§ Those “best of” lists are rolling in — here’s 2011’s Best Comics and Graphic Novels from the Village Voice — definitely some unexpected picks there.

§ Here are the USA Today picks of David Colton, John Geddes, and Brian Truitt.

§ Say, with Sandy Bilus now more or less MIA, is there no one out there who will compile all of these lists into a master “Best Of” list? We seem to recall that the last person who did this — Dick Hyacinth — also boarded a plane to Antarctica with a pilot named Danforth. So maybe this is a cursed task.

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§ A new genre of writing: the New 52 Exit interview, in which a creator expresses wistful enthusiasm for all the ideas they dreamed up for a given character before it was decided a new direction was needed, as he or she wishes the new team good luck with a wan smile. This time out, Sterling Gates explaining how he left HAWK & DOVE in the hands of Rob Liefeld:

We laid a lot of foundation in those first few issues, things that can be delved into indefinitely: creating new characters, reintroducing old ones, or looking deeper into the origins of the avatars that power Hank and Dawn.

Rachel Gluckstern, my editor at DC, phoned me up a couple months ago and said they were interested in taking the book in a different direction. As a result, my script to issue six was spiked, and the back half of issue five was rewritten in order to completely clear the decks for Rob’s run. Rob came in and co-wrote issue #5’s climactic battle with Condor and Swan to help make the transition as smooth as possible.

I can’t wait to see where Rob takes Hawk and Dove next, either. He’s got a vision for those characters, and hopefully I’ve managed to get enough pieces on the board for him to really dig into their mythology.


The creator then boards a cruise ship with a hearty wave, hoping it does not hit an iceberg.

§ In case you missed this week’s episode of Stalked: Someone’s Watching which featured artist Colleen Doran and a troublesome stalker, here’s her write-up of it:

The episode of Stalked: Someone’s Watching featuring interviews with me, my friend Dawn, and my family will rebroadcast tonight on Discovery: ID at 7:30 PM Eastern Time. I believe the episode is also available for pay view. A synopsis is HERE.

The producer wrote to let me know the ratings were very high. Very surprised there was so much interest in it.

Naturally, some facts were changed to protect private information, and to condense roughly 25 years of material into a half hour. Here’s what I wrote on my FB page.

§ Tina Anderson, who runs a small a BL manga company, Gynocrat Ink, explains some of her dealings with Amazon and B&N over the last year or so that may prove interesting.

I didn’t attend any conventions, write any new scripts, and did not resurrect my fandom blog Guns, Guys, and Yaoi—much to the chagrin of my blogger friends that were pushing me in that direction. Yet despite no new releases and little to no exposure, Gynocrat Ink actually ran in the black, for the first time since eliminating my debt as a ‘business,’ last year. While the profit margin was nothing compared to a traditional small-publisher, it was enough to give me hope that all the work I did (and yes, writing is WORK!), and all the criticism and drama I endured, was not for nothing. Thanks to digital sales of existing titles on Amazon.com, and that organizations subsequent reach into foreign markets, sales were consistent and royalties continued to accrue.

This has been out for a while but a few lines from Mark Evanier’s obit for Joe Simon bear repeating:

I have two pieces to write here — one about Joe’s enormous contribution to the world of comics, with and without Jack Kirby. Joe and Jack were really the first superstar creator(s) of comic books. Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster were important because they were the creators of Superman. Simon and Kirby were important because they were Simon and Kirby. They were the guys who were ahead of everyone else in making comic books different from comic strips. They were the guys everyone in the industry looked to for the next trend, the next innovation, the next hit. It wasn’t just that they gave the world Captain America. They also showed everyone how to make comics more exciting.

1 COMMENT

  1. That does explain why Rachel Gluckstern’s All Access column in this week’s comics name-checks every other creator but just anonymously mentions “the latest Hawk & Dove script” :)