Dark Horse Digital

Digital | Retailer Brian Hibbs responds to recent comments around the price of digital comics, commenting on how “channel migration” could effect comic retailers: “The concern of the comics retailer isn’t that there IS digital — fuck, I’m totally all for a mechanism to drive a potentially wide segment of customers to the medium of comics itself. How can that NOT help me? But, rather, that enough customers will ‘change channels’ (of purchase), so as to make segments of work unprofitible to carry. I’ve been pretty straight with you — most periodicals are but marginally profitible; most books are largely unprofitible. That we have stellar, break out, oh-my-god-it’s-like-printing-money successes like WALKING DEAD or BONE or SANDMAN doesn’t mean that this is the way all books can follow. Quite the opposite in fact! So what this means is that even losing a TINY portion of the readership through Channel Migration could potentially have dire effects. Seriously, if I lost just 10% of my customers, I’m done. And what we also know is that when physical stores close, most of that readership for comics UTTERLY VANISHES. The gist of this is that losing 10% of sales to migration could mean that the other 80% of that stores’ sales are COMPLETELY LOST.” [The Savage Critics]

Comics | Classic Sunday funnies character Joe Palooka has been resurrected, but this time his sport is Mixed Martial Arts, not boxing. Boxing announcer Joe Antonacci grew up reading the classic comic and when he learned the trademark was available, he acquired it, then hired a stable of writers and artists to turn it into an action-adventure comic about MMA. You can see some samples at Palooka.com. [Sherdog]

Creators | Comics Alliance has another preview of Sacrifice, due out next week from writer Sam Humphries (Our Love Is Real) and artist Dalton Rose, along with a Q&A with Humphries. [Comics Alliance]

Stephen Colbert

Comics | Comedian and television personality Stephen Colbert recommends Mush! Sled Dogs with Issues, the new First Second graphic novel by Glenn Eichler, who writes for The Colbert Report, and artist Joe Infurnari. (If you watch the full episode on his site, you can see it around the 20-minute mark, right after the Black Keys play). [The Colbert Report]

Creators | Sarah Glidden (How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less) chats with Mike Dawson about process and other topics in the latest Talkie Hutt podcast. [The Comics Journal]

Review | Cow Boy, by Chris Eliopoulos and Nate Cosby may look like a kids’ comic, but Ali Colluccio finds it offers plenty for readers of all ages to appreciate. [iFanboy]

Review | David Anderson thinks Robert Berry and Josh Levitas have done a great job of adding visuals to James Joyce’s classic Ulysses in their webcomic Ulysses “Seen,” but it’s probably best for most readers to read the book and the comic in tandem. [Spandexless]

Libraries | Young Adult Librarian Robin Brenner did a survey of her library colleagues to see what sort of graphic novel collections they had. Amazingly, almost 87% had a children’s graphic novel collection and over 83% had a teen graphic novel area. Only 64% had adult graphic novels in a separate collection, although some interfile them with prose books. She also looks at the reasons librarians give for not having a separate graphic novel collection as well as what factors (budget, content, poor bindings, availability) limit the books they acquire. [No Flying, No Tights]

For God and Country

Criticism | Dave Seliger finds GQ‘s comic-book rendition of the death of Osama bin Laden, written by Matt Fraction and drawn by Nathan Fox, to be in extremely bad taste: “Is this really how the whole bin Laden saga needs to be remembered? As a bloody double tap to the head with ‘pok’ and ‘pak’ sound effects? I think the military handled the end quite well, with an unpublicized ceremony and burial at sea. It didn’t need a comic book rendition in a ‘gentlemen’s’ magazine.” [Core77]

Events | The third Comics and Medicine Conference is coming to Toronto next July, and they are currently accepting proposals for papers and workshops. [Comics 212]

Awards | Dave Brown, political cartoonist for the UK newspaper The Independent, has been named Political Cartoonist of the Year by the Cartoon Art Trust. [The Daily Cartoonist]

Snark | Alan David Doane applauds Dark Horse for promoting its watermark so vigorously, by plastering it prominently all over its electronic review copies. [Trouble With Comics]

New York Comic Con

Conventions | The New York Post previews this week’s New York Comic Con in a pair of articles, the second of which focuses on announcements from Marvel and DC. Marvel’s “Cup O’ Joe” panel will reveal how Fear Itself, Avengers: The Children’s Crusade and X-Men: Schism tie together, while DC plans to reveal “the surprising origin of a longtime member of the Justice League” and more creators who will work on their New 52 books, in addition to Andy Kubert. Update: Presumably the Justice League member with the surprising origin is Wonder Woman. [New York Post article #1, article #2]

Comics | Not surprisingly, DC saw double-digit increases in September compared to the year before, but the overall market was down a touch as graphic novel sales, lacking this year’s equivalent of Scott Pilgrim, were down. [The Comichron]

Business | Disney CEO Robert Iger, who oversaw the company’s purchase of both Marvel Entertainment and Pixar, will step down as CEO in March 2015. [Bloomberg]

Graveyard of Empires #1

Creators | Mark Sable discusses his career, his work on Graveyard of Empires and Decoy, and his Marvel-themed bar mitzvah: “There was a caricaturist there, and I gave out shirts with a picture of me — this seems incredibly narcissistic looking back — there’s a picture of me on this shirt, a caricatured version of me in Iron Man’s Silver Centurion armor. With the helmet off. And me wearing — I no longer wear glasses, I wear contacts — me wearing these really thick, socially damning glasses [laughter] and saying, ‘I had a MARVEL’ — Marvel in all caps — ‘MARVELous time at Mark’s bar mitzvah.’” [The Comics Reporter]

Creators | Kevin and Zander Cannon of Big Time Attic, an illustration studio that specializes in educational comics, talk about their work on educational comics such as Bone Sharps, Cowboys, and Thunder Lizards and T-Minus: The Race to the Moon. [The Journal]

Creators | The Toronto Star talks to three local creators who are working on DC’s New 52 comics: Francis Manapul, Jeff Lemire and Ken Lashley [Toronto Star]

Comics | The Moscow Times interviews the creators of Forbidden Art, a nonfiction graphic novel about the trial of the organizers of a controversial art exhibit. Although censorship is nominally forbidden in Russia, the government and the Orthodox Church teamed up to prosecute the organizers, who ended up paying a fine. [The Moscow Times]

Retailing | Tom Moore, owner of Texas Comic Shop in San Angelo, Texas, offers his personal formula for success: “I didn’t get in over my head. I wasn’t borrowing money that I couldn’t pay back. When times got tough I just had to bring in enough to keep everything open. I got by not making tactical mistakes. I know my customer base, so I order what I need, and I don’t go over. When I do go over, I make an effort to lower prices or offer promotions to get rid of the items.” [The San Angelo Standard-Times]

Infinite Vacation #1

Comics | “There is no good reason for me to buy an independent comic issue any more unless it is a complete story in itself”: Johanna Draper Carlson bemoans the tendency of indy comics to start strong but never finish and concludes that print serialization is not working for small publishers. She sees online releases as the way to build an audience nowadays, although that may not solve the problem of the near-infinite wait between issues of Infinite Vacation. [Comics Worth Reading]

Manga | A member of one of the Digital Manga Guild’s fan translation/editing teams talks frankly about what the experience has been like so far, including communication with publisher Digital Manga Publishing. [Manga Bookshelf]

Review | Gavin Lees reviews Mike Dawson’s Troop 182. [Graphic Eye]

Comics | Here’s a handy reference tool: Paul Gravett has made a database of all the comics in his book 1001 Comics You Must Read Before You Die, with title, author, and publisher information, as well as some supplementary articles. [Paul Gravett]

Webcomics | Sean Kleefeld takes a look at webcomics that take the creator’s personal life as their subject, and why this is more common on the web than in print. [MTV Geek]

Animal Man #1

Welcome to another edition of What Are You Reading? Today our special guest is Kevin Colden, whose comic work includes Fishtown, I Rule the Night, Vertigo’s Strange Adventures and Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper, among others. He’s also the drummer for the band Heads Up Display.

