Off Topic

Look what's gonna be solicited in the next issue of Previews!

Jesse James vs Machine Gun Kelly: Dust to Dust

Story: Alex Ness, Michael May
Art: Joel Vollmer
32pgs, b/w tone, $3.50

A MOONSTONE WILD WEST EVENT

Jesse James has survived an assassin’s bullet and the long arm of the law. Now a deranged man of the cloth, people are paying attention to his fervent fire and brimstone!

Born under a bad sign, outlaw Machine Gun Kelly steamrolls into town, a scorched earth in his wake, and he’s ready to slash and burn for kicks.

The incendiary-thermite of two psychopaths in one small town only lights the fuse to an explosive conflagration…and one blazing holy war, where there are no laws, just Old Testament fiery curses. See who’s not roasting when the dust clears!

32pgs of story! NO ADS! NO FILLER!

Woo HOO!

Instructions: Open up your iTunes and fill out this survey, no matter how embarrassing the responses might be.

I don't know why my TiVo didn't pick it up, but it was supposed to have nabbed the first episode of Dana Scully's hosting Masterpiece Theater last Sunday. I gotta see if I can catch a rerun. Looks like it comes on again tomorrow night.

Don't tell anyone, but I loves me a good costume drama.

I've got so many friends and know so many artists who are also talented storytellers that I often wonder why artists need writers at all. And  don't get me wrong: a lot of artists don't. But as a companion post to yesterday's, this article on Working with a Writer was a nice affirmation.

"It's amazing how, when left to your own devices as an artist, the things you're 'not interested in drawing' coincidentally happen to be the things that are hardest for you to draw... 

"Fabio Moon (Or was it Gabriel? One of the twins, anyway) wrote recently about their experience with working with writers. They hadn't worked with writers much before, and lately they had been working with writers a great deal. They were saying how working with a writer was exciting but much more challenging. They were forced to learn to draw things they'd never have thought to draw, and they were required to manifest visions that were not their own--to make someone else's vision their own. And in doing so, they found that when they went to write their own comics, the new visual vocabulary they'd gotten from serving another's vision had broadened their own story possibilities."

This is old, but I really just want to get it bookmarked somewhere I can find it later, so that's what this is about. 

Well, that and that some of you might find it interesting.  The cracks at Jim Davis and Garfield are worth it by themselves.

Jeff Parker on writing for an artist.

Your Inner European is Spanish!

Energetic and lively. You bring the party with you!

 

Here's a cool site that's trying to do for the writers' strike what all those Jericho fans did with their bags of peanuts. For a buck, you can send a box of pencils to one of of the big media moguls in Hollywood. All the details are at the site, but basically the idea is to pool fans' efforts into a monumental, symbolic act that the moguls will notice. Instead of a package of pencils coming in here and there, there will be truckloads.

Also, the pencils are made from sustainably harvested wood (not deforested) and will be sent with suggestions about where the moguls can donate the pencils to non-profits that teach kids how to write. Any money left over from the cost of buying and shippng the pencils will go into the Union Solidarity Fund, which was created to help non-WGA members affected by the strike. 

Thanks to Dan Taylor for the link. I've already bought my box.

Steven Grant recently had a great post on marketing comics, but it probably applies to any type of marketing endeavor. It's Marketing 101, basically. He elaborates enough that it's worth reading the whole thing, but boiled down:

The basics of marketing are easy. They’re just questions:

1) Who’s the audience? 
2) How do we let the audience know the product exists, and where to get it?
3) How do we convince the audience they need the product, even if we already know they do?

He acknowledges that the answers are the hard part, but helps us move in the direction of getting them by restating the principles like this:

If they don’t know it’s there, they won’t know to look for it. 
If they can’t find it, they can’t buy it. 
If they think they can live without it, nine times out of ten they’ll live without it. 

But if they know it’s there, they can find it, and you can convince them they can’t live without it, that’s how comics companies are made.

Good stuff to think about for creators. Even if you're not self-publishing, in today's publishing world you can't expect the publisher to do all the marketing for you while you sit back and collect royalties. Creators have to market their own stuff in addition to whatever the publisher's willing to do.

 

Thanks, you guys, for the insight yesterday. It's an informal poll obviously, but looks like everyone's into covers that are artistic on their own merits, but are also indicative of the art you'll find inside.

The reason I asked was because I'd been reading this series of blog posts by Marvel editor Tom Brevoort about covers. It's a really interesting look at the history of Marvel covers and the thought that's gone into marketing comics through the years. It sounds like Marvel's current thinking mirrors what you guys were talking about.

