The Opposite of Mass Confusion
It's no secret I love my iPhone, but there's an application I've been begging for someone to create, and then someone did. I've wanted a Catholic Mass Finder. And turns out there is one, the Catholic Mass Times Church Directory.
And it works well. I was staying in Burbank for Free Comic Book Day. I'm not normally in LA over a Sunday, so I don't know where the local churches are, let alone when they have Mass. But this app found where I was, where the closest church was (St. Charles Borromeo, in this case) and when Masses were. So I was able to fulfill my Sunday obligations pretty easily. Win!
The Church was even having a bake sale that morning, so I was able to bring dessert to my previously-mentioned lunch at the Baileys. Double-win!
A Slew of Reviews
Along the way, I did check and saw some reviews on Love and Capes #13. I have to say, they were so good that its remarkable that I don't have a bigger ego. Here's a random smattering of reviews, along with links where applicable.
It's like what "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman" would have been like if it took place in 2010 and ruled.
Comics AllianceTo say the book is funny, smart, and rendered with an incredibly loving touch would be to repeat myself, but it would also be very true. Out of every book I’ve ever discovered thanks to FCBD (and, in this case, thanks to Erin), this is the one that has become one of the true loves of my comic-reading life.
Blake Petit, Comixtreme.comThe story is great, the art is superb and it's REALLY addicting. I'm adding it to my hold the next time I see my comic guy. You should, too.
Jamie Winston, Salt Lake Magazine“Love and Capes” is an incredibly fun comic, and it was fantastic to get it for free. Heck, I think there’s a pretty good chance that this was the best comic produced for this year’s Free Comic Book Day.
Hero SandwichIt’s the fourth FCBD edition of the title, and having it show up every year is a welcome high point to the holiday for me.
Johanna Draper Carlson, Comics Worth Reading
On top of that, reports from the Lake County Captains were that the special FCBD issues that I did for them went over well, too. I've gotten an inquiry or two about doing them for other places, and I'm going to use them as a proof-of-concept that they can work. Hopefully, I'll be doing a few more of these.
Free Comic Book Day Recap
Yeah, I know Free Comic Book Day was last week. I've been busy, okay?
I landed in LA and picked up my rental dar. I was clever enough to borrow my brother's TomTom GPS unit and sweet mother of God how did I not have one of these before? Despite the manufacturer's insistence in spelling Tom without the proper "h", this thing was great. I've never gotten round California so well or so easily.
I navigated to Burbank to meet up with my friend and host for the trip, Amy Wolfram. Have you read her Teen Titans: Year One? Or watched Teen Titans or Legion of Super-Heroes? If not, go rectify that immediately! She got me in to Cartoon Network to sit in on a couple of screenings for Cartoons I Can't Mention, including one that will be on At Some Indeterminate Point in the Future.
Also, there was chocolate cake! Yeah, it may not seem that important to you, but I hadn't eaten since North Carolina, so it was great for me.
Saturday was FCBD, and the TomTom navigated me perfectly to Rancho Cucamonga, a name I can now type without spellchecking it, and Chris Brady's Four Color Fantasies store. They even had a parking space for me. Man, I could get used to being treated this way.
Chris's FCBD event was great. It had a mix of street fair and party. There was a huge crazy line of people, which is always good to see. There was indeed a bouncy house, but I wasn't able to get in it. I spent the day meeting fans and comic readers, doing a couple of sketches, signing a ton of books, and talking with a bunch of friends, new and old. I sat between Mark Waid and Adam Beechen, and had a great time talking to both of them. Also there was the aformentioned Amy Wolfram, Dwayne McDuffie, Charlotte Fullerton, Eugene Son, and more that I'm missing.
His videographer was even wearing a Love and Capes t-shirt. I think that was just awesome!
I'm just disappointed I didn't get a chance to talk to Whilce Portacio. I've been a fan of his work for a while, and it would have been nice to say "howdy."