To see what Kevin and the Robot 6 crew have been reading lately, click below …

*****

Michael May

Justice League #1

I spent most of my week getting caught up on the New 52. I liked some of Justice League #1, but have many of the same problems others did. I’m primarily interested in Justice League to see what kind of relationships the heroes have with each other in this new version. That’s what I like most about team books anyway, and I did enjoy Green Lantern’s feeling like Batman needed to prove himself and how Batman reacted to that. It was a new take that couldn’t have been done without the reboot. But stretching that out to an entire issue was disappointing and I may wait until Wonder Woman shows up in the series before I buy another issue. I’m very curious to see how Johns’ version compares to the way Azzarello’s going to write her.

Action Comics #1 was a nice surprise though. I love, Love, LOVE the less-powered Superman. I’ve been watching the Fleischer Superman cartoons lately and this reminded me a lot of those. Superman’s incredibly tough and strong, but not invincible and I sincerely hope he stays that way. Even though it reminded me a lot of Batman: Year One and Spider-Man 2, I also liked the Superman vs. the cops scene with the people coming to Superman’s defense. I don’t care that it’s not the first time I’ve ever seen that kind of thing, it’s the first time I’ve seen it with Superman and it was awesome. Lois reminds me of Fleischer’s Lois too: badass and capable, but not immune to getting in over her head and needing some help. There’s so much storytelling potential there that doesn’t have to have her be as goofy and helpless as her Silver Age version. I bought the issue out of curiosity, but I’m very much looking forward to more like it.

Batgirl

Batgirl #1 was another disappointment though. I typically love Gail Simone’s work so much, but I wanted a light-hearted superheroine (like the one on the cover) and didn’t care at all for Batgirl’s dealing with the Post Traumatic Stress of being shot by the Joker. I’m not saying it’s a bad story, it’s just very heavy and not what I’m looking for. I won’t buy the second issue, but may come back to it in the collected version if the buzz is good.

Static Shock #1 – My hopes that this will include more Milestone characters than just Static are encouraged by Hardware’s playing a major role in Virgil Hawkins’ story. I’m hoping for more like that (Blood Syndicate please!), but in the meantime, this was a lot of fun with some great, new villains and I can’t wait for the next issue.

Demon Knights was always going to be a hard sell for me because I’m not a big Demon fan, nor do I generally care for the way Marvel and DC have portrayed medieval times. But Diogenes Neves has some nice designs and halfway through the issue Paul Cornell threw in a romantic triangle that hooked me but good. Then he netted me and put me in the boat with the last page. I not making any long-term commitments, but there are some great elements here and I’m excited to see where it goes.

Brigid Alverson

MetaMaus

I got an advance copy of MetaMaus this week, and when I sat down and started flipping through it I couldn’t put it down. It’s basically a book about Art Spiegelman’s Maus, and the heart of it is a lengthy interview with Spiegelman himself in which he talks about the thought process that went into the book, how the making of Maus affected his relationship with his father and the origins of many of the images in the graphic novel. The book is crammed with visuals, including photos from Spiegelman’s bar mitzvah album and pictures from books about the Holocaust that once belonged to his mother. The result is fascinating, at least for a Spiegelman fan like me. The book comes with a disc that includes Maus in its entirety as well as recordings of Spiegelman’s father. I haven’t cracked that yet, but I know it will add a whole new dimension to the experience.

On a much, much lighter note, I worked my way through the first year of the Life With Archie magazine, with its dual Archie-marries-Veronica and Archie-marries-Betty storylines, this week. I have been picking these up and putting them down all year, but sitting down and reading them all at once makes the stories come into sharper focus. It’s interesting that some events occur in both storylines, while other outcomes are totally different—for instance, Moose becomes mayor of Riverdale in one story and janitor of Riverdale High in another, for reasons that have nothing to do with Archie’s choice of a spouse. Although the multiplicity of characters and subplots makes it a bit confusing to read both at once, it’s hard to put the stories down, as writer Paul Kupperberg keeps the plot twists coming thick and fast. It’s good melodrama, and because the characters are all familiar faces, it’s fun to see what directions they evolve into from their teenage selves.

Tim O’Shea

Frankenstein: Agent of S.H.A.D.E.

Frankenstein: Agent of S.H.A.D.E. #1: When I picked up this week’s comics from the local store, my pal Dugan admitted that this comic reminded him somewhat of Hellboy. After I read it, I had to agree with him to a certain extent. Oddly enough, it also reminded me of another Dark Horse property, The Umbrella Academy. One major thing that annoyed me about Jeff Lemire’s writing (as much as I typically enjoy it) was this issue seemed really too text-intensive–and I hope the S.H.A.D.E.NET narrative. (If I never see another writer use narrative elements like “Data incoming…97% downloaded” I will be happy). But the first issue, despite its hiccups, introduced enough interesting characters (I bailed on Flashpoint after the first issue) to me to want to return for issue #2.

Black Panther: The Man Without Fear #523: This series is at its strongest when writer David Liss is teamed with artist Francesco Francavilla (as with this issue), Since this series began (with the departure of lead character) a major focal point of the series has been the importance of Hell’s Kitchen. T’Challa/Black Panther’s efforts to help Hell’s Kitchen continues to pay off in the neighborhood’s darkest hours. In terms of the supporting cast, I love love love Sofija.

Daredevil #3: I would not be surprised if Marvel is pitching Mark Waid’s Daredevil run as a TV series at some point. The surprise twist involving Matt Murdock and Foggy Nelson’s law firm in this latest issue was really what triggered my theory. While the book is called Daredevil, Waid has devoted a good amount of time to showing Murdoch attempting to rebuild his life and career, which has entertained me to date. This was my favorite read of the week.

