David Welsh, that Precocious Curmudgeon, reviews Hench in his latest From the Stack: "Bello’s fine visuals match Beechen’s work. He proves equally deft at the kitchen-sink moments as he is at the masked slugfests. I’m particularly taken with his nods to classic comic panels by the likes of Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, and others. Instead of being coy in-jokes, they illustrate the absurdity of a regular guy in out-sized circumstances.

"Hench is a fine and balanced piece of work. It’s driven by character and kept to a very human scale, despite its super-heroic trappings. In a sub-genre that can lapse into excessive sentiment or arch superiority, this is a standout example."

There's another Loose Cannon up; this one extolling the virtues of Sin City and blaming Frank Miller for making me start up the publishing house.

Also, over on the Isotope Virtual Lounge, I do my first and last bit of Batman fanfic. For my own sanity, I prefer to think of it as Jason Rodriguez fanfic, but Batman's in it. No getting around that.

Toby Cypress has an excellent interview up at The Pulse today, with Jen Contino. Look for all that sexy Cypress art from The Tourist.

Let's see how BSJ is doing, shall we?

KHEPRI.COM'S TOP 05 GN/TPB/HC OF 2005, WEEK 12 (MAR 20-26)

05. The Couriers GN (AiT/Planet Lar)
04. Battle Royale v12 GN (TokyoPop)
03. Channel Zero: Jennie One GN (AiT/Planet Lar)
02. The Couriers v3: The Ballad of Johnny Funwrecker GN (AiT/Planet Lar)
01. Channel Zero TPB (AiT/Planet Lar)

Damn you, manga! I'm betting the number six spot is one of ours, too. Coulda had a sweep!

Jim at Jumbotron6000 shops at my old college shop Comicopia in Boston. Perhaps all the good vibes in that shop inspired him to write: "I also grabbed Rob Osborne's 1000 Steps to World Domination. As you can see, I have been brainwashed by the blogosphere. Please let it be known that Larry Young did not punch me in the face until I bought this. He just so happens to be publishing some cool-sounding books." Ah, sweet vindication.

I also personally witnessed some spacesuit action over at Isotope Prime last night and pictures were taken even through the margarita-induced haze bon vivant and mixologist Ian Yarborough caused amongst the throng. Picture, won't you, Graeme McMillan trying to buy Tang at a drugstore dressed as one of Apollo's Finest. Someone needs to produce the damning evidence, forthwith.

...and lastly, got a request today for a jpg of the Wizard/Previews ad for The Black Diamond, so here ya go:

I watched this interesting thing on Discovery Channel Sunday night, explaining the Oracle at Delphi. Apparently, an archaeologist and a geologist were studying in the same area and were introduced by a mutual friend. Out at dinner one night, the geologist told his new buddy that he wished he could have been with him on his explorations and have seen the fault lines under Delphi. The archaelologist called bullshit as then-current thought held Delphi to be stable. Having drunk a lot of wine, the two argued until the geologist said, "Would you know a fault line if you saw one?" and the archaeologist had to admit that he would not.

Instead of being a baby and belly-aching all over the Internet about how he was "mean" to him, the archaelologist teamed up with the geologist and not only rewrote two hundred years of archaeology but actually determined the manner and cause of the effects in the temple as ancient history records. Not only was there a fault under the temple, but it released ethylene gas which accounted for the euphoria and muscle spasms some experienced when getting prophesied to. It also revealed why they closed up shop in 342 AD: not because of the rise of Christianity, but because there was a small tremor which closed the fault and the gas vented somewhere else.

So an ancient mystery was solved by two drunken jerks having an argument. But their disagreement was a rational, dispassionate one.

That's what some comic book commentators (I can't bring myself to write "critics") don't understand about discourse: that every disagreement doesn't have to be an emotionally-fuelled one.

For example, I had occasion to write this in response to my new pal Greg Burgas's "Am I now Larry Young's bitch?" on Comics Should Be Good: "I don't consider anyone my bitch. If anything, I think it's a little sad that there seems to be a faction of the blogospheriverse that seems to think that getting review copies in the mail from a publishing house of long-standing seems to equal some sort of bribe on my personal behalf.

"Like 'em, don't like 'em; the company doesn't care. If you're getting a review copy of our work, it's because we already respect your opinion or we think we might.

