Terry Moore on the Related Recap

It's been about a month in the making, and was something we didn't want to spill until we were sure it would happen, but I just completed a 20-minute interview with Echo and Strangers in Paradise creator Terry Moore for The Related Recap! Originally proposed as a quickie interview to accompany a review of Echo: Moon Lake, Chuck and I knew as soon as he agreed that any conversation with Terry Moore had to happen on tape.

In the conversation, we talk about Echo, the challenges of running his own comic company, Moore's philosophy on collected editions (much more akin to the philosophy of most fans than you'll hear from any of the mainstream publishers, I assure you) and an upcoming deluxe, hardcover omnibus of Strangers in Paradise.

Moore was a genuinely friendly and soft-spoken man who seemed frankly flabbergasted when I told him that Chuck Moore and I considered Strangers in Paradise probably the greatest overall accomplishment in American comics. I'm already looking forward to the next time we can get him on the show!

Conscientious Sequentials: The Comic!

Maybe that's not what I'll call the book, I dunno. But those of you who have been reading this blog or checking out the site know that I put together a 24-page comic yesterday. I wrote and penciled it already, and am going to be inking, scanning and lettering nonstop to get it done by Tuesday or Wednesday, at which point I'll be offering it for sale online. However, like the Steal Back Your Vote comic that I helped spearhead for Greg Palast, I'll be offering this comic for the low, low price of "Whatever you want to pay." Paypal me anything from a penny up to capninternet@gmail.com, and I'll send you a PDF, DOC or CBR of the finished book. I'm going to donate half of the proceeds, so when you contact me, let me know if you'd like half of whatever you pay (unless it's a penny, those I'll keep) to any of the following:

Comic Book Legal Defense Fund
The HERO Initiative
Ralph Nader for President
The Palast Investigative Fund
ComicRelated (I'll give it to Chuck for equipment and such)

If you have another charitable or political organization you'd like to make me donate to, let me know. I'm not picky. These are the ones I'm already working with, but if you want me to donate to Obama/McCain/Greenpeace/the NRA, I'll do it. It's your nickel and really the idea of the "splitting the money" is to make myself feel like more of an activist and less of a whore. Anyone who buys a comic and doesn't specify where the money goes, I'll be splitting up whatever I make between those groups and handing it out (I don't expect it to be much, so you small publishing types can save yourself the headache of saying, "This'll probably be two bucks a group," or anything smart like that).

Contact me at russell@comicrelated.com if you want a sample of the art (it'll be a day or two) before you buy. In the meantime, I'll be working on a solicitation for the issue so that y'all know what you're looking at. That'll be on the blog and the boards by the end of the day.

24-Hour Comic Book Day Status Update 2: Electric Bugaloo

Just over the halfway point in terms of story development, as I've got 12 pages scripted and penciled, and I've created a very nice little device to hold together what has rapidly become a series of vignettes. I don't know if that's cheating a bit, since they aren't technically “a story,” but it's going to be 24 pages of comics, and they'll be written in a day, and the device will hold them together to be debatably one larger story. I'm getting tired and hungry and have lost much faith that the book will be fully inked by the end of the day, but inking and lettering are less of a concern because if it's written and penciled, I'm not going to back out of the inking and lettering. So all I have to do is lay it out and script it and the damned book is basically done.

My clothes have changed because I walked my beautiful girlfriend to the subway and didn't want to do so in the same t-shirt I'd been wearing around for 30 hours.

24-Hour Comic Book Day Status Update

So I've got 8 pages loosely penciled and laid out. There's a basic script for two stories--the first, five pages, is already finished and the second is about halfway drawn, which will be 8-10 pages. After that, I'm not sure what I'll do to fill out the remaining pages and hours, but it'll probably involve inking what I've got to that point and brainstorming while I do so. I expect to do the lettering later this week, once the art has been scanned, but I'll upload a text for the stories to the blog(s) once it's completed.

The first story is "World Without a Crusader," wherein a whiny Democratic voter who bemoans "why Ralph Nader ever bothered us in the first place" is taken by a Serling-like, suited companion to a world where Ralph Nader was never born--someplace where Americans are fatter than hell because there's no nutritional information anywhere, ignorant of any number of government activities because there's no Freedom of Information Act, and still dying in the tens of thousands from preventable road injuries and food poisoning because Nader wasn't there to hassle General Motors or the FDA.

The second story revolves around Cap'n Internet, and the first time HTMLad was old enough to vote. Since my current Cap story is going to get rid of the kid sidekick, this is the last time we'll actually see him on-page unless I decide to make him not-gone, but that's not foreseeable.

First Sketch for Free Comic Book Day

It's Paulson, pulling the strings on McCain and Obama. It'll eventually say, "PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE MAIN BEHIND THE BAILOUT."

Manhunter Canceled...Again.

Eight issues.

That's how long Marc Andreyko's Manhunter lasted this time around, before DC decided to cancel the critically-acclaimed, low-selling series. The final issue will reportedly be January's #38.

After Comics Continuum got wind of the story last night, Andreyko confirmed the cancellation today, saying on his Facebook page, “Marc Andreyko sadly announces Manhunter's cancellation. Again.” Andreyko then implored fans—and particularly retailers—to engage in a letter-writing campaign to DC to save the book. This would be the third such campaign on behalf of the beleaguered title, and a website—SaveManhunter.com—has remained functioning since before the first cancellation, never abandoning their site merely because the book had once again been “saved.”

The series was previously canceled at issues #25, given a five issue “trial period” and re-canceled at #30. The recent relaunch, with artist Michael Gaydos, began in April with #31. Andreyko had told ComicRelated that with the relaunch, the book was being viewed by the publisher as a forum to examine social and political issues in the context of the DC Universe. They have explored similar territory with their election-themed miniseries DC Universe: Decisions by Bill Willingham and Judd Winick.

Manhunter's first arc back will end with November's #36; it dealt with immigration, human rights, medical ethics and a number of related issues. The second arc was originally slated to deal with abortion, as was hinted in the final pages of #30, but it remains to be seen what will happen to that story, as Andreyko indicated to ComicRelated that it was a six-part story and that the book is currently slated to end two parts in.

Whether series protagonist Kate Spencer will appear in other DC Universe books in the absence of her ongoing series is unclear, but it seems likely. When the series was canceled after #30, the character was added to the cast of the all-girl superteam Birds of Prey as a way of keeping her in circulation. It seems likely that Manhunter will remain there as a member of the team, since the Birds of Prey have guest-starred in the current story arc in Manhunter.

When reached for comment, Andreyko said that he would be available to ComicRelated later today, so expect updates as the story develops.

Back

I'm going to be using this more. In conjunction with the ColumnRelated blog I have at ComicRelated, this will be where my stories start before they get fully-formed enough to be columns...and where links to my columns at ComicRelated will go. I will no longer publish completed stories here, as it just seems to defeat the purpose by detracting whatever small number of people read this blog from going to CR.

For personal entries, my Livejournal site is probably still the best. Even so, I don't update it much. I do have MySpace and Facebook pages that are relatively regularly maintained.