Wednesday, August 31, 2005

Comic World News

I've been doing some thinking lately about Comic World News and my attitude towards what we do there. Specifically, my decision-making process (as informal as it is) about what kind of material we run.

Up until recently, I pretty much ran any press release that came my way and I worked on interviews and features that I thought people would enjoy reading about. Well, no more! No, siree!

It's just me finally getting comfortable in my role as Editor in Chief, but I'm learning that the deciding factor about what CWN covers is: what do I think is interesting? Not how many readers do I think it'll bring, just "do I think it's cool?" As I wrote in the most recent CWN newsletter, the best writers don't worry about reader reaction to a story before the story is written. They just write the kinds of stories that they'd like to read themselves. And I think the same applies to editors of websites.

It's a liberating mindset. I'm not frozen in fear as I look at potential interview candidates wondering which will bring the most readers to the site. I can just pick the one that interests me most right then. And I can be picky about which press releases I run (although that means I'll have to stop and consider my reaction to each one before just copy/pasting it). In the end, I think it'll make the interviews/features more frequent (a new one each month is my goal) and the headlines more useful.

Monday, August 29, 2005

Mailbag: Cereal Killings

Got an advance copy of The Thousand Deaths of Baron von Donut, which the accompanying letter explains is about "an alchoholic cereal mascot." It's written by Douglas (Arsenic Lullabies) Paszkiewicz, which means I can expect it to be offensive and very very funny.

Friday, August 26, 2005

"Monster in the Mirror" Preview

Jason Copland asked where Art's story was going to appear and I told him that I was thinking of putting it with some other short comics stories I wrote in an anthology. One of the stories that would go into that is one I did with Paul (Proof of Concept) Tucker called "Monster in the Mirror."

Art by Art

The incomporably awesome Art Grafunkel is illustrating a story I wrote for him and has posted some concept art from it. Ees so cool.

Wednesday, August 24, 2005

Mailbag

Writer Dwight MacPherson emailed me a copy of the second issue of Dead Men Tell No Tales last week. I was disappointed in the pacing of the first issue, but Dwight explained that they had to edit it down from a longer mini-series and that starting with #2 it was more like what he'd originally written. So I have hope.

Devil's Due sent me a preview of Snake Eyes: Declassified. Even though I'm not a fan of G.I. Joe, for some reason I want to like it and join the rest of the world in thinking that Snake Eyes is cool. I never would have bought this on my own, but I'm glad they sent it to me and I'm looking forward to reviewing it.

iHero Entertainment sent me the premiere issue of Cyber Age Adventures: The Magazine of Superhero Fiction. It's a good-looking comic-sized magazine full of prose superhero stories with spot illustrations. Hopefully it's as good as it looks.

Got a rough cut DVD of a film called Bite Me, Fanboy. I forget what it's about, but from the title I'm imagining it's a look at comic book fandom.

Another Xeric winner's sent me her comic, a book called Thread. I love that I get so many Xerix winners to review. They're always different, always good.

a.k.a. Comics sent me a copy of their Stykman #1. Looks hilarious from the cover and I just had to peek inside to see if the interior art was as fun. From the title you might expect a crudely drawn book, but it ain't. It looks very professional at first glance; it's just about a superhero made of sticks in the shape of a stick figure. He even has little stick eyes that hang by ropes from the top of his otherwise empty, round, stick head.

New Reviews

Finally got caught up with reviews.

The August 10th Pull List has quickies of:
Malcolm Magic #7
Samurai: Heaven & Earth #4
Serenity #2
JLA #117
Rann-Thanagar War #4
Villains United #4
Seven Soldiers: Zatanna #4
Fables #40
Mnemovore #5
Silent Dragon #1
Western Tales of Terror #5
Easy Way #4
Ferro City #1
X-Men #174
Captain America #8
Shanna the She-Devil #7
House of M #5
Rocket Rabbit #1
*whew!*

The much more manageable August 17th Pull List includes:
Birds of Prey #85
Batgirl #67
Lex Luthor: Man of Steel #5
Seven Soldiers: Klarion #3
Witchblade #88
Elk's Run #3
Rex Libris #1

And finally, I did a full review of the first Ralph Snart Adventures collection.

Saturday, August 20, 2005

Friday, August 19, 2005

FallCon Confirmed

Got my Official Artist Confirmation for MCBA FallCon the other day. I am a "confirmed Guest Creator" and I can't wait. It's such a great show and I'm looking forward to hanging out and visiting with the Minnesota comics community again.

Wednesday, August 17, 2005

Review: WIZARDWORLD STASH

I did a special Pull List of most of the comics I got in Chicago. Highlights are Tyler Page's new college drama Nothing Better, a couple of books by Cori Doerrfeld, Fear Agent by Rick Remender, and several Speakeasy books (Beowulf, Hero @ Large, and Rocketo).

Lotta good comics coming out these days.

Thursday, August 11, 2005

Review: PULL LIST 8/3/05

Quick reviews of:

Justice #1
Y: The Last Man #36
Night Mary #1
The Imaginaries #3
Marvel Team-Up #11
The New Avengers #8
The Phantom #8

Wednesday, August 10, 2005

Review: PULL LIST 7/27/05

Quick reviews of:

Hellboy: The Island #2
Wonder Woman #219
JLA: Classified #10
Legion of Super-Heroes #8
The OMAC Project #4
Hellblazer #210
Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere #2
The Amazing Spider-Man #522
X-Men #173
Black Panther #6
Runaways #6
Courtney Crumrin Tales: A Portrait of the Warlock as a Young Man

Newsarama Mention

My buddy and sometimes collaborator Jess Hickman did an interview with Newsarama and was nice enough to mention me a couple of times. Congrats, Jess!

Tuesday, August 09, 2005

Mailbag: Silly Rabbits

Got two review books in the mail today. Both coincidentally involving silly rabbits.

One was Malcolm Magic #7 from Blink Twice. I knew that one was coming, but the other was unexpected and so a pleasant surprise. A long time ago I reviewed Nerve Bomb Comix #0, which features a robot bunny named Rocket Rabbit. I liked it a lot and creator James Baker has a new book called Rocket Rabbit #1.

I can't wait to dig into both of these.

Review: ORBITER

Just got back from WizardWorld Chicago yesterday. Not so much of a work trip as just being there amongst it all, but it was fun seeing old friends again and making new ones. And it's always inspirational being around so many creative people.

Before I left for the convention I participated in one of Pop Thought's Review Club articles for Warren Ellis and Colleen Doran's Orbiter.

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