Gladstone’s School for World Conquerors #5: I feel for independent creators trying to garner attention for their respective series in a month like this, where the new DCU 52 dominates the news and review cycle. If you have not checked out Mark Andrew Smith and Armand Villavert’s Gladstone’s School for World Conquerors, you are genuinely missing out on a quirky series. In this issue, all the kids get a hold of the comics that the Nefarious Kid has been reading. (The two-page sample of those comics that Villavert offers early in this issue is executed with such great homage-level attention, it actually reminded me of some of the scenes from Jim Rugg’s Afrodisiac). The story really kicks into high gear in this installment and I really love where the creators leave things at the end of this installment (always leave folks wanting more, of course [which surprisingly some creators fail to do]).

Chris Mautner

Prison Pit 3

Prison Pit 3 — I had the opportunity to do a Q&A panel with Johnny Ryan at SPX last weekend. One of the more interesting parts of discussion was when Ryan said how each volume of Prison Pit had to have a different vibe or theme so that the different books didn’t feel interchangable. That’s certainly true in volume three, as we see the inclusion of a new character, who, while just as violent and vicious as CF, is completely different in attitude and demeanor. Plus, he has one of the most amazing (and utterly grotesque) resurrection scenes I’ve ever seen. There’s also a neat little bit toward the end where it seems like Ryan is heavily drawing upon the Fort Thunder crowd, particularly Mat Brinkman. All in all, it’s another excellent volume.

Prince Valiant Vol. 4 — This volume covers the most of the WWII years, 1943-44, when the paper shortage was at its highest. As Brian Kane notes in the introduction, this meant creator Hal Foster had to format the strip so parts could be cut for papers that had been forced to shrink their page count. He did this by adding a bottom strip, The Medieval Castle, which, while certainly informative and amusing, wasn’t necessarily as good as pure, unadulterated Valiant, especially since this new situation meant that Foster was unable to do the big, impressive vistas that had quickly become the strip’s trademark. Still, while no doubt hampered by this new situation, it did nothing to harm his storytelling skills, and Valiant remains a hugely enjoyable action strip, as Valiant battles a variety of ne’r do wells on a quest to find his true love, Aleta.

Mome Vol. 22 — I’ve talked at length before about how good the Mome anthology has been, and while I’m sad to see it come to a close, it’s nice to see it end on such a high note. Seriously, this is the best volume of Mome yet, with standout contributions by Chuck Forsman, Eleanor Davis, Laura Park, Dash Shaw, Jesse Moynihan and Sara Edward-Corbett. But really, there’s not a bad story in this entire book. It might seem weird recommending the last book of a series, but if you gotta only read one of these things, this would be the one.

Kevin Colden

Besides obsessively lurking on my Twitter feed and the typical mind-sucking websites like Damn You Autocorrect my, um… INTELLECTUAL reading time has been chock full of good stuff.

I suppose the elephant in the room would be the DC New 52 books – of which I’ve read about half so far (maybe 13 of the 27 to date). The overall concept of the reboot is solid, though some of the books have nailed it better than others. Animal Man in particular is one of the best new books I’ve read in a long time. I’ve always thought that Jeff Lemire was an interesting, unorthodox choice to write DCU books, and he and Travel Foreman have crafted an eerie, tonal work that recalls Moore and Totleben’s Swamp Thing – and it lives up to its pedigree. I got really excited for this title when I saw a preview of Foreman and inker Dan Green’s artwork for this book – creepy, angular and distorted, with a tasty late-80′s vibe – and it delivers. Colorist Lovern Kindzierski complements their work by smartly keeping it subtle, not eating the ink with rendering and doing some sweet limited-palette work as well. This one is on my regular list now and forever.

Bakuman

Keeping my comic selection broad and stroking my passion for well-crafted manga, a few months back DC Digital super editor and newly-installed Angeleno Kwanza Johnson recommended I read Bakuman by Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata. Or maybe he strong-armed me into reading it. I don’t remember. Either way, I loved the creators’ previous work Death Note (which I also highly recommend; I read the first five volumes -about 1000 pages – in one sitting), so I figured this one was a good bet. Bakuman is about two high school-age kids making comics. Yeah. It’s about writing and drawing – possibly the least interesting and least active things in the universe – yet somehow the creators infuse the story with drama, tension and suspense. Besides some inexplicably bizarre behavior by two characters that requires Herculean suspension of disbelief, it’s thoroughly enjoyable and the art is stellar. Interestingly, Viz released volume 4 as a digital day-and-date experiment, and then promptly abandoned that plan with volume 5. Boo.

On my bookshelf, you will find many, many a finely bound graphic novel. You will also find my only two other reading passions – mountain-climbing memoirs and music biographies. I kid you not. I love reading about climbing because I will never be able to do it myself. I like to read about being a touring musician, because I will likewise never be able to do it myself. My current musical selection is See A Little Light: The Trail of Rage and Melody by Bob Mould. It’s a great companion piece to Andrew Earles 2010 Husker Du biography (for which Mould declined to be interviewed, in anticipation of his own book), detailing Mould’s view of the band’s acrimonious history, and moving further into his time with Sugar, his solo career and his life as a gay man. It’s a fascinating, unflinching, sometimes brutal portrait of a self-made artist, and it’s one of the best and most inspiring I’ve read.

Those selections, by the way – all purchased and read digitally. The revolution is here, and it will not be televised. It will be downloaded.

Willworld

Which is not to say I’m all ones and zeroes here – quite the opposite. I’m a biblio-junkie with a bad habit. Two weeks ago, I read WE3 by Morrison and Quitely, Green Lantern Willworld by DeMatteis and the late, great Seth Fisher (buy all of his work – ALL OF IT), and when my wife is done with it, our pal Mike Dawson’s Troop 142 is in the pile. Last weekend, I was at Small Press Expo and went on such an insane buying binge that I’m not even sure what I bought. I know I had Jennifer Hayden sign a copy of her new book Underwire, and I picked up Eddie Campbell’s Alec (both from Top Shelf), got a few Roger Langridge’s books, and went on a blind spree at Fantagraphics with Four Color Fear, an Alex Toth collection, some books by Jordan Crane and an impulsively bought Jacques Tardi book because CBLDF’s Alex Cox told me I needed it. That’s the first bag of three.

What am I reading? Everything, apparently.

SPX, or the Small Press Expo, returns to the Bethesda North Marriott Hotel and Conference Center in Bethesda, Md. this weekend.

The show’s special guests include Roz Chast, Jim Woodring, Diane Noomin, Jim Rugg, Ann Telnaes, Chester Brown, Johnny Ryan, Craig Thompson and Matthew Thurber, and fans who attend will also have the opportunity to meet and/or hear from Kevin Huizenga, Anders Nilsen, Jessica Abel, Sarah Glidden, Alex Robinson, Brian Ralph, Mike Dawson, Meredith Gran, Roger Langridge and Julia Wertz, just to name a few. I would also be remiss if I didn’t point out that our own Chris Mautner will be attending and conducting a Q&A with Johnny Ryan on Saturday, so be sure to tell him hi for us.

In addition to a lot of great talent, SPX also offers a full schedule of programming and the yearly Ignatz Awards. And a whole lot of new books and cool things will be available at the show:

• Drawn + Quarterly will have a ton of new books at the show, as detailed here, like Brain Ralph’s Daybreak collection, the Death-Ray hardcover and Big Questions, among many others.

