Michael May's Adventureblog

Tarzan 101 | Tarzan the Magnificent

2013-05-23T06:00:00.000-05:00

Celebrating Tarzan's 101st anniversary by walking through Scott Tracy Griffin's Tarzan: The Centennial Celebration.

Like some of the other Tarzan novels, Tarzan the Magnificent (no relation to the film of the same name) was actually two different novellas. In this case, they'd even been published in two different magazines. Argosy published "Tarzan and the Magic Men" in 1936, about a couple of Amazon tribes led by powerful sorcerers who control their subjects with huge, supernatural jewels. Griffin speculates that Burroughs got the idea from the novel Trader Horn, which features a woman who uses a large ruby to control an African tribe.

In 1937, Burroughs' sequel to this story appeared in Blue Book, titled "Tarzan and the Elephant Men." It has Tarzan following one of the jewels back to Cathne and Athne, the cities from Tarzan and the City of Gold.

In Magnificent, Burroughs describes Tarzan's eyes as being able to "reflect the light of a summer sea or the flashing steel of a rapier." Griffin takes advantage of this to offer a supplemental chapter on "Eyes of Gray," a character trait that Burroughs gave all of his leading men and a lot of supporting characters as well. Tarzan had gray eyes, as did his father and son. So did La of Opar, John Carter of Mars, David Innes of Pellucidar, and Carson Napier of Venus. Griffin lists a total of 25 Burroughs characters with gray eyes, noting that Burroughs "rarely described any other color." In fact, Carson's started out blue in Pirates of Venus before Burroughs changed them to gray in the third novel.

Tarzan 101 | Tarzan and the Forbidden City

2013-05-22T06:00:00.000-05:00

Celebrating Tarzan's 101st anniversary by walking through Scott Tracy Griffin's Tarzan: The Centennial Celebration.

I don't know if it's totally fair to say that Burroughs was out of ideas in 1937, but it certainly seems that way. The plot that became the unremarkably titled Tarzan and the Forbidden City was neither particularly original nor even Burroughs' to begin with. It began life as the script to a radio serial called "Tarzan and the Diamond of Asher," written by Rob Thompson and reworked into prose by Burroughs. It features standard Tarzan tropes: a lost treasure, greedy outsiders looking for it, a plea for Tarzan to help those outsiders, yet another Tarzan lookalike, and a hidden civilization with a couple of generic, feuding kingdoms, arena battles, and human sacrifices. At least they also manage to throw in Paul D'Arnot, a dinosaur, a sea serpent, and a shark.

When Argosy serialized the story, they had a couple of editors rewrite it, adding a prologue about a red star as a plug for Argosy's distributor, the Red Star News Company, and renamed it "The Red Star of Tarzan." Burroughs restored his version for the book collection, Tarzan and the Forbidden City.

One remarkable thing about Forbidden City is that it's the first Burroughs novel to be published in American, mass-market paperback format. Griffin talks about that in his supplemental chapter, "The Paperback Revolution," which covers the decline of pulp magazines and the rise of cheap paperbacks. Burroughs was against the cheaper editions at first, fearing that it would cut into profits on his reprint volumes, but eventually came around and licensed Forbidden City (retitled Tarzan in the the Forbidden City) as an abridged version available in bus station and airport vending machines.

Review All Monsters | Pop Culture Hound and Comics Bulletin

2013-05-21T06:00:00.000-05:00

There were a couple of reviews last week that I want to point out, but first let me thank Joseph Mallozzi and my pal Jay Mac, who gave shout outs to the Kickstarter from their blogs as we wrapped up.

Chris Thompson and Taylor Lilley of the Pop Culture Hound podcast talked about the book and made me cheer, especially when Taylor said that he's not a kaiju fan, but was won over by the story anyway. Both gentlemen talk about the cast's diversity and how they felt like that worked organically as part of the story without our calling extra attention to it, which was exactly how we hoped it would be. The Kill All Monsters discussion begins around the 25:00 mark, but be sure to stay tuned for Chris' fantastic interview with Gabriel Hardman about his new comic, Kinski at Monkeybrain. It's a wonderful podcast and I'll be tuning in for future episodes.

