer- comic book reviews;
Che Gilson, reviewer- biweekly film & television (teevee, cartoons, dvd's, video games, movie reviews);

Gus Higuera, columnist, weekly column- the Wonder of Comics (web-centric coverage);
Kev McHugh, columnist, biweekly column- Fetch Me a Top Hat;
Randy Myers, columnist, biweekly column- From the Frontlines (retailer coverage);
Joshua Pierce, columnist, weekly column- Should You be Reading This? (non-mainstream/monthlies);
Steven Surman, columnist, biweekly column- Outsider's Art (investigative);

and the details for Ms Belkis we are still developing, though her contribution will likely be a monthly column focusing on marketing and promotions coverage.

So the house is built.

As for personal works, I will be delivering bad news to Molly Crabapple regarding this, my third pseudo-project for the Art Monkeys. It will lead to some disappointment for her, though not aimed at me. Due to the 118 hours worked weekly at my other job, coupled with growing responsibilities at comicnews.info, I have no choice but to take this time to resign from additional Art Monkey assignments.
I am still working on the story for the upcoming Winterlands anthology.
I am also still awaiting release details with regards to the article I wrote for a European mag recently.
And for comicnews, I am researching information for a couple of conventions later in the year.

Time to take this show on the road.

louisville

louEVIL is l'vile!

a commentary from the belly button of the bible belt


I have resided in this towne off and on since December, 1992; although more often than not my modest travels have kept me elsewheres.

I live here now because I hate this towne, hate the people here, hate everything it represents- which is to say everything inherently wrong with this country today. The handful of present corporate powers that be run the towne, namely the international Hub for UPS, the corporate HQ for Yum! brands trash food, and the Ford plant (currently laying off a few hundred more employees). Nothing big happens here without their active participation.
Best known as home for the Kentucky Derby, in which the towne gives itself a temporary facelift every year (refunneling resources to do so while neglecting basic public services such as garbage pick up) just to milk as many tourist dollars as possible for the reward of watching animals run around in a circle. To paraphrase the great Gonzo journalist who was born and raised hereabouts and who had the sense never to return (aside from a select number of unannounced and so unpublicized visits to his aging mother)- "the Kentucky Derby is decadent and depraved". Indeed.
Due largely to the actions of the crackdealer mentalities of said corporate boards, as well as the recurring ineptitudes of the local Republican Party, Louisville is among the forefront of the ongoing and increasingly dire economic recession; only here- we are entering the fringes of an all-out Depression.
Over the last three months of this last year, seventy-seven restaurants alone closed up shoppe. The city (whose current government consists of a merger from just a few years ago of city and county governments) has been cutting budgets for both the police department and the fire department, to the point of half a dozen fire station houses closing their doors for good. The local schoolboard as well has had over a million dollars cut from its budget for this year.
All of this is further confounded by the utilities monopoly held by LG&E, the prime source for the county's gas and electric power. Board members of LG&E have been (privately) major contributors to the assorted and sordid campaigns of Republican senator Mitch McConnell. Make of that what you will.

Then you throw in the wrath of Mama Nature...
In September of '08, violent windstorms swept through the city, knocking out power of a third (if not more) of its residents for a solid two weeks (if not more). The fact this news was not more fully acknowledged at the national level says something for which embarrassed Party actually controls the Media/Beast of the Apocalypse. Reconstructions from those damages, in some parts of towne (curiously, the ones primarily inhabited by minorities) are still continuing.
In January of this year, icestorms knocked the city back to its collective knees; some are still living without utilities. A few days ago, a late-winter's windstorm rubbed our faces in the mud some more. The city of Louisville's incapacity to deal with the crises in any but a codgerly spendthrift and hypocritical manner is revolting. People are beginning to move, hoping to find a "regular" life somewhere, anywhere else.


On a personal level, my elder sister was brutally murdered here in September of 2000. I have since followed disgustedly the weekly, at times daily, public examples of a police force ill-equipped in dealing with problems in any evolved way other than excessive usages of gunfire towards unarmed citizenry. Generally, as with the case of the cop car which sped without lights or sirens through not only a red light, but through the eleven persons then crossing the street, such incidents are "resolved" by giving said officer seven to nine months of paid leave before eventually being found not guilty of criminal charges. I was an eyewitness at that case, and if interested I can quote over four dozen incidents of similar distaste of the past nine years.
Until a couple of years ago, I tried actively to organize and participate in demonstrations and rallies for everything from spreading awareness of Domestic Violence-related issues to solemn protesting of the multitude of examples of police brutality. Because of my actions, I have had both jobs and homes taken away from me. I have been harassed on countless occasions. Vehicles and homes of friends have been suffered by illegal searches as well, so of course the number of current local friends can easily be counted on one hand, leaving enough digits to give the city of Louisville the bird.

As much as I hate this setting, as much as I have tried to find ways to honestly better it by the meager blue-collar means barely at my own disposal, to see the state of things today is actually a very frightening thing.
I wish I could share the youth-like idealism of some of my confidants. I really, truly do.
As much as I believe, that if inbreeding led to Centaurs- then how fantastic would this city be! You can just smell the darkness of times to come.

and it smells like a funeral pyre.

A Spotlight Interview with Mike Grell part 2

In this two-part interview (the first of a special new spotlight series co-produced by Alex Ness), Richard Caldwell talks with industry legend Mike Grell.
The celebrated writer/artist’s long list of credits include such diverse works as the Legion of Superheroes and Starslayer to Green Arrow and James Bond; and among many other achievements, his creation of The Warlord is soon to be revitalized for the character’s 35th Anniversary at DC Comics.

