News

Hey, everybody. I’m back, of sorts. Been working on a lot of outside projects, but don’t
despair. I’m done with the concept sketch
for the cover, if you wanna see. Steady work continues on the trade paperback, the silver Key necklace, and
many other fronts. Also, the Xeric Grant judging started on March 1st, and I’ll
know whether I’ve been granted within the next five weeks. Crossed fingers are greatly
appreciated. In any event, my appearance schedule is finally up and on the left side of the page,
so you can come see me when I’m in your neck of the woods.

I just got back in from APE — The
Alternative Press Expo in San Francisco.

It was, hands-down, the best show I’ve ever done in my entire life. The place was packed
with articulate, mature fans who were thrilled with the astonishingly high quality of the
literature being sold. I met pros whose work I have admired from afar for literal decades, and
even went out drinking with some of them. (Pictures to follow as they start popping up on the web…)

There’s no way for me to possibly sum up a show this good, this fun — so I’ll have to give you a blow
by blow of the events as they happened. I’ve called in sick to work and am sitting here in my favorite
bathrobe with a big fat mug of my favorite tea (Lyon’s Gold Label) and will spare no details! Stop reading
now if you’re not up for a looooong entry.

Friday, January 31st

I am dropped off at the airport by the incomparable Emily Peterson,
who supplied me with a stash of her best homemade beef jerky (which was a darn fine thing, as neither flight
served more food than those little twisty pretzel thingies). Met up with Virus, the best booth-monkey in the world (seen here
on Sunday with the best Backup Booth Monkey in the world, Alex “Tango” Tang). Virus, aka Matthew Messana, is one of
the oldest supporters of the comic, and has been kicking my butt to finish it since 1997. Without him, and the prodding
of a handful of others, there wouldn’t be a Vögelein. Virus believes so much in V that he bought me the plane ticket
to go to this show, and pimped my warez at the booth all weekend. Could anyone ask for a better friend — or boothmonkey?
He even brought his own fez. Next year I have to get him a matching matador jacket and a little tin cup, so I can
send him out panhandling for nickels.

Flights from Detroit to Minneapolis and Minneapolis to San Francisco were blessedly uneventful. I hadn’t been on a
plane in seven years, so I was like a little kid again, and Virus gave me the window seat on both flights. It was cool to
go through de-icing, with the neato robotic/hydraulic water cannons on cherry-pickers.
Virus informed me that they are the “Demon de-icing giraffes.” Good to know. Arrived on time (!) with
both flights, and got into our hotel room around 12am PST.

Saturday, February 1st

Up at the ungodly hour of 11am EST (or 8am on the West Coast) we showered and ate breakfast at Mel’s on Van Ness before being picked up
by my two wonderful aunts, Beth and Barbie, and cousin Sarah. The weather was staggering, after three solid weeks of
round-the-clock-below-zero-Farenheight weather in Michigan… it was 60 degees and sunny! Shirtsleeve weather! Green things
were growing! There were palm trees! After the initial shock wore off, we quite enjoyed it and dumped our jackets at the hotel
before leaving for the show.

Barbie had served as my shipping warehouse, and had
three boxes of comics (about 500 altogether) in the trunk of her Volvo ready to go. We jumped in and they drove us to the
Concourse center, where Barbie presented me with a huge goodie bag of everything you need to keep on your feet during a
convention appearance — sugar, sugar and more sugar. No seriously. If you’ve ever eaten convention food, you know that you
ALWAYS camp in day rations — and these were top drawer goodies. Oatmeal cookies, carrot sticks, Clif bars, Candy conversation hearts.

So, well armed and coffee buzzed, Virus and I had the booth set up in about fifteen minutes flat. The previous week I’d
gotten my booth assignment, and noticed that we’d have our backs to the wall, so I took a risk and brought along the big
cloth Vögelein banner, stripping out the dowel rods so I could carry it in my ditty bag rather than checking it in baggage.
A quick pass with the hotel’s iron and it was ready to go. Looked great, and we got lots of compliments on it all weekend.

APE itself was in a fabulous space. The Concourse center is a converted train station, but unlike every other show I’ve ever been to,
it was carpeted. The carpet, and the fabric dividers they used instead of walls, made the show unbelieveably soft and quiet, even with around
2500 people in the hall at any given time (I’d guesstimate total attendance somewhere around 4,000 for the entire show).
No harsh concrete floors and pinging reverb here, thankyouverymuch. And they had the single, most coolest show-perk ever — an open bar.
Yes, an open bar with pop, fresh high quality espresso drinks, and mixed liquor. You could walk round and look at comics whilst quaffing
a latte, fine imported beer or gin and tonic, whatever suited your favor. Yet there were no drunks, nor disorderlies. Everyone was chillin’,
and it felt so very, very good.