• As we noted yesterday, AdHouse and Tom Scioli will have an American Barbarian print at the show. They’ll also have guests like Jim Rugg, Lamar Abrams, Ethan Rilly and Sterling Hundley at their table.

• Jennifer Hayden’s Underwire, from Top Shelf, makes its debut:

Underwire

• Roger Langridge’s The Show Must Go On! collection from BOOM! Town will debut there, and Langridge will also have a Snarked! print:

Snarked!

• Kevin Huizenga will have some new stuff at the show, not the least of which is a new Ganges book from Fantagraphics.

• NBM will debut Stargazing Dog and Ernie Colon’s Inner Sanctum at the show.

• The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund will host the first Jeff Alexander Memorial Benefit Auction, named for a cartoonist and an organizer of SPX and the Ignatz Awards. He passed away earlier this year. The auction includes pieces from Alexander ’s collection that he donated to the CBLDF, including original art by Charles Vess and Jeff Smith, Tony Millionaire, and Roger Langridge. The auction also includes contributions from Keith Knight, Raina Telgemeier, Jeffrey Brown and many more.

• A signed and numbered edition of Craig Thompson’s Habibi will be available from the CBLDF during the show. And Sara Varon will be at their table on Saturday signing Bake Sale.

• The SPX has a whole bunch more listed on their site, including Mike Dawson’s Troop 142, Pope Hats #2 by Ethan Rilly, Old-Time Hockey Tales by Robert Ullman and Jeffrey Brown, Monster Isle: Big Monster Stuff by Joey Weiser and more.

Justice League #1 (Second Printing)

Publishing | DC Comics will allocate the second printing of Justice League #1, with retailers receiving 32 percent of their orders, which now won’t ship until Sept. 21, the same day the third printing will be released. ICv2 reports some stores are concerned that potential new readers drawn in by the publisher’s promotional campaign for the New 52 won’t understand the two-week wait to pick up a copy of the comic. The website also runs down the list of cable television shows during which DC’s New 52 commercial is airing. [ICv2.com]

Passings | Comic Art Community reports that artist Dave Hoover passed away earlier this week. Hoover, who drew runs of Captain America and Starman in the 1990s, more recently worked on Zenescope’s Charmed comic. Before working in comics, Hoover was an animator, working on Flash Gordon, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, She-Ra: Princess of Power, The Super Friends, The Smurfs and many more in the 1970s and 1980s. [Comic Art Community]

The Astonishing Secret of Awesome Man

Creators | In support of The Astonishing Secret of Awesome Man, his new superhero children’s book (with Jake Parker), Michael Chabon tells the Wall Street Journal he wrote it for “the primary focus group,” his son Abe. “This was a story that I wanted to write for him. He’s at the age when, boys in particular, you get into kindergarten and it becomes much more important that you know how to control your body and strength, to restrain yourself and hold yourself back. He was working through a lot of that stuff and occasionally struggling with it. Part of the recipe of a four or five-year-old boy is superheroes and fascination with superheroes. They want to wear costumes all the time. They’ll wear their costumes to school. Part of what makes a superhero a superhero is the ability to use his body and have this incredible power and strength. It seemed like the superhero was a perfect figure to create a little story about someone who needs to control his power and recognize the limits of his power.” [The Wall Street Journal]

Creators | Continuing his publicity tour for Habibi, Craig Thompson talks about the new book in advance of this weekend’s SPX, which Thompson is attending as a special guest. [Washington City Paper]

Green River Killer: A True Detective Story

Creators | Writer Jeff Jensen chats with Geoff Boucher about his true-crime graphic novel, Green River Killer: A True Detective Story. [Hero Complex]

Creators | Retired Marine Capt. Dale Dye and his wife Julia Dye discuss Code Word: Geronimo, which tells the story of SEAL Team Six and the mission to kill Osama bin Laden. [USA Today]

Reviews | Spencer Ackerman takes a look at the 9/11 Truther comic The Big Lie, saying Rick Veitch’s newest work “makes Frank Miller’s forthcoming Holy Terror seem calm and reasonable.”[Wired]

Reviews| Robot 6 contributor J. Caleb Mozzocco reviews Boys of Steel, a children’s book about Superman creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster that tells a carefully restricted version of the story as a picture book but adds a more unvarnished version at the end in text form. [Every Day Is Like Wednesday]

Troop 142

Reviews | Greg McElhatton reads Mike Dawson’s Troop 142 in collected form, after having followed it as a webcomic, and finds that it’s a somewhat different experience: “It was fun, that sort of story about young men at camp that instantly feels real. But reading again a year later, all in one sitting? There’s a much stronger emotional heft to the story that I think is slightly lost in serialized format.” [Read About Comics]

Reviews | Similarly, Xaviar Xerexes finds that the collected edition of Zahra’s Paradise packed a punch that the webcomic didn’t: “This may be the most emotional, involving comic I’ve read this year. I’ve read along with the webcomic but sitting down with the book and reading the story from start to finish was immersive and cathartic.” [ComixTalk]

Comic strips | How do you get your comic strip picked up by King Features? It’s a long shot in this market, says editor Brendan Burford, but he lays out the basics of what they are looking for. What not to do: Submit your comic in a glitter-covered binder or a toilet seat. Oddly, the comments get hijacked by fans of something called 2 Cows and a Chicken, which they keep pleading with Burford to pick up, even after he explains nicely why he can’t. File that under What Not to Do. [DailyINK Blog, via The Daily Cartoonist]

Retailers | Three comic shops within a mile radius of one another? That makes Falls Church sound like heaven. [Falls Church News-Press]

Comiket 79 catalog

Conventions | Comiket 79, the winter installment of the self-published comic book fair held twice a year in Tokyo, set a turnstile attendance record last week with 520,000 people over three days. That’s just 20,000 less than the summer record — and the equivalent of about four Comic-Cons. [Anime News Network]

Legal | Archie Comics reportedly has threatened legal action against the in-production Indian film Boys Toh Boys Hain, which, according to this description, is “based on the lines of the celebrated [Archie] comic book but set in Delhi instead of Riverdale.” However, the director now claims that, “We never made any statement which suggested that the film is inspired from Archie comics. One of my actors may have said in an interview that the film has a feel similar to Archie, but never that the film is based on it.” The publisher was dealt a blow in an unrelated legal matter in September when India’s Delhi High Court refused to hear a complaint challenging the use of the name “Archies” by a Mumbai company. The court said it had no jurisdiction in the matter because Archie Comics doesn’t have an office in India. [Hindustan Times]

From "Troop 142"

Publishing | Secret Acres will publish a collected edition of Mike Dawson’s award-winning webcomic Troop 142 next fall. [press release, via The Beat]

Media | The Philadelphia Daily News has ended Jerome Maida’s weekly “Comics Guy” column after nearly five years. [Philadelphia Daily News]

Retailing | Carolyn Kellogg spotlights Secret Headquarters in Los Angeles. [Jacket Copy]

Blogosphere | Tom Spurgeon continues his excellent holiday interview series with blogger David Brothers and Cartoon Art Museum curator Andrew Farago. [The Comics Reporter]

Al Jaffee

Creators | Dan Lybarger talks to the legendary Al Jaffee about the new biography Al Jaffee’s Mad Life, the cartoonist’s childhood, working with Stan Lee, Fold-Ins and more. [The Huffington Post]

Best of the year | Ain’t It Cool News contributors look back at the year in Marvel and in DC Comics. [Ain't It Cool News]

Best of the year | David Harper considers the best, and the worst, of 2010. [Multiversity Comics]

Best of the year | Iann Robinson counts down the 20 biggest comic book moments of 2010. [Crave Online]

Best of the year | Brett Williams hands out awards for categories like “Best Unexpected Source of Enjoyment” and “Best Creator to Watch in 2011.” [PING!]

