Saturday morning Watchmen

If you haven’t already seen it (it’s been all the rage on Twitter today), check out the Saturday morning Watchmen video here. Very, very clever and fun. Kudos to the creators for fine, funny work.

Technorati Tags: videos,superheroes,Watchmen,humor

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I think I owe someone at The Suffolk Voice a cheeseburger

I was very pleased to see a positive review of Devil’s Cape in The Suffolk Voice a while back, but I was surprised and thrilled to get a shout-out in a Watchmen review. I’ve been flattered in the past when people reviewing Devil’s Cape have mentioned Watchmen, but to actually see someone comparing Watchmen to Devil’s Cape is very, very cool (and yes, I realize it’s mostly a matter of timing and referencing a previous article, but I’ll take my thrills where I can find them).

Here’s a quote:

The heroes of Watchmen have a lot in common with the heroes in Devil's Cape. They have no superpowers, they drink, they smoke, and some are mentally unstable but they are all vulnerable to things like bullets, knives, arc welders, cancer, age and nuclear weapons.

And go here for the full article.

Technorati Tags: Books,Comic books,Watchmen,Devil's Cape,Reviews

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My favorite holiday shirt

Yeah, I look a little goofy, but that’s just playing the hand nature dealt.

Technorati Tags: Christmas,T-shirts,comic books,humor,Superman

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Very cool Watchmen trailer

A friend directed me to this. I could kibitz a bit about some details (it sounds weird to hear Rorschach actually say "Watchmen" out loud; Nite Owl and Silk Spectre are maybe a little too badass). But man, this just looks very cool. I'm looking forward to the movie.

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New interview live on HeroPress

I had a fun being interviewed again by HeroPress, where Devil's Cape is the book of the month for September. 
Check out the interview, where I talk about who I'd cast in a Devil's Cape movie, among other things. And stick around that site for other cool stuff.

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Conan caption contest

Jolly Jeff Hebert of HeroMachine fame has an ongoing caption contest feature where he strips the dialogue from a panel of a comic book and then gets readers to submit funny text to insert. Much comedy ensues. I've entered a caption or two here or there, but I've never won the contest.

Until now.
And what better place and time than in a contest supported by another Jeff buddy of mine, the Evil DM?

Here's the link to the contest announcement. Be sure to check out both Jeffs' sites.

And I'm very psyched about my prize: a black and white drawing from Jeff Hebert. I'm thinking I'll ask him to draw a character from Devil's Cape: it's just a question of which one.

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Why has Rob been slow to post?

Kind of a long story, but I've been kind of... tied up.



Yeah, okay. Sorry about that. Kind of disturbing, huh?

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Gene Colan ailing

There's sad news that legendary comic book artist Gene Colan is quite ill, suffering from liver failure. He's in need of expensive medical treatments. There are a couple of fund-raising efforts launched on his behalf. You can read more here and here.

I've been a big fan of his for years, first discovering his artwork in the Night Force comic book, which I wish would be reprinted. I gave him a little shout-out in Devil's Cape by adding the name Colan to a junior high school. A tiny thing, I guess.

Anyway, if you're in a position to help him, please consider doing it. If not, I encourage you to seek out his artwork. It's great.

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CAPE report

This year's CAPE event was yesterday and I had an absolute blast. I was nervous for the first half-hour or so as I had very few people come by my table, where I was selling copies of Devil's Cape and giving away bookmarks, and it was very windy and chilly, but people eventually began to come by and I started to sell copies and the day just rolled along. If you're visiting here today because you stopped by to see me at the event and got the URL from the bookmark, then thanks and welcome!

• I went back and forth on how much to charge for the book. It retails at $14.95 and the copies cost me about $10 each. For a little while I was deciding to charge $12 for them, but after my first sale, I decided to drop it to $10, as that seemed like a good price point and I wasn't really looking to make a profit there, just to increase sales for the book (and in fact I got the guy who'd paid $12 to come back over and gave him the $2 difference back). After I'd been there a while I changed my "$10" sign to one reading "CAPE Special: $10 (usually $14.95)" and that worked well for me.
• Richard at Zeus had helped me order a case of the book (24 copies) for the show (for special events, you either need to pay up front or get the event runner to order them and be invoiced for them). And I brought another case of my own copies to help make the display look substantial. I'd hoped to sell maybe a dozen or 15 copies of the book. By the end of the day, I sold 26, so I was quite happy about that.