A Spotlight Interview with Mike Grell (part 2)

R- One of my favorite works of yours was Shaman’s Tears. The related properties have bounced around different publishers from the 90’s on. It seemed to be much more of a spiritual and poetic approach to storytelling, almost idealistic I think, even though the worldview was just as grim as in Jon Sable or Green Arrow.
Was it frustrating that the books didn’t take on better at the time?

M- It was frustrating that I came in just as the bubble burst. That was really unfortunate.
The sales of the very first issue were enormous. We sold about, I think around half a million copies of issue #1. Issue #2 sold about a quarter of a million. By the time issue #3 came out- that was closer to my run on Green Arrow- I think 80-100 thousand. And, the bubble burst. It went from decent sales down to minimal sales down to losing our butts every month. The last four issues published actually lost money every month. I wasn’t in the wrong- it wasn’t that the books were ill-received, and it wasn’t the audience that I had. It was just that the trend by that point was towards the collectible.
Whoever came up with the concept of selling comic books in a plastic bag sealed did the entire comic industry a great disservice, because if you have a book in a sealed bag you can never read it. And if you don’t read it then there’s no real point in you collecting it unless you are just in it for the money. The reality is that something that’s printed in editions of a half million is never really going to be worth anything, except under really extraordinary circumstances.
The reason that Golden Age comics are so valuable is because most of them were ground up for pulp for the paper drives during WW2; and the reason Silver Age comics are so valuable is that most of our mothers threw ours away when we went off to college. I know mine did! I used to go back and torment my mom by telling her what that Spider Man #1 is worth right now, you know- the one she threw away that was under my bed.
The first time someone bought one of those books on speculation thinking he would invest 3 dollars and within a year it would be worth 300 dollars- the first time that guy walked into a comic shop with what he thought was a 300 dollar comic and said, “I’d like to sell this back to you,” the guy in the shop probably reached under the counter and pulled out a stack a foot high and said, “I got all you want for 50 cents each”. And that’s when that bubble burst. Everybody realized it was this great pyramid scheme- there was just nothing holding it up. Marvel Comics went into bankruptcy. Image Comics all but failed and had to restructure its organization. Nobody could maintain it. The more bound they were to a certain collector mentality as opposed to a solid readership, the less willing people were to put up with it; but that’s one of those things- you live and you learn.

R- Could you now see yourself leaning more towards online presentations for certain works, like how the entire Shaman’s Tears series can be read at the comicmix site?

M- Certain works do really well online, I think. The online model is really gearing more towards producing books that will go in bookstores, like trade collections. That’s the reason they are going up there. DC comics is online now (with an elaborate site and via its Zuda imprint). Marvel has an online-based subscription system for its archives. They meet viewers that way. In general, I would be surprised if everything you see appearing online doesn’t ultimately end up in a bookstore, or at least try to end up there. In the long term, in the long run, that’s what these need to be strong.

R- I hope so. I’m old fashioned enough to prefer the musty comics, you know?

M- Oh, me too. I’d love it if we went back to printing them on newsprint. I like the idea of a comic book that will fall apart after years of use.

R- The only thing that comicmix seems to be missing though is some kind of equivalent to the letters pages that have run in every series you’ve ever done that Mike Gold edited up. They’re infamous at times, and I think through all the comics you’ve done you have maintained a strong relation with your fanbase.

M- That letter column Gold did started way back when, and has been interpersonal like that. He made it seem to the fans that we were not only paying attention to what was going on, but we were also taking some of their advice and views and responding to their letters in a way that would often surprise them. We wouldn’t just print positive letters- we’d print negative letters. There’s nothing that Mike Gold and I like better than taking a stick and poking a hornet’s nest just to see what’s gonna come out. We don’t pretend to have all the answers- we have lots of questions; and if you stir up enough people and get them to talking then eventually someone will come up with the answers to the entire problem. That’s sort of the great thing about mutual correspondence.

R- I halfway wonder if that’s not one of the reasons people are talking of monthlies dying out- not that I think that will ever happen; but that kind of editorial and creative presence is missing, I think, from a lot of today’s comics.

M- Yeah I think that is part of that problem. There are these comment pages for people who get online to write in, but there’s not really any letters pages in comics anymore like there used to be. It is too bad- you might get an editorial page, with a checklist and a little insider information or something like that.
Geez, when I was a kid I always read the letters pages because it was interesting to see what other kids, other readers were thinking about and to see the editors’ reaction.
There were several guys in the industry who got in and became pros because they were letter writers to begin with, like Martin Pasko. Marty Pasko had the nickname ‘Pesky Pasko’ because he delighted in pointing out mistakes that other writers made. He would write fan letter after fan letter to Julie Schwartz, and after awhile, Julie said, “If you think you can do better, why don’t you?” That started him off on his career. Elliot Maggin- pretty much the same thing- wrote a Green Lantern/Green Arrow story as a thesis project in college, and sent it to Julie Schwartz for review. Schwartz liked it and put him to work. So, stuff like that actually does happen.

R- I think nowadays it’s more confined to online chat forums. It’s almost like there’s aspects of the industry that are jumping ahead too fast, like it’s an old versus new kind of thing.
Which, it’s nice in that sense that your Warlord book is making the comeback here, for its 35th Anniversary. How were you approached for that?