That's cool to know, because my own taste in comics covers is probably about 40 years old: 

"These tended to showcase an explosive or gripping piece of artwork, and come covered with assorted bursts and blurbs proclaiming the greatness of the contents of that issue, often with a heavy dollop of self-effacing humor. This established the Marvel style right off the bat, and made those books stand out among the competition—they tended to be funnier and more engaging than the average, while at the same time being more exciting visually. It seems like such an obvious approach in hindsight, but most publishers of the day were still tentative because of the Senate hearings of the '50s, and so were reluctant to make waves by calling too much attention to themselves. Most other super hero covers focused on being pristine, almost sterile in a classy way. Rarely would a super hero break a sweat. The challenges tended to be intellectual and emotional, rather than physical. Not so on the Marvel covers of the day."

Although, I do find it really interesting that that kind of cover is one that Marvel came up with during a time when they needed to be especially competitive. Once things stabilized for the company and sales were up, "Stan (Lee) and Martin Goodman seemed content to let the artwork shoulder the burden of selling the magazine. Covers became a bit more graphic, propelled by the innovations of young artists like Jim Steranko and Neal Adams." 

Also, "As the overall quality of the artwork rose, the emphasis moved more concretely towards having a strong, punchy, dynamic image. The amount of copy fell dramatically, typically only one box or blurb, most often highlighting the title of the issue or the central idea of the conflict."

It sounds like when sales were down, Marvel went for the "explosive," "gripping" covers with lots of hype captions that told you what the story was about. When sales are okay, they go for "strong," "bold," "dynamic" images that more or less carry the covers by themselves. 

Logic tells me that if I really need to sell a book to people who don't already know about it, then I should maybe try some early '60s-style covers. But what I'm hearing from you guys (if I'm correct in the way I'm connecting the dots) is that maybe those Biff! Pow! covers may be too retro and give the appearance that a book's out of touch with modern tastes. Is that right? 

I know this is all very unscientific and that I'm basing conclusions on four of my friends and a series of posts about one company's thinking, but right now it's all I have to go on. Not that I have to figure it out right this minute. I'm just trying to form a working theory that I can test for a while.

For those of you who read comics, I'm curious about something. When you're at the comic store, do you browse at all or just pick up what you'd already planned to get?

And if you browse, what kind of covers catch your eye? Do you like covers that are basically pin-ups or do you want one that teases the story inside? Or do you just respond to attractive art and design?

The Good News is that I'm about to start using this blog a lot more.

I'm streamlining my other blog so that it's mostly commentary about what I'm reading and watching. If there's a news article that I feel like I have something to say about, I'll do that there too, but I'm trying to get away from just posting links without putting much thought into them.

The Bad News is that I'm moving all that back over here. And also my thinking on the business and craft of writing and/or making comics. I know that bores some of you guys, but it helps me to process information if I can get it down on a log, so there you go. Basically, this blog is now for whatever random nonsense doesn't fit on the Official Michael May Adventureblog.

And that includes Grey's Anatomy. Be afraid.

  Tonight we had our first parent/teacher conference with David's Kindergarten teacher. Well, Diane did. I ran late and missed it, but Diane filled me in. We knew that David was doing well because he's already met all the goals he's supposed to by the end of the year, but it was nice to hear that his teacher called him The Smartest Kid in the Class By Far. Apparently he's even been spending 45 minutes a day with the school's Gifted and Talented teacher, which was news to us.

So, yeah... proud.

Almost as proud as when I took him to the comic book store yesterday and he picked out this to buy for himself:



After the conference, I met my brother-in-law Dave for a movie: Dan in Real Life. I loved it; Dave didn't. He understood how anyone who loves  The Gilmore Girls would like it, but he felt like he needed to brush his teeth afterwards it was so sweet.

And yeah, Dan's family in the movie is a bit perfect, but I think it works because in contrast it highlights how miserable his life is. Even though he's surrounded by parents and siblings who love and support him, the love of his life is dead and he fights with his daughters. He's a sweet, lonely guy and you so badly want him to find happiness. That's why it works for me, but yeah... you have to like that kind of thing.

If I was the kind of guy who sent stuff to Jay Leno, I'd send this to Jay Leno. But I'm not, so I'll just post it here for our head-scratching bemusement. I got this envelope from Qwest the other day:



Notice the big print: "Guaranteed Price or Life!"

Now, notice the small: "Service price subject to change."

What am I missing here?

So my laptop died last week taking a ton of photos with it. Photos that I'd slowly been trying to back up to Flickr, but hadn't got very far thanks to my dial up connection and the laptop's lack of a CD burner. That's what I get for being cheap.

So, now we've got broadband and a brand new MacBook. I'd almost forgotten what it's like to be a Mac Person. It's great to be back. I'm struggling a little to remember all my Mac shortcuts (and doing so is making work interesting when I keep hitting the Alt key on my work PC thinking it's the Apple key), but I'm getting there.