• Dina and the boys stopped by for quite a while, as did my friend Michael and his daughter. The kids got to play together and I think everyone had fun.

• Attendees were cool and supportive. The picture above was sent to me by Robert Hurst, who bought a copy of the book and had the photo taken for his Facebook page. He was kind enough to send me a copy. Hope you enjoy the book, Robert!
• I got autographs from Gail Simone and Mark Waid, both of whom have written comic book stories I've loved, and gave both copies of Devil's Cape. I hope they like them!
• I particularly enjoyed getting to know the people at nearby tables and quickly became a fan of their work. I'm looking forward to buying Mark Murphy's Tiki Joe Mysteries (which comes out soon); had a great time chatting with Rob Osborne (of The Nearly Infamous Zango; I snagged the first two issues) and his wife Sarah; and I enjoyed meeting Thom Zahler, whose Love and Capes had me chuckling out loud. It's a small world sometimes--Thom's local friend Jesse Jackson, who sat next to me at the event, works at the same small company where I used to work before coming to my current company--the same place buddy Michael works now. You can see Jesse in the photo up top next to me in the Hawaiian shirt. Another gracious, nice person.

Overall, it was a great, fun event. My thanks to all who stopped by to see me, especially those who bought the book, and my thanks to Richard Neal of Zeus Comics and the whole team behind CAPE. What an impressive, cool event.

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CAPE on May 3

Locals, don't forget to come see me at CAPE in Dallas on May 3. And if you're not in Dallas, please celebrate Free Comic Book Day at your favorite neighborhood comics store (and tell them about Devil's Cape!).

For the back of the flyer/card, check after the jump.

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Five for writing with Richard Dansky

The great and powerful Richard Dansky was kind enough to interview me for his web site. Questions touch on topics ranging from the origins of the heroes of Devil's Cape to who would win a thumb-wrestling contest: Superman or the Hulk. Check it out!

Thanks, Richard, for the interview. And for those of you who haven't checked out Firefly Rain yet, what the heck is keeping you?

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Friday Night Fights: Argonaut vs. the Troll

In celebration of the fact that we're a mere four days from the release of Devil's Cape, I wanted to try something a little different for tonight's Friday Night Fights (may Bahlactus have mercy!). Usually I see comic book panels slung into the fray. Tonight, I'm keeping with the whole theme of superheroes and supervillains duking it out. But for this bit of mayhem, I'm using words, not pretty pictures.

And this battle between Argonaut and the Troll, straight out of page 153 of Devil's Cape, is no pretty picture at all. Click the image to read the page in its full glory, Bahlactus. If you dare!

How'd you like that, Bahlactus?

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Friday Night Fights

It's time for Friday Night Fights! I'm going to lead with my best shot...

Take that, Bahlactus!

Thanks to Living Between Wednesdays for the image.

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RIP, Dave Stevens

Aw, heck. The Comic Book Resources site is reporting (as are others, I'm sure) that Dave Stevens, creator of the Rocketeer and a generally phenomenal comic book artist, has passed away. He was a phenomenal talent and our world is a little smaller and less interesting without him.

As usual with any death related to the comic book industry, Mark Evanier has taken an insightful look at Stevens's life and career.

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Wonder Woman and Supergirl

Shelly's Comic Book Shelf has an interesting analysis of the female characters of the DCU, particularly Wonder Woman and Supergirl.

She overlooks Wonder Woman's important career at Taco Whiz, but maybe that's for the best. Chuckle. I love Bill Messner-Loebs and his runs on Flash and Jonny Quest are among my favorite comic book storylines of all time, but some of his Wonder Woman run just wasn't very good.

Shelly has a good take on the evolution of the characters. I think that one of the main issues is that the Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne backgrounds were built on much more solid and enduring foundations. Their careers still make sense for the characters today--they're part of the characters' iconography. But the others just don't have that foundation. Linda Danvers never had much of a background outside of the orphanage (I liked the period in which she was a soap opera star--that might be kind of a fun idea to resurrect), and Wonder Woman's secret ID has changed a lot over the years; since the Crisis, in which she essentially was rebooted with no secret ID at all, it's been a much less vital part of her background. The old background as Steve Trevor's assistant in the War Department is too dated and too associated with discarded continuity.