M- I actually made the approach myself. I had been doing some cover work for DC and had a good conversation with a couple of the editors over there, and I had pointed out that the 35th Anniversary of the Warlord was coming up.
My pitch for it I had already written, because originally I had done it for the 25th Anniversary. We were waiting on scheduling and had the green light when Archie Goodwin, who was the editor, passed away. Mike Carlin took over and after five months of being stalled I was finally able to meet with Carlin to discuss the scheduling and he killed the project. So out went that route.
Once I let it be known that I had this Warlord project ready to go, Dan Didio got really excited about it. Dan’s a big Warlord fan, and he’s probably the best guy now to run DC Comics because he’s such a comics fan himself. He loves comics. He was as disappointed as anyone else that the revised Warlord didn’t fly; but he was smart enough to realize that there were elements missing. I guess he felt one of the things missing was Mike Grell. When I talked to him, I was actually just pitching a six-issue mini series, and he came back and asked if I would do a monthly. I said “Yeah. Heck, yeah! No problem.”

R- Will you be drawing the relaunch as well?

M- I’m doing the covers and writing the scripts. I may be drawing some issues, but just recently we got the artists signed. Joe Prado will be doing the pencils, and Walden Wong will be doing the inking.
The unfortunate thing with the timing is that in order to qualify as a 35th Anniversary- it’s got to come out sometime in 2009; and I have a prior commitment to a project called “The Pilgrim” over at comicmix.com. So were I to draw the Warlord it would be pushed back to the tail end of 2009, and I don’t want anyone to wait that long.

R- I think everyone has waited long enough on this one.

M- Well, it’s gonna be an exciting story, exciting for me! I certainly had enough time to think about it, plot it out, plan it out Instead of it being what is referred to these days as a ‘reboot’, where you take the character and recreate everything, starting over from scratch and changing certain things about the origin for the sake of modernization, what I have done is simply picked up where I left off. The nature of the character and the nature of the world that he lives allows for that. In fact, I’m making no small bones about the fact that he has been down there for all of this length of time. It works within the context of Skartaris because basically what you’ve got is a Shangri-La where people grow older but they don’t age the way people on the surface age. Age being largely a question of mental and physical activity. If your mind stays sharp, if your body stays in shape and you still take care of yourself- it’s possible to be a powerful and athletic and vital individual well into your later years.
You take a look at, for instance, Kirk Douglas when he played Spartacus. Of course he was in great shape- he was in his 40’s then, but you also saw him years later and he was still incredibly physically fit. Ricardo Montalban just passed away. He was another great example. He played Khan on the original Star Trek series; and twenty years later he played the same character again, and he was every bit as charismatic and powerful and played that role so well.
In my version of Skartaris, the reason people there don’t age is because they are unaware of the passage of time. They have no way of measuring the passage of time because the interior sun at the Earth’s core hangs right in the middle and it’s always noon as far as they’re concerned. So when they fall asleep and wake up- they don’t know if an hour has passed, or a day or week or year or however long it might have been. So it becomes the sort of Einsteinian relative passing of time. It’s relative to your specific situation, and these people have just let time pass them by.

R- Of your body of work, what’s your biggest regret?

M- I won’t say this is my biggest regret, but I have kicked myself in the butt a few times over the years. Chris Claremont and I go way, way back. Just about the time I was beginning Sable he asked me when I’d want to get together and do mutants, and I passed! I passed on it and of course, didn’t bother to stop and think he had flown there in his Lear jet. So there’s definitely a regret there.
For the rest of it, there have been a couple of things that have slipped by while I was looking in the other direction. I always thought that I would like to be a good enough artist to draw Prince Valiant, or Superman, for that matter. The reason I say Superman is because having seen the amazing work that Curt Swan had done on those books- I know I’d never hold a candle to it. The only man I ever knew who could draw a group of people standing around a water cooler and make it LOOK like a group of people standing around a water cooler. When he drew Superman and Clark Kent, when he drew Clark Kent- yeah it was Superman in a suit, but he was different. He had a different posture, different attitude- everything about him; and Lois Lane was just amazingly pretty when he drew her.

R- There is an understated grace to his style.

M- Yes, yes- amazing!

R- So even though you are drawing the actor Mark Ryan’s script for the Pilgrim at comicmix, and we have the new Warlord ongoing to look forward to, are there any plans of ever returning to some of your other creations, like Jon Sable or Stalking Wolf?

M- Yes! I have another Sable story planned, the outline’s pretty much done for it; and I’ve got another Sable novel about one-third complete…

R- Fantastic!

M- …and a film deal to finalize before we go on with that. I have a screenplay written based on Shaman’s Tears that is getting reviewed. I would like to go back and do more Shaman’s Tears stories, as that one had a lot of directions to go in.

R- I think some of its environmental and ecological themes, I mean, they’re just as valid now as they were 10, 15 years ago; and unless certain national politics change it’s gonna remain valid for some years to come.

M- I don’t see things changing so dramatically that it will no longer be pertinent. I think it’s something that will still be important 5 years, 10 years from now; though I’m certainly more hopeful for our future now than I was before.

Note- To see more (and/or for purchase inquiries) of Mike’s original art, Scott Kress of Catskill Comics would be happy to assist. http://www.catskillcomics.com/grell.htm
I would like to thank Alex Ness for his instigation, and Mike Grell for not shooting me.
Images of Green Arrow and the Warlord all copyrighted by DC Comics.

http://www.mikegrell.com/
http://www.catskillcomics.com/
http://www.comicmix.com/

A Spotlight Interview with Mike Grell part 1

In this two-part interview (the first of a special new spotlight series co-produced by Alex Ness), Richard Caldwell talks with industry legend Mike Grell.
The celebrated writer/artist’s long list of credits include such diverse works as the Legion of Superheroes and Starslayer to Green Arrow and James Bond; and among many other achievements, his creation of The Warlord is soon to be revitalized for the character’s 35th Anniversary at DC Comics.

A Spotlight Interview with Mike Grell (part 1)

R- Mike, you have been in the business, coming up to 40 years now?

