This just in: make sure to watch the CBS Evening News tonight for You Choose, Steve Heartman Reports. This week the Kubert School is featured, where The Black Diamond backup-artist Steve McBride attends. If the Kubert story gets enough votes at CBS News, they'll get a full story in the near future, along with an interview with McBride. Show some comic book love and go vote sometime this weekend.

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Online retailer Khepri.com is now officially taking pre-orders for Continuity. If online's not your thing, just hit up your local brick-n-mortar comic shop and give them the order code: APR06 2846. We'll try to have a downloadable piece for you to print out and give to your guy up later today.

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Spike Magazine, a major literary site where interviews with JG Ballard and William Gibson are the norm, takes a look at Continuity:

"The theory goes that people who download music illegally are the ones who actually buy the most music as well. Apparently there's a burgeoning trade in pirated comics on file sharing networks too - so Larry Young, publisher at Planet Lar, has taken the bold step of providing the entire Continuity graphic novel, which is forthcoming in June, for free on the Web now. It's downloadable as a 12 MB PDF file - all 105 gloriously illustrated pages of it. It's certainly got my attention - I love graphic novels but never have the patience to find the next big thing beyond Alan Moore, Frank Miller or Warren Ellis - so this is a great chance to sample writers completely new to me at no cost - and more importantly, no effort either."

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And lastly: I love our fans, because they make things like this for us, and say things like, "You people really are the HBO of Comics, aren't you?...



Comics Redefined.

--Josh

The official 'about' page for Continuity is now up for your perusal.

If you're looking to pre-order Continuity before its June release, you can head to your local retailer and give them this secret code: APR06 2846. With that they should be able to order it for you with no problem.

For those of you who like to do all your shopping digitally: it's a little too early for Continuity to be listed on Amazon, but I have it on good authority that online comics retailer Khepri will be taking pre-orders later today.

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A big AiT welcome to all of you cats coming from BoingBoing and all other points of the Internet. Have a seat, pop open a cold one, and check out the discussions going on thanks to Larry's "experiment," as the kids are calling it.

Sam Hobart, who runs the graphic novel bookshop MacGuffin, was one of the first to chime in:

"The title is solicited in the April Previews and is therefore not due to hit shelves until June. I expected to see quite a bit more reaction to this as a business decision, particularly regarding the question of whether scans of comics being illegally available online help or hurt sales (or make little to no difference) and whether this is the wave of the future."

Sam sets up a link to Johanna Draper Carlson's thoughts on the matter. Thanks to your suggestion, Johanna, you'll notice something new in the PDF once you take your second look at Continuity. Or, for those of you that already downloaded the book and have it saved to your hard drive, the link at the top of the page should answer your questions.

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Folks are getting some great joy out of this PDF, and from watching us releasing it into the wild:

Sean Maher:

"This'll make a nice bit of evidence for those of us who think, for example, that illegal music downloads are good for music sales, won't it? Cheers to Larry for putting his balls on the chopping block to prove a point. It's about time somebody did."

Mark Fossen:

"Frankly, I can't stand reading comics on a computer monitor. I like honest-to-gosh dead trees in my hand. I got completely caught up in the PDF, though. The full work is a lot more complex and emotional than the 25-page preview that was originally released. It initially seemed a little post-collapse action flick, but it's a bit more Lathe Of Heaven than Transmetropolitan. Good stuff, and Larry's madness of releasing the full version definitely put the book on my radar."

Jason Kenney:

"Smart idea, I say. If it doesn't boost sales for the book itself I think it'll help the rest of AiT/Planet Lar's line. It certainly won't hurt the sales, I'm sure anyone who wants to buy the graphic novel will just the same. Good call."

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Continuity is going world-wide even, with several foreign language blogs picking it up. "There is yet someone who knows how the Internet works. That is Larry Young."

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So, yeah, the cat is officially out of the bag. If you haven't taken a look at Continuity in its full glory yet, you're more than welcome to. I'm digging on all this DRM conversation that's starting up, and very curious to see where it goes. To those of you that have been emailing and commenting asking how you can kick us some cash for the PDF: bless your hearts, but we're just Making Comics Better, not Selling You And Shipping Comics Better.

