Runners is Back!

This is a press release I got from Sean Wang... before I run it, let me just say that I've been reading RUNNERS online since he began reposting the original story (with commentary on many of the pages), and I couldn't be more excited to see it return. If you haven't checked it out yet, go and do so as soon as possible.

The eagerly-anticipated new story arc of the sci-fi adventure comic RUNNERS starts this September at www.runnersuniverse.com. Sean Wang’s acclaimed action-comedy about alien smugglers continues as a FREE webcomic and follows the first story, RUNNERS: Bad Goods, which has recently been posted online in its entirety.

In the new FULL-COLOR story, RUNNERS: The Big Snow Job, hard times have fallen on Roka Nostaco and the smuggling crew of the Khoruysa Brimia. Tired of scraping by on small-time runs for petty criminals, they take on a big job to get back into the top tier of mob-level work. But high pay comes with high risk, and if the freezing climate of Planet Ciceron doesn't kill them, the hostile native population might. Assuming they don't all kill each other first! Success could put them back on track, but are they in the driver's seat or just pawns in a much bigger double-cross? The new story arc begins September 3, with new pages posting twice a week, on Mondays and Thursdays.

As with the first story, Wang will continue to include commentary with the new series online. “When I started posting Bad Goods, I decided to add notes, trivia, and behind-the-scenes info to almost every page as an incentive for readers to check it out even if they had already picked up the graphic novel,” says Wang. “Everyone seems to really love the commentary aspect of the online content, and I really enjoy doing it as well, so the new story arc will also run with plenty of behind-the-scenes info and trivia!”

To celebrate the start of the new story arc, Wang is also offering a special deal on the original issues of the first arc. At www.runnersuniverse.com, readers can pick up a set of all five original issues for just $5 (not including shipping). “While the Bad Goods graphic novel is also still available at its regular price,” explains Wang, “I thought the $5 issue set might be a nice, cheap way for new readers to get the whole first story before jumping into the next one. And while the entire story is available online, I know some people still like to have physical copies to read.”

“Along those lines,” continues Wang, “the second series will be collected into graphic novel format eventually, since I still love print comics myself. But the collection won’t come until after it finishes posting online, so readers should definitely check it out there in the meantime. It’s free, it’s color, it’s alien smugglers in space! Plus commentary! What more could you ask for?”

The complete Runners series can be read online at: www.runnersuniverse.com.

Wednesday Night Linkblogging

Project Waldo: Nate Simpson liveblogs creating a comic. And it's *gorgeous* (hat tip to Brandon Graham for the link)

Cameron Stewart earns free drinks with an iPhone and some of his art used without permission

Greg Rucka talks with Laura Hudson about Stumptown, one of my most-anticipated series of 2009.

Marvel 70th Anniversary/Cover Meme from Stuart Immonen, via Graeme McMillan - and there goes the rest of my night

Cool? Zombie bar opens in Minneapolis. Cooler? (for me) My sister, brother-in-law and nephews live there. So this is definitely on the menu for a visit at some point.

Don't be a mean GM. Legally, it can have consequences. Like hammer face-beatings, apparently.

Funny... and yet...

It'd be a lot funnier if I didn't think so many people across the country actually, un-ironically, believe this.

From Tim Dickinson at Rolling Stone:

What I Learned On My Summer Vacation

Barack Hussein Obama, natural born Kenyan socialist, usurper of the American presidency and “Trojan Horse of Islam,” possessed of a “deep seated hatred of white people” and with the aid of his media “brownshirts,” is embarking on a Nazi-styled eugenics campaign to grant “death panels” the authority to “pull the plug on grandma” and “redistribute the wealth” otherwise required to sustain her “unproductive” life as “reparations”. Failure to halt his “government takeover” — with assault rifles if necessary — will lead inexorably to future generations having to “wait in line for, I dunno, toilet paper.”

Us vs. Them

I know I get caught up in the "Democrats over Republicans" things more often than not, but I am aware that in many ways, the problem is that both of our political parties are so huge and so corrupt that they've lost any touch with the notion of helping people instead of lining their own pockets.