M- Yeah, and it sure feels like it! Actually, I’ve been in this business for a year longer than the Warlord, so- 36 years. I started in ‘73.

R- Prior to all of that- before you went off to the art schools even- when you were a kid, did you read a lot of comics?

M- Oh, of course. I think when I was growing up, comics were being invented. I was growing up in the real Golden Age. When I was a kid, I read all of the Carl Barks- Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge and that kind of thing. I remember my dad had a box of comics. He had the original Captain America, Human Torch, Submariner- all of that kind of stuff. They were pretty well raggedy because they had been read so many times; but it was great stuff.

And then of course, I was of the age for all of the Silver Age stuff, when it was first starting up. I bought the first issues of Spider Man, and the Fantastic Four, and all the stuff that came out right about then. Up until the point where I became really, intensely interested in girls. I left comic books behind then pretty much altogether, so I missed the huge revolution there that followed.

It wasn’t until I was in Saigon in ‘70, ‘71 that a guy by the name of Ed Savage showed up with a stack of his favorite comic books in hand. Among those were Green Lantern/Green Arrow, done by Denny O’Neil and Neal Adams and Dick Giordano, and I was flabbergasted. I was just really stunned because the ‘comic book’ had changed so dramatically from the time where I was reading. The drawings were real well done; they were nowhere near as cartoony anymore, and the stories and characters were much more real and believable.

I was in the Air Force as an illustrator, and I was at that time taking Famous Artists School’s correspondence course in cartooning, with the idea that I’d become a newspaper strip artist and do humor strips, like the next Al Capp. Taking a look at Green Lantern/Green Arrow I decided that that was what I really wanted to do.

R- Are you really a big game hunter, or is that just part of the mystique of the public persona of Mike Grell?

M- No, I really do do that stuff. I grew up in northern Wisconsin, and in an area that was then ranked dead-tie for first place of the ten most depressed areas of the United States. If your dad didn’t hunt, then you didn’t eat meat. My dad was a lumberjack and was always employed in some fashion while raising three boys, so with everything else, he hunted and I grew up in that environment.

I’ve been to Africa a couple of times. I spent 18 nights in a tree in Africa trying to ambush a certain leopard. Never got him, but it was a fun time. We had leopards on the bait every night, but it wasn’t the one we were looking for.

I once went ten solid years without ever firing a shot. It’s not about whether or not I’d shoot a deer or something like that; but it’s a great excuse to get out into the woods.

R- Have you gone bow-hunting?

M- Yes, I was an avid archer when I was a kid. If you read Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters, that scene with Oliver Queen as a kid with a stick bow and arrows down his shirt- that was me. That was me and my brothers, actually. If you didn’t have a bow- you made it. If we didn’t have arrows, we’d make them out of sticks. I had sort of gotten away from archery during the Air Force and art schools. I did resume, however.

R- I remember the very first comic of yours I picked up with my own money. It was Jon Sable #16. The cover was just so, minimalistic almost- it was just so different from any of the superhero comics that I was reading then. It really pulled me in (and the two-page spread of Maggie the Cat helped, as well), and of course from then on I was a diehard fan of the Sable books.
There is a lot of Ian Fleming to him, a lot of Mickey Spillane.

M- Yeah, I was a huge Spillane fan, and I had read all of the Ian Fleming books- all the James Bond stuff.
Just looking at my own website here to see what the cover to #16 looked like…

R- It was with the cat’s paw prints going up the cover.

M- Oh yeah! You know- that was a really fun cover to do. It was the ‘Return of the Cat’, one of the first Maggie the Cat stories. The first time I did a cover with Maggie was Sable #11, and I had just the woman and the cat on the cover; and the Editor, Mike Gold, responded, “Wait, you’re gonna put a cover out there that doesn’t have a hero on it?”

“Yeah, yeah I want to.” I had to fight a little bit for that one but I got it through; and it turned out to be very popular. Though the one with the cat paw prints- I didn’t actually paint that- my cat did. I had painted her feet with poster paints and set her on a black board. I had to get her to walk across a few times to get those prints. The painting part only took a minute or two, but getting her clean again was a bit more of a chore.

In case you’re wondering how you wash poster paint off a cat’s paws- the proscribed method is to put about two inches of water in the bathtub, grab the cat, drop her in and slam the door before she can escape. When the thrashing stops, she’s generally clean.

R- Maybe a little upset for awhile afterwords?

M- Yeah, she wouldn’t talk to me for the longest time after that.

R- So to expand on Sable a little bit, and especially regarding your work on the Green Arrow series- something that has attracted a lot of people to your work is the very adult voice that you manage. Like how you mentioned before of your first ‘grown up’ encounter with comics- you kind of realized they had grown up as well. In a lot of ways- you yourself have carried on that mantle, with fans.
You don’t ever write down to your audience, and we thank you for that.

M- I don’t. I absolutely don’t. I think that is the biggest mistake you can make, to try and write down to the audience. If you underestimate the intelligence of your readers, it will just turn everything around. It doesn’t take long for them to catch wise to that.

The reason I try to do that, is basically I write for an audience of one. I write for myself, the types of stories that I would like to read; and I am just lucky to have fallen in to a broad range of readership. We did a survey way back when, during Jon Sable: Freelance, and discovered that my average audience was between 18 and 25 years old. These days, I would say they’re older- extend that on up to the 40’s, but with a couple of years of college, middle income brackets. People who are looking for a story that is interesting and exciting, but not dumb. There used to be more of a myth that comics were being written for a nine or ten year old audience, and back in the 70’s the industry began to change really dramatically. People were writing more intelligent comics, allowing them to keep their audiences longer.