Troop 142

Troop 142 creator Mike Dawson shares a “DVD extra” — an extended scene that won’t make it into the final story.

It’s a funny scene, but Dawson explains why he dropped it.

“I probably drew these pages over two years ago, and even though I think this scene is funny, I’m not sure that there’s a place for it to fit into the story anymore,” he writes on his blog. “And, aside from that, my drawing style has changed enough since then that I think it would be pretty noticeable if I just dropped it all in somewhere.”

Jimmy Palmiotti

Splatterman

I am personally excited about what changes are coming at both DC COMICS and MARVEL COMICS. Most people look at change as a negative thing, but looking at the projects coming from both companies and the amount of multi-media projects coming our way, I cant help become excited to what the future holds. I think all these changes will help bring brand new readers to our industry and deliver some exciting projects to the loyal fans as well. see? a lot of positive vibes…there really is no reason to fear change. I believe in embracing it.

As far as what I have coming up… well , that would take a while, but the first thing that is coming to mind is the Image Comics one shot Justin Gray and I have in the works for this spring called Splatterman. Originally we were going to make this a few issues , but decided to go the graphic novel way and put it out as one book. It features beautiful artwork by Giancarlo Caracuzzo and Paul Mounts with a stunning cover by award winning artist, Tim Bradstreet. It’s the story of two comic creators [not us, lol] that create the ultimate horror comic character that comes back to haunt them. It’s crazy adult comics the way they were meant to be told. Anyone that enjoyed our Friday the 13th series and The Last Resort will understand what i mean.

Jimmy Palmiotti has done it all in the comics industry –writing, drawing, inking, editing — on titles for all sorts of comic companies. Some of his most recent writing, much of it with Justin Gray, includes Jonah Hex, Power Girl, The Last Resort and Wednesday Comics. Heck, just go look at his Amazon search listing …. it goes on for pages and pages. He’s also worked in video games and done some Hollywood stuff. And he blogs over at Blog@Newsarama.

David Gallaher

First, name something that you aren’t personally involved with that has you excited.

With the prospect of a new publisher on the horizon, I’m excited that 2010 could usher in a new digital era for DC Comics.

Also, I can’t wait to see the THOR trailer!

And second, if applicable, name something you are personally working on that has you excited.

The seventh chapter of BOX 13 debuts in January. It opens like this:

Box 13

Things only get worse from there.

And HIGH MOON SEASON FOUR concludes early this year – answering many questions about our hero and his place in the world. This is something we’ve been building to for a long time … it’s going to be incredible!

In addition to the projects David listed above, he also recently wrote the Winter Guard special for Marvel. He guest blogged with us last year, and also has pitched in on our Six by 6 feature.

Chris Schweizer

Set to Sea

I was a little bit worried a couple of years ago. I was in graduate school, trying to learn as much as I could about my chosen profession, and I had just landed a multi-book deal with Oni Press. The first book in the series was to be a pirate story.

Now that, of course, was wonderful news to me; the problem came when my friends at SCAD introduced me to THEIR friends. Incredibly nice guys, excellent cartoonists, folks whose work I was instantly drawn to, guys like Drew Weing, Chris Wright, and Aaron Renier. The worry came from these encounters, when I discovered that each of these wonderful artists was himself working on… that’s right… a pirate story.

I’d just begun work on mine; it was clear that I was going to be the last one out of the gate, a real Johnny-Come-Lately in the forthcoming indie comics pirate subgenre.

Well, it didn’t exactly happen that way. My book, Crogan’s Vengeance, hit shelves in 2008, and the books from these three gentlemen have yet to find their way into my library. Renier’s book switched publishers, Weing took a break from the project to ink wife Eleanor Davis’s awe-inspiring Secret Science Alliance, and Wright’s meticulous hatchwork simply results in a long gestation time. Nonetheless, rumor has it that all of these books are slated for 2010.

Drew Weing’s Set to Sea is a story about a brawny poet who is shanghaied and finds himself working on a clipper ship, fighting pirates and inclement weather. He’s been serializing it on his website and the art is just beautiful. Many folks have commented on the aesthetic similarities to Segar in this project, and it’s an apt comparison; the characters would look right at home in Sweethaven, but the inkwork is truly in a class by itself. The story is charming, but for me, the excitement I feel for this book’s release comes from the chance to pour over Weing’s pages, trying to figure out how he draws water so darn well. It’s coming out in July from Fantagraphics.

Aaron Renier’s Spiral Bound (Top Shelf) is one of my very favorite graphic novels, so I’ve been eagerly anticipating his new book, The Unsinkable Walker Bean. From what I can gather, it’s a story about a kid whose grandfather knows about a treasure, that there may or may not be sea witches, and that it might be the first in a trilogy. Vague details, I know, but given Renier’s nuanced ability to capture the essence of childhood so well I can’t help but be excited for this one. It’s colored by mini-comics mainstay Alec Longstreth, and is coming out from First Second Books, though I’ve been unable to find a shelf date.

Lastly, Inkweed cartoonist Chris Wright has a book that, according to Tom Devlin, should be out from Drawn and Quarterly this fall. Wright’s been working on this for years, and if you see his originals it’ll be clear as to why the slow trek. He might lay down a hundreds of lines in a square inch – no exaggeration – and the effect is truly remarkable. I only hope that D&Q have the good sense to print it as big as they can afford – the only complaint I ever read about Inkweed was that the art seemed to lose Wright’s fine detail when shrunk to print size.

Like most of Wright’s work, you can expect it to be heady, very much in the vein of Conrad or Melville, with layers of symbolism and a plot that brings out questions about the nature of life, the soul, original sin, etc. Like Weing’s, this pirate story features an academic shanghaied into nautical service, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Wright uses his ostensible protagonist as a pair of eyes for us to follow the behavior and grandeur of his captain, in the same manner that we meet Kurtz through Marlowe or Wolf Larsen through van Weyden. Wright’s book is called Blacklung.

As for me, I’m biding my time ‘til these books are released by researching for the third book in the Crogan Adventures series, Crogan’s Loyalty, which takes place during the American War of Independence. The second book, Crogan’s March, just came out in the final days of 2009. It’s a French Foreign Legion story, and, as far as I know, is NOT the first of some sort of indie comics foreign legion subgenre, though Craig Thompson IS doing that Moroccan book.