Nick Hanover at Comics Bulletin wrote a great review too. He says that starting the story in the middle of a long fight is "a bold move, sure, but May's got fight scripting down pat and with a partner like Copland, he knows he can trust the action." He also notices that "May wants you to feel for the humans who have to deal with these creatures, since this is a story not about a first attack, but about a world after monster defeat."

Thanks to Chris, Taylor, and Nick for reading and sharing thoughts on the book!

SpringCon killed all the monsters

2013-05-20T06:00:00.000-05:00

SpringCon was great. For those who aren't familiar with it, it's the larger of the two Minnesota conventions put on by the wonderful folks of the Midwest Comic Book Association. FallCon is a one-day show in October, but SpringCon runs Saturday and Sunday, usually in May. The Minneapolis/Saint Paul area has a great comics scene and the MCBA goes out of its way to treat creators like royalty, so there's always a lot of participation. Both conventions are fantastic, family-friendly shows and highlights of my year.

My wife's out of town for a friend's college graduation, so David and I hung out together all weekend. David made the second issue of Hulkasaurus, his series of mini-comics about his own giant monster, and I had several copies of Kill All Monsters left over from C2E2. KAM did very well and I sold out early on Sunday. A surprise hit for me was Hunt the Winterlands, a fantasy anthology of prose stories that I contributed to a year or so ago. I've had it at a few shows since then and sold some copies, but it sold like hotcakes this time.

David sold most of his copies of Hulkasaurus #2. A couple of other friends of mine were also exhibiting with their kids who also did very well all weekend. It's great to see children getting into making art and comics so early, and even greater to see the local community support them so much.

David had an iguana puppet at his table, which is the model for a giant monster in Hulkasaurus, so he had a great time using it to attract people to the table. Or just playing with friends:

As usual, we sat near Grant Gould who's always amazing with kids. He and David did an art trade, with Grant's drawing one of David's favorite characters and David's drawing something Grant had mentioned earlier: a dinosaur/scorpion hybrid.

Otis Frampton was on the other side of our table nearest me and I had a great time getting to know him a little better. He's a super-talented artist and was also really welcoming of David. My good friends Jessica Hickman and Darla Ecklund were nearby as well and David and I shared a couple of meals with them.

I also enjoyed finally getting to meet Ron Marz, who was visiting an MCBA show for the first time, and Trevor Von Eeden, who is - no lie - the sweetest person in comics. I had the privilege of being in the audience at San Diego Comic-Con last year when he received the Inkpot Award. Getting to hear him accept it and talk about his career was a highlight not only of that panel, but of the entire convention for me. Getting to tell him so yesterday was a highlight of this weekend. Comics people are the best people.

In addition to talking to people - and I know I'm leaving out so many of you; I'm sorry - I bought a bunch of comics of course and a couple of pieces of art, including this Godzilla silhouette by Jennifer Menken.

One final memory of the show was how humid it was. We had unseasonably hot weather at FallCon a few years ago and it was appropriately dubbed SweatCon. This year, I thought that MoistCon would be appropriate until the torrential rains started coming down on Sunday and it turned into something more like HurriCon.

Not that that "dampened" anyone's fun. It was a great time and thanks again to the MCBA for hosting!

Rebecca and Molly Cunningham hate cephalopods

2013-05-17T06:00:00.000-05:00

Happy Oz Day!

2013-05-15T21:51:00.002-05:00

Today was L. Frank Baum's birthday in 1856. My son is celebrating in the best possible way.

Tarzan 101 | Tarzan's Quest

2013-05-15T06:00:00.000-05:00

Celebrating Tarzan's 101st anniversary by walking through Scott Tracy Griffin's Tarzan: The Centennial Celebration.