Right now actually, one thing that is missing from the comic industry are comics that appeal to young readers. The younger audiences are sort of left out now, because there aren’t really any great entry level comics.

That is why Shrek was so popular, you know? Shrek is a terrific movie for kids, but it’s really an adult movie- it’s done at an adult level. The kids can get it to a certain extent, and the adults get it for darn sure. So it’s possible to cross these lines, and get all the people to read the story.

R- I guess Hollywood can have a lot to do with that, with selling this huge property; but when fans track down the source materials, sometimes it’s a different creature I guess. There is misrepresentation everywhere.

M- Yeah, oh yeah. That’s almost always the case. It certainly happened with Sable. The television series they did on Sable was so unlike the comic book, it was clear the people doing it did not grasp the concept.

Sable was actually a reversal of all the comic book stereotypes. Your standard comic book hero is by day a mild-mannered fill in the blank, and by night the dark avenger. So I took Sable and turned him completely 180 degrees. He’s always ‘Mr Blood and Guts’, everybody knows he’s ‘Mr Blood and Guts’. You look in the phonebook under blood/guts and there is a photograph of Jon Sable. The unique thing about him is that he writes children’s books. He uses a pen name because bloodthirsty mercenaries don’t write children’s books, and that’s his big secret. The only time he ever dresses in anything resembling a disguise is when he has to make a personal appearance as “B.B. Flemm”; and that’s just to save himself the embarrassment of going out in public as the author of this children’s series.

When ABC got their hands on it, they said, “No, no, no- you’ve got it all wrong. See, we’ve got a better idea- By DAY he’s a mild-mannered children’s author and by NIGHT- get this, this is totally unique- he becomes the dark avenger”. So they reversed my reversal to make him exactly like every other comic book-type character, and it sucked so bad it was cancelled after the second episode. They actually shot and broadcast six, but it was canned after the second.

The only good thing that came out of that was Rene Russo making her acting debut. There were quite a lot of memorable performers involved in it, and some really great people involved on the tech side; and they were all immediately snapped up by other series, other studios, when it was cancelled. Rene of course was wonderful and became a giant superstar.

R- Have there ever been any motions to get maybe a dvd collection release of the episodes, even the ones that weren’t officially released?

M- They have been bootlegged all over the world. I would be surprised if you couldn’t go to a comic convention and buy a copy of it. They were all broadcast, in just about every English-speaking country, and so far as I know- in Spain and Brazil as well.

R- Neat. Now with the Iron Man property, after so many decades of the writers trying to conceal what it is that Tony Stark is actually up to, in your time on that title you came right out and said, “No, let him go public”. That caught on well enough and was even incorporated into the blockbuster movie, like there you were somewhere ahead of the beat.

M- Thank god. If you’re not ahead of the beat, then you’re just copying someone else.

I had wanted to do that because I thought that realistic character development called for it, and over the years there was a certain silliness involved with Tony Stark trying to keep this secret. He wasn’t fooling anybody, especially when reaching the point where Stark was being drawn like a more muscular version of Schwarzenegger. I mean, Stark at one point had a head the size of a fist, and a 24 inch neck, and bulging muscles under his suit- and you’re supposed to accept that this guy’s an intellectual? That he’s a brain throwing around money instead of putting the armor on? Not terribly likely. So I thought it was the right timing, right for the character, and had the approval from the editors at Marvel Comics behind it to expose the secret identity for good.

The way I chose to do it was that instead of having him forced to show his hand, like saving the city from some fierce disaster or something like that- he did it to save a puppy. He did it, and it wasn’t so much for the puppy, it was for a little boy. He had a choice, he had a capability, and for him it wasn’t worth watching this puppy get rolled over in the street just to protect his identity. And of course that was following an intense ordeal with Pepper and he was thinking of all the possibilities that might have been had they gotten together. This situation prompted him to help the boy.

R- You were just trying to give him a more realistic/humanistic approach.

M- Right. The thing I wanted to emphasize was the man inside the suit of armor. The armor is what protects him, but it also isolates him from the world. There is a cause and effect there. If you surround yourself with an armored shell, you are protecting yourself from anyone harming you, but you’re also shutting out the people you want to have close to you. That’s what I saw happening to Tony Stark, so I brought back the thing about his heart being powered by the same power units that are powering his suit; and that it’s possible for him to use up all of his energy and burn out. That’s something I just thought was a great bit in the original Iron Man, that he had to recharge every 24 hours. I cut it down so that in certain circumstances he could inadvertently use up so much power he’d be in danger of losing his own life.
That comes back to the thing about how he’d make the sacrifice if the cause is just.

R- Like a real hero ought to.

Note- To see more (and/or for purchase inquiries) of Mike’s original art, Scott Kress of Catskill Comics would be happy to assist. http://www.catskillcomics.com/grell.htm
This two part interview shall conclude tomorrow. I would like to thank Alex Ness for his instigation, and Mike Grell for not shooting me.
Images of Green Arrow and the Warlord are copyrighted by DC Comics.

www.mikegrell.com
http://www.catskillcomics.com/
http://www.comicmix.com/

the Lottery Party XIV

Chivalry and the Law of Fives

posted on February 11th, 2009 in Columns
by Richard Caldwell, managing editor

Station!
For something less stress-filled than the recent NYCC hodgepodge, may I present this dialogue between my imaginary friend and myself…

R- What was the very first comic you ever read, and how does it relate to quantum mechanics?

