Hellboy

Artist Scott Morse shares on his blog several commissions he did at APE last weekend, including this one of Hellboy.

The Alternative Press Expo, or APE, is coming up this weekend at The Concourse in San Francisco. The show runs from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday and 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Sunday. Special guests include Jamaica Dyer, Phoebe Gloeckner, Dean Haspiel, Batton Lash, Lark Pien, Dash Shaw and Jeff Smith. I'll be there covering the show, while Matt Maxwell will have a table to sell copies of Strangeways.

And over the next couple days, I'll be posting what various companies and creators have planned for the show. If you'd like to be included, drop me the details on where you'll be, what you'll be selling and all that good stuff.

Exhibit A Press | Jackie Estrada dropped us a note about what Exhibit A Press (table 312) will have at the show, where special guest Batton Lash will be celebrating 30 years of Wolff & Byrd, Counselors of the Macabre.

"He’ll be signing the limited-edition Supernatural Law Tales from the Vault Anniversary Special as well as comics and trades," she writes. "We’ll also have Batton’s 'monster cameos,' one-of-a-kind hand-painted miniatures of everyone’s favorite monsters. Plus: new Graphitti Designs Supernatural Law T-shirt!"

More info at www.exhibitapress.com/pages/index.php

SLG Publishing | Jennifer de Guzman sent over an update on SLG's plans for the show. "Jamaica Dyer will be a special guest, so we will have plenty of copies of her new book Weird Fishes," she writes. "Jamaica will also be on the panel Personal Stories on Saturday at 5 p.m. with Dean Haspiel, Phoebe Glockner, and Dash Shaw. I'll be moderating her spotlight panel on Sunday at 12 p.m."

Things Undone

NBM | Ted Rall and Shane White will be at APE; Rall will have a few copies of The Year of Loving Dangerously, while White will sign copies of the recent release Things Undone (which is sitting on my dresser in my "to read" pile; I should read it before this weekend).

Top Shelf | Brett Warnock posts on his blog that Nate Powell, Grant Reynolds and Jeremy Tinder will be at their booth, along with himself and Leigh Walton. And as always, he'll be at the Isotope party Saturday night.

Creators | Scott Morse will be on hand doing commissions and selling the last few remaining copies he has of The Ancient Book of Sex and Science.

Manga | Deb Aoki rounds up what various manga publishers are doing at the show.

The Shogunaut

Much like he did with "Dawn of the Gearheads," Scott Morse is posting comics on his blog again. This time it's the story of the Shogunaut, and it's pretty awesome. Go check it out.

Ten Against the World by Scott Morse

As Chris goes through the 2009 catalogs of various publishers like Fantagraphics and Drawn & Quarterly, I thought I'd share a few update on future projects that creators have mentioned on their blogs. First, over on his blog Red Window, Scott Morse says he's working on a follow-up to The Ancient Book of Myth and War called The Ancient Book of Sex and Science. He's also got another Magic Pickle book coming out in 2009, as well as what sounds like a gigantic bunch of awesomeness, a '50s monster book called Ten Against the World:

*TEN AGAINST THE WORLD is in the works, I'm pleased to officially announce. It's a 160 (or so) page Kirby/Toth-inspired monster comic set in the 1950's, lots of comic book fun I'm certain Wertham would love. There's a teaser above. It's being produced entirely in Photoshop on my Cintique, no pencils, just straight digital black, white, and blue, as an experiment in economics and speed. I'm about 40 pages in at this point. Keep your eyes and ears open for this one, as it may actually hit initially in online installments.

Next, Alex Robinson's Too Cool To Be Forgotten has been popping up on year-end best of lists here and there (Tim O'Shea had it on his), and over on his LiveJournal he talks about the project he's just starting starring Santa Claus:

I seem to have finished my script for A Kidnapped Santa Claus. I say "seem" because I will undoubtedly fine tune it as I go.
This is the first time in my entire life I've scripted out an entire story from beginning to end, and I gotta say, I don't know how you people do it. It was an ordeal! Trying to create scenes, just picturing them in my head, only with a keyboard and no visual component was a real challenge. Ideally, we'll see this paying off with the drawing phase of the book going a lot faster (I hope so since my deadline is closer than I would like!) and hopefully it will all have been worth it.

Amazing Joy Buzzards

Artist Dan Hipp notes that the next Amazing Joy Buzzards book he's doing with Mark Andrew Smith was due in 2008, but as you might have noticed hasn't come out yet:

Originally solicited for last month, the deadline came and went, with the book unfinished. It was well on it's way to completion, but life decided it was time to get in the way, and production on the book has slowed. All I can say is that it's awesome, it will still be finished, but I can't tell you when. Truly, I am sorry, as that book has a slice of me sewn into the binding, and it saddens me that I can't get it to you sooner.

He also says he's working on the third volume of Gyakushu!, the first two volumes of which were published by Tokyopop before their implosion. He says it'll likely appear online first, but print copies will appear ... in Italy.

Lastly, it isn't exactly an unannounced project, but Neil Gaiman shares some really nice Andy Kubert artwork from their Batman two-parter over on his blog. Be sure to read all the way to the bottom ...