Edgar Rice Burroughs was fast approaching the age of 60 when he started writing the story that would become known as Tarzan's Quest. In a supplemental chapter called "Tarzan Immortal," Griffin notices that immortality and a fear of old age were becoming recurring themes in the novels Burroughs wrote in his 50s. From The Master Mind of Mars to Lost on Venus, characters looked for ways to beat aging and death, with one heroine thinking, "How ghastly! Oh, I should rather die than be like that. Old age! Oh, how terrible!"

While Burroughs wrote Tarzan's Quest, he divorced his wife (they'd been married for 34 years and had been childhood sweethearts before that) and announced his engagement to a 30-year-old woman a couple of weeks later. He was late to his mid-life crisis, but he made the most of it.

That's all important, because the themes of youth and immortality are major ones in Tarzan's Quest. Originally titled "Tarzan and Jane," the book is actually two stories that merge at the end. Tarzan and the Waziri tribe are investigating a series of disappearances of young women, while Jane is traveling with some friends in a plane that crashes. Jane's friends are looking into rumors of an eternal youth forumla that's supposed to be held by a lost tribe deep in the jungle, but they aren't all on the same page about it. Though Jane proves herself a capable guide through the jungle, the party fights among itself and there's eventually a murder.

When the story was serialized by Blue Book starting in 1935, it was called "Tarzan and the Immortal Men," but Burroughs' secretary suggested Tarzan's Quest for the hardback collection and he took her advice.

It's never been directly adapted for film, but two movies have borrowed elements from it. Tarzan's Magic Fountain features outsiders who come to Africa looking for a youth-elixer, while Tarzan and the Lost Safari features a diverse group of travelers who crash in the jungle and have to be led out (though by Tarzan, of course; not Jane).

Tarzan's Quest wouldn't be the last time that the ape man was exposed to an eternal youth formula. Just to be sure, Burroughs gave Tarzan a second dose a few books later in Tarzan and the Foreign Legion.

Three women on a comics convention panel...

2013-05-14T06:00:00.000-05:00

And it's not a Women in Comics panel?!

This can't be the first time this has ever happened at a convention, but it's rare enough that I want to point out that SpringCon has scheduled a panel at 3:00 pm this Saturday with Elizabeth Berube, Trina Robbins, and Amy Reeder and doesn't mention the panelists' gender even once in the description. Instead, the panel will focus on the way the comics industry has changed from generation to generation. I imagine there'll be some gender discussion as part of that conversation, but it's refreshing to see a convention that doesn't have to point that out specifically or make it the focus of the panel.

I'll be exhibiting at SpringCon, but I'm gonna try to sneak away from the table long enough to attend this.

More reviews and fan art of Kill All Monsters

2013-05-13T06:00:00.000-05:00

Well, the Kickstarter is all done. Or, the pledging part is anyway. Now's the part where Jason and I go to work fulfilling rewards, which we're thrilled to do. People chipped in $11,910, which is 476% of our goal. Absolutely amazing, so one last massive THANK YOU to everyone who pledged and helped spread the word.

Got a couple of more Kill All Monsters-related bits this week, starting with the awesome Skullbot drawing above by Vincent Kukua. Vincent is a talented production artist at Image Comics and you can check out more of his stuff on his DeviantArt page. Thanks, Vincent!

Next, a couple of cool sites mentioned us last week. Lonnie Nadler from Bloody Disgusting gave the Kickstarter a nice push and Greg Burgas at the Comics Should Be Good! blog wrote an amazing, really insightful review. He picks up on a lot of stuff I wasn't sure if people would get (the significance of the date when the giant monsters first appeared, for instance). Here's a taste of what he thought, but check out the whole review:

Kill All Monsters is an interesting comic, because it starts out as one thing and slowly changes into something better, and that’s always nice to see. It’s as if May thought “What if I made a comic with giant monsters fighting giant robots?” and once the “That’s AWESOME!” factor wore off, he realized he had to come up with something else. I’m sure he had it plotted out further than just the robots fighting the monsters, but for the first several pages, he just has Copland drawing that, and while it’s quite keen, you always need something more than that. So May settles into an interesting story that borrows liberally from plenty of sources, but still manages to be a compelling read.

