Friday, April 29, 2005

Review: PULL LIST 4/27/05

Pull List for the week is up at CWN. This week's quick reviews include:

Action Comics #826
Adventures of Superman #639
Captain America #5
Legion of Super-Heroes #5
The New Avengers #5
Red Sonja #0
Hellblazer #207
Plastic Farm #9
Supernatural Freak Machine #2
Artesia Annual #3

RSS Feed

Hey, look! You can use RSS to see updates on this blog!

http://michaelmay.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Great Curve: Liefeld and Squiddies

I wasn't going to post about this because they're not actually thought-out articles, but what the heck. I just put up a couple of posts on The Great Curve. One's about how I like Gail Simone's work much more than I dislike Rob Liefeld's. The other's just another mention of the Squiddies.

Thursday, April 28, 2005

Squiddie Nomination

This is kinda cool. I've been nominated for a Squiddie Award under the Best Comics Reviewer category. There's some nasty competition there, which means that it's nifty just to be listed with them.

Full list of nominees for that category:

BEST COMICS REVIEWER
Bob Agamemnon
Chris Allen
Alan David Doane
Tony Isabella
Randy Lander
Sean Maher
Michael May
Alex Ness
Paul O'Brien
Tom Spurgeon
Dave Van Domelen
David Welsh

A full list of all of this year's nominees can be found here.

Wednesday, April 27, 2005

Salome: Revelations -- Episode Two

The Hunt for Christ begins. And Sister Jo is still annoying.

Read all about it.

Review: SPAGHETTI WESTERN

Wrote a review of Scott Morse's Spaghetti Western. If you dig the genre at all: good stuff.

The Workload Groweth

I got a nice package from Top Shelf Productions today. In it were copies of Owlie Vol. 2, Minisulk, Mosquito (which is on my Amazon Wish List, so Yippee!), and Hello, Again.

I spent some time tonight re-watching last week's episode of Revelations and taking notes for my Pop Thought column. That should go up tomorrow sometime, I hope.

Monday, April 25, 2005

MicroCon 2005

MicroCon was so much fun. I shared a table with Grant Gould and Jessica Hickman again like we did at FallCon last October. I was much better prepared this time though and we had a good looking table, I think. Here's some pictures of it before the con got started. Click on it or any of the other images to see a full-sized picture.

Since FallCon, Grant was selected to be an official sketch artist for the Revenge of the Sith cards. That's a collage of some of his sketch cards behind him. I kept forgetting to ask, but I think Jess is working on a page from Three Days the Devil Danced.

Behind the Grafika and Cownt stuff on the table you can see a cool drawing that Grant was nice enough to contribute to my Black Canary sketchbook. One of these days I'll get the rest of the sketchbook scanned in and posted on my LiveJournal, but for now, here's Grant sketching and a better shot of the final piece.

Grant had a great idea for attracting people to his side of the table. He'd made up trading-sized cards on which to do personal sketchs for people of whatever Star Wars character they wanted. Or any other character some joker like me wanted to see holding a lightsaber. One guy requested a Scrooge McDuck. I wanted the Cownt.

One of the coolest things about the con was all the kids there with their parents. Grant attracted those guys like Pooh bears to honey.

After a while, fellow Grafika member Darla Ecklund showed up to pretty up my side of the table.

Seeing people is the best part of these things. There's some folks I only get to see a couple of times a year like Sam Hiti.

This year there were several people whom I'd talked to online, but never met in person. The scurvy rogue known on Steve Niles's message board as Black Bart stopped by and picked up a copy of Tales from the Inner Sanctum #2. I also finally got to meet inker Barb Schulz after missing her for coffee a week or so ago. There was also indie creator Jennifer Young who's done some very cool mini-comics and a graphic novel called Cold Summer. I love her work and it was great finally getting to meet her. I don't know why I'm so serious in the picture. Blech. The camera caught her in mid-gum-smack, but I think it works for her.

What else? Oh, yeah. I got to meet some cool new people too. There was a father and son there with a table who are starting their own publishing business and are looking for creators. We exchanged information and promised to stay in touch. And I talked to lots of comics fans. One fella bought Tales from the Inner Sanctum #1 thanks to the fact that Jess's original pages were on the table (I bought those from her, which was my coolest purchase of the day). There was also a nice couple named Amanda and Mike with whom I had a very nice, long conversation. And then there was this guy. We never did figure out who he was supposed to be dressed as. That's green construction paper on his head though.

My brother-in-law and co-Cownt-creator Dave showed up for a while. It's weird to me how much he and Cownt artist Gav Spence look alike.

And that's pretty much it. After the show, Grant, Jess, Dave, and I went and got some burgers and called it a day.

The End.

Friday, April 22, 2005

Interview: TENTH MUSE's Darren G. Davis

Just posted an interview on CWN with Darren G. Davis, creator and writer of The Tenth Muse. I asked what I thought were some pretty tough questions about the history of the book and Darren's business decisions and he answered them all pretty candidly. He didn't always go into a lot of detail about some of the more painful experiences, but he gave an honest, general idea of what went on.

I wasn't sure what to expect, but I'm impressed with where his head's at.