It's always good to have a reminder that the real "us" in "us vs. them" is the everyday person trying to work their job and provide for their family while rich, entitled assholes game the system. That's the "them." Unfortunately, while there are a lot more of "us" than there are of "them," they've got all the money, power and guns and there's pretty much no way "we" are ever going to beat "them" at a game that they've got so thoroughly rigged in their favor.

Depressing, but there it is. Matt Taibbi's Rolling Stone piece on Goldman Sachs and their ties to the Clinton administration, the Bush administration and the Obama administration lays that out pretty clearly.

Linkblogging

Twitter and Facebook (along with XBox 360, D&D 4E and of course a full-time job and fatherhood) seems to have killed my blogging almost dead. These days, it's weekly comics updates and the occasional link-blog. Ah, well... hopefully the four of you reading this blog don't mind too much.

Anyway, three new additions:

Hotel Fred - I'm a latecomer to Roger Langridge, and I still haven't read Fred the Clown (which I need to rectify soon), but I've become a huge fan of his writing and art thanks to Fin Fang Four and The Muppet Show comics. This post alone, with sketches from Heroes Con, is worth subscribing to the feed.

Comics Alliance - Like io9 has done for sci-fi, I love the spread of snarky humor and actual geek news that Comics Alliance has, and its writers include Laura Hudson and Chris Sims, so what's not to like?

Comics Curmudgeon - I can't believe it took me this long to find Josh's hilarious site speculating and commenting on the newspaper comics of the day.

Added to Blogroll

Terrible Yellow Eyes is a blog where artists do pieces based on one of my favorite books from when I was a kid, Maurice Sendak's "Where The Wild Things Are."

I wasn't all that excited about the movie, even though I love Spike Jonze's work, because I just don't know if the book can translate to another media. But when I saw it in the theatre before Up, it sort of got its hooks in me, so now I'm cautiously and mildly interested.

Sorry, Mike, I Still Love My Car

I'm generally a fan, to an extent, of Michael Moore. He's more left than I am, but we don't have enough unapologetic blowhards on our side to counter the shout 'em down tactics of the O'Reillys, the Hannitys, the Becks. He's a little obnoxious from time to time, and he's about as fair and balanced as Fox News, but he leans the other way, and I'm kinda OK with that.

So I find my reaction to his reaction to GM's bankrupty to be about par for the course. I'm right there with him, like "Fuck yeah! Preach it!" with him for the first third or so, then the "Uh, OK, but maybe with some caveats" for the second third and then "Uh, whoa, pull back the reins on the crazy horse" for the last third.

To wit:

I'm with him on almost all the points he makes in 1-8. Convert GM auto production into production for light rail, bullet trains and other mass transit? Check. Hell yeah. If we ever want to even start dealing with the multiple problems of our oil dependency and all the various problems it causes, viable mass transit is a must. I have to admit, the thought of being able to take a light rail to Dallas in two hours and then a bullet train from there out to Chicago or San Diego or New York in a little more than the time it would take to fly fills me with glee.

And hey, I'm all for tax credits to gently push both industry and the public at large to build and then use this mass transit, until the sheer convenience makes it a viable commercial option. So tax credits, but tax credits that don't auto-renew, but need new renewing legislation in five years, and then again in three years, etc. So that in five or six years, we don't wind up paying people not to grow corn, metaphorically speaking.

My big disagreement with him, though, and it is a huge one, is something he says early on where he basically indicates that cars as a form of transportation need to go away entirely. And then in point nine, he says something that is, quite frankly, monumentally stupid, saying that we need a two dollar a gallon tax on gasoline.

See, here's the thing. Cars are almost always going to be a better form of short-distance transportation than mass transit. They're on your schedule, you can take as many or as few people as you like, and you can go exactly where you want. And until the mass transit system is in place, making gas twice as expensive is like punishing the common man for the excesses of the rich and the industrial. Suddenly folks can't afford to go to the store, go out to dinner, etc. and local businesses take the hit. Worse, think what it would do to the trucking and commercial airline industry, and what the resulting freight increases would do to businesses who rely on being able to get goods from across the country.