Finally, I thought I'd point out that if you like art featuring giant monsters and robots, we've got a Pinterest gallery dedicated to that. I need to link to it from KillAllMonsters.com, so this is as much a reminder for me to do that as it is for you to go look at it. There's some really cool stuff on there.

Captain Nemo hates cephalopods: No. 6,782

2013-05-10T06:00:00.000-05:00

You guys, Mark Schultz! You guys!

(via Ben Towle's Tumblr)

Create your own pulp covers with the Pulp-O-Mizer

2013-05-09T06:00:00.001-05:00

Writer/illustrator Bradley W. Schenck has put a cool thing called the Pulp-O-Mizer on his Thrilling Tales of the Downright Unusual website. It lets you create pulp magazine covers with your own text, like this one I made of an alternate take on Kill All Monsters.

Once you've created your piece, you can save it in a couple of different formats, including one designed especially for Facebook. And if you really like what you made, you can order stuff with your cover on it, from posters to mugs to shirts to iPad cases.

I'm not getting anything for pimping the Pulp-O-Mizer; I just saw it and thought it was fun enough to mention.

Go! Play!

Tarzan 101 | Tarzan and the Leopard Men

2013-05-08T06:00:00.000-05:00

Celebrating Tarzan's 101st anniversary by walking through Scott Tracy Griffin's Tarzan: The Centennial Celebration.

Following Tarzan the Invincible and Tarzan Triumphant, both of which featured communists as major villains, Burroughs began getting complaints about how political the Tarzan books had become. He promised that the next book would refocus on pure, African jungle adventure and he made good with Tarzan and the Leopard Men, which featured a real-life leopard cult called the anyoto.

If you're paying close attention, you realize that Leopard Men didn't directly follow Triumphant in order of publication - City of Gold and The Lion Man came in between - but Leopard Men was written before either of those.

The real-life anyoto - likely named after the Bafwasea word for "to scratch" - were a secret society composed of people from many different tribes. Burroughs apparently did an accurate job of portraying them except that they didn't wear actual leopard hides. They did however tie leopard tails to their belts, imitated leopard sounds by blowing into a small pot, and use claw-like blades between their fingers in combat. Their cannibalistic practices got the increasingly efficient law after them though and they appear to have disappeared in the 1950s.

Perhaps because of the horror of the leopard men's practices, the story has never been adapted into comics, but similar, tamer villains have appeared in the Dell and Gold Key comics as well as the Johnny Weissmuller film, Tarzan and the Leopard Woman, and the two TV series, Tarzan: The Epic Adventures and Disney's The Legend of Tarzan.

The Power of Stories: Superman, Jesus Christ, and the Life of Pi

2013-05-07T06:00:00.000-05:00

SPOILER WARNING: Massive spoilers for Life of Pi in this post. Seriously, I'm going to reveal the whole thing.

The irony is that Life of Pi would have been much more powerful for me if I hadn't known how it was going to end, but I wasn't at all interested in seeing it until I heard the spoilers. Visual spectacle isn't enough - by itself - to lure me to a film and I have a limited tolerance for lost-at-sea/stranded-alone-on-an-island movies. With Life of Pi though, the ending lifts the film to something that's going to stick with me probably for the rest of my life.

The film's framing sequence is an adult Pi talking to an unnamed writer. The writer has recently abandoned a book that wasn't working and ran into Pi's uncle, who encouraged the writer to seek out Pi. "He said you had a story that would make me believe in God."

Most of the movie is Pi's relating that story to the writer. It's a tale of Pi's survival aboard a lifeboat with a starving tiger and - for a while anyway - some other animals. Pi's story is shot with impossible beauty: Water reflects sky perfectly, colors are hyperreal, and the story becomes even more fantastical when Pi finally lands on a carnivorous island that's shaped like a human.

Finally, Pi relates a conversation he had with a couple of insurance investigators who were looking into the cause of the sinking ship. He told them the same story that he's just told the writer, but they can't believe it. They need something realistic to put into their report, so he tells them a second, far more horrifying version.