Review: PULL LIST 4/20/05

This week's Pull List includes:

The Amazing Spider-Man #519
Teen Titans #23
Space Ghost #6
Young Avengers #3
The Grimoire #2
Billy the Kid's Old Timey Oddities #1
The Iron Ghost #1
Seven Soldiers: Klarion #1
The OMAC Project #1
X-Men #169
Birds of Prey #81
Conan #15
30 Days of Night: Bloodsucker Tales #7
Runaways #3
Chromaphile (Ragnar Art Book)

Wednesday, April 20, 2005

Salome: Revelations -- Episode One

I just posted a monster of an article dissecting last week's episode of NBC's Revelations. I had a good time writing it, but Holy Moley it's long.

Tuesday, April 19, 2005

Okay, NOW I'm ready!

I just made preview books for a couple of upcoming projects, Three Days the Devil Danced and Quartet of Crime. The previews are all nice and big and laminated and bound and pretty. I'm going to have them at MicroCon on Sunday.

Speaking of MicroCon, I had coffee with PopThought's Alex Ness last Saturday. Well, he had coffee. I had a sissy, coffee-free Strawberry Frappacino. It was tasty though and Alex is a great guy and fun to talk to. A friend of Alex's named Barb Schulz was going to join us, but circumstances prevented her being there. That relates to MicroCon because Barb's an artist and comics inker and will be at the convention, so my list of people to see just got longer by one.

Great Curve: Why Tweak the Mythos?

Paul Jenkins has announced a project called Mythos that marries the comic origins of Marvel superheroes with the film versions. I talk about how that makes me feel over at The Great Curve.

Monday, April 18, 2005

Review: THE BOULEVARD OF BROKEN DREAMS

Not the Green Day one; the old Kim Deitch one about that crazy cat Waldo and his fictional influence on the animation industry. If you like animation history or just dramatic stories about surviving betrayal, you should read it.

Friday, April 15, 2005

Novel Progress

Just added a progress bar to the page that tells how far along I am with the first draft of my pirate novel, The Blades of Bragadini.

Review: PULL LIST 4/13/05

New Pull List is up on CWN. Comics reviewed:

Marvel Knights Spider-Man #13
Adam Strange #7
Black Panther #3
The Atheist #1
The Imaginaries #1
Mnemovore #1
Fables #36
District #12

Great Curve: Pure Energy

New Great Curve post about how 24-Hour Comics Day makes me happy.

SBCB Interviews Grafika EiC

You probably already know this, but I'm a member of the Grafika studio. Well, there's a two-part interview with Grafika's Editor-in-Chief Mark Matlock on Silver Bullet Comic Books. He does a nice job of explaining what Grafika's goals are, I think.

Part One.

Part Two.

Thursday, April 14, 2005

Review: HSU AND CHAN

I got a nice email today from Rich Koslowski about the Three Fingers review I wrote. Like most reviewers, I dig being quoted, but I get an even bigger thrill from creators writing to tell me that I got what they were trying to do. That's what Rich wrote to say.

Not that I always get it right. In fact, Norm Scott gently took me to task in the trade collection of his Hsu and Chan series for SLG because I didn't get it. I've now taken a second look the series (via the trade) and have decided that he's right. I made an incorrect deduction about his whole series based on my exposure to a single issue.

Tuesday, April 12, 2005

Shake It, Salome

Alex Ness over at Pop Thought was nice enough to give me a place to talk about something other than comics. I can't seem to get away from serialized fiction though, so my column's going to be episode-by-episode commentary of different series.

First up: Conan.

Beware the awful headshot. *shudder*

Monday, April 11, 2005

Review: THREE FINGERS

Just posted a review of Rich Koslowski's Three Fingers at CWN. Rich is a local guy and I've been meaning to read his book since it first came out three years ago. I finally got around to buying it from him last year at Wizard World Chicago and have only now been able to read it. That's how behind on my review pile I am.

I guess I'd be further along on it if I didn't also include books that I want to read and review along with books that are sent to me for free, but I gotta have some fun with this, right?

Red Eye

There was a nice, big box full of these when I got home today:



Which means that I am now Officially Ready for MicroCon.

Stick to the Subject

New Great Curve post just went up. This 'un's about how when I go to comics sites and comics conventions, I'd kinda like them to be about comics.

Saturday, April 09, 2005

We Just Got a Letter! Wonder Who It's From!

Just got a nice email from Kieron Dwyer thanking me for the quick blurb I did on Sea of Red #1 in this week's Pull List. He also sent me a preview of issue #2.

It really is a cool book so far. I'm gonna try to work out an interview with him and maybe the rest of the creative team too.

Friday, April 08, 2005

The Great Curve

New post just went up on The Great Curve. This one's all about how I don't want to be a small-press publisher and don't really have sympathy for people who do. I scold a couple of small-press publishers for being whiney and commend another for thinking outside the box.

New Pull List Up at CWN

Just posted a bunch of quick reviews over at Comic World News for:

Shanna the She Devil #3
John Constantine: Hellblazer Special -- Papa Midnite #3
Lex Luthor: Man of Steel #2
Seven Soldiers: Zatanna #1
Sea of Red #1
Death Jr. #1
Y: The Last Man #32
Marvel Team-Up #7
Lo-Fi Magazine #3
Supernatural Freak Machine #1
Witchblade #84
Superman/Batman #18

Wednesday, April 06, 2005

Makeover

My website needed an overhaul bad. Unfortunately, I'm no webmaster, so this is as good as it gets under my meager skills.

I have no idea what my LiveJournal is going to become now that my main site is basically a blog, but I'm curious to find out.

LinkWithin

Related Posts with Thumbnails