Jen Contino at The Pulse picks up the news about the Khepri/Kirkman/Wood/AiT/trade paperback convergence of art and commerce...

...while industry conscience Heidi MacDonald, over at The Beat, notes: "Khepri.com is an online comics retailer, kind of a dedicated Amazon. AiT/Planet Lar publisher Larry Young was perusing their best seller lists for the last few months and noticed a preponderance of products by Brian Wood and Robert Kirkman and Young himself on the list. You can read the whole list and reactions after the jump, but strong writing and compelling situations do seem to have staying power, don't they? Channel Zero has been out for over five years, and yet it still sells. And sells."

Fanboy Rampage doesn't disappoint, with a growing comment section about the news.

For more info on Khepri's best-selling AiT/Planet Lar books, click these links:

#1 Channel Zero
#3 Channel Zero: Jennie One
#4 Couriers 02: Dirtbike Manifesto
#5 Couriers 01
#8 Astronauts in Trouble: Master Flight Plan

...and since Khepri's top five monthly books were all Demos (see yesterday's entry), click here for info on the comic Wizard Magazine called "Indie of The Year."

More Best-Of-The-Year press for Hench, this time from City Link down in Palm Beach: "Usually relegated to fist-fodder for heroes, the henchman gets his turn in the spotlight as this clever tale both satirizes and illuminates an overlooked convention of comic book literature."

Online comics specialty retailer www.khepri.com posts their Top Ten Best Sellers of 2004 which is notable for five of the ten are AiT books: Channel Zero at Number One, Channel Zero: Jennie One at Number Three, Couriers 02: Dirtbike Manifesto at Number Four, Couriers 01 at Number Five, and Astronauts in Trouble: Master Flight Plan at Number Eight.

Of those five, only Dirtbike Manifesto was first published in 2004, proving that me reading the letters pages in Cerebus all through the Eighties was commercially useful and ended up in a viable and self-supporting business plan. I know I can speak for Brian Wood when I say he's glad to be making money in 2004 on an idea he had in 1997.

The first week of 2005 is looking good over at Khepri, as well, according to their email newsletter:

THE BEST OF SUN 02 JAN THROUGH SAT 08 JAN

Ringing in the New Year @ Khepri.com were books by Warren Ellis, Robert Kirkman, Larry Young, and our Week One winner, Ed Brubaker.

05. Available Light HC (AiT/Planet Lar)
04. Switchblade Honey GN (AiT/Planet Lar)
03. Tales of the Realm TPB (Image/MVC)
02. Proof of Concept TPB (AiT/Planet Lar)
01. Catwoman v3: Relentless TPB (DC Comics)

Johnny B. on Proof of Concept: "...this is one of the most enjoyable reads of the young year."

Mister B. may be pleased to note that last weekend I thumbnailed springboards for the first twenty-four issues of a potential Hemogoblin monthly, should Damian want to try it after he finishes Full Moon Fever or doesn't mind if I give the gig to somebody else.

You know it's going to be a good day when the first thing you read is "Man, I get a kick out of Larry Young." When Tim O'Neil writes, "Something like Proof of Concept seems to me to be comfortably situated somewhere between fascinating discourse and self-indulgence, and I have a funny feeling that this is just how Young likes it. Even moreso than making a few good comics, he seems obsessed with destroying the mystery which surrounds comics publishing: he’s hardly a Sim-like Messiah, he’s much more down-to-earth, and absolutely dedicated to putting the 'means of production' squarely in the hands of his readers. Seen in that light, Proof of Concept has an almost loosey-goosey, 'Look Ma! No hands!' feel to it. The idea – and it’s a good one – is that thinking up good ideas really isn’t that hard, at least not as hard as some awful pretentious folks have made it out to be." ...it's like he has a window into my soul.

Speaking of windows into my soul, Ken Lowery says, in his review of Proof of Concept: "And it's all pretty damn good. It's all entertaining." After waxing my car a little with the vainglorious "I've talked with Larry at length, and the man is the king of the High Concept. He's the kind of guy that can zing off five compelling story ideas at the drop of a hat," he does put his finger on exactly what I was trying to do with the project: "...what's provided in Proof of Concept is an example of the Wild-Ass Ideas that it seems only comics are capable of exploring these days. What I see here is a call to arms. What I see here is a lot of Wild-Ass Ideas on display. What I see is a bunch of very talented artists. What I see is fucking entertaining."