By lucky coincidence, I got put on the main floor of the show, right near the entrance. It was the best possible spot, because
not only was I one of the very first people you saw as you came through the door, but I was also in the same row with
a lot of my buddies — Lisa Jonte, Lea
Hernandez, Carla Speed McNeil, Layla
Lawlor, Rachel Hartman, Donna Barr,
Roberta Gregory,
Jim Ottaviani, and fellow Sequential Tarts John “Bean” Hastings, Loran Gayton and Trisha Lynn Sebastian.

All that amazing talent in just fifty linear feet of table space. Not to mention the fact that I was flanked on either side by
the Slave Labor Graphics guys (who publish amazing comics such as My Monkey’s Name is
Jennifer, Gloomcookie, Sparks, and dozens of other great titles) and Rory Root’s
Comic Relief, one of the best comic stores in the nation. So, to put it mildly, I was in damn good company.

The day wore on and I sold tons of comics, and thanks to Virus’ help was able to scoot away from the booth for a while to go say hi to
all the folks listed above, but I didn’t get a chance to go see the actual show itself. I did, however, get to go beslobber all over Tom Beland
and Lily Garcia, of True Story Swear to God fame.
I cannot express how much I love this book, or Tom’s sense of humor and comic timing. It was made even better by the fact that he and Lily
are both super, super people. Tom did the pin-up in the back of Vögelein issue four, if you need another point of reference. If you haven’t
yet checked this comic out, you fail to do so at your own peril. Tom’s a famous person waiting to happen. Lily’s already famous in her hometown
of San Juan, Puerto Rico… she’s a morning talk show host, a television host, and a motivational speaker…. and a really nice person to talk to.

So the show clicked on.
All the attendees seemed to be having a blast — I saw way more smiles than usual, even from the goths, who were
squeeing like crazy over the presence of Ted Nafieh, the GloomCookie gang, and Jhonen Vasquez. I met a ton of fans and hopefully
made some new ones, and Virus spent most of the time running around the show like a ferret on a double espresso, yelling, “Do you know who’s
here?! I just bought Stephen Notley a drink! I just talked to Judd Winick!” and before you knew it, he’d spent $200 on comics and the first
day of the show was over. But the night had juuuuust begun.

Virus and I possed up with Donna, Rachel, Layla, Roberta, Carla, Lisa, Loran, Lea, Trisha, Madison Clell,
annnd… two other people whom I don’t remember
but will fill in later as I do. Fourteen of us piled into a Thai restaurant and ate ourselves stupid, after which we walked to the
incredible Cartoon Art Museum on Third and Mission. But being us, dinner and a walk was not just dinner and a walk. Tales were told over dinner
that reduced Carla to a snorting heap of hair on one end of the table. Lea freaked us out with the scope of her Mom Powers (She can now
stop traffic with just her Mom-Voice) and Donna told of the ill-fated Desert Peach musical, and Carla told of Demonic Coconut Liquor in Belize.
Then, since it was Chinese New Year, Donna unveiled
a massive (and I do mean massive) pile of Joss Sticks, which we set on fire and held overhead as we marched through the streets, baa-ing like sheep.
It was the year of the ram, after all, and we had to do *something*.

We arrived at the Cartoon Art Museum smelling like a San Francisco Headshop, and flashed our APE
badges on the way in. There were a live band and hors d’oerves to celebrate the opening of a new exhibit, and the place was packed.
The exhibit was on Women in Comics, and was really, really good — I’d no idea that there were so many women making comics at the first
part of the 20th century. There were also two (!) walls of Edward Gorey art, political cartoons from as far back as the
19th century, and a hall full of controversial comics — the AIDS death in Doonesbury, and Opus’ battle with the Mary Kay commandos to name just two.

