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Here’s a page by the super-awesome PJ Holden from an upcoming project of mine.

What’s that? Why, yes, those are zombies. Oh, you’re very welcome.

Click to embiggen.

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Got back from SDCC on Monday. In a stupor ever since.

It was awesome as always to see the old Vegas crew (representatives of which will be joining me here in the Great Wet North in a couple months), and I got to meet a ton of people I’ve only spoken to via email or message boards. Had a great time, made some new friends, pressed much flesh — even signed a few copies of 24SEVEN for people I didn’t know. Which was weird. And awesome. And also weird.

By all accounts the book is doing well. Online reviews have been scarce (non-superhero + anthology + release the week of SDCC = zero coverage), but Publishers Weekly said some very nice things about the book and about Ben and my story in particular on 24SEVEN’s Amazon page. I’ll have to send them some muffins or something.

So, yeah. More later, including awesome pictures stolen from my friends’ blogs.

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Here’s the completed cover for 24SEVEN, remixed by Adam Hughes.

And here’s what a stack of printed copies looks like:

The book will be in stores next Wednesday. Ben and my contribution, “The Honesty of Machines,” is apparently on page 63.

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Just in case any of my loyal readers (all three of you) are looking to pick up a copy of 24SEVEN but don’t have easy access to a comic shop, you’ll be happy to know the book is now available on Amazon.

Teh cliqui.

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Since she launched her new blog a couple months ago, Gail Simone has become my favorite-ist person in the whole wide world. The girl is smart. And funny. And I hear she’ll give you a great deal on a cut-and-color if you tell her you liked VILLAINS UNITED.

Last week, Gail wrote a fantastic essay about how occasionally pissing off your fanbase is not only a writer’s right — it may, in fact, be his duty. Because without those occasional WTF?-moments to slap you in the face and force you to pay attention, the books just become a sort of narrative Muzak.

[...]

First, a sense memory experiment. Think of the most expensive perfume or cologne you’ve ever smelled. You may not have loved it, but you can smell the wealth, the complexity. You know someone put it together with care and thought.

Now think of the cheapest, Wal-mart-iest crap fragrance of any kind…that crazy ass sickly sweet lavender bath shit your grandma uses, or those nightmarish lilac perfumes they ought to sell at gas stations.

Why does one grab your attention, make you snap your head up, and why is the one that’s pure sweet, and imitating a fragrance that’s one of nature’s most beautiful, almost unbearable?

Here’s why. Because, at the center of the expensive perfume, underneath the ‘good’ scents, there’s a bad scent, intentionally placed. A smell that if that was all you got in the bottle, would likely make you throw up. There’s a deliberate element in there designed to slap you right across the goddamn chops, and before you can be appalled, the ‘good’ mix of scents takes root.

[...]

Same with writing. How many stories have you read, where in the end, you felt that the writer was pandering to you, giving you exactly what the message boarders say they want, giving you the empty calories of, “Here, this is what you asked for. I’ve written it just as requested.”

Does anyone really want that? Lavender foaming bath balls, stinking so bad you have to leave the house, that’s what that is.

Read and discuss.

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I was reading through Greg Burgas’s ongoing essay series “Breaking Down Event Comics” on Comics Should Be Good, wherein Mr. Burgas explains how all of DC’s writers are idiots and retards who secretly hate their readers.

Yeah, I know. I think I have some Tylenol around here somewhere.

I agree with almost nothing Mr. Burgas says, but he’s a smart fellow and an entertaining critic, and, for the most part, I enjoy reading his stuff — although he does hold with the maddening idea that a writer who attempts anything more ambitious than introducing a new villain should be tarred and feathered for his trouble. (Again, I like Burgas — I’m just glad he wasn’t working editorial when Alan Moore pitched his SWAMP THING revamp. Or Grant Morrison’s *obviously contemptuous* take on ANIMAL MAN. And, boy, who the hell does that Frank Miller guy think he is? Making DAREDEVIL all dark and brooding like that. He didn’t USED to be that way — why does Miller hate fans so much?)

Okay, I had a point to this, I swear, and it wasn’t bashing Greg Burgas, who, again, I enjoy reading. What I was getting at was this: halfway down the comments page on “Breaking Down…” Part 2 (that’s the one where Burgas explains that COUNTDOWN TO INFINITE CRISIS sucked because every single character in the DCU is supposed to be *TOTALLY AWESOME*, and apparently in that book, some weren’t — okay, okay, I’ll stop), Jim MacQuarrie breaks in with one of the most interesting opinions on the state of modern comics I’ve ever read. I’m presenting Mr. MacQuarrie’s essay here in its entirety, because it’s just too damn good to cut:

I think the fundamental problem is beyond all that. All fo this bad writing and out-of-character behavior is rooted in a single fundamental problem: the shared universe.