Chris has a great store, too. It's bright, airy and colorful, and doesn't have that poster-covered way-too-busy look that some shops have. It's the kind of place that regulars can feel welcome at, and newbies and those not in the hobby but shopping for someone who is would feel comfortable at. His staff seems top-notch, too.
Then I went out to dinner with Dwayne, Charlotte and Eugene. We went to the nearby IHOP, which was delightfully unbusy, allowing us to have a very leisurely dinner and talk and talk. I know all three of them fairly well, and see them at Comic-Con and the ritual post-con LA trip. But, things are always so busy at the show, and then the week after can get busy after being "off" for a week, so having such a relaxed evening was really special.
Sunday, I got to have lunch with Chris Bailey and his family. Chris is the animation director on the Alvin and the Chipmunks movies, as well as having worked on Kim Possible and X-Men 2. That awesome Nightcrawler scene? Thank him.
Chris has a beautiful house and great kids. Also, he mixes a wonderful Mai-Tai. Much like dinner the night before, it was nice to get to just sit and hang and talk away from the hustle and bustle of a show. Also, Trader Joe's Pineapple Salsa, how did I not know about that?
From there, it was a last dinner with Amy and a trip to Pinkberry, which I have to say was pretty awesome. I had the chocolate frozen yogurt with strawberries in case you were wondering. And then it another morning getting up at stupid o'clock to catch a flight home. I was glad that I left myself an hour-and-a-half to try to make it through security, because the line was out the concourse and down the sidewalk. It was so long, I thought they were giving away comic books.
It was a great trip. Maybe one of the best times I've had out in LA. Hope you all had a great Free Comic Book Day!
Free Comic Book Day Plans!
I'm writing this while on my flight to LA. Yes, I'm living in the future, baby! US Air apparently has WiFi on their flights, and there's a free promotion for first time users like me. Given that I have four some hours in the air, I figured it'd be worth it to try it out.
Gotta say, I like it so far.
Anyway, there were a couple things happening and happened that I needed to mention.
First, tomorrow is Free Comic Book Day. That means it's times for you to get yourself to a comic shop and pick up some of the over forty free titles. Yeah, Love and Capes #13 is certainly one of those freebies, and I wouldn't mind if you tried it. And, if your shop runs out, first gently chastise your shop owner for not ordering more of an obviously stellar book, letting him know that the series picks up at IDW in a few months, and then check the Love and Capes website on Monday or Tuesday, when the retail version of the FCBD issue will be available for purchase.
And, hey, be sure to buy something at that shop while you're there. The books are free to you, but the shops do pay for those books that they're giving out. We publishers provide them at a greatly reduced rate, but that man free books do add up.
Second, I will be at Four Color Fantasies in Rancho Cucamonga, California that day, doing signings and sketches and all sorts of fun stuff. There's even a bouncey house, but I'm going to guess a I'm a little big for it. If not, look for photos of me and Mark Waid reenacting scenes from Superman 2.
Third, if you're in the Lake County area and are a baseball fan, why don't you check out the Lake County Captains game at Classic Ballpark in Eastlake, Ohio? Not only will you see some future Indians, but you'll get a free Captains Comic written and drawn by me! Aliens challenge the Captains to a baseball game, and hilarity ensues.
In fact, if you like seeing photos and interviews with me, you can check out The News-Herald and read a article explaining more.
That's all for now. I'll try to update the blog this weekend, but no promises since this California Dreamin' weekend promises to be busy. But I do promise to try to keep up the Twitter updates and maybe even the occasional Love and Capes Facebook page update.
And who knows? Maybe I'll be tempted to get the free wifi on the way back and write more.
They Keep Pulling Me Back In
I did an interview with the lovely and talented Tim O'Shea over at Robot 6 about Love and Capes where I got to drop the news: Love and Capes is moving to IDW.