Tim interviewed Chris Schweizer last year about his Crogan Adventures series. He also designed my iGoogle theme.

Molly Crabapple

I’m incredibly thrilled to be working with comics legend Annie Nocenti on a sordid Typhoid Mary tale for Marvel’s Girl Comics. Nocenti is one of the giants of the industry, and its a true honor she chose me to bring to life her creation.

For projects I’m not involved in- dear lord but I cannot wait to see the Runaways. Kristen Stewart as teenage Joan Jett in all her swaggering rebellious babydyke glory- be still my aching heart. I’ve watched the trailer 50 times in preparation. This is going to be feminist anthem legend. March 19 cannot come soon enough

Molly Crabapple‘s graphic novel Scarlett Takes Manhattan hit shelves this past year, and Tim spoke with her about it back in August. She also contributed to 2009′s Activate Primer, an anthology by folks who contribute to the webcomic collective that ran her webcomic Backstage.

Mike Dawson

Troop 142

There are two comics coming out in 2010 that I’m eager to purchase. First up is Jim Rugg and Brian Maruca’s AFRODISIAC, which I believe is due out right in the beginning of the year, January 14th, from AdHouse books. I love Jim’s drawings, and the Afrodisiac stories are always a lot of fun. The other book I’m looking forward to, though I don’t know a lot about it, is Dan Clowes’ WILSON. It feels like it’s been a while since there’s been a new book from one of my favorite cartoonists.

As for myself, I’m currently focusing on two main projects: The Ink Panthers Show!, which is a weekly podcast hosted by myself and the cartoonist Alex Robinson. I’m looking forward to having new guests crouching in The Panther’s Lair with us, something we’re hoping to do a lot more of in 2010. And, I am also serializing a new book-length comic online, TROOP 142, set at a Boy Scout summer camp in 1995. This is updated pretty much as much as I’m able, which is normally at least once or twice a week.

In addition to the above, Mike Dawson is also the creator of Ace-Face: The Mod with the Metal Arms, Freddie & Me, and Jack & Max Escape from the End of Time. Tim spoke with him about his various comics projects earlier this year.

Andrew Farago

There’s a lot to look forward to in 2010. Personally, I’d say that I’m most excited about IDW’s upcoming King Aroo reprint series, plus the launch of Rick Marschall’s Rosebud Archives, and the continuation of great reprint collections from Peter Maresca’s Sunday Press, Fantagraphics, Drawn & Quarterly, and some unexpected gems from Marvel and DC.

I know that’s already more than one answer, but I’ll also mention that I’m looking forward to the convention season, especially San Francisco’s WonderCon and APE, Portland’s Stumptown Comics Fest, and the San Diego Comic-Con. No matter how big and crazy these things get, it’s always fun catching up with friends and colleagues at cons. And I’m just a little bit worried that some years I’m more likely to bump into Peter “Chewbacca” Mayhew and Herbert “Boomer” Jefferson than some of my closest friends and relatives, and that no longer seems like a strange thing.

As far as personal projects go, I’m writing The Looney Tunes Treasury for Palace Press, due for a fall 2010 release. If you’ve seen that great Hanna-Barbera Treasury that they released a couple of years back, this will be pretty similar in terms of replicas and reproductions. It’s my first book, so I’m really excited about it. I also contributed a couple of essays to Palace Press’s 100 Greatest Looney Tunes Cartoons, which will be available in May 2010.

On top of all that, I’m putting together a lot of exciting exhibitions for San Francisco’s Cartoon Art Museum, including spotlights on Batman, Ed Hannigan, Beetle Bailey, Jewish women cartoonists and a pretty wide array of other subjects, too.

Andrew Farago is the curator of the Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco, Calif. When he isn’t doing that, he also makes comics of his own. Tim spoke with him about the museum earlier this year.

Donna Barr

Thank you for thinking of me! So pleased. Happy New Year!

Okay, scratching head. I have to warn you, I’m all wrapped up in my own stuff, and most of my reading is reference material, including cookbooks. Movies are whatever I find in the library stacks or on the return cart. I’m a simple soul, and not picky.

KIND of want to see “Avatar” (I like anime, a lot), but Dan’s described it as “Dances With Space Aliens.” (He also said, “Henry James chewed more than he bit off.” He calls the wireless modem “Oz” because it’s a little black box hiding in the shadows controlling the show.). Another wimpy American attempt to deal with our own invasion history BUT NOT REALLY because then we’d have to face it and who could afford all those Native American holocaust memorials? — but that’s the political side and you know what I’m like. I want to see it anyway.

Then again, I loved “Kung Fu Panda” because it was a send-up of “Kung-Fu Hustle” and the “Chocolate” ads had us on the floor: “Real fighting! REAL INJURIES!” My movie tastes are strictly High Concept + Low Brow. My favorite internet shows are Mr.Deity.com and BusPirates. Whadaya gonna do? You don’t want me to review anything because I have ABSOLUTELY NO TASTE.

Right now I’m just excited MY CAT MAY MAKE IT TO NEW YEARS‘.

Um… Other projects I’m not associated with…. um…. er…. I can get all of “Red Green” on DVD, now?

My own stuff:

Starting to collect stories for “This Mortal Coil.” I will never have enough to pay, just want a few lines of dialogue or ideas, people get to be anonymous or represent. Have had to tell one comics artist that his drawing the story is too much to ask for, for no money, but he wants to do it anyway, and I’m not going to stop him.

A lot of long-term slogging projects. Getting ready for that big world-wide publishing crash/leap that’s coming soon (was 5 years a year ago, so….).

I AM going to get all The Desert Peach up at http://www.desert-peach.com AND at Indyplanet.com and Comicsmonkey.com (search: Desert Peach).

IF I work very very hard I may actually get all the Stinz up, too.

AFTERDEAD running at Webcomicsnation.com (under “Alternate History”).

AFTERDEAD 2 finally re-loading at Createspace/Amazon

All of the Desert Peach on IPod at Comicsxp.com

Then I will start looking for agents for my prose books up at http://www.lulu.com/desertpeach

For more, check out the home site at http://www.donnabarr.com (Bookstore link very helpful).

Somebody hire me to write a mystery/novel/whatever of this area because now I have all the dirt. What? Huh? Who said that?

I better quit listing links. I may hurt somebody.

Donna Barr is the creator of Afterdead, Desert Peach and Stinz, among other books. You can read Tim O’Shea’s interview with her from last March right here.

Laura Hudson

What am I most excited about for 2010?

The project I’m most excited for in 2010 is whatever Greg Rucka and J.H. Williams III continue to do with Batwoman. My personal preference would obviously be an ongoing series, but since there’s been no formal announcement, we’ll just have to wait and see what we get. I hope, selfishly and unselfishly, that Rucka and Williams stay with this character for as long as they possibly can, because they are in the midst of creating a classic, and heaven help any creator who has to pick up the Batwoman baton after their definitive run.