Also, while I'm all for creating more energy-efficient cars, with an eye towards cars that run on an alternate fuel source (no oil) entirely, I'm not onboard with eliminating cars and trucks. We don't *need* iPods, or videogame consoles, or films (even the documentary kind) any more than we *need* cars, but that doesn't mean it's not OK to want them. Driving can be stressful, it can be a pain in the ass, it can be a necessary evil to get you to your job, and if that's true, hey, mass transit is a great alternative. But it can also be fun to drive. It can certainly be necessary. For example, if you need to get to the hospital because your wife is in labor or your kid has hurt themselves in a way that isn't quite bad enough for an ambulance, but in a way that makes waiting at the train or bus station a less than pleasant alternative.

Let's not throw away a perfectly usable 20th century invention just because it still has some 20th century problems. Let's evolve it into a 21st century version of the useful machine, to work alongside these new, futuristic mass transit notions.

Because I Am, Apparently, Stupid Enough to Argue With Neil Gaiman

Not really. Just Internet argue, and just sort of Devil's Advocate, because I get what he's saying, and honestly Gaiman doesn't read my blog and why would he care about my opinion anyway, but I've seen a lot of this kind of thing coming from authors in response to some of the crazier fans and... well, I should probably end this run-on sentence and start with what the hell I'm talking about.

Gaiman has a much-linked article on his blog called "Entitlement Issues" which addresses the notion of fans feeling like writers owe them the next book in their series in a timely fashion, or indeed that writers owe them anything, with the pithy quote "George R.R. Martin is not your bitch."

And he's absolutely right. 100%. Writers are people, their job is a tricky one, and if it ain't there, it ain't there. If you're bitching because Martin went on a week-long vacation instead of slaving away on the next Ice and Fire book, get a grip.

However... Gaiman makes a few points that I really disagree with. Here's the key one, and it's the one he closes with: "George R. R. Martin is not working for you."

Well, uh... yeah. He kinda is. I mean, no, I don't pay him directly, but I buy his books, which makes the publishers think, "Hey, we should give this guy more money for more books!" Now, I'm not his boss, I can't set his hours, etc., but if the message of the consumers is "We would like to read more of your epic fantasy series rather than this new story that has caught your writing fancy" than maybe, as a professional writer, he's better off seeing if that epic fantasy series is something he can write right now.

Because here's the thing: When you start a big epic series, especially one that is in large part predicated on "what happens next" and prophecy and other such dramatic elements that require later payoff for the setup to be as enjoyable, you are making a promise to your readers that you will finish it. And when you promise you'll deliver it more than once and fail to live up to that promise, it seems to me that rational readers are fair in saying, "Uh, does this mean that promise you made us at the beginning to tell us the end of the story might get reneged on too?"

There are plenty of great standalone novels. There are plenty of great novels in a series that are satisfying reads on their own, and if a next book comes, that's great but if it doesn't each book pretty much stands as a complete chapter.

The Song of Ice and Fire is not that series. It has been sold, from the outset, and written, from the outset, as one big story told in novel-sized chunks. Imagine if a four-year gap between seasons three and four of Lost... might it seem fair to gripe about that? There is reason to have legitimate concern, given the growing delay between books, that Martin has lost interest or worse, doesn't know how to wrap up the plot and character arcs he's built up. There is even reason, ghoulish though it might be, to worry that Martin might die before completing the series, given that writing books takes an awful long time in the best of circumstances and writers have, in the course of time, died with works unfinished.

Does this give fans the right to berate Martin if they see him in public having dinner with friends? No. Does it give them the right to badger him inecessantly online and start crazy petitions about not buying any other Martin work until he finishes Ice and Fire? Well, yeah, actually, although it does seem crazy and self-defeating.

