All of these little newsy notes have been stacking up like cordwood over the last week or so. Just in case you missed them:

§ 2012 will see not one but TWO books devoted to Love and Rockets : Love and Rockets Companion: 30 Years (and Counting) which features behind the scenes stuff, an interview with Los Bros by Neil Gaiman and:

This book has foldout family trees for both Gilbert’s Palomar and Jaime’s Locas storylines; unpublished art; a character glossary (which is handy, considering that Gilbert alone has created 50+ characters!); highlights from the original series’ anarchic letters columns; timelines; and the most wide-ranging Hernandez Brothers bibliography ever compiled, including album and DVD covers, posters and more.


The family trees alone make this a most-wished for item.

The second book is The Love and Rockets Reader: From Hoppers to Palomar by Marc Sobel, a “meticulously researched study containing in-depth analysis of and commentary on the series.” The appearance of both these books may occasion a rereading of Locas and Heartbreak Soup from the top, what do you think? Perhaps a reading club is called for.

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§ Lauren Davis offers 17 Webcomic Diaries That Let You Peek Inside Other People’s Lives, which covers the basics from James Kochalka to Emi Lenox. For those who think all autobio comics are the same, there’s a refreshing variety to the list.

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§ In last night’s Alcatraz premiere, we learned that after he got off the Island and stopped being the caretaker, Hugo changed his name to Dr. Diego Soto and started solving crimes. (Okay the premise is a LOT more complicated than that but we haven’t got all day.) Not only are Reyes/Soto played by Jorge Garcia but both can’t keep a secret and both love comic books. Soto even runs a comic shop until he goes off on that crime-solving spree, telling his assistant, “You have to run a register, do inventory, and stock. It’s not all videogames and the first crack at DC’s latest.” And when he isn’t writing about the history of Alcatraz, apparently he’s a “famous comic book writer.” Lots of of visual comics references as well. When will Soto have to solve a comic book crime?

§ Martha Cornog previews the spring GN list and proves you’ll be broke and living on a thin bowl of couscous a day after you see all the great stuff coming out.

§ Speaking of spring books, the cover for GONE TO AMERIKAY is out, and people are saying nice things about the book, artist Colleen Doran reports. Written by Derek McCulloch, the book spins a time-spanning mystery involving Irish immigrants to America.

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§ James Jean had an opening the other night. Nice art.

§ Valerie Gallaher overhears a man and his son talking comics and notes their evolutionary trajectory:

1. The boy watches X-Men: Evolution on Netflix.
2. Inspired by his son’s enthusiastic response to the cartoon, the dad decides to check out a free issue of Astonishing X-Men available through the Marvel App that was pre-installed in his iPad.
3. Son asks to borrow dad’s iPad to read comics.
4. Son requests paid additional issues of Marvel titles on app to continue following the stories.

§ This well traveled ink explains how self-published author Jay Konrath made $100k on Amazon in a week.

This is just for my self-pubbed Kindle titles. It doesn’t include Shaken and Stirred, which were published by Amazon’s imprints. It doesn’t include any of my legacy sales, print or ebook. It doesn’t include audiobook sales. It doesn’t include sales from other platforms.


It’s funny to see words-only authors taking up self-publishing so many decades after it gained credence in comics circles. Now that he’s flush, Konrath is doing what any man would dream of doing and living on nothing but beer for 30 days.

§ Every week there is a local newspaper story on a local comic-con, and every week there is a variation of the following quote:

Gary Wilson, of the Nightstalker Press, said it was his first time to attend a Comic Con.

“From what I’ve heard, it’s going to be a great adventure,” Wilson said.


About 20,000 tickets were sold for the Albuquerque Comic-Con.

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§ Blake Bell has expanded his Secret History Of Marvel Comics because so many secrets were unearthed!

Where me and Dr. Michael J. Vassallo announce that our upcoming book, “The Secret History Of Marvel Comics: Jack Kirby and the Moonlighting Artists at Martin Goodman’s Empire” is going to have its page count increase from 168 to 300 pages!

Still on track to debut at this July’s San Diego Comicon, it’s published by Fantagraphics Books Inc. Just too much artwork recently uncovered from the creme of Marvel Comics stable of artists from the Golden Age of Comics to be contained within 168 pgs!

§ We missed the story that STUCK IN THE MIDDLE will remain on the shelf in the Dixfield, ME library after boardmembers voted overwhelmingly to keep the GN in circulation despite a smattering of complaints about the content. The book will be available with parental permission, however.
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§ Another new GN, Douglas Rushkoff and Goran Sudzuka’s ADD, is also out and got reviewed at Boing Boing.

§ Brady Dale suggests ideas for Crossovers in Webcomics.

§ A mother just getting into comics for her kids once again throws up her hands and asks Where are all the girl superheros? Is she not on Tumblr?

Anyway, I’ve been immersed in the super world of superheroes for a few weeks now and something has really struck me: there are not enough female superheroes. As I read about Aquaman and Iron Man and Batman and so on I keep thinking “Girls can be super too! And you know what? I bet they can be super and wear pants at the same time. Yeah, I’m lookin’ at you Wonder Woman.”

§ Over at CBR, Derek Kirk Kim talked more about his upcoming books and a second season of his YouTube series, Mythomania:

“Mythomania” is a show about a group of aspiring cartoonists. It’s partially based on things my friends and I went through trying to break into the comics industry when we were in our early 20s. It’s rare to find any true depictions of cartoonists in movies or TV shows (“Caroline in the City,” anyone?), so I thought it would be refreshing for someone who has actually lived the life to put it on film. In the first story arc, Andy Go has to choose between advancing his career or his social life. Throughout my career, I’ve often found them to be in conflict being a cartoonist — a mostly solitary life.

§ There was a comic book show in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam and it was undoubtedly a great adventure.

1 COMMENT

  1. I feel that 2012 will not have a “book of the year”, but a “book of the month”.

    March: My Friend Dahmer
    April: Gone to Amerikay
    May: Are You My Mother?