X- Read rather than just looked at, was a Superman story wherein Superman goes to an alien planet and loses his powers but adapts to funky wings made from his cape and inspires a revolution, or something. It was not great by any means, but I remember it. My first comic read that I loved was Turok, Son of Stone #77, which I bought at the hospital gift store to spend my time while my father was in the cardiac ward after a massive heart attack. In it, Turok and Andar are grabbed and taken prisoner by a bunch of ape-like cavemen. It was tremendous fun, and was read to shreds.
I am unaware if either fits into quantum mechanics theory other than by giving a young outcast sort of kid a groove that was bound to spread on into the atom and molecule realm with positive energy. Then again, maybe I altered reality by being allowed to imagine new things.

R- What is your favorite John Byrne story?

X- Well John Byrne the person has as many stories about him as there are those he himself created. My favorite John Byrne story in comics work is probably the run in Marvel Team Up where he illustrated Chris Claremont. Very few stories that are done in one compare to that run, because they were short, good and gone.
On the other hand, a single story about John Byrne is far different. None are my favorites. I suspect he lingered in jealousy when people began to forget about his many great runs on comics, and became bitter over it. He retains his talent- he is still a good storyteller, but I find his current curmudgeonly personae to be horrible. Hmmm, how about when he chastised the accuracy of the newspaper- the Onion, clearly misunderstanding that it was parody and satire. He came off with that as being an oaf, ill-informed and humorless.

R- Could his current status be symbolic of an evolutionary growth spurt for the medium? Out with the old, in with the new? Or to go further- say in five years, when the corporate executives finally have their way: monthlies are no longer being produced, so Mom and Pop comic shoppes have gone the way of Beta tape players and laser discs, real art is freely censored by the federal government, and the number of webcomics uploaded outnumber the population- will any sane person have any business continuing with the funny book obsession?

X- I think John Byrne’s fall from super stardom does show a natural condition in the industry of comics, that is, you see younger artists with far less ability garnering more praise than the tried and true… mostly I think because comics are a visual artform and that in that, when you look at any artist- old or new- for a long enough period of time, few remain fresh. I’d argue that for me Timothy Truman, Jack Kirby, Moebius and Grell all remain fresh, but that is because, perhaps, they play right to my tastehouse. Most lose appeal over time because their talents reach a plateau and you never see new poses, new ideas, however good the place they reached was.
I also think that the evolutionary state of the comic industry is not one of death but transformation, and by evolutionary theory law, those who do not adapt will fall away. Byrne has more talent in his enormous asshole than a great many new artists have in their entire body. The problem is, he refuses to change with the times. Perhaps he is a Tyrannosaurus Rex fighting a modern tank. He might succeed, and it would be brilliant to watch, but more likely, not out of ability or desire, he will lose just from the technology and wave of energy from the modernity.

R- Studying human anatomy beyond the latest Playboy is very demanding for too many of today’s artists. They can only give us so much. Even in the age of cheap plastic surgeries, how new can we really make the human representation thereof?
Speaking of which, what do you think of Alan Moore’s assertion that comic books will soon begin to more broadly embrace sexuality on levels comparable to the violent bloodlust exhibited as a manner of therapy by the many comic professionals who were beat up once too often in youth for looking at pictures of guys in tights?

X- I offer you Rob Liefeld as an example of someone who, for all the possibility that he is a nice guy, seems unable to escape shitty anatomy; but then would offer you Ted McKeever as being a great artist. His work shows no love of accurate anatomy. Why is one great and the other not even ok? Because the goal in comics is to tell stories. If we were talking about the greatest single panel of comics as say a static poster shot, the list of great artists would well outnumber the great COMIC BOOK artists. Sequential storytelling though, for as much as it has taken hits as a children’s medium, requires an extra step for an artist. If you offered me a great artist who is a poor story teller or a great story teller who is not a great artist, I’d take the storyteller EVERY time. Steve Ditko and Jack Kirby are beloved, not because of their art per se, but how in the context of the great storytelling their art is.
I love many Alan Moore-written stories, but I doubt comics will go blue. The society in general isn’t ready, or frankly, interested. However, I believe that issues of sexuality will have a greater voice, because we’ve reduced the amount of taboo in society, and we are, for the most part, all sexual beings. So if a hero is gay, that is part of existence. If a victim was buggered for being perceived as being weak, well that happens too. Though sexual self expression therapy via comics won’t be a widespread thing.

R- Society will never reduce all of its taboos, not completely. Religious fanatics with deep pockets guarantee that eight days week.
That said, when Marvel and DC are forced to merge to survive the upcoming economic Depression, will the Doom Patrol allow Howard the Duck membership?

X- Taboos are important. I mean, in the early 1900’s it was considered extreme for a woman to smoke. In the 1800’s you never saw a woman’s ankle. We have to keep these social inventions to protect our males from excessive horniness or the world will face overpopulation.
The Doom Patrol by its very charter is required to allow all freaks entry. So yes, but I suspect Howard would not wish to get in. He is more a Defender than Doom Patroller.
On the other hand I think Dick Cheney should be invited into the Doom Patrol. He doesn’t even need an alter ego, his ego is so enormous, he would be a monster unto himself.

R- I think quantum mechanics would explain how a real life politiko technocrat might find his name mentioned in an online conversation regarding the mythical adjoining of two fiercely competitive companies. I would even suggest that Woodgod, although a fictional character from the House of Ideas, would do a better job as Secretary of Defense. He totally fought off the evil Roxxon corporation, and he did it on his own. No inhumane gestapos. No closed door meetings to redefine the Bill of Rights. By relying on the merits of his own superhuman fisticuffs, the fictional Woodgod proved himself to be more American than any sleazy politician could ever come close to matching. In your heart, you know it’s true.
If violence can sometimes solve problems, and quantum mechanics can be as violent as the rest of nature, mind you- then why can sex not be just as adequate for resolving problems? Was Grant Morrison right, in his allusions that funny book crimefighters are all sado-masochists?