If you'd really like to support Continuity, just head to your retailer of choice and pre-order the dead tree version to put on your shelf.

--Josh

Special thanks to Cory Doctorow on boingboing.net for bangin' the Continuity drum, and to John Parkin on The Great Curve for spreading The Good Word.

Today was a good day. Time to kick off with Cohibas and scotch The Chief keeps around for days like this.


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You have probably seen Continuity all over, since Larry and Mac have been flogging the horse, but Dorian at Postmodern Barney has the first review of it:

"This upcoming graphic novel from AIT/Planet Lar focuses on Alicia, a pregnant teenager who ran away to New York. The problem is, she's never had sex and no one's heard of New York. And every time she goes to sleep, the whole world changes. But in this story, what could have been a sci-fi cliche becomes an examination of teen loneliness and anxiety. Alicia is quite literally no longer in control of her life, as her dreams continually blur the boundaries between fantasy and reality. And she never quite manages to take control, despite forming new attachments in a family of choice, of sorts, as she still spends all her time and energy focusing on avoiding her central dilemma. Only at the end does she reach a resolution which manages to be both touching and tragic.

"Talbert's art is excellent. It's very expressive and he handles both action and quiet conversation well. He also does an exceptional job in showing, incrementally, Alicia's deterioration as she runs away, lives on the streets, and goes without sleep for nine months.

"Continuity has an emotional depth and resonance that you don't often find in AIT's more action-orientated works, coupled with very strong and dramatic art. It will be released in June 2006."

--Josh

Tuesday must be Brian Wood Love Day, because that's what I've got for you. Brian Wood love. Or, as the kids say, <3.

From the Serendipity Department comes a review of the new fourth edition of Channel Zero by Bill Sherman:

"Makes sense that AiT/Planet Lar would issue a new edition of Brian Wood's Channel Zero as the movie version of V for Vendetta hits the theaters. Both stories deal with oppressive dystopian societies – and the rebels who fight against 'em – though where Britisher Alan Moore's consideration of future fascism was informed by the Thatcher Era, Wood's work works its paranoid extrapolation out of pre-9/11 Giulani NYC and its much-touted city clean-ups. If both works reflect the concerns of the years in which they were written, they also remain germane in these terror-focused times."

"Smart reissue, Planet Lar . . ."

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Joe Gentile over at Newsarama is Howling @ Demo:

"I bet that if you give this book to 12 different people, and you should, you would end up with quite a few different 'this was my favorite story.' Such a diverse cast of people! I didn't want this book to end, which goes to show you that both creators did what good stories are supposed to do: resonate with the reader. Great job by all here! Get this book now!"

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That's all for today folks. Hopefully I can sneak out of here a little early before the Bad Retail™ and go snag the King Kong 2-Disc that just dropped. Mmmm.... Peter Jackson goodness.

--Josh

"Just another Sky Ape Monday..." -- Susanna Hoffs

"If you read Sky Ape: King of Girls and wondered what the heck a 'sack of four-by-fours' is, here’s a hint. It’s a West Coast thing."

One-quarter of the brains behind Sky Ape, Phabulous Phil Amara, is interviewed at The Weekly Dig: "Adam West is cooler, because he’s really loony. It’s like he’s been smoking some kind of carpet cleaner." Phil's at Beaucoup Kevin's shop, Comicaze, in Somerville, on Sunday April 2 for a signing. Call the store at 617-666-2664 for more info.

A quick note to say that if you're looking for the first volume of Sky Ape, and your well-stocked local guy can't hook you up, it looks like online retailer www.khepri.com may be your final answer. Them things are gone.

...and, of course, we are honored to get his coveted "0/5" rating from Jim Witt over at Comic Book Galaxy. Even CBG editor Chris Allen, who once called Sky Ape "an underachievement" and "an embarrassment," writes, "Just when I finally read a Sky Ape one-shot I like (emphasis mine -- Ed.), Jim Witt comes along to go ape$#!+ on it, in his review of Sky Ape: King of Girls." Which just goes to show: not everyone thinks the same stuff is funny. Personally, I'm not so sure Witt isn't some sort of Yankee fan, because he claims to not find the image of Clemens holding she-males at gunpoint hilarious. I guess you wouldn't... if you were a Yankee fan.

--Larry