And hopefully the time that having real Internet at home saves me will let me get back to blogging about nonsense here. Especially about TV. I miss talking about that.

We have kids parties back-to-back tomorrow for two of David's cousins, one from each side of the family. Tonight though, it's pizza in front of the TV -- probably watching Revenge of the Sith. It'll be the first time we've all three been together in a long time. Looking forward to it.

In other news, Jess (arletta) and I are working on another story! Yay! 

I don't want to say too much about it, but it's short, part of an anthology, and Jess says I had her at "jungle girl." Can you imagine Jess's jungle girl? I'm a frickin' genius. You're welcome, world.

 

David got back last night after a week of camping with my folks. Even though I was busy at Wizard World Chicago for most of that time, it was thrilling to see him again and catch up. He had a lot of stories to tell, but it sounds like his favorite part of the trip was watching Jurassic Park with his cousin on the way home. He's already bugging us to plan a sleepover at his cousin's house so they can watch 2 and 3. And another so his cousin can come to our house for a Scooby Doo marathon.

Diane's got a nasty cold/infection, but other than that it's really nice to have everyone under the same roof again.

Just checking in to let everyone know we're all okay here. Nobody I know seems to have been directly affected by the bridge collapse. In fact, Diane, David, and I weren't even in the state last week. We were in Wisconsin on vacation and away from computers.

Now I'm getting ready for WizardWorld Chicago. No rest for the weary.

Man, it's been about a month since I updated here. Sad.

We're remodeling our kitchen. Got the floor and the walls all torn up, which makes it look like crap. But we've also exposed the original brick chimney from a wood-burning stove, so that's cool. Knocked a hole in the wall above where the new stove's going to sit. That gets some nice air flow from the back of the house (where the kitchen is) to the staircase and foyer in the front of the house. Which is really important in a 100 year old house without central air. Plus, it's a lot of fun to stand on the staircase landing and peek through the hole at the kitchen. I'll try to get some pictures up later.

Also, spiffy new fridge.

And Diane and David got me a magnolia tree for Father's Day. I didn't even know magnolia trees could grow up here, but it'll be a nice reminder of the South once it's old enough to bloom.

David is all into Elvis Presley. Mainly "Devil in Disguise," which he heard on the radio the other day and can't get enough of now. But I dug out my one Elvis CD (a two-disc Best Of compilation) and he also likes "Don't Be Cruel" and "Return to Sender" now.

What else? I was sort of on TV. G4TV's Attack of the Show did a segment on comics blogs and featured Blog@Newsarama. One of the posts they showed was this one about Kill All Monsters!, the comic that Jason Copland and I are trying to find a publisher for.

Guess that's it for now. I'll try not to make this such a sporadic occurrence.

I turned 40 yesterday and I'm okay with that. :) I was talking to someone over the weekend and she suggested that everyone has a different birthday that hits them hard and is tough to get through. But once you pass it, the rest are nothing. I think mine was my 18th. I knew that I was coming up on the end of childhood and I didn't really want to grow up. That's sorta still my problem. Anyway, 40 is a piece of cake. No pun intended.

I had a great, four-day celebration. Diane and I tend to drag out birthdays as much as we can. I thought that we were headed out to a private dinner/movie celebration on Saturday, but when we showed up at my folks' house to drop off David for the night there was a surprise party waiting for me. Lots of folks from church, some old friends I hadn't seen in a while, my day job partner-in-crime. Diane and my folks had decided on a movie theme, so all the food was stuff you find at a cinema concession stand: hot dogs, nachos, big boxes of candy. We played movie-themed games and Star Wars was running down in the den, though I never got down there to watch any of it. Fun stuff though.

My folks took me out to lunch on Sunday, we had another birthday dinner at their house again on Monday (with an awesome coconut cake), and yesterday I tooled around town spending gift certificates and meeting my folks for yet another meal -- this time at Baja Sol, which is now one of my favorite chains. 

I also managed to catch At World's End a couple of times. I'll write up a review on my other blog for that though.

Got some nice loot. Some books, some DVDs, a couple of CDs, some shirts, some swag from the Heroes Museum in Indianapolis from some friends who'd visted there. Diane got me season tickets to a local children's theater. We had season tickets there last year and enjoyed every show we saw. I also got a scanner. I was going to say that I got a "new" scanner, but that implies that there was an old one and that's just misleading. I'm slowly joining the digital age.

Anyway, great weekend. I even got to spend some time thinking about and appreciating the veterans of various wars who've given their lives in service to the nation. 

The reviews I've read this morning about the Lost finale have all been universally positive, but I don't get it. My reaction after finishing it is what I quoted in the subject line.