X- Violence in itself is a human instinct, particularly in males. You might argue that I am being cynical or just plain wrong, but I am a Christian and it says in various places we can know who God is from the evidence of Creation. The evidence I see is this: We all want to be loved. We all are willing to act upon foolish impulses to achieve our most desired thing in life. And humans are prone to violence. The world we live in is beautiful, mind you- and I see proof of God in that, as well as in the giggles of babies in their sleep, and butterflies, flowers and the taste of honeysuckle and the scent of heather in bloom. We have to acknowledge straight out that we are prone to violence. Okay, so how could various portrayals of humanity in media NOT include love and sex, and violence? It cannot unless you are trying to redefine humanity by its IDEALS. I think we have to acknowledge that Morrison is mostly right, but that since comic characters are not real, be willing to futz that by saying, it is simply entertainment.

R- Howard the Duck is real. Until he died for the sins of George Lucas. As such, with Hollywood people doing comics, and comic book people doing movies- I would be far more interested in Liefeld directing Star Wars, than I would be in Lucas writing Bloodwulf.

X- George Lucas gets much shite undeserved, but I understand it. It is the case when a talent gets notoriety for a great work and every other work is compared to it. And he is rich. Since people are overwhelmingly not rich we tend to hate or mock the rich. But I like his work.
Now you pose an interesting juxtaposition with Lucas writing Bloodwulf in comics because I am somewhat of the mind that Lucas’s vision is greater than his ability to write dialogue that isn’t epic in nature. (I use the term epic to imply that the words are less about the actual conversations you might hear as they are a convention to move the story forward and tell you the information you need to know). If you had a story plotted and framed and detailed by Lucas but dialogued by any ongoing writer of comics, not just Bendis but Dixon, or Ellis or Ennis or Morrison- you might see a story well worth watching.
And I am sorry, Rob Liefeld would not, for a moment, not for a nanosecond interest me as a director of anything. I just don’t respect him as an artistic talent.

R- People do buy his comics, and the group mentality of the fanboy masses does tend to go beyond reason. The comics that are made, that are allowed continued publishing- if you take a step back and size up the ones that consistently sell the best, you really have to wonder at how easy it is for fanboys to be stigmatized by the public. I would rather see an ongoing Prez comic than any more Wolverine. Or Kamandi over the rampant stereotype that is the Punisher. Hell, why not a revival of romance comics?
Why is the medium so insistent in pushing itself into a corner?

X- Why people buy what they do is fine by me- taste is not an absolute. As to why publishers aim at an ever shrinking group of buyers is not evident to me. I think in some ways with various fiscal truths of the comic market, people in the industry make the mistake of saying “what can we put out that will sell?”, rather than, “if we put out quality in a variety of genres we can help grow the market”. This isn’t to place blame- the market has forces involved that go way beyond taste, way beyond even logic. Ask a retailer if he wants to carry a new line of romance. I can tell you they will likely say no. Not because they cannot sell, but because comics are perceived and cater towards that small corner niche. I think it wasn’t always the case because comics didn’t really care how they were perceived. It is strange but I feel that when they were dismissed as a children’s medium the writers and artists had far more freedom to explore and use as many genres as sales would allow.

R- Imagination is the greatest lost art.
If Kirby were a young rookie today, do you think he would get much work thrown at him? Do particular eras “own” particular art? If Jim Lee today were transplanted 60 years back, would he get any work, or would the levels be incomparable?

X- Imagination and freedom to imagine are two different things. Let us say you were a comic artist/writer in 1943 and you wanted to have a giant robot attack Japan and kill all the people. There weren’t worries over it being too violent, or too racially insensitive. You could do whatever you would do, good or bad, right or wrong.
Kirby entering comics today with the same energy and same life experiences that made him Jack KING Kirby then, would dominate the market. I say this both as an admirer of Kirby, but also pointing to Kirby’s seemingly endless weeks of work behind the desk, and his boundless imagination. Jim Lee has talent, but his influences limited his growth as an individual artist in my opinion. I see his work as having Byrne, McFarlane (even if the two were contemporaries) and Barry Windsor-Smith. Those are not bad influences to have, but I think rather than growing up and out, he grew in a form that was limited to those influences. I hear he is a great guy, I’ve never encountered him, but while I see his work as being perhaps the best looking of the Image Founders, I end up finding it glossy and flashy and not much else. So if he’d been born to work in the 40’s or 50’s with his talent but not a bunch of influences, I could see him as a great comic artist. As this is speculative to the Nth degree let me also say, maybe. I definitely think Erik Larsen would have thrived in any era. McFarlane too. Less so Silvestri and no way Liefeld (sorry Rob, I just don’t feel it.)

R- I think all of these points are valid. Everyone is entitled to their opinions, except for Nationalists and pedophiles.
I do know that if I were the Beyonder, I would compel Tim Burton to direct Juliet Landau in a remake of the Bride of Frankenstein. Or Guillermo Del Toro and Fairuza Balk.
And more than anything, I believe that growth and evolution will ONLY arrive through healthy debate. The powers that be running the show now and their unwillingness to admit that the medium IS the sum of its parts, including especially the outnumbering little guys- they are killing us. Unless more people approach open channels of dialogue somewhat more adult than hurt feelings in random chatrooms, the sperm cell of tomorrow will never break the egg.
And if Howard the Duck had won the Presidential election way back when, none of us would be in this mess.