So by the time we were done with that exhibit, we still hadn’t had enough, so Virus, Donna, Roberta and I piled into Madison’s tee-tiny Honda Civic, with Virus
and I squonched into one seat, and rattled off to James Sime’s Isotope Comics
on Noriega and 24th. Holy Cow. We knew the party was still jumpin’ as soon as we pulled up — (thanks in large part to the navigation of
Roberta Gregory) there were twenty people or so milling around outside, and another fifty or sixty crammed inside. James is a former bartender, and
he decided one day to open a comics store. He quickly realized the true problem with comics: creators are creating great books, distributors are getting
the books where they need to be, the mainstream press is finally getting their act together when reviewing comics — but the traditional comic
book store is simply not an inviting place to anyone who’s not already a reader. So he opened Isotope Comics. There’s a bar behind the counter, leather
couches where you can sit and read your purchase, and no overwhelming feeling of fanboy-presence. There are also a collection of toilet seats on the back wall,
autographed and illustrated by such comics dignitaries as Warren Ellis, Judd Winick, and a host of others. So we sipped our Vodka Greyhounds, snacked on
hideously expensive Stilton and smoked gouda on crackers, read comics and chatted up other industry professionals. Can I just say again how monstrously cool
that is? Larry Freakin’ Young was running the cash register. Virus was frothing at the
mouth on finding a trade paperback of Halo Jones, a title he’d been seeking for seven years.

So We finish our drinks and hook up with John “Bean” Hastings and Trisha Lynn, (thanks again, John!) and motored back into downtown.
We jumped out at a stoplight and hoofed it back
to our hotel, where we could hardly sleep from all the excitement.

Sunday, February 2nd

Another fast breakfast and off to the show at 10:30 am, luggage in tow. I put Virus in charge of the booth and scampered off, piles of comics in hand,
to go talk to all the authors I’d wanted to hit up the previous day: Keith Knight,
Stephen Notley, seen above with our own Virus,
Terry Moore, Eric Shanower,
Howard Cruse, and Craig Thompson. After
that it was back to the booth for me, as Virus and Alex ran off to JapanTown for some sushi. They returned before long, and brought me
styrofoam clamshells full of fishy goodness, bless ’em.

During the day I met many fans who had bought the book already (it was really gratifying to know that Vögelein had made it out as far as the west coast
in such prolific numbers) and one of them was a girl named Lauren who said she had given my book to her friend Scott. “Scott?” I asked. “Do I know this Scott?”
“Scott McCloud,” she answered. “Not THE Scott McCloud,” I repeated, trying to drag my jaw up off the floor.
“Yes,” she said, “And he really liked the book. I sent his wife Ivy over here, earlier, but you were away from the booth.” GAH! I cried, but thanked her
profusely for showing my book to one of the most influential authors in the field. Little did I know….

The show was almost over when, around 4:30, my aunt Barbie, uncle Bill and cousin David showed up to see what they could of the show, and then take us out
to dinner and the airport, after. No sooner did they arrive — I was introducing them to Layla Lawlor and Alex Tang around to the relatives, when I saw a trio
approach out of the corner of my eye. I said something like this: “Alex, this is Barb, Bill and David; everybody, this is Layla Lawlor,
and OMIGOD, you’re Scott McCloud.” I apologised and admitted to Scott that I was going to go all Fangirl all over him, that it couldn’t be helped. He was
quite gracious about it, and yes, he remembered Vögelein and thought it was quite good, and was anxious to see the end of the series. I forced a full
set on him and we talked about getting the word on comics out. He was very glad to hear about all the library programming I did, and was happy to know
that at least 9 out of 10 libraries I visited had at least one of his books on the shelf. We chatted for a bit longer, and he was gracious enough to pose
for several pictures with me.

I blinked in Every. Single. One of them. Of course. I’ve had this problem for my entire life. I think I have maybe three
pictures of myself where my eyes are open. I think I must subconsciously believe that the camera’s gonna get a piece of my soul. So, in any event, here’s
a better, photoshopped version of the picture.

So then Scott left and the show was over. I left Michigan with three boxes of comics and was able to pack all the unsold comics and all my booth supplies
into just one box. Which was good, because Virus and I each bought a full box of comics. On the way out, hugging and goodbying to everyone, I got stopped
by Tom Beland. “Here,” he says, handing me an original True Story Swear To God cartoon. “Tom!” I yelled. “You can’t do this!” “No,” he says,
“you get this. Just about every person at my booth today said ‘Well, I was over at Jane’s booth and she said that your stuff was great so I’m here to
check it out.'” So after all this excitement, I got a marvellous Tom Beland original, which I carried tenderly on my lap all the way home on the plane. It
arrived safely, thankfully, and will be framed and hanging in my new studio next year.