The new series, Love and Capes: Ever After, is a five-issue mini. The plan is to take a break after that last issue, because I've been going gangbusters on LNC for the last two years, almost non-stop. And before I sound like one of those whiny cartoonists who feel that publishing a book every three months is really hard, I'm doing it while working for a ton of other clients. If I could work on just Love and Capes, I could knock those issues out a lot easier.
In fact, that's one of the changes at IDW. The book is going to be monthly. Which is why the first issue doesn't come out until the end of the year. I need to get some runway behind me.
This is also the Love and Capes project that I've been alluding to but not talking about. In my head, it's kind of issue fourteen, and it's still how I'm numbering things in my internal files. But it's pretty cool to have a number one again.
I'm thrilled that IDW is partnering with me on this. And it's great to be able to keep going with the series. Now, you guys just need to keep reading.
Four Days Until Free Comic Book Day!
Only four days left until Free Comic Book Day! I've mentioned before that I'll be at Four Color Fantasies in Rancho Cucamonga, California at the big signing event. Owner Chris Brady has an auction for the Hero Initiative, and I'm donating this Mary Marvel sketch to it. Minus the FCBD countdown balloon, of course.
Woo-hoo! Free Comic Book Day! It's gonna be great!
Adventures at C2E2
It’s been five years since I last did a convention in Chicago. The Wizard Conventions weren’t enough of a draw to get me back to the Windy City, plus the show itself was in and not actually Chicago. It wasn’t conducive to spending some time in Chicago proper.
This year, though, Reed Expositions was putting on a show, and I just love their New York Comic-Con. I knew that they’d pick up the ball dropped by Wizard when they shifted their focus to more of a pop culture focus. So Bob Ingersoll and I made the drive out Wednesday night.
Bob’s daughter and son-in-law live near Wrigleyville and had kindly offered to put up with us, er, put us up for the weekend. Ah, the siren call of free lodging. They’ve got a great place, too, in a fantastic neighborhood. Chicago is the basis for Deco City in Love and Capes, so it was nice to be in a neighborhood that’s much like the one Abby’s bookstore is in.
I really like Chicago. It’s a lot like Cleveland, if we had, you know, more people and stuff to do. But there’s a similarity that makes it very comfortable. I walked back to the 
apartment from Starbucks one night and it was just so nice, for lack of a better term.
My agent (yes, I can officially say that now) had offered to take me to a Cubs game, something I’d always wanted to do. I love baseball, and the Cubbies have a charm to them that’s hard to describe. My agent also got tickets for himself, Bob, Bill Willingham and Steve Sullivan.
Steve was a very pleasant surprise on top of an already great afternoon. He and I met in Chicago back in ’92, and did some work together. When I stopped doing Wizard Chicago, he and I had lost touch. So it was great to spend the game getting reacquainted.
The game itself was wonderful. It was a perfect day for a ballgame, and Wrigley field has a charm that makes it just great. It’s nice to see a ballpark in a neighborhood, rather than in a city or outside of one. It’s got a very homey feel to it.
Some of the charm became a problem, though. Wrigley’s got an old-style manual scoreboard, so it only puts up the number of every batter. Not a horrible issue, except that it was also Jackie Robinson Day. Every player, every single one, wore the 
number “42”. So every time someone came to bat, it was #42. I had no idea who was who.
The game was good. It was a back-and-forth score, with the Cubs actually bringing the tying run to the plate in the ninth. And then they lost.
So I had the complete Chicago Cubs experience.
Like many places, though, Chicago is missing the dark yellow perfection of Bertman’s Stadium Mustard. It’s just not right. The hot dog I had was tasty, don’t get me wrong, but it just wasn’t a proper ballpark dog.
C2E2 is the official name of the new Chicago con. First let me say, it’s a pain and a half to use that as a Twitter hashtag. You’ve got to go back and forth between the letters and numbers board on your iPhone. Something to think about in the Digital Millennium when you’re coming up with a name.