So much of the last several decades has involved superhero comics slouching towards maturity in all the wrong ways, but this arc of “Detective” – which I’ve found myself just calling “Batwoman” – was the grown-up superhero comic I’d been waiting for. Or maybe on some level it’s the comic I stopped waiting for. Reading it felt kind of like falling in love after you’ve had your heart broken and stopped believing it’s ever going to happen for you again. It’s a book that makes me feel as breathless now, as a critical, cliche-weary adult, as I used to feel reading superhero comics when I was 12.

I can’t wait to see what they do next.

My own projects:

I run this site called ComicsAlliance? Probably I will write a bunch of stuff there.

In addition to being editor and lead blogger at ComicsAlliance“>ComicsAlliance, Laura also used to edit Comics Foundry magazine and contributed a piece right here at Robot 6 last year, “I ♥ Finder.”

Johanna Draper Carlson

After taking a break last year from most big conventions, I’m excited to go back to them in 2010, especially C2E2 and Heroes. After some time away, I think I’ll better appreciate the fun and excitement, and I’m looking forward to finding out about new comics and projects, seeing old friends, and meeting cool people involved in comics.

As for my own projects, I’m planning to keep on covering as many diverse comics and manga as I can.

Johanna Draper Carlson reviews and talks about comics, manga, the industry and lots of other stuff over at her blog Comics Worth Reading. She also told us what she was reading back in May.

David Brothers

The book I’m looking forward to the most is IDW’s release of Enrique Abulli and Jordi Bernet’s Torpedo in fancy-pants hardcovers, with translations coming courtesy of Jimmy Palmiotti. I love Bernet’s art, but I’ve never managed to check out one of his best-known works. Being able to pick up the series in nice hardcovers is just icing on the cake. I expect big things, but judging by the excerpts I’ve seen in various books about and by Bernet, I won’t be disappointed. Crime comics are my favorite genre, with war comics coming a close second. Considering that this year is going to feature Torpedo and Garth Ennis continuing his stellar Battlefields series… 2010 already rules.

On a person project note, I’m honestly elated that 4thletter! is celebrating its fifth anniversary this March. Sometimes I sit and think about it and it just blows my mind. We’re coming off the best decade in comics ever, with art and story and presentation and design all reaching incredible highs, and I’m looking forward to reading and analyzing the works to come. Being able to co-judge the Glyph Comics Awards is an honor, as well.

David Brothers runs the blog 4thletter!, where you can read a lot of great commentary on comics and related items. He did a guest post for us right after Comic-Con about his experiences at the convention. He also let us rerun some of his 4thletter! posts in February that he did for Black History Month.

Ace-Face: The Mod with the Metal Arms

In addition to discussing Ace-Face, we delve into Freddie & Me. But that’s not all, as starting February 17, Dawson is returning to ACT-I-VATE with Jack and Max Escape From the End of Time, a webcomic spinning out of the Ace-Face universe. My thanks to Alex Robinson for facilitating this email interview as well as Dawson for his time and thoughts.

Ace-Face

Tim O’Shea: How much of the Ace-Face book consists of flashbacks to his childhood and how much of is it “present day” adventures?

Mike Dawson: The stories take place in a variety of different times over the course of Ace-Face’s career. A good chunk of the stories happen in close-to present day, but there are a number of flashbacks. We see his origin as a little kid with gigantic metal arms in the 1940’s and 50’s, a little bit of his mod hey-day in the 1960’s, and some of his latter-day adventures as well.

O’Shea: How much of the present day supporting cast are the kids he grew up with? (From the AdHouse PDF preview, I’m really hoping that Sally is still in his life…)

Dawson: Yes, Sally stays in the picture, becoming Ace-Face’s wife, and mother to his son Stuart, who becomes takes the lead in a few of the stories as “The Son of Ace-Face”. The ruffians from the preview, alas, are not seen or heard from again…

O’Shea: What adventure tales or creators inspired Ace-Face?

Dawson: Well, the origin story in the preview was very definitely inspired by The Who, particularly the concept album and film, Quadrophenia. I think there’s definitely a lot of influence from the Marvel and DC comics I read growing up as well. One of the stories is called “Dr. Funhauser’s Haus of Fun”, and my initial inspiration for this was “Arcade” the X-Men villain. He’s a character I first became aware of when he appeared in an early Excalibur comic, the Alan Davis run of which might be one of my favorite superhero serials ever.

O’Shea: This book is a departure from Freddie & Me–how did you choose to pursue this project? Was it an intentional effort to show folks the variety of stories you can tell?

Dawson: Some of the stories (the two that have appeared previously, in Project: Superior and Superior Showcase) I wrote while I was still working on Freddie & Me. The new material is all stuff that I did since completing that book. I really just wanted to create some fun short stories. Fun in all aspects – most definitely I hope they’re fun to read, but they were also a lot of fun to write and draw.

O’Shea: Why did you opt to make your hero a Mod, with an eye for dressing sharp?

Dawson: I just thought it was funny. To be truthful, I don’t think Ace-Face appears in any particularly sharp clothing in any of the stories I presented. It amused me to have him known for being a snappy dresser in his hey-day, but generally skipping a lot of that time-period and focusing more on what happened before and after.

O’Shea: The character got its start in the Project: Superior collection, did you initially plan for it to be a one-shot short story and it grew from there?

Dawson: Pretty much. I hadn’t planned on writing more with the character, but I just got new ideas.

O’Shea: Am I correct in thinking that while it’s an adventure tale, on another level it is also satire of the adventure genre?

Dawson: It’s kind of a satire – I think in all of the Ace-Face stories I’m trying to play around with comic-book violence vs. real-life violence.

O’Shea: How hard is it to try to promote a project as unique as Ace-Face when the sequential art marketplace seems to be redefining itself in many ways on a daily basis?

Dawson: Yeesh, I’m not sure… everything feels a bit out of sorts at the moment. I guess I’m going to find out how well things go. I’m really, really excited to be doing this book with Chris Pitzer at AdHouse. My Freddie & Me experience was great, but since Bloomsbury isn’t traditionally a comics publisher, I sometimes felt a little disconnected from the comics scene. I am really happy to have my book be a part of a full line of great comics and graphic novels this time around.

Freddie & Me

Freddie & Me

O’Shea: I’m not sure if you have read this or not, but in the comments section of Johanna Draper Carlson’s mainly unimpressed response to Freddie & Me, industry veteran Steven Grant weighed in, agreeing with her. We both know not every critic or consumer is going to like one’s work, but I was stupefied by Grant’s line: “I never got the slightest idea from the book that Freddy Mercury and the music of Queen had any more real effect on Dawson’s life than, say, Elton John’s music had on me, aside from being contemporaneous with his youth and giving his relatively ordinary life a marketing hook.” How odd is it when folks shift from assessing your autobiographical work and instead assess your life as “relatively ordinary”? And is it harder to take a negative review of your semi-autobiographical work versus a negative review of another less personal work of yours?

Dawson: It’s a little tough to respond to this, because as much as I disagree with most of the things said in that link, it’s hard to defend your own work without coming off as personally being defensive. That said, I have heard a few times the criticism that the book doesn’t explicitly explain exactly what it is about Queen that I love so much, but I don’t really believe that the person who says that would really like the story all that much more if I did have that information in there.

