That’s some serious YALSA right there.  YALSA is a group within the ALA, the American Library Association, comprised of a bunch of librarians who do a marvelous job each year of combing through the many new books available for libraries to order and selecting those they think would be most appealing to and appropriate for teens 12-18.  The full list of selections for this year is here: http://www.ala.org/yalsa/booklists/ggnt/2012

First of all, this is a huge honor.  You look at the other works on that list, and it’s clear that 27 is in some spectacular company.  I’m very proud of everyone who worked on the book to get us there – Renzo Podesta, Scott Forbes, Shawn DePasquale on the substance of the book itself, and Jim Valentino and his crew at Shadowline and Image Comics for all their wonderful work getting 27 into the world.

The second thing that is potentially great about this selection – and I’m going to be a little mercenary here, so if you hate it when a dude gets all businesslike then click away now (no, don’t) – is that librarians all over the country and the rest of the English-speaking world use the YALSA list as a strong guide towards what they should buy and stock in their own libraries.  So, while nothing is certain, it could be a nice boost for the series as a whole.  Books these days live and die on things like this, and it can be very important to break out of the (wonderful, but not necessarily gigantic) standard audience of comics readers.  For example, I know that the Pinocchio, Vampire Slayer series from SLG was able to get into the black and continue for several volumes because of its inclusion on this list a few years ago.  So, if we’re lucky (or luckier – we’ve already been damn lucky with this series) then librarians everywhere will be foisting 27 off on unruly teens, and if they love it enough, we’ll be doing 27 for ages.

And speaking of more 27, the collection of the second arc for the series was just listed in Previews.  As I’ve mentioned, Previews is a sort of catalog for the comics industry that lets retailers figure out what they’re going to order for their shops.  The catalog covers books that will be coming out several months down the road.  In the case of 27: Second Set, the current Previews has listings for April.  Anyone can pre-order a book as soon as it’s in Previews.  They can either use the book’s order code, which is FEB120422, or just go to their comic shop and ask for it.  An online link to order it now is here, and that particular shop will sell it to you for like 35% off cover.  Even with shipping that’s a hell of a deal, and you’ll be able to get it right away!

So, if you enjoyed 27: First Set, you like/know me personally, you want to do a good deed for the comics industry, or any other reason that comes to mind, please go ahead and pre-order it.  Many, many important business decisions are made based on the volume of pre-orders, and if we don’t get a substantial number it could be, ah… a problem. 

Anyway, there’s a nice, 27-related post for you.  More soon!

For the record, if you’ve read 27 First Set, you know that Jim Morrison isn’t anywhere near Paris these days.  Rock and roll.

Read it, if you can.

(Art by the exceptionally talented Robert Saywitz.)

(Note, none of these projects are big company-owned superhero work-for-hire stuff, a la Spider-Man or Batman.  I’ve only barely dipped into those waters, and I’ll save a post on those experiences for another day.)

So, we’ll call these projects A, B and C.  Here’s a very brief summary of what they’re about:

Project A: A science fiction thing about a famous cultural/mythological location.  I was asked to write a treatment for a graphic novel that would hopefully transition to a feature film.  Assuming the treatment went well, I would