We packed everything up and headed out with the rels
to a fabulous bayside restaurant called MoMo’s. Cousin Sarah met us there. The food was excellent, David picked us a smashing wine to go with dinner
and we told embarrassing family stories all night, including the one where I lost all my arm hair and eyelashes while preparing Thanksgiving dinner,
and the time that cousin Annie strung cousin Matt’s underwear on a big clothesline across the road, and Matt took it down with the bucket tractor.
(Y’know, practical jokes are just so much more fun when they involve farm implements.)

Barbie and Bill were extremely gracious hosts, and motored us off to the airport after a smashing good dinner and dessert. We said our goodbyes and
checked our boxes of comics (the security guys made me scan the Tom Beland original… Tom, just so you know, your art passes airport security) and settled
in for fitful napping on the way home. Again, an uneventful, on-time flight– we were quite lucky the entire trip.

So there you have it. APE. Amazing. More pictures of the wild Saturday night to follow.

Last month, a friend of mine gave me a short story to critique, as he was getting ready to start sending it off
to short-story monthlies, like SF&F, Locus, etc, and he wanted an opinion on it. It was a good story, once
I finally got round to reading and critiquing it. The prose needed some work, and the story some more exposition, but on the whole he had
some great ideas. Can’t wait to see the next draft.

Anyhoo, as we were discussing the story over lunch yestiddy, the conversation rolled round to the topic of Fanfic, and its
place in relationship to “professional” (note the quotes) writing. During our talk, I finally put to words a little
essay that I’ve been mulling around in my head for a while.

Fanfic, for those of you not already in the know, is taking pre-existing characters, (usually from a celebrated fantasy/science fiction book series,
television show or movie) and placing them in new stories. There are several ‘subclasses’ of Fanfic, which I won’t go into here for
the sake of brevity, but if you’re really interested in a dissertation on the topic, you can always go
here.

First off, let me state for the record that I’m not opposed to Fanfic in general. Secondly, let me state unequivocally that I
Do Not Want To See Vögelein Fanfic. It’s not that don’t particularly want it to exist — imitation is the sincerest form
of flattery after all — but please don’t show it to me.

Why, you ask? Because of the legal ramifications, and here’s why. Take, for instance, the horriffic Anne McCaffrey Fanfic Debacle
(see http://www.annemccaffrey.org or
http://www.burnedforfandom.org for all the gory details). I can see the
argument from both sides. Anne, long ago, granted permission to literal hundreds of play-by-mail Weyrs to use her world as
a springboard for thousands of new characters of their own making. There were rules, however: you couldn’t use Anne’s established
characters in the fic, you couldn’t sell your fic, you couldn’t invent New And Wierd Dragons (silver, red, two-headed) and women couldn’t
Impress bronze, blue or brown, period. Most importantly, the Weyr newsletters and APAs were meant for a small, closed audience
and were not to be sources of profit. Anne was forbidden by her lawyers from even glancing through the zillions of individual
fics, even if they were sent to her, lest some plot element or character name that a fan wrote inadvertently turn up in a
later Pern book or story… even if purely coincidental, it could prove grounds for a lawsuit.

Since the advent of the Internet (which started taking off in earnest some thirty years after the initial appearance of “Weyr Search”
in Analog in ’67), most of those rules got blown to hell. People could post Pern fiction of any make or shape with little
to no policing. Throw a page up on the web, and in an instant, literal millions of people could view it. Unfair, cried Anne, and
sicced her lawyers on the most egregious offenders, some of who were only posting legit fanfic, but many of who were making money off of
unauthorized Pern merchandise.

There have been attempts to patch up relations between Anne and her fans, but it has not always gone well. In a compromise of sorts,
http://www.annemccaffrey.org has created a FanFic section of the website
where registered users can post their fics, and where content rules are rigidly enforced. Todd (Anne’s son) or one of the other
web-keepers doesn’t like it, or a user’s behavior, and off it goes, pfft.

From the fannish perspective, this is unbelievably draconian (pardon the pun) behavior. They’ve been invited into this
unbelievably lush and open universe, just crammed to the top with possibility, with a three-thousand year history that has plenty of
elbow room for entire generations of Weyrs and Dragonriders to exist without ever rubbing historical shoulders. One woman alone,
or even her son, couldn’t ever possibly write all the stories that could be told, and they want to play there, too. Honestly, the best
way to improve your fanbase is to let the fans play regularly with your world and sculpt bits of it in their own image. It brings
the reader even further in to the beautiful world you’ve created, and still allows them to have an individual, personal relationship
with it. An author with a light whip-hand can reap unbelievable benefits from FanFic.