To keep things fair and balanced, here’s a link to a much more positive take on the book, where the reviewer seemingly appreciates my intentions a little more, in that the Queen obsession, and the “effect” that they had on my life, is really a bit of a McGuffin; moving the plot along, being kind of inconsequential at the end of the day, but allowing me to talk about the things that I really wanted to talk about – which was different aspects of memory itself.

O’Shea: How large is the original art for the Queen Timeline piece that runs at the outset of the book? Of that timelines, which was the hardest cover to draw and how long did that timeline take to draw?

Dawson: Those two spreads were really large. I did them on illustration board 32 inches across and 22 inches high. I had to import them in from the scanner in about six pieces and knit them all together. Both were a little tough – I actually re-did them from scratch at one point. That was a version that I’d drawn early on, and was no longer right for the book as it had turned out. The ones that appear in the book were some of the last things I drew, after the story itself was all complete, and I knew what needed to be in there for sure.

O’Shea: How hard or easy was it to remember aspects of your childhood–I was impressed that you told the tale and your realization (in anticipation of the family’s move to America): “I’ve never met anybody black before”. Was that something you remembered saying, or a conversation moment that one of your family remembered?

Dawson: I definitely remember saying it. It was true. When my Dad first moved to America before the rest of us, I remember asking him on the phone if there were any black people in our new neighborhood, and he said there was one family. I dunno – I’m not sure if it’s weird or not. There are obviously a lot of people of varied ethnicities in England, just maybe not where I lived.

I remember saying almost all of the things in the book. I think everything came back to me slowly, as I worked on the story. I basically started at the beginning and went page by page, so the more time I spent dwelling on my past, the more little tidbits and nuggets sort of floated to the surface.

O’Shea: I was struck how you conceded in telling the string vest tale that upon reflection it’s a story you tell better orally. With that realization, why did you choose to still try to tell that story aspect visually?

Dawson: I included it because it was in a section of the book where I was focusing on those first few years in America. Aside from it being funny (and memorable – that’s a scene that people ask me about a lot), it tied into the theme I was discussing about people being storytellers, and how storytelling defines our senses of ourselves. It’s a story that I thought I’d told to a lot of people in person. Amusingly, in that scene I show myself telling it to my friend Alex and his wife (in the panel they are laughing uproariously at my hilarious recounting). After the book came out, Alex told me I’d never told him that story before in real-life. So there you go: memory definitely isn’t infallible. I know mine isn’t. But maybe he’s the one who forgot.

O’Shea: How much input did Bloomsbury have in editing the book? How many scenes did you end up deleting from the book?

Dawson: At the point I found myself at Bloomsbury the book was essentially written already. It just needed some tightening and tweaking here and there. Cutting parts of the book wasn’t a problem for me. Some major scenes (such as two long sequences featuring Freddie Mercury and Brian May in imagined conversations) had already been axed by me long ago, because I felt like they messed up the flow. I took out another imaged sequence with Andrew Ridgeley talking to a VH1 VJ a few years after Wham!’s breakup, which I do actually kind of wish I’d left in there now.

O’Shea: Speaking of scenes deleted and those left in, what made you want to include the anecdote about the French and Italian individuals fighting on the plane?

Dawson: Well, I thought it was funny, and I thought it was relevant. I think that death (especially fear of dying) is one of the themes running throughout the book. I don’t spend too much time talking explicitly about 9/11 in the story, but it does get mentioned casually quite frequently, as does flying in general. My fear of flying became much more explicit as an adult, and that was a moment that stood out to me.

O’Shea: Writing about your fear of flying, in that process did that help ease your fear of flying somewhat in the long run?

Dawson: No, not really. It ebbs and flows. At the moment I’m going through a “too afraid to get on a plane” phase, which stinks because my wife is urging me to plan a trip to Florida soon so we can introduce her grandparents to our baby. The last time I was on a plane was last Summer, coming back from HeroesCon in North Carolina. I was on the plane with Heidi MacDonald from The Beat, comic book writer Vito Delsante, and a few other notable New York cartoonist types. The flight was horrendous. I wonder if the plane had gone down, which of us comic folks would have been remembered. Someone would get to be the Buddy Holly and someone would get stuck having to be The Big Bopper.

O’Shea: For me, as much as the story is about you and Freddie, I also think it’s about the loss of your grandparents on two levels–1) Moving away from them; 2) Their passing years later.

Dawson: Yeah, as I said, a lot of the book is about death. I’ve spoken elsewhere about how I arranged the book to match the structure of the song Bohemian Rhapsody. I also borrowed a lot of the themes from the song – I think the line “I don’t wanna die” is represented in Freddie & Me many, many times. I practically say the line at one point, whilst on a plane, but in a larger sense, I much as admit that the act of going to such great lengths to record the events of my own life, is really just a reaction to a fear of mortality.

O’Shea: What has been your family’s reaction to the book (be as general or specific as you like)?

Dawson: I think it’s been extremely positive in general. I did recently get chastised by my Granny on my father’s side for not including that side of the family in the book more, but aside from that, I think my parents and siblings are happy with it, and generally OK with the way I portrayed them.

Jack and Max Escape from the End of Time

O’Shea: What can you tell folks about your upcoming project for ACT-I-VATE?

Dawson: There are two short stories in the Ace-Face collection featuring two super-powered siblings, named Jack and Max. Jack is a fifth grader with the power of telekinesis, and his younger brother is in 3rd grade, and can teleport, like Nightcrawler from the X-Men. My story for ACT-I-VATE  is called “Jack and Max Escape From the End of Time”. The story picks up on a concept introduced in one of the short stories, which is about how they have a father who is a Time-Lord, who punishes the boys for misbehaving by jumping back in time to before they were bad.

O’Shea: How much are you adjusting your narrative for the webcomics format?

Dawson: Well, for one, the comic will be in color, which is something new for me. My goal will be to post segments each week which move the story along in a satisfying way. Serializing a story like this is also new for me, so I’m quite interested to see how the webcomics format effects the storytelling. I’m really excited about the whole thing.

O’Shea: This marks a return to ACT-I-VATE for you, given that a couple of years back you did a story involving the characters from your past project, Gabagool! In what ways have you improved as a storyteller since your last ACT-I-VATE stint?

Dawson: Well, for one, my head is more in the game this time around. I was flattered and honored to be asked to be a part of AIV back in the day, but unfortunately at the time I was too absorbed in the writing of Freddie & Me to give my web-comic the effort I should have. I’m not sure in which ways I have specifically improved, except that one would hope to keep getting better after just having drawn so many more pages between then and now.

O’Shea: What attracted you to working with the ACT-I-VATE gang in the first place?

Dawson: I’m excited to have my comic included in amongst so many other great ongoing serials. I think it’s great that Dino and crew have not only kept their webcomics portal going, but kept it growing, adding new great comics all the time. I’m really happy to be posting my comic at a site that’s only getting better and better, and shows no signs of going anywhere anytime soon.