Huzzah! We have the order code for BLUE:

So what does that mean to you? Short answer: to make sure you get your hands on BLUE, pre-order the book from your local comics shop sometime this month. Just give them the code MAY083778 and you’re good to get one when it’s released in July.

Longer answer: Diamond Distributors are the folks that get the comics in the comics shops. Retailers look through Diamond’s catalog, PREVIEWS, every month to decide what to order. PREVIEWS is huge, they have a ton to choose from, and aren’t able to return books that don’t sell. This means that a lot of indy books get passed over at order time. Pre-ordering the book will guarantee you get a copy (huzzah for you), tells retailers there’s interest in/demand for the book (huzzah for me), and is another sale (huzzah for retailers).

In closing: pre-ordering is good, all around.

Finally! Dean’s Next Door Neighbor project has launched!

“Everybody has one. And, no matter how close or how far, we all live next to someone, and we all have a Next-Door Neighbor story,” says NDN Editor Dean Haspiel. “With this in mind, I asked some of my favorite storytellers and cartoonists to create their favorite NDN stories so that we at SMITH Magazine could share them with you over the next year.”

The first wave of stories launches with an urban “daymare” titled “Next-Door Neighborless” written by novelist Jonathan Ames and illustrated by Nick Bertozzi, whose graphic novel The Salon, was hailed as among the best comics of 2007. Upcoming stories feature the talents of Kevin Colden, John Cebollero, Joan Reilly, Ed Piskor, and Miss Lasko-Gross. The second wave will be announced in June and includes a super-secret, special first-time writer/artist matchup.

And me.

(Incidentally, what Dean says up there rings true, at least for me. I didn’t think I had a next door neighbor story. Turns out I did, with a little pondering.)

Not sure when my story goes live, but I can say with all definitiveness that it was drawn by talented newcomer Mike Jasorka of Bombshell Comics.

Anyways. Ames and Bertozzi are up first; it’s pretty sweet stuff so check it out.

Huzzah! Announcement time!

BLUE will be in the May PREVIEWS for a July release:

I’ve started a blog for news and updates (including that all-important order code when we get it). You’ll see some sample pages there already:

http://bluecomics.blogspot.com

Much more to come. Like a cab, in an hour, to take me to the airport. (Meep.)

(Confidential to Ms. Gwenda because I’ve been too crazed to answer: aside for the 5 minutes I’ll steal for Athena this afternoon, I’ll be in a hotel straight through Sunday afternoon. Good times!)

So! Hit another signpost on the writing road with my first short story in Endicott’s Journal of Mythic Arts Summer 2007 issue.

“Cooling” features a girl who’s a bit of an arsonist, a woman who is a bit of an alchemist, and a boy who is all water, walking around like he’s human or something.

Three guesses, and the first two don’t count, as to the mastermind behind the illustrations:

It’s the Young Adult fiction issue. I’ve linked to the masthead, not just my story. Be sure to check out the rest of what’s there. We’ve got stories by Holly Black, Will Shetterly, Emma Bull, O.R. Melling, Terri, Midori, Gwenda Bond, Steve Berman and tons of amazing stuff from amazing artists.

I don’t make deep personal confessions around here very often. But I do have one and it feels right.

Back in the day, years before I even contemplated reading comics in any sort of sustained way (let alone writing them) and way before I ran in any of the wonderful creative circles we are a part of now, I used to kill time at the office by combing through every word of the Endicott site. And come serious escapist daydreaming time, a sensitive, artistic blue-eyed husband with a handyman streak was just the beginning of my fantasy. What I really wanted more than anything was to be in one of these true creative partnerships a la Ellen & Delia, Charles Vess & Karen Shaffer, Brian & Wendy Froud, Will Shetterly & Emma Bull, and, of course, Charles & MaryAnn.

Both Endicott and marriage felt like major, major long shots at that time. And a creative marriage? WhatEver.

HA! Take THAT, weird ego!

Have a look and let me know what you think. It’s not my magnum opus, certainly, but I’m proud of it. I wrote it in the midst of some serious chaos last year (right around this time, actually) and it was one of those great escapes that one’s own stories can be when one is not feeling all that hot.

And yes, I do count my blessings constantly.

… you won’t find me in Brooklyn. I’m here at my parents’ house after a long day on the bus, called back to Maine for a sudden memorial service.

Um… I should be back around on Monday. Maybe?

That’s about all I can manage at the moment.

Yeah.

“Yes, Mother” with Sami Makkonen will appear in Negative Burn #13! Woo!

Here’s a fun promo image that Sami whipped up (click on it to see it a little bigger — hrm, I should look for a thumbnails plugin for Wordpress, eh?):

I love Sami’s art and am actually very proud of the story, so this is a “woot”s galore kind of situation all around.

