the only known picture of mike brennan, me, and mike russo where all three of us are not drinking booze


This is the best resume I have ever seen. Alexandre Gueniot, I salute you.

It's all right if you love me/It's all right if you don't/I'm not afraid of you runnin' away, honey/I get the feelin' you won't

Pointing you to the reviews on the comicsblogosphereiverse:

Pop Culture Gadabout Bill Sherman has an insightful look at 1000 Steps to World Domination. I particularly liked this bit: "Flitting between dreams of artistic grandeur and more rueful ruminations on the daily work grind, 1000 Steps tells a recognizable story: the struggles of the young artist as they prepare to head on the 'Less Traveled' road of supporting themselves through their art. Osborne takes on a variety of personas from within his studio... dressing in a suit or eye patch, periodically imagining himself as a frustrated alien stuck doing anal probes instead of invading the earth."

I love it when a reader gets what's going on in a book, and doesn't take things quite so literally, like, say, this blog I ran across by Todd C. Murry: "Demo #10 -- The most interesting thing this issue is trying to figure out what the 'power' is this issue, or why it is that this issue alone in the series lacks one."

Ooops.

Speaking of stuff I just ran across, I just found a blog where someone berates me personally for not send him "free comics" because his blog gets around "300 visitors a month" and that's just a treasure trove of new readers.

Leaving aside his audience I'm not hitting, I gotta point out that the books I send out absolutely are not "free comics." They cost me money to print, and they cost me money to send, and, frankly, they cost me a lot of free time to put in the friggin' envelope. So if you get a review copy of an AiT book from me, it's because I respect your personal opinion, whether or not you end up liking that individual book or not. So you've got that going for you. Which is nice.

Which reminds me: you know who is awesome? Maureen McTigue. That is all.

Huge shout-out to Celina Hernandez, who wins the "Nicest Email I got Today" award, by sending me a neat pic of her with her signed copy of 1000 Steps I sent her:

...and today's Backlist Pointer is Johnny Dynamite by Max Allan Collins and Terry Beatty: "The Wild Man from Chicago! He's rough! He's tough! He's JOHNNY DYNAMITE! A rock 'em/sock 'em private eye from the Windy City, with his best gal, and faithful secretary, Judy Kane, by his side, in this hard-boiled Mike Hammer-influenced story, Johnny's back in a psychotronic/occult/period piece fighting zombies with crime on their undead minds!"



Click the title up above for order codes and ISBN.

"Hi, Debbie; long-time listener, first-time caller, love the show. Listen, I've got a question for Marty..."

Spending today putting the finishing touches on Proof of Concept; Chicago and LA will enjoy this panel by Kieron Dwyer...



...and today's Backlist Pointer is Last of the Independents by Matt Fraction and Kieron Dwyer: "Dude... we're robbing the bank." If you haven't heard about this one by now, I don't know what I've got to do. Dig on this .pdf of the first chapter:

http://www.ait-planetlar.com/LOTIp7-20.pdf

and enjoy this review by Entertainment Weekly's Marc Bernardin:



Click the title up above for order codes and ISBN.

What I like about you, you hold me tight/Tell me I'm the only one, wanna come over tonight, yeah

Matt Maxwell has some kind words for 1000 Steps to World Domination which is as it should be, since when the Age of Iron comes, you know that the winner of the first Isotope award is going to be inside the compound.

...and today's Backlist Pointer is Switchblade Honey by Warren Ellis and Brandon McKinney: "I’m giving you a ship and sending you out into space as guerrilla fighters. Get clear of the system, find yourselves somewhere to hide between sorties, prepare yourselves. You’ll be on your own. No support. Naval vessels won’t even recognise your callsign..."



Click the title for order codes and ISBN.

blast from the past-ifesto

Seems every once in a while people get fixated on manifestos. Me, I could only ever offer up a statement of intent, because a manifesto from a grunt seems so... arch. My pal Warren included it in Come in Alone as part of his April 7, 2000 column, here. Two and a half years or so on, and I pretty much feel the same way. All the folks who inspired those words from me, though, are either disappeared or not a factor.

Most days I feel like Johnny Rico.