In the second tale, the tiger and other animals are all metaphors for other characters. The story as it really happened involves a brutal cook, the death of Pi's mother, and cannibalism. Since I knew the real story going into the movie, I didn't get to experience for myself the disappointment and horror of realizing that the second story wasn't just Pi's trying to appease the investigators, but was in fact the truth. Filmmaker Dan Trachtenberg does a great job of describing that experience though in a conversation he had with David Chen on the Slashfilmcast.

Pi explains to the writer that he's told two stories that account for the 227 days Pi was lost at sea. "Neither explain the sinking of the Tsimtsum," he says. "Neither make a factual difference to you. You cannot prove which story is true and which is not. You must take my word for it. In both stories the ship sinks, my entire family dies, and I suffer. So tell me, since it makes no factual difference to you and you can’t prove the question either way, which story do you prefer? Which is the better story?"

The writer thinks it over. "The one with the tiger."

"And so it is with God."

As Trachtenberg points out in the link above, a filmed version of the actual events on the lifeboat would have been repulsive to watch. It would have been like Hostel or Human Centipede. As filmed though, we still experience Pi's suffering and share in his emotions without being disgusted by his actions. When he - a vegetarian - cries over having to eat a fish to survive, we can relate to that in a way that we couldn't if we understood what it was he was actually eating.

That's the power of storytelling. We use symbols to represent deeply personal experiences so that other people can relate to them.

Comics writer Chris Roberson made some waves for saying, "I believe in Superman the way some people believe in Jesus." Some folks took that as commentary on whether Superman and Jesus are fictional or non-fictional, but I understood it as being about their power as symbols. To find out for sure, I contacted Roberson and he went into some more detail. "Superman works as an aspiration figure," he said, "someone who serves as a moral model for people to follow. W.W.S.D. What Would Superman Do? Superman is powerful enough that no force or laws can restrain him, but he does good because he CHOOSES to do so. He lives by his own moral code, regardless of circumstances."

In that sense, Superman and Jesus Christ are symbols for some of the same things: compassion, sacrifice, and truth, for example. There are certainly differences between the two men, but what makes Superman an enduring figure is the example he sets of the awesome potential of humans for good. And that's essentially the same purpose that Jesus was trying to serve.

It's also interesting and sad that both have been co-opted by groups for other purposes so that they've also become symbols for less noble ideals, but that's why it's important to remind ourselves what they originally stood for. And we do that through stories, too.

In Life of Pi, Pi's uncle claims that Pi's story would make the writer believe in God. Whether or not that happened is a question that's left to the audience to figure out, but Pi's point still stands. Like with Superman, whether or not God exists as a literal being is a separate issue from what God represents. Pi's not saying that it doesn't matter whether or not God is real. He's just saying that since we can't prove it either way, the more important question is whether we - as humans - stand for the things that God (and Superman) stands for: selfless compassion and justice for others. And we come to understand those things through stories.

Last week for the Kill All Monsters Kickstarter

2013-05-06T06:00:00.000-05:00

The Kickstarter ends on Friday, but whatever the final total is, it's already far exceeded my and Jason's hopes for it. Everyone's been so supportive and encouraging, we'll never be able to express our gratitude appropriately.

Same goes for those who've helped spread the word. I've got a couple of more links to share from the past week.

Matthew Meylikhov wrote a great Kickstarter Spotlight about us for Multiversity Comics, calling Kill All Monsters "essentially what all Godzilla books should be, but few are, focusing neither on one option [robots punch monsters!] or the other [humans talk about feelings!] and instead celebrating both, mixing it up in a style that flows seamlessly." It's a fun review and Meylikhov is a funny writer. You should check it out.

Meanwhile, Rick Hansen wrote up his reflections on C2E2 for Comic Impact and mentions picking up Kill All Monsters. He let us know on Facebook that he liked it so much he went ahead and chipped in a little Kickstarter money too.

