Ganked from the Gear School blog (which seems, despite all odds, to still be a going concern):

Editor Dave Land got the script for the second volume of Gear School back to me yesterday. I must now go through and reject vet all of the changes he suggested. This process should take a day or two and then, one hopes, it will be forwarded on to Nuria and Sergio to start drawing.

Keep your fingers crossed.

New photos

Photos galore up on our flickr page!

This will hopefully make up for my lack of posting real entries.

Portland Creative Conference

Details to come, but it looks like I'm scheduled to speak at the newly resurrected Portland Creative Conference. It will be a 45-minute talk about my creative process. Anyone know a way to make "I make it up as I go along" take 45 minutes to say?

I attended the first PCC back in 1990 and remember it as an amazingly inspiring event. I'm proud and a little humbled to be asked to take part in it's newest incarnation.

As I said, more details as they become available.

Just like that

Not but ten minutes ago I finished an interview with Karen Healey, the woman who reviewed 100 Girls so nicely a day or two ago, and said interview is already up! Truly this is an age of marvels. I encourage you all to go and read it, then come back here and tell me how damned smart I sound.

Here's another one

Another review of 100 Girls. This one is not as glowing as some I've pointed to recently, but it's interesting. It's on a site called Mondo Magazine of which I was previously unaware, but which might bear exploration. The review's author takes issue with both the pacing of and the violence in the comic. I wonder if he'd believe that I take issue with both of those things, too.

Anyway, please, go and read the excellently titled "So Many Murderous Girls."

Another nice review

I awoke this morning to an email from my editor at Simon and Schuster pointing me to a very nice, very perceptive review on girl-wonder.org. Girl-Wonder is a site that I follow which looks at comics through a -- not a feminist lens necessarily, but certainly through a female-positive one. The tag line on the site is, "Because capes aren't just for boys." Given the characters I write, I'd hoped Girl-Wonder would notice my little comic and think well of it. Mission accomplished!

The review is written by Karen Healey who clues into one of the major themes I want to explore with 100 Girls. She may be the first person, is certainly the first reviewer, to do so. Read the review to see what I'm talking about.

I would play me in the movie

Out of the blue Wednesday night I received an email from someone I don't know. They identified themselves as a producer and asked after the rights to 100 Girls. I followed the link they provided to their bio on IMDb and was impressed with what I saw there. Further, I was impressed with how much effort they put into finding my email address so that they could contact me.

I was struck dumb and immediately referred them to my managers in LA.

The whole episode made me start thinking that I should probably record the tortured history of 100 Girls in Hollywood. I won't do it tonight, mostly because I don't feel like crying, but soon, I think. I'm sure that most people I know have no idea how many close calls there have been with the book and either movies or TV. I almost always play that stuff close to the vest, because I learned early on that the odds are against you and I'd rather not have to tell people, "You know that thing I told you about? Yeah, you can forget that." Over and over. I remain, at the moment, cautiously optimistic.

One quick anecdote as an illustration: Some months ago I had a phone interview with two agents who wanted to rep 100 Girls in a specific market. I took the phone call alone because Todd, my co-creator on the book, has reached the point where he won't even talk to Hollywood types anymore. He just tells me to talk to them and report back to him. If I like them, he's willing to work with them. Anyway, I was on the phone with these folks and one of them asked me if I was excited about this latest opportunity. I thought for a moment, and then I answered truthfully. "If this had happened even two years ago, I'd have been excited," I said, "but we've had so many opportunities almost happen, that I try not to get excited. If this all works out, then I guarantee I'll be excited." My publisher at Arcana, Sean, told me later that one of the agents told him I had a "bad attitude." I just laughed.