Back in the ’80s, it occasionally happened that TV shows on NBC referenced each other; the doctors from St. Elsewhere wandered into the Cheers bar, Detective Munch moved from Homicide to Law & Order, Third Watch and ER did a crossover, etc and so on. Imagine for a moment that NBC decided to follow up on that little trend by doing a lot more of it, eventually mandating that ALL of their shows take place in the same universe. All of them; My Name is Earl, Days of Our Lives, Saturday Night Live, Scrubs, ER, Crossing Jordan, Deal or No Deal, The Office, the Apprentice, West Wing, Last Comic Standing, all of them.

Suppose it got to the point that if Earl showed up in ER’s lobby, the producers had to make sure he was injured and taken to Chicago’s hospital in that week’s episode.

What happens now? First, all shows are locked into a rigid sequence of episodes; they can’t be re-run in random order anymore. Second, anyone who likes a given show has to watch or at least be aware of every single show on the schedule lest they miss some important point about their favorite show. Suppose the big season-ending surprise about ER actually appeared on that night’s Conan O’Brien show? Fourth, there would be an enforced homogeniety to all the shows; the tome would have to be modified so that the earthy detectives on Law & Order could believably move within the silly world of Scrubs. The uniqueness of each show would be destroyed for the sake of continuity. Fifth, the setup would alienate older fans of the shows and deter new viewers from getting into the shows. NBC would shrivel up and die.

The only way to “save” comics is to kill the shared universe. Characters should cross over in much the way they did on Cheers and ER and the White Shadow; incidentally and without anybody worrying about how well the plotlines matched up that week. Each character should exist in its own self-contained universe as much as possible, and crossover information limited to crossover books such as JLA.

As long as the publishers insist on this idiotic state of affairs (which does not exist in any other entertaiment media; do all of Universal’s movies exist in the same universe, or all of Acclaim’s videogames share a world?), there will be editorially-mandated manglings of logic, character and plot.

Get to the root of the problem. Infinite Crisis is a tumor caused by the cancer of shared universes. It’s a cancer that grows by destroying the fun.

Amen.

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11-page 24SEVEN preview on the PUBLISHERS WEEKLY site today. Some stuff you’ve seen before, some stuff you haven’t. All of it awesome.

(Can you believe it? My lame ass actually got mentioned in PUBLISHERS WEEKLY.

That kinda rocks.)

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Girl-Wonder.org launched today. It’s a group blog/online magazine designed to bring a feminist perspective to the discussion of mainstream superhero comics, and the misogynist undertones they often contain. What’s notable is the tone. Rather than simply attacking (and then dismissing) superhero comics as inherently sexist, the site authors are self-proclaimed fans of the genre — women who love superhero comics, but are tired of the way women are constantly sexualized and victimized in their pages.

I wouldn’t go so far as to say I’m on the fence with this issue, but I don’t lean to the extreme on either side. I don’t think Frank Cho should be strung up by his testicles because he likes to draw women with big asses, nor do I think it’s okay to dress every female hero like a stripper on her first song. And that whole, “torture-and-kill-all-the-women-in-really-nasty-ways-so-the-male-hero-has-something- to-avenge” thing is really, really lame. It’s not only sexist, folks, it’s played out. There are other ways to motivate a character to action, ways that don’t involve alienating all your female readers.

Anyway, the site’s worth checking out, and the debate is worth having. Go. Read.

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After five years, my online alma mater Ninth Art is closing its doors for good. As far as I know the site will continue as a static archive, but no new content will be produced after June 19th. It’s a shame. 9A was always one of the smarter comics sites out there. And after ArtBomb shut down, it was pretty much the only place on the Web where the “discerning reader” could feel at home.

I wrote several pieces for them (though not nearly as many as I told Andrew I would), and I found them to be a really good bunch of guys, even if they did force me to put extra ‘U’s in all my words.

End of an era.

(NOTE: I was going to point you guys toward the Ninth Art forum so you could give them some love, but it looks like they’ve already dismantled it.)

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Newsarama has posted 11 pages from 24SEVEN, and they all look fantastic. I mean, seriously. I’d buy this thing even if I wasn’t in it. Which I am. And that is awesome.

The ‘Rama has pages from Alex Maleev, James Stokoe, Frazer Irving, Farel Dalrymple, Jasen Lex, Vasilis Lolos, Paul Lau, Nate Bellegarde, Esad Ribic, Eric Canete, and Chris Brunner all available for your perusal.

Here’s a page from my story with Ben Templesmith:

Art by Ben, color by the amazing Nick Filardi.

Also, if you missed it last week, Ivan Brandon sat down with the fine folks at CBR to talk about the book. (There’s pictures there, too.)

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