OH! And yes, it will be up on Chemset. Steven is doing some housekeeping; I’ll post when we start going.

So, I have a few stories in the hopper for the Chemistry Set that are outside of the SCHZDE-iverse, of which “Yes, Mother” will be the first. I’m still not sure when it’s going to start, but it should be fairly soon-ish and will probably roll side by side with the next SCHEHERAZADE tale, “Tattered Coat.”

Sometimes I have these “Okay, enough fucking around. I need to write something RIGHT NOW” moments. Pardon my french, but that’s how these things can go after a dry spell. So it was with “Yes, Mother.” I pulled some book of old school New York ghost stories off the shelf and there was one in there from the 18th century concerning rats. “Yes, Mother” has no ghosts. It has rats.

It was originally written for our friend Rami, for a chapbook last year or something. I can’t remember now. When he graciously bowed out (it happens, we love Rami), Finnish darling Sami Makkonen graciously bowed in, and holy smokes, check out what he’s got goin’ on:

The glaring problem here is that I wrote it with a teenager in mind, but as you can see, Sami saw a girl of nine or ten. Sami is right, I am wrong, I need to fix.

Sami is right about many things. Such as bunny slippers. But that’s another story…

I know there’s been a bit of dead air around here lately; I haven’t felt very chatty. Usually that only means one thing: I’m deep in thought or hard at work. This time, both. (“Quit bothering me, kid; I’m pondering.” )

Anyway, here are a few things that I wanted to share with you all.

First off, go go Gadget ACT-I-VATE! Them cats n’ kittens snagged some insanely great AP coverage that went live today. The whole piece just shines, but of course I get a special glow in my cockles reading Leland namechecked as a “veteran” and seeing his stuff in the gallery. And there’s a little nod to my own crowd of webcomics ruffians, the Chemistry Set. Do check it out.

My next bit ‘o news concerns one of our favorite people, artist and superpeach Rami Efal. Rami is another ACT-I-VATE member and worked with my pal Steven Goldman on STYX TAXI and sweet Lady above, do I ever hope to get lucky enough to work with him someday. Not only does he rock the sequentials back n’ forth, he’s an amazing painter, too. And now you can check ‘em out yourself! Rami says:

Through the past two years I have been drawing and paintings to local jazz and blues music spanning Tel Aviv, Tokyo and New York City. Starting March 15th through April 11th 2007, these paintings and drawings will be on display at the Park Slope Tea Lounge in Brooklyn. Come and enjoy a cup of tea or a glass of red wine and view the works. Artwork is for sale and 50% of proceeds will go to Children International in support of impoverished children and those affected by recent floods in central Asia.
A reception will be announced so stay tuned!

Tea Lounge Park Slope @ 837 Union Street, between 6th and 7th Avenues, Brooklyn, NY. Subway: R to Union Street; 2,3 to Grand Army Plaza

Okay, it’s entirely possible that the Vulcan & Vishnu crisis has been averted. God bless Photobucket.

If you’ve never seen V&V before (which means you’re not reading ACT-I-VATE), you can see part 1 and part 2 over at Streetfables.com now and with any luck we’ll stay up! Booyah!

(We’ve only got 2 g’s to spare for the next week. Better not download that mixtape I made a while ago. )

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Leland is working on something of mine, which is always fun to see as it happens. Maybe I’ll be able to talk him into scanning a bit of it in.

It would seem that Leland’s Vulcan & Vishnu was StumbledUpon, so to speak, and now it’s all over the place.

And now, we’re almost out of bandwith for the month.

60 some-odd gigs burned through in a few days.

I had to take it down, unfortunately. This kills me, but our hosting provider has confirmed that they will disable our account if we go over, and I’m not having that.

Of course, we may have already gone over. So if, you know, this site disappears for two weeks, hey, at least I’m telling you now.

I will Photobucket the V and V. We should have done that in the first place, but noooo, I’m a control freak who likes to keep it in house. But. I really need to get this job on my plate done tonight.

Please bear with us. And bookmark my Livejournal, where I’ll surely be bitching with gusto if the worst does, in fact, happen.

(OK, so having a silly website disappear for a few days is far from the worst, I suppose, but y’know.)

edited to add: Great:

“Your account (streetfables.com) has reached 90 percent of the bandwidth quota limit for your hosting package. Bandwidth limits are often times exceeded because of increases in activity to your site either from visitor traffic or your own personal usage through e-mail and FTP. If you exceed your bandwidth quota, your account services (HTTP, FTP, POP, SMTP) may stop functioning.”

edited to add:
Q: “Can’t you just…?”
A: No, they wont let us add on extra bandwidth, I have to upgrade the entire damn package.