X- If I were the Beyonder I would like to see Sarah Palin nude. I would love to take long walks in the mystic wood, never leaving perhaps. And I would love to give Ridley Scott the impetus to make more great movies about the many things he has done that I love.
Growth and the evolution of the comics medium is always happening, despite the big two fear of the future. There is always fear with transitions, there is always pain in transitions. Things don’t always happen the way we’d like but the weight of opinion in debate is not always what causes the change. Sometimes the movement of evolution goes on quietly while the voices of the revolution debate. I think each is important, just one has a will of its own, the other has many minds and voices.
I think if Bush hadn’t been named the winner in Florida in 2000 we would have a different world before us. Howard the Duck or not, just think of how things could have been different.

Face True, Front Believers!
And this really does have nothing to do with quantum mechanics. I lied and I failed. Maybe next time.

Nuff said?

richardcaldwell@comicnews.info

mundi

i am exhausted.

Gaslights Web'd 1.2

Gaslights Web'd 1.2

posted on February 8th, 2009 in Columns
by Richard Caldwell, managing editor

Shalom!

The column you are now reading is my monthly take on what I see as standout webcomix. Considering how vocal I have been in the past regarding my preference for more traditional funny book presentations, I invite you to make the connection that the creators featured here are truly noteworthy and exceptional in what they are doing.
The first time, which was the last time, I gave some love to Re-Evolution, a wonderful strip currently hosted with pride by the folks at Zuda. For February ought-nine, I am all about GingerDead.

The story of GingerDead and Friends details the morbidly sweet moments in the lives of a gingerbread boy- the lead, his skeletal girlfriend leNoir, and his homicidal sister Vendetta. Often told in verse, the strips are as linear as dreams, and often serve to express specific sentiments or imagery- generally by way of adorably irreverent black comedy.

Said the strip’s creator- Haiku artist extraordinaire Calan Ree, on the origins of her work- “It was a bit of a lark really. The characters began as doodles that I was using to joke with an online friend. That led to a few t-shirt designs which I incorporated into my virtual fashion line, Nocturnal Threads, in the online world of Second Life, as well as a few t-shirt designs in my cafepress store. The characters were really well-received but I felt so limited that I thought maybe I could try my hand at a comic and somehow put it online weekly. I was completely clueless to the vast world of webcomics. It was through researching the best way to get it online that I discovered the magnitude of online comics and learned there was even an expected format in the site design. It was a bit daunting, but I thought what the hell. It really was started just for fun and as a distraction from my life which was particularly bleak at the time.”

And of her biggest challenges thus far? “I suppose just getting it online. I know nothing about css and php, so it was a lot of research to find a method that allowed the updates and archives to be streamlined. I discovered ComicPress and figured out how to use it over a weekend. That was probably the most difficult part. Other than that, just developing the style and acclimating to the tools was a bit of an obstacle. Because I was doing the comic digital using photoshop and a wacom, there was a learning curve there. Drawing with the wacom was new to me and as a result the earlier comics look awful. It’s a good thing I wasn’t taking it too seriously at the time, or I would have just quit. As a result I feel like the comic style and my skills are still progressing. It’s the obstacle that keeps on giving…or something like that.”

Aside from branding the work (potential collected volumes, couture, etc), how far would she like to see the concepts go? “I don’t really see my work as a comic strip. It’s more often than not an illustrated haiku of sorts, and a bit on the weird side at that, so I’m not dreaming of syndication in newspapers like a lot of comic artists. Honestly, who would have me? Perhaps some alternative papers, but can you imagine GingerDead and Friends next to Family Circus in your typical newspaper. I doubt it. I’ll be more than happy getting some books out there, expanding the greeting card line and perhaps doing some licensing deals for clothing, etc. I’m not too full of myself to view merchandising as a bad thing. It would great. Most importantly though I want to reach a wider audience. Not everyone reads webcomics. When I do art shows and people see the prints, they stop and read them, smiling or laughing and that feels pretty awesome. When people who aren’t sure what a haiku is discover the comic and start writing them, and well, that just rocks. All different age groups and styles of people seem to respond really well to it. I’m often asked if there’s a book for sale and I’d really like to say yes to that question soon.”

While the online illustrated haiku continues, Ree is also busy unveiling her fun new card line, a sampling of which can be found in these pretty pictures. Check out the links on her site for more information.

Very nice stuff.

the Crone

Meeting in dream,

I was the ghost, having not yet been birth'd.

The flesh on her bones, supple and ageless! A wound of a nymph beseeching spring, a grace'd beast under a Dryad's moon. The celestial fire of youth, unharness'd and free.

Violence of my passion, expelling demons,

expelling the earth.

Senses intermingle'd, engulfing blindingly our forms. Madly, my ghost and she travel'd each, the other. We purge'd the curses of sobriety, of forethought.

Before our time had Baudelaire screamed of such Chthonic symphony! Our blood was the oceans. Our hands were the mountains, volcanic eruptions of desperation. Our thoughts, one.

Serpents, we devour'd ourselves. We were of the sky, then.


Unity redeeming ambition, my eyes left open.

Fortunes transgress. She, the ghost broken.

My audacity, boundless and grasping.

Weary'd, the past beckons of its own defiance. History is blood.


and naught less than.

the ghost and the silver coin

I calculated today that I am working 119 hours every damn week.

119 hours of security.

So naturally my writing gigs and funny book absurdity have slipped a bit.
I am wrapping up edits on a fantastic interview of one of my favorite comic book creators. Over the weekend, I was able to bring in four new faces to the comicnews.info team. The second installment of my Gaslights Web'd column will go up later this week. Two more interviews on the books for later this month, possibly a third.
I have a couple of assignments concerning the Art Monkey thing to carry out.

My rough draft for a 5000 word horror fantasy story is in the can, though I am not sure when I can do the final. I only ever write in two drafts.

This month is turning every bit as hectic as the last.