Thanks so much to both Matt and Rick. Jason and I love hearing that people are enjoying the book. If you've written about Kill All Monsters and I haven't shared it here, please don't be shy about forwarding your links. I'd love to see and post about them.

Mega Rig submariners hate cephalopods

2013-05-03T06:00:00.000-05:00

CT from Nerd Lunch found this at Toys R Us and shared it with me. It's also available on Amazon if you'd like to do some cephalopod hunting of your own. I'm sorely tempted.

Tarzan 101 | Tarzan and the Lion Man

2013-05-02T06:00:00.000-05:00

Celebrating Tarzan's 101st anniversary by walking through Scott Tracy Griffin's Tarzan: The Centennial Celebration.

Burroughs gained quite a bit of experience working with Hollywood during the production of the earliest Tarzan films, so he put that to good use in Tarzan and the Lion Man. The title character is a movie character played by marathon champion Stanley Obroski, who's come to Africa to shoot a movie with director Tom Orman, actress Naomi Madison, and Madison's stunt double Rhonda Terry.

The film expedition is based on the events surrounding the production of real-life safari film Trader Horn, an ill-fated shoot in which actors (including the female lead) and crew contracted malaria and two crewmen were killed by wild animals. In Lion Man, Tarzan is mostly a passive observer to the crew's plight until the two women are captured by English-speaking gorillas. He trails them to the gorillas' home and uncovers a Moreau-like scientist who's conducting genetic experiments on animals in order to prove Darwin right.

The novel ends with an epilogue in which Tarzan visits Hollywood and learns that - in its own way - it's just as vicious as the jungle. This last part was suggested to Burroughs by an editor at Modern Screen who wanted to publish a humorous piece about Tarzan and the film industry. Burroughs wrote it, but never submitted it to the magazine.

Thanks partly to Tarzan's being confused with actor Stanley Obroski in Lion Man, Griffin's supplemental chapter is on "Tarzan's Appearance." There's a thumbnail gallery of artists' interpretations (by J. Allen St. John, Frank Frazetta, Robert Abbett, Thomas Yeates, Boris Vallejo, N.C. Wyeth, George Wilson, Robert Stanley, and Neal Adams) and Griffin discusses how Burroughs intentionally left Tarzan's description vague. He also talks a little about Tarzan's costume and reveals that the origin of the over-the-shoulder strap in some depictions of Tarzan was from the early films from a time when men could be arrested for being topless at the beach.

Tarzan 101 | Tarzan and the City of Gold

2013-05-01T06:00:00.000-05:00

Celebrating Tarzan's 101st anniversary by walking through Scott Tracy Griffin's Tarzan: The Centennial Celebration.

Tarzan and the City of Gold sounds like reheated material at first. There's another lost city with another white queen who falls in love with Tarzan, but the novel goes beyond that concept in a couple of interesting ways. First, Tarzan is genuinely fascinated with Queen Nemone in a way that should make Jane fans nervous, but the book also focuses on palace intrigue in a cool way as the city's nobility seek to get rid of Tarzan and take more power and influence for themselves.

There are actually two cities in the novel, the titular one as well as a City of Ivory that Burroughs intended to spin off into a sequel. The second story was never written, but the cities of Cathne and Athne did eventually return in Tarzan the Magnificent.

Griffin includes a supplemental chapter called "Femmes Fatales" that isn't exactly about what the title suggests. It does include some dangerous women, but is really about all of Tarzan's romantic interests over the years. Three of them (Countess Olga de Coude, a nameless dancing girl, and La of Opar) appeared in The Return of Tarzan while the ape-man was separated (forever, as far as he knew) from Jane, but the list continues even after Tarzan and Jane were married. In addition to Nemone, there's German spy Bertha Kircher, whom Tarzan met in Tarzan the Untamed when he thought Jane was dead, and Teeka, the ape with whom Tarzan fell in love in Jungle Tales.