I'm not sure I see a great solution here without substantially changing the characters and without some institutional involvement. The problem has been that the out-of-costume careers of Wonder Woman and Supergirl just lack the foundation that Batman's and Superman's have --they are changed from writer to writer and don't gain enough traction to stick around when the creative team changes. I wouldn't put it past Gail Simone (current, awesome writer of Wonder Woman) to set up a status quo for Diana Prince that sticks around a while, but it all depends on editorial support and sticking power.

I'm rambling on a bit.

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Friday Night Fights

Who am I going to choose as my champion tonight for Friday Night Fights?

How about the Greatest?

He starts like this:

And it can only end like this:

Ouch! That had to hurt.

From one of the greatest comics of all time, Superman vs. Muhammad Ali.

Bahlactus's head is spinning!

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Iron Man fan film trailer

This trailer is all kinds of awesome. Go check it out.

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Teen Titans Year One: Haven't I seen this before?

I'm enjoying the Teen Titans: Year One miniseries, although I find some elements a little distracting. Yes, Aqualad's back story had him afraid of fish, but it wasn't this over the top, plus he never looked like a zombie. And Kid Flash's constant connection to the Internet (jarring, I guess, because I think of him as a character from the 60s) and general impatience make him resemble Impulse more than the young Wally West.

Regardless, it's a fun story so far. I liked the fact that the latest issue (#2) had an actual note from the editor referencing a comic book from way back in the day. And it's just fun reading about these characters again, even if it isn't in exactly the way I remember them.

But the pieces I've read about the comic itself make it come off like a new story about the team's history, not a retread of an old comic.


Am I the only one connecting this storyline to the old Teen Titans #53 that came out back in 1978? It's been a long time since I read the issue--probably at least 20 or 25 years (damn, I'm feeling old again). And I know I've got it in a long box in the garage somewhere, but darned if I could lay hands on it without a major effort. But isn't this the same story so far? With the JLA mentors turned evil and the kids forced to stop them? I even remember them talking about contacting Superman and then being afraid that he'd turned evil, too (as reflected in a conversation in issue #2 of the current series).

I'm trying to remember how the whole thing turned out. Is this six-issue miniseries going to parallel the done-in-one story from 1978 via decompression? Or is there more going on. Have others pointed out the connection between the two stories and I've just missed it?

I don't mind at all if it's an homage to the old story--I'm just curious, that's all.

If anyone knows, drop me a line.

EDIT: Follow-up: I found a little more background on the old comic here.

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Images from my hard drive

This kind of post seems fun on other blogs, so I thought I'd try it myself. Here are some images I've saved over the years, but haven't ended up blogging about yet.

I liked some parts of 52 better than others, but you can't get much cooler than Dr. Magnus firing tiny Metal Men bullets.




I've got more after the jump.






Here's a demented Mickey Mouse image. I've go no idea where I found this. It's a little unsettling, to be honest with you.










Chill's Isle of the Dead module was one of my favorites of all time. The carnival atmosphere was a blast (and probably one of the many reasons why a carnival plays a role in Devil's Cape) and the adventure just had a lot of fun elements. I ran this one in high school and I remember my players screaming "fear check!" every time they met something creepy.








This Rorschach image is pretty cool.








Here's an image of Doctor Arcane from the Champions adventure The Coriolis Effect. Pencils and inks by Glenn Johnson, colors by me (with Pentels in the module itself) at a much younger age.
















Halftrack from the great Storn Cook. Halftrack was an NPC in the Global Guardians universe.










I support Heroes.








Superman told Obama if he held the pose long enough, he'd get the Kryptonian endorsement.

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New interview with HeroPress

The Acrobatic Flea, AKA Tim from the UK, recently interviewed me for his very cool blog, HeroPress. I talk about Devil's Cape, my favorite role-playing moment, the best comic books going today, superhero movies, and more. Please go check out the interview, then stick around Tim's blog for lots of other good content.

Thanks, Tim!

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