Strictly 4 My Programz Welcome back to another edition of All the Rage. There was a rumor going around that Kevin Smith had FINALLY finished the last script for Spider-Man & Black Cat: The Evil Men Do… But sources within Marvel say that’s not the case. So, set your Apocalypse Clocks back to 11… This Has A “Neverending Story” Factor of Two Out of Ten
Paging The Silky Bureaucrats As I mentioned earlier, I was at Meltdown Comics on Friday night, for the Jim Mahfood / Dave Crosland “Punk to Funk” art show. And man… that was a GREAT show. I’ve gotta give it up for Meltdown, it’s one of the biggest and well-stocked comic stores I’ve ever seen. The party kicked ass too…      While I was there, I caught up with Mahfood for the lowdown on his upcoming projects:
After that, I have my Stupid Comics #3 coming out in August from Image. My Marvel book with Brian Bendis, called Wha… Huh?, which is an all comedy issue with all of Marvel’s superheroes. That comes out in August too. In the meantime, I’ve been doing the gallery stuff, live art, skateboard designs for a new skateboard company in New York which should come out in the next couple of months. We’ll be doing a big party in San Diego on Saturday night during the convention… our “Saturday Night Comic Con Funk Party” at “The Honeybee Hive”, which is a club in downtown. After that, I’ll be gearing up for my next books in late 2005, early 2006 and stuff. You can keep up to date on my stuff on my site, 40ozcomics.com.
The Puffed trade paperback, called The Unauthorized Puffed Movie Adaptation is coming out this Wednesday, the 8th. I’m working on a ten-page short story concept by Derek Hess, a printmaker out of Cleveland, Ohio. I’m also in negotiations to work on a three issue miniseries from Devil’s Due, but I can’t say what it is. It’s a horror/comedy kind of comic. If you’re in New York, Jim Mahfood and Deadbeatsister.com and I are doing MoCCA next weekend. I’m doing Wizard World Chicago with the same crew in August.
Image LA Of course, a party like this almost always brings out other local comic creators. And sure enough, I ran into three additional Image creators at Meltdown. First, Paul Harmon dropped some interesting Sea of Red news and spoke about the future of Mora.
      After that I’ll probably be doing one full story arc for Sea of Red, in issues 8 to 11. Then Salgood will be back from issue 12 to 16. Hopefully, at the same time I’ll be working on the Mora graphic novel. But I may be working more with Rick Remender and Kieron Dwyer. We’re discussing switching back and forth on Sea of Red between Salgood, possibly Kieron and myself on four issue runs. So, I may have a long run or I may have a short run but it depends on how soon I can get Mora done.
     The cover to Grounded #2, was chosen by the posters of the NYC Mech board when I couldn’t decide between two gorgeous covers by Paul. This week I’ve got to decide on a cover for Grounded #4. I’m not sure I’m any more decisive, but at least I have my own message board at Image to help me with these decisions now. I consider these pages from the second issue a kind of good luck charm, because they are also the pages I used to successfully pitch Grounded to Image at last year’s Comic-Con. After days of waiting nervously around by the Image booth, I finally cornered Eric Stephenson, handed him these pages, stammered out a 60 second pitch and he said, “I don’t see why we shouldn’t publish this.” It wasn’t until I saw issue #1 solicited in last month’s Previews that I really believed we had a deal. The deal is in fact real, and the first issue hits the stands July 6th. The second issue hits the racks August 10th. It’s a great jumping on point for new readers, who I hope will pre-order it in this month’s Previews. Incidentally, if my family is reading, the proper way to pre-order is to do it at your local comic book store, and not call Image directly. Poor Joe Keatinge has already had to field at east one call from a relative asking if he’ll send them their “little Mark’s” new book.
  Then, The Amazing Joy Buzzards #5 kicks the series back into gear this July. The new series is going to be great as usual but get much more into characters and relationships as the Amazing Joy Buzzards are pitted against a group of nefarious supernatural-mod-hipsters known as the Spider Syndicate. There's plenty of action to go around as readers learn more about the band's origins and their manager Dalton Warner who is working for the CIA. I love doing this series with all my heart and there are a lot of AJB stories that I'm just dying to tell. Dan Hipp's art is to die for and my story is pretty damn great too. So look out for The Amazing Joy Buzzards in July! This Has A “Rock And Roll To The Rescue!” Factor of Ten Out of Ten
7 Steel Heroes Christopher Moeller's long-in-the-works JLA: Cold Steel is nearing completion and should be out some time before the end of the year. As long time ATR readers may recall, the premise involves the BIG 7 of the Justice League getting giant robot versions of themselves to fight off an alien threat. I know… it sounds ridiculous at first, but then you see the art…    And suddenly it seems really cool. This Has A “Go-Go Bots!” Factor of Nine Out of Ten
The Beat’s Got Ya Covered Over at The Beat, Heidi MacDonald is reporting from The Book Expo America in New York. And the thing that really caught my eye was the mention that Slave Labor Graphics has signed a deal to put out some Disney comics, including Gargoyles, which will be written by Greg Weisman, who created and developed the Gargoyles animated series. I’ve got to say… it’s ABOUT DAMN TIME! Seriously… I’ve been waiting for someone to pick up the Gargoyles comic license for YEARS. It was one of the greatest animated series to come out of the 90s (on par with Batman and Superman) and I’d love to see more stories about those characters. I know I’m not alone in that regard… Anyway, check out Heidi’s report, for more on the Slave Labor Graphics/Disney comic deal and the future of the Flight anthology. This Has A “Defenders of The Night” Factor of Ten Out of Ten
Lucky To Have Jonesy In a late rumor out of Wizard World Philadelphia, newly DC exclusive artist, J.G. Jones is said to be writing and drawing a book for Wildstorm… This Has A “Multi-Talented” Factor of Eight Out of Ten
Whatta Rush! Spotted over at Tom Peyer’s Superfrankenstein Blog, Rush Limbaugh as you’ve never seen him before…  So… is he powered by Oxycontin or is it his Kryptonite? This Has A “Talent On Loan? What Talent?!?” Factor of Three Out of Ten
Death Dealers One more thing to show this week. We’ve got the cover for Half Dead, a five issue miniseries coming out from Speakeasy, with pencils and inks by Jimmy Bott, colors by Wesley Wong and written by the SBC’s own, Barb Lien-Cooper and Park Cooper. The cover below was drawn by Ted Wing III.  Congratulations, Barb and Park. And that’s a wrap. Special thanks to James Mase. James not only coined the phrase for this week’s column title, he also drew and designed the kick-ass Gangsta-Tron icon on the top right of this page. Until next time… Later, Blair PS If anyone has any rumors, stories or news to share, please email me at blairm@silverbulletcomicbooks.com Thanks to everyone who has been sending stuff in. It’s greatly appreciated. |