Griffin mentions a bunch of other women too, most of whom had feelings for Tarzan that were unrequited by him, like Janzara from Ant Men, Mentheb from Forbidden City, and Itzl Cha and Patricia Leigh-Burden from Castaways. Griffin also includes a thumbnail gallery of nine paintings by Joe Jusko that depict women from the Tarzan novels, including Balza (Lion Man), Janette Laon (Castaways), Rhonda Terry (Lion Man), Magra (Forbidden City), and Meriem (Son of Tarzan), in addition to some of the others he discussed in the chapter.

Tarzan A to Z | Zorro

2013-04-30T18:00:00.000-05:00

Kill All Monsters at SpringCon

2013-04-30T06:00:00.000-05:00

As I mentioned yesterday, my next convention appearance will be at SpringCon in Saint Paul/Minneapolis. That's always a fun, creator-focused show with lots of opportunity for fans to interact with legendary talent from the Golden Age to today. This year's group includes people like Howard Chaykin, Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez, Phil Hester, Dan Jurgens, Ryan Kelly, Pablo Marcos, Ron Marz, Amy Reeder, and Trina Robbins.

There are also lots of great, not-as-legendary creators from the thriving local scene, which is where I come in. I'll be there with some copies of Kill All Monsters and some great prints that Jason made of the book's wraparound cover. Mark your calendar!

Tarzan A to Z | Yeates

2013-04-29T18:00:00.000-05:00

[Make sure to visit the Thomas Yeates gallery at Tarzan.org]

Back from C2E2

2013-04-29T17:00:00.000-05:00

C2E2 was amazing. It was great to hang out with Jason in person for the the first time in a few years. It never feels like it's been that long, because a) we talk quite a bit online, and b) that's just the kind of friendship we have. It's a similar deal with artist/RPG-creator Grant Gould. I've been going to conventions and rooming with Grant for almost a decade now and he's as nice as he is talented. It's always great to visit with him and catch up.

Also got caught up with a lot of other folks, met some new friends, and got to put faces to names of some other online pals. I'm fearful of starting a list for fear of leaving anyone out, but C2E2 is always like a big family reunion for me and this year was no different.

Kill All Monsters did extremely well at the show. We almost sold out of our supply, but still have several for SpringCon next month. I'm a little concerned about selling out early at SpringCon, but we'll see how that goes.

To clarify: these were a small run of print-on-demand copies that we printed just to have at conventions a little ahead of the official, retail edition. The official version will be printed on an offset press in large quantities for shipment to stores and Kickstarter backers. In terms of content, the two editions are identical and neither are marked to make one more special than the other. The only difference will be a slight upgrade in print quality on the offset version. The POD version looks great, but the offset version should look even better. The only advantage to the POD is getting to hold it in your hands a little sooner.

Let me know if you have any questions about any of this. We're not trying to pull a fast one on anyone and want everyone to have access to exactly what they want as quickly as we can get it to them.

We talked to a couple of retailers at C2E2 and were pleased to hear that it's not just our local shops that are ordering the book. We also had a lot of readers stop by to tell us that either they'd already backed us on Kickstarter or had heard about KAM online. Even people who didn't buy a copy right then were very complimentary and it was just a really pleasant experience meeting so many comics fans. I'm usually running around covering panels and talking to publishers and creators during C2E2, so it was a change getting to sit still and just meet readers for three days. I enjoyed the heck out of it.

Tarzan A to Z | XXX

2013-04-27T18:00:00.000-05:00

I am so sorry.

Tarzan A to Z | Weissmuller

2013-04-26T18:00:00.000-05:00

I'm at C2E2!

2013-04-26T12:00:00.000-05:00

Just a reminder that Jason Copland and I are at table M6 in Artist Alley all weekend at C2E2 with copies of Kill All Monsters. Come say hi!

Multi-taskers hate cephalopods

2013-04-26T06:00:00.000-05:00

I feel bad about posting an entire Wondermark strip, so please go enjoy lots more where that came from. Incidentally, my wife will happily tell you that she is the woman this strip is about, so we bought a print of it that's hanging proudly in our foyer.