"Whether I have an 'online persona' or not is something I've sort of tired talking about, but the upshot is this: I have a unique personal cultural background and ability to express myself in written English. This may or may not jibe with an individual audience member's culture or ability to parse meaning from my outreach. Is that a 'persona'? Me, I just think people don't always understand each other. Whaddaya gonna do?"

Take out the emotionally-cued responses to a message board posting that makes you upset, and take a minute to read the words. Sometimes, we might just all learn something... like on This Very Special Episode of the AiT Daily Update.

Beau Smith takes time out of his day to interview me for his incredibly entertaining column "Busted Knuckles." I can't believe he spilled the beans about that Mexican town I bought, but ever since Kim Basinger bought her Georgia town, I had it in mind I'd need one, too. Because I sure do appreciate beau rapping with me about the this and the that, I flowed him some pics you can't find anywhere else: a great color shot from Seal Team Seven, a righteous page from the long-awaited Smoke and Guns, as well as a color interior from Five Fists of Science.

I love the smell of comics in the morning.

Also, the big news of yesterday was that the Isotope Virtual Lounge 2.0 finally went live, and I have a column/message board over there where I'll be posting behind-the-scenes peeks at upcoming works, talking about the comics, and answering nuts-and-bolts questions. Make it a part of your daily stop.

The comics audience sure has some long memories.

Got a couple emails over the weekend pointing me to the press release announcing my pal Paul Guinan's Heartbreakers meet Boilerplate and asking me why we're not publishing it since these folks had remembered seeing the Boilerplate maquette on the AiT/Planet Lar table in San Diego way back in 2000. One guy even remembered that Adam Beechen and I were supposed to be the writers!

There's no secret to it as far as I'm concerned; Paul wanted to do a different story than Adam and I did, so we gave Paul the name to do with what he would. Believe me, I'll be first in line to buy a copy from IDW this summer; that project looks sweet.

I did find this one page of notes that Adam and I used to verbally pitch Shelly Roeberg on the floor of a San Diego way back when. You can see our straight-adventure take is much different than Paul's immersively historical accuracy!

Boilerplate

The High Concept: Post-Civil War robots on the rampage!

Tag Line: "Party like it’s 1899"

The Duration: A three issue mini-series

The Theme: One can always aspire to be greater than the sum of one’s parts. Especially if one’s parts need oiling every once in a while...

The Skinny: Scarred emotionally and physically from the events of the American Civil War, carpetbagger and tinkerer Caleb Butler vows to honor his dead brother’s memory by constructing a pneumatic replacement. No other sons will die in useless conflict while there are steam-powered soldiers available. At least, such is Butler’s dream. While news of the success of Butler’s "independent automaton" spreads like Sherman’s flames throughout the recently reunited United States, unscrupulous men scheme to pry the secret of the piston-driven mannequin from the good-natured tinkerer. Unscrupulous men, indeed; men like railroad magnate Johnson Cole... who envisions an entire team of (well, OK, let’s say it) robots at his command. Cole first has his men kidnap Caleb Butler and forces him to create an army of automatons for the deranged railroad man. Taken away from his tool shed, and in fear for the safety of his prototype (which escaped Cole’s men), Butler produces a cadre of inferior copies. Each attempt, while bearing superficial similarities, all go horribly awry. One begins to see that the success of the prototype hinged upon Butler’s input of his dead brother’s diary... Henry Butler was an inherently good man, and the copies of the prototype are merely weapons platforms for Cole’s plans of global domination.

Meanwhile, the prototype has to learn to navigate society on his own... and is subsequently "adopted" by a Doc Savage-like band of assistants: Terrific Nelson, an Oscar Wilde-level epigrammatist with a hidden secret (his powers of persuasion and cleverness are not his own); Jolly Goode, the English thespian and master of disguise most famous in the States for his revue "The Jolly Goode Show"; and the winsome and enigmatic Cervelle, a French beauty that is, in fact, the hidden brains of the outfit.

Boilerplate and his band of familiars then attempt a rescue of the kidnapped scientist and subsequently battle Cole’s army of robots. Imagine a bloody battle not unlike that of Little Big Horn with swarms of hydraulic robots amassing over the rolling plains... and only a plucky automaton with the soul of a man and his three friends there to oppose the monomaniacal plans of a madman...