Now, I’m hardly in Anne’s shoes; I’ve hardly written a series as great as the Pern universe, so don’t get me wrong, but this is the
biggest, fiercest example of the argument I could find. The special problem I’ve got with Vögelein Fanfic is that when Jeff Berndt
and I were first creating the series, we designed it to be particularly open-ended to allow us to write hundreds of stories
for her. To this day, there’s a huge tabula rasa in the center of V’s history, one that I never intend to fully map out, just for
happy little miracles. Also, we wanted to leave open the possibility of inviting other authors to come play in our sandbox. One
such author is doing so right now, though I can’t discuss the details until he’s finished with it (*cough*CrimeanWar*cough).

But the problem for me is, y’see, that if you guys were to start writing Vögelein Fanfic and showed it to me, then I’d run
the same risk as Anne would… if you had, say, written a story in which Vögelein participated in the French Revolution, and
one day I wanted to write a story in which Vögelein participated in the French Revolution, then you might have grounds to
sue me for stealing your idea, no matter how divergent our two stories were. For heaven’s sake, look at how ridiculous this
claim against J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series got.

So the bottom line is, if you have already written Vögelein Fanfic, please don’t show it to me. If enough people approach me about it and
really Really REALLY want to write some, maybe we can set up an APA, or a web repository with a messageboard, and I can assign
someone I trust to have a look in every now and again.

Here’s the way I look at it: Writing FanFic is like walking when you could be training for a Marathon. Some people don’t want
to run in a Marathon. They’d rather just have a nice relaxing walk, maybe go out with a couple of friends for a leisurely stroll.
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that, and it certainly helps you stay fit (mentally or physically as the case may be) and
there are far worse things to do with your time. But let’s face it, when you’re done walking, you haven’t accomplished all that
much, and you don’t really have anything to show for your walk. You probably feel much better than you would have if you
spent the evening in front of the television, and you did do something of your own initiative, but if you wanted to do something
with your walking, about the best you could do would be to join a local walkathon or 10K walk and maybe get some small-town
press or recognition from your friends.

Training for a Marathon, however, is hard. It takes a ton of work, and a big time investment, and special shoes. You
have to run on a regular basis to stay in shape, and there are sometimes qualifying rounds before you get to run with The Big Dogs.
A Marathoner has to be disciplined, and guarded with her time, and often make difficult decisions between training and having
fun with her friends. The payoff, however, is tangible. There’s the roar of the crowds, the teevee cameras, breaking that cool
tape at the end, and possibly even a purse to the top few runners that work the hardest and run the fastest.

The sad thing is, I think there are a whole lot of Marathoners out there who are just too comfortable going for a Sunday Walk.

Now, don’t get me wrong — I’ve written Fanfic before. I’ve written alternate Quantum Leap scripts, done the
obligatory short stories about my D&D characters, and even created my own member of the SilverHawks when I was still in highschool.
Fanfic can often be a great way to ‘prime your creative pump’, if you like. But I’d way rather see a lot of those FanFiccers
really try their hand at writing their own stuff. At the end of the day, a lot of Marathoners spend just as much time
training as a lot of walkers do walking — but they have something to show for it.

Hello, everyone! Hope everybody had a great holiday season — I know I
did. I spent the last couple of days attempting to consume my bodyweight in
roast beast and German Christmas goodies (lebkuchen, gugelhupf and
springerle) . I nearly succeeded, so it’s off to the gym for me!

In Vögelein news, however, there’s a lot more than eating going on. I’ve
completely revamped the Fiery Studios side of the website, so if you’ve
never visited there before, now’s a great time to
take a look around!
It’s not entirely done yet, but I hope to have the entire Illustration section done before
much longer.

The newest addition (coming soon!) will be all seventy-five illustrations
for the _Alice In Wonderland_ book I completed last year, along with the
original, uncut Lewis Carroll text (Thanks, Project Gutenberg!) so you can
read the entire book online! You’ll also be able to purchase any of the
remaining originals (a few have sold already). The hardbound version of
Alice will be released sometime in 2003 or 2004 from State Street Press, and
will be available through all Borders and Waldenbooks bookstores.

After I get Alice done, I hope to do the same with Jack London’s _Call of
the Wild_, which was the second title I illustrated for State Street Press.