Matt Price over at The Daily Oklahoman/News 9 gives Hench the #7 spot in the year's Ten Best Graphic Novels: "Writer Adam Beechen and artist Manny Bello create this behind-the-scenes look at the henchman. Ex-jock Mike becomes a supervillain's henchman when other avenues don't work out for him. His journey takes him through some homages to many of comics' great moments, while examining what pressures drive a man to make decisions that lead to long-term harm." Nice work, guys.

Chris Allen uses Demo, in his statement of intent, as an example of the kind of personal and professional growth he's shooting for this year: "For instance, when the [long mooted but unannounced] collection comes out and I review the entirety of Demo, I can tell you that the gist of the review will be that writer Brian Wood has made a significant step forward in his progress in that he now can write scenes of a weight and mood that remain with the reader. That’s not to say these scenes add up to great stories, but I still enjoyed the book more than most series I read last year. That’s not a backhanded compliment at all, just my opinion of his progress. Moving forward is the key here, not the distance moved."

Shane Bailey gives Matt Fraction and me the Illustrator treatment:

Scroll down a bit on the link to see Jog's review of Proof of Concept, on his blog. Some of my compatriots don't read reviews of their work in traditional media, much less in the nascently ascendent world of blogs, but I find reviews of our stuff more like discussions, really. Sure, some folks are singularly unpleasant and often do willful misreadings to take personal shots, but, hey! writing entertainments is very much sticking your head up over the parapet. If I didn't thrill to the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, I'd stay inside and that's a fact.

So, given that, I enjoyed Jog's read of it quite a bit, as he says Proof of Concept "isn’t quite so much a collection of short stories as a link in a multi-media chain of communication between writer/publisher Larry Young and his readers." Which is a pretty astute observation that I haven't seen any reviewer make in almost six years. The thing that I find most compelling about comics is that it's the most direct-line feed from our heads to yours. No editorial interference, no corporate shenanigans, no limits whatsoever. Hang on to a robot running across the surface of the moon? No crushing of Cocoa Puffs into fine powder, no craft services table full of carrots and celery for the union electricians. No complex lighting set-ups, no highly paid actors, no $200 million dollar budget. All I have to do is write:

PANEL ONE: Takes up the top third (or perhaps even half) of the page. The Honda robot is retreating into the distance, running across the lunar surface with Dave hanging on for dear life. Originally he was on the robot’s back, getting a piggy- back ride. Dave is now hanging on around its neck and is flying out behind it like a cape blowing in the wind. The robot is kicking up a lot of lunar dust. Dig what’s going on? Dave’s catching a ride to the newsvan on the back of a fast robot. This is supposed to be funny... almost Road Runner-like. Go to town.

and I get this from Charlie Adlard:



Straight from our brains to yours.

Jog also put his finger on something others have commented upon, however: "While not everything is solid gold, there’s a palpable sense of affection flowing out of the book, something that’s not always easy to find in today’s comics." It's the nature of those who enjoy comic books to see the world in a binary fashion: Captain America good, Red Skull bad. Batman good, Joker bad. As readers mature, you get Love and Rockets good, Micronauts bad. Art comix good, superheroes bad. As if one has to be chosen over the other.

While I pointed you to H's quote yesterday that called me the 21st Century's version of Stan Lee, I look at it like Augie De Blieck, Jr. does, that we're the Jerry Bruckheimer of comics, delivering adventure and entertainment and pathos and instruction and joy. Which is something Tim O'Neil sees, as well.

Tim notes in today's review of Proof of Concept on The Hurting that "Pretty much everyone who composes the current 'New Mainstream' in comics - which I would define as anyone who wants to make their living publishing intelligent but not overly cerebral entertainment in comics format, with the idea of exploiting the vast market of everyday readers who have been abandoned by 'Mainstream' comics – is already following all or most of the suggestions on this list. Certainly Larry Young, as the movement’s ostensible figurehead, has proven that it is very possible to make a living by reaching out to the casual readers who – in a healthy industry – would compose the bulk of comics readership."

Although "Given Young’s proclivity towards understatement..." is certainly a sentence fragment most commentators on the scene would never think to write.

That reminds me; I have to call Ken.