Name aside, the show was pretty good. Move-in was easy as could be, and Bob and I set up without too much effort at all. C2E2 has a pretty good professional pre-show, where I could actually go around and talk with some of the people that I needed to talk to. I can’t say that about 
every show. (I’m looking at you, San Diego.)
Sales were good, too. I’d never actually exhibited Love and Capes in Chicago before, so to some degree it was a whole new audience. The collected editions of the book sold really well. I left with nine, and considering what I started with, that was phenomenal. Individual issues sold much slower, but given that 1-6 were in the trade, and 7-12 are coming out in trade in a couple of months and were still available through order from Diamond and people’s local comics shop, I can’t complain at all.
The thing I have to figure out how to do better is taking commissions when in small press. I’ve got this theory that the people walking through small press can’t tell if the person behind the table is the creator or just the publisher. So I only did a few pieces over the weekend. I did a couple Crusaders, a Hellboy, and a Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man. But that’s my issue, not the show’s.
So, I was pretty happy with how I did overall. There’s room for improvement, but there’s always room for improvement, right?
The show also attracted some A-List talent. So I got to chat a bit with Mark Waid and Gail Simone among others, as well as getting to see some people I haven’t seen since last con season or even my last Chicago trip.
I won’t name too many names, because then I’d forget someone. Better to err on the side of generalities. Excepting, of course, if I’ve got photos, like here.
Plus, as usual, I made some new friends. Always the best part of shows.
I did get to participate in the Iron Artist competition. It wasn’t, as I’d hoped, an Iron Man based event where we were each assigned a lovely, perky assistant and a bottle of bourbon, but instead based on the Iron Chef cooking shows. I, and three other artists, Jill Thompson, Raina Telgemeier and Jeff Brown were given an idea for a drawing, and then in ten minutes, we had to make it that cartoon.
All of this was to benefit the non-profit literacy group Reading With Pictures. 
A great cause and one I was thrilled to support. (Yeah, because it’s tough to get me on a stage otherwise, right?)
The first heat was to involve a flower pot, the Sears Tower, and poker! Yeah, go ahead, you come up with something.
I two flower pots on the ledge of the Sears Tower, one falling to his doom as he said “All right, I fall.” The other pot was saying “Dude, it’s call.” Yeah, not comedy gold, I know. I think “flower pot” made me think of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy where when the Infinite Improbability Drive is activated, two missiles turn into a whale and a geranium. There’s a page on what the whale thinks before he splats into the planet below. The geranium thinks “Oh, no, not again.” That always struck me as funny.
I thought everyone else’s was better. Jeff Brown’s awesome cartoon of Galactus playing power with a flower pot won the first heat. But then we got to do a second one. And this one was Batman on Vacation!
So I drew the first thing that came to my mind: Batman on a tropical resort, sitting by the pool Neal Adams-style, (mask, no cape, no shirt, board shorts and tons of chest hair) clinking fruity umbrellaed drinks with Catwoman, wearing a mask and a bikini, and Robin is forced to be the Cabana Boy.
This time, I hit paydirt. The judges both loved the facial expressions, and I won. I was the round two… IRON ARTIST!
Cool, eh?
You should definitely check out the show next year. I know I’ll be there. I’ve already signed up.
I Blame the Time Zone Change
I'm back from Chicago and C2E2 where I had a pretty good time. I'd love to tell you all about it, but even though I wrote most of the con report while riding shotgun with Bob Ingersoll, I'm still getting beaten with the work stick too much today to do anything in full. So, here's a picture of me and my booth for now. More will follow, I promise.
All Quiet on the Northern Front
It's been a rough week, what with trying to finish the Lake County Captains book, getting ready for C2E2 in Chicago and other things. So there's no Wayback Wednesday today, and probably not next week either. It will be back afterwards, though.
In the meantime, I'm heading to Chicago tonight for the big show. I'll be at booth 1359. If you're going to be there, come on over!
I'll update my adventures as I can, but the best place to get the up to date info on what's doing is my Twitter feed. I'll try to put up some cleverness there.