And just to show that I’m not slacking off on Vögelein stuff while I work on
Fiery Studios website — I’ve finally got news on the Vögelein key-necklace
that everyone’s been asking about! I’ve found a silversmith that’s really
excited about the job, and she’s going to start working on the initial mold
very soon. As soon as I get an example cast, I’ll put it up on the website
and begin taking preorders.

Here’s the stats for the necklace: It’ll be approximately 3/4 of an inch
long, and about 1/2 inch wide, and will be fully three-dimensional. Cheryl
(the silversmith) will be casting them each by hand in solid sterling
silver using the lost-wax process. The pendants will sell for $25 each, and
will not come with a chain, at least until I can find someone who sells
cheap sterling silver chains. If I can get more than a dozen pre-orders, I
may be able to drop the price a little, or look into getting some chains.

Each casting is very laborious and time-consuming, and uses lots of fire.
(ARRH ARRH ARRH!) If you’ve never done it before, I highly recommend it.
Nothing like using an oxyacetaline torch to make you feel like a real
woman. I could do it myself, as I’ve taken a couple classes and have cast
lost-wax several times myself, but Cheryl’s work is really good and she has
her own studio, so if I get her to do it, we’ll actually see the necklaces
before the next millenium.

Wow.

So Issue five is done. The series is done. All that’s left to do is remaster
the art and put out the trade paperback.

And now I’ve totally got empty nest syndrome.

Seriously — I hardly know what to do with myself! What’s that? Write more comics, you say?

Well, there’ll almost certainly be more Vogelein stories, unless I suddenly get
hit by a bus or something (knock wood) but probably not for a while. For right now
I need about a six month break. I’ve been hard at work at this thing for five years.
Five years. One issue a year. I joke and say that this was like my Master’s Thesis, and
in a lot of ways, it really was. I attended night school in Comics for five years.

Much like any graduating senior, I am feeling the need to par-tay a little. To take
a real Christmas vacation and make cookies and decorate the house, rather than come home
and sit directly at the drawing board for another six hours every day after work. To see friends I’ve been
neglecting for months because I’ve been working on the comic. To finally get out to visit
old college buddies in Syracuse. (Hi, Winklers!) And, most importantly, to finally
get out my instruments and play some music for a while.

Y’see, this time of year is my absolute favorite time of year to play Irish music. I mean,
Mike and Tahm’s traditional Fourth of July Park Lake Pickin’Party is a thing of drunken wonder,
but this is really what I like best.

I first learned Irish music at this time of year, back in 1998. I’d been a fan for
years and years, and had poked at the edges of it, but I’d never actually learned
session culture and etiquette. There’s something about winter sessions, when the pub is dark
and full of soft amber light and the smell of wet wool and malty beer, when the patrons
come in and stamp off cakes of dirty snow and exclaim gladly over the music instead
of cursing us for putting off the football game, when the pub itself is an oasis of
warmth and calm in a frozen, dreary, stressed-out weary town.

And everyone gets cabin fever and gets out the fiddles and heads to the session.
The dark, warm, heady pints fortify the tunes and give the players a kind of
aggressive fire you just don’t see in summer tunes, as though they’re trying to
drive out the winter demons.

And the craic is mighty.

And if you need me, that’s where I’ll be.

So the web site’s undergoing an overhaul. Or maybe overgoing an underhaul, I dunno. The
changes I’ve instituted so far have been entirely invisible, but they’ll definitely allow
me to make new changes much more quickly. Ah, the wonder of include files. The Fiery Studios
side of things will be getting a complete overhaul (The design is done, and I hope to have it up
over the holidays) along with big additions to the gallery over there.

12/5/02

Issue 5 is here!

Issue 5 is done and in the Online Store. It’s out at stores today, as well.

And hey, drop me a line and let me know what you thought of the series!

Issue 5 is done and in the Online Store. It’s out at stores today, as well.

And hey, drop me a line and let me know what you thought of the series!

I went to Mid Ohio Con and had a blast. I shared a table with Layla Lawlor, (bless her heart for
sharing!) and — despite my worst fears — broke even on the whole weekend. We had this spiffy
new idea where six artists — Paul Sizer, Pam Bliss, Matt Feazell, Layla, Sean Bieri and I —
all contributed art to this “Small Press Passport”. If you got all the artists to sign the
Passport, you got a free sketch. The response was great, especially since Sean hand-pulled (!)
all the covers with silver ink, and they really did look like passports!

And then we repaired back to Pam and Nick’s room and laughed like a pack of howler monkeys
at their Hearse brochures. Uh… you just had to be there.