But does it give fans the right to bitch about it, and have their concerns taken as valid, if only from their own personal point of view? To be disappointed in the lack of more stories that the author should be thrilled have connected so deeply with so many fans? Well, yeah. I think that's fair.

Authors want to write what they want to write, hey, that's cool. But fans want to vent, within reasonable limits, that their favorite author isn't writing their favorite book, and they feel a little pissed that they only have half the story with no end in sight? I think we can all be OK with that, too, right?

And if you don't want people asking for the next chapter in your epic story so that they can see how it all turns out, I can think of two easy ways to do that: 1) Write a bad epic story that nobody gives a shit about or 2) Don't start big epic series, write more self-contained novels.

Added to Blogroll

Chris Samnee is an artist I first noticed on Oni's Capote in Kansas and Queen & Country, who has since gone on to do more work for DC and Marvel as well, including his work with Peter Tomasi on the DC book The Mighty. He's a fantastic artist, and he has a sketchblog, and I can't believe it too me this long to find.

Added to Blogroll: Superhero Haikus

I hope they don't get tired of doing these haiku summaries of Amazing Spider-Man (and maybe others, in the future?) because I'll never get tired of reading them.

Superhero Haiku

Down the Line Returns - April 2009

Welcome to Down the Line, our monthly look at Previews! Each month we look at what’s coming out in comics (and manga) a few months down the road. This installment covers the April Previews for comics due to ship out June 2009 or later.

We're making a few changes this month, and we'll probably keep tinkering with the format as time goes on. First and foremost, Randy is back to write the column, and he's brought along a new co-writer, Jason Murphy, who writes movie reviews and podcasts about comics over at Spill.com.

Added to Blogroll: Runners

I've done reviews in the past of Sean Wang's excellent sci-fi adventure comic Runners, and I was super-excited when it was announced as coming out, in full color, from Archaia.

Bad news? That didn't work out. Good news? It's because Wang is running the whole series, from the beginning, as a webcomic. Get onboard and check this out, it's fantastic stuff that more people should definitely read. And if you've already read Runners, Wang is doing commentary on the pages as he goes, so there's still new stuff.

Added to Blogroll: Artists!

A frequently-updated sketchblog from a variety of talented creators, including Cameron Stewart, Andy Belanger, J. Bone, Karl Kerschl and host Ramon Perez featuring sketches of girls. Sexy girls, regular girls, all kinds of girls, all done by great artists.

Also added, from STAPLE!

Evan Bryce, artist on President Awesome, who runs his own frequently-updated art blog that is full of great images. Bryce has a cool style that reminds me a little bit of what I love about Kristian Donaldson's work.

Monica Gallagher, artist of Gods and Undergrads and Bonnie N. Collide, Nine to Five, a terrific artist who I met at this year's STAPLE!

Kennon James, another artist I met this year at STAPLE!, whose "C is for Carnage" print and Funky Fish Book were some of the things I picked up.

And I would have added Nick Derington, but he hasn't updated since December... go look at his Flickr collection, though... the dude is a badass artist, on top of being a really nice guy.

Street Angel Trailer

It's a fun trailer, and one of my favorite moments (the megaphone scene) is in there.

Late Breaking Appreciation

Everyone else is probably over the plane in the Hudson River story at this point, but I've started reading more about it, and...

Wow. It was a near-miss. This could so easily have been a tragedy, killing people on the plane and on the ground, causing all kinds of havoc and destruction. And the reason it didn't is mostly down to one man, the pilot, Capt. Chesley B. "Sully" Sullenberger, who made the decision to put down in the Hudson and got everybody rescued.

Every day, every hour, I read stories about people making bad decisions. It's rare to read about someone who made the exact right one, and in so doing saved countless lives.

Blogroll Addition: Robot Viking

So I've added another new feed to the Blogroll: Robot Viking

Why? Well, it's from one of the contributors to io9, which is an awesome sci-fi (or science-fiction, if you're some kind of high-strung wanker who gets bent out of shape by the abbreviation sci-fi) website that not only features the latest home of Graeme McMillan (one of the best writers on the Internet) but some great commentary, snark, funny and quirky weird from a pretty solid staff. The gaming columns were always few and far between, but I always enjoyed them, and now Ed Grabianowski (yeah, I copied and pasted that last name) has set up his own blog devoted entirely to pen-and-paper role-playing, miniatures and other games. Which is not only half my business, it's also a good chunk of how I spend my hobby time.

Also, Robot Viking is an awesome name. Check it out!

Blogroll Addition: Colleen Coover

Colleen Coover, super-talented artist of Small Favors, Banana Sundays, X-Men First Class shorts and tons more, has a blog. As an enormous fan of Coover's stuff, I am adding this blog to my blogroll.

Here is the kickass sketch of Batgirl Colleen did for my daughter, just one of the many reasons why I love her art.



Oh, incidentally, her husband Paul Tobin is a heck of a writer, too. He's doing some really fun stuff on Marvel Adventures and elsewhere right now.

Help the Hoffmans

This has been around the blogosphere a couple days, but if you haven't already seen it, go and read this at Blog@Newsarama. This is not directly comics-related, it's much more important.

To sum up, Carla Hoffman, who many will know from her contributions to Blog@Newsarama, along with her husband, Lance, were caught in the fires in California. They both received severe burns. The good news is that, medically, it seems like they're going to be all right. The bad news is they still lost their home, and they will no doubt have some hefty medical bills.

As noted in the article, there is a fund set up to help them:

The Lance and Carla Burn Fund
Santa Barbara Bank and Trust
1483 East Valley Road
Montecito, CA 93108-1248

I've met Carla only briefly, at this year's San Diego, but I can tell you that she is remarkably nice, and passionate about comics, and she not only writes about them but she works on the front lines of comics retail. She is, in short, one of the good ones. The comics community has always been remarkably generous when it comes to helping those in our community who need a hand, so I'm hoping the same will be true now. Especially given the current economy and how near we are the holidays, which makes this hit all the more hard.

A Few Thoughts on George R.R. Martin and Game of Thrones

Last night, I finished reading the second volume of the Song of Fire & Ice, A Clash of Kings. I loved it, as much as I enjoyed Game of Thrones a few months back. It's been awhile since I got drawn into a fantasy series, but Fire & Ice is fantastic. Now I've got two more books to read until I'm caught up, although I'm afraid to catch up, because the fifth book isn't planned for availability until April, and who knows how long I'll have to wait until six and seven get finished after that.

I've actually been a fan of Martin's since his work on the Wild Cards book series when I was younger. But Game of Thrones is even better, a really fully fleshed-out world with great characters and stronger moment-to-moment writing than most fantasy novels offer. So I was excited when it was announced that HBO had the option to adapt the seven novels into seven seasons of television, and today they announced that they've green-lighted the pilot. I am of course nervous about the series' chances, given the traditionally high cost of fantasy and HBO's history with shows like Deadwood and Rome, but I'm also super-excited to see what happens.

I'm also anxiously awaiting the late Green Ronin Fire & Ice role-playing game, and hoping it'll be out in the next couple of weeks.

But... the announcement of the HBO pilot got linkage everywhere, and Blog@Newsarama linked to Martin's blog, which I followed. And not only is the guy a great writer with at least two great series under his belt (one as co-writer/co-editor, one as sole creator), but he's also a big, outspoken Obama fan.

Unlike Orson Scott Card, another well-known author who, it should be remembered, is a homophobic douchebag.

An Appeal for Compromise

Look, I know this is a sensitive issue.

There are stark, important divides, and both sides have a point.

On one side, you have people arguing about a tradition that goes back to their grandfathers.

On the other, people saying that youthful energy and change should be the order of the day, and just because it has always been one way, it doesn't always have to be that way.

But I think we can all find some sort of compromise on this point.

Really, isn't it OK to have both slow moving zombies *and* fast moving zombies in our pop culture?

Simon Pegg says no.

What? What did you think I was talking about?