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Hey, kids! Wanna see the keys?

Master key, cleaned, but still still in its sprues

Nine keys, on their tree of wax

Nine keys, cast and in their sprues

Nine rough keys, still unfinished

(Photos courtesy of David MacMillan, sculpting and silver casting by Rollande Krandall)

Wow, I am so incredibly geeked about the prospect of seeing these finalized. David and Rollande are two of my dearest friends, and early and ardent supporters of the book. So much so that they gave me significant seed money to print the first issue, and refused to allow me to pay them back. The cover of issue 4, an oil painting, was my repayment — and it still hangs in David’s office. When they moved, he said it was one of the first things he brought with him.

So many little points in our three lives have been synchronous. It’s another one of those blessed things in my life … for example, when I was broke and unemployed, I’d drive out to their house in Ferndale, and we’d carpool down to the DIA to see the exhibits. Once, while we were there on a Friday night, we saw a live glass-beadmaking demonstration. Little did we know that Rollande would soon find a serious hobby in bead creation.

Beadmaking led to a class in silversmithing, and as a lark, Rollande said that she’d like to try her hand at making the key. Several classes, untold headaches, a six-hundred mile relocation, casting-tool acquisition and a scratch-built shop later, here we are. Rollande’s dedication to the project (not to mention her sheer tenacity) has been nothing short of amazing.

On Rollande’s suggestion, we’re going to be making a limited run of 50 “Special Edition” keys, that will come on a little six-inch loop of special-ordered .5mm (you read that right) sterling silver chain, and rest in a special wooden box with a bronze-cast half-key on the lid (as opposed to the two-sided, three dimensional silver key itself). These will be essentially as close to a perfect reproduction of Vogelein’s key as she can get.

Concurrent with the special edition, we’ll also be selling the keys with only a jump-ring, for wearing as actual jewelry. Wear it as a necklace, as a bracelet, or buy two and make earrings; your choice.

I’ll let everyone know as soon as I have them in my hands; there should be at least nine special editions up for grabs within the next couple of weeks. YAHOO!

The second edition of the lovely new publication, SteamPunk Magazine has a short but very positive review of the first Vögelein book, and I’m told that issue #3 will feature a review of the new book. Margaret Killjoy, one of the editors and author of both reviews, has the lead pull-quote on the back of Old Ghosts, so you know it must be good.
I think a significant portion of the people who read this blog would dig the living heck out of SteamPunk, so y’all go check it out, kay? Both issues are free online or $3 for a print version.

Last month, I got a chance to interview a bunch of fellow self-publishers for a series of columns I’m calling “COMICS ARE OPEN SOURCE: Self-Publishing ‘Secrets’ Revealed.”
It’s a series of six columns; the first is with Layla Lawlor, discussing Print-On-Demand. Subsequent columns will feature Pam Bliss on Minicomics, Charlie “Spike” Trotman on Webcomics, Jim Ottaviani on Direct-to-Graphic Novel, and me on single issues, or lack thereof. The final column will be a roundtable in which all five interviewees will answer the same questions, and hopefully provide a nice wide perspective of answers.
Go! Read! Enjoy! See other people besides me natter on about self-publishing.

I’ve just added two new networking sites:

• Deviant Art
• MySpace
• ComicSpace

I’m still adding stuff to the pages, so please excuse how bare they are at the moment.

Enjoy!

Paul had a sudden shift in plans, and so we’re actually going to come out for Motor City Con. We will be there Saturday Only. I’ll have a few books to sell, but plan on mostly just walking around and handing out freebies.
See you there!

I had a little breathing room now that the book’s at the printers, so I spent a few hours and gave the site a bit of a facelift. Most of the upgrades were behind-the-scenes, so you probably won’t notice them unless you look really closely. I won’t bore you with the nerdly details, but I did condense a lot of the character/people pages to make for a more concise list, and I added a snazzy new image interface called Lightbox to make it easier to view the previews. It takes a few seconds to load, but it’s a lot nicer than the previous layout, I think.
There’re new previews on the index page, the online store has been cleaned up, and most pages have had their content revised and updated as well. If you haven’t been through the site for a while, it may be worth another look.
Also, if you’re interested, there’s now a feed for the Newsblog; you can find the link in the right-hand column, under the Archives.
Enjoy! Oh, and if you see anything funky or broken, do let me know.

Johanna Draper Carlson is one of the first! Read her review here. It’s so positive, I’m wondering if I should send her a check. YAY!

Yesterday was Free Comic Book Day, and because I was a good little artist and finished my book on time, I unchained myself from the desk and bolted for freedom; I wound up at Green Brain Comics in Dearborn.

Dan and Katie Merritt run the place, and they are the some of the best people going. The store was packed for most of the day — at closing, Dan reported that they had at least 900 people, and Katie announced that it had been their single highest grossing day in the 22-year history of the store. WOOT! I even brought along Zoë, who was on her best doggy behavior. She stayed in the car for most of the time, but whenever I let her out for a walk, or to visit, she charmed and impressed everyone she met. Go Zoë!

I was so glad that I had the chance to get out there; Scott McCloud and family were hanging out and signing books. The McClouds are really super people. Ivy and I got a chance to talk dogs and dog names, Winter was doing some great drawings and took photo reference of Zoë for upcoming art, and I think that Sky may have single-handedly convinced me to consider giving San Diego Comicon a try next year. Most of the Hamtramck crew was out in force; Suzanne Baumann, Michelangelo Cicerone and Matt Feazell were all there, handing out freebies and signing new books, along with some of the inZero crew (which stars the voice talents of Vögelein’s co-creator, Jeff Berndt , and the multiple talents of Vögelein supporter Mike Zawacki) and a bunch of other folks I don’t know. We talked and laughed and drank too much Jones soda and ate pizza and generally had a great time, and afterwards, a few of us met up with Sean and Sophia and walked over to LaShish for a bunch of really good food. Tons of fun, all around.

So by now I suppose you might be wondering about the title of this blog post. Well, you see, a couple weeks ago, it was looking like I was going to hit deadline, so I placed an ebay order and bought myself a brain-shaped jello mold, thinking I could make Dan and Katie their very own Green Brain. I figured that even if I didn’t get the book done on time and had to bail on FCBD, I could at least make one for the inevitable booksigning to come later. But things worked out, and on Friday afternoon, I followed the directions and made a beautiful lime-jello brain to bring with me. We actually have an honest-to-God penny candy store around the corner from our house, so I stopped over and got red licorice for the brainstem and a couple of googly jawbreakers for the eyes.

You should’ve seen Dan’s face. Awesome.

It’s a terrible shame that Paul had my camera with him in NYC… maybe someone will email me a picture so that I can show off. Anyway, up until closing, when Michelangelo finally got brave and tried some, Scott was the only one with enough intestinal fortitute to sample the jello — which I should add, did look pretty brainy and appropriately gross.

So now I can say, honestly, that Scott McCloud ate my brains.

I didn’t think the May PREVIEWS would be available till next week, but Paul brought it home today with his weekly pull.

It’s on the same page with American Born Chinese from First Second. Talk about good company.

And in case you missed it elsewhere, here’s another link to the 24-page preview on Comicon.com’s PULSE.

Gentle readers,
At long, long last, I finally have a preview for you. You can find it here.
After I get a few more things nailed down (like, for instance, the columns mentioned in the preview) I’ll post it here on this website in JPG format and also as one big PDF so that you can download it.
Here, also, is the long-awaited ordering info:
168 pages, $12.95
ISBN-10: 0974311014
ISBN-13: 978-0974311012
Page 305 of PREVIEWS
Diamond Comics Order Code: MAY073475
The May PREVIEWS hits stores in two weeks, and the books should arrive sometime in early July.
Also — I couldn’t afford to do a proper FCBD comic, but paper copies of this preview will also be available at a select few comic stores. I’m gunning to have them arrive in time for FCBD — but if they don’t make it, they’ll still be available at the following stores, the week after:
Titan Comics
3701 W. NW Hwy, Ste 125
Dallas, TX 75220
(214) 350-4420
Vault of Midnight
219 S. Main St
Ann Arbor, MI 48104
734-998-1413
Isotope Comics
326 Fell Street
San Francisco, CA 94102
(415) 621-6543
Fanfare Sports & Entertainment, Inc.
4415 S.Westnedge Ave.
Kalamazoo, MI 49008
Phone: (269) 349-8866
Green Brain Comics
13210 Michigan Avenue
Dearborn, Michigan 48126
1-313-582-9444
Future Pastimes
163 Lochiel Street
Sarnia, ON N7T 4C3, Canada
(519) 383-6967
Bookery Fantasy
16 West Main Street
Fairborn OH 45324
(937) 879-1408
Comic Relief
2026 Shattuck Ave
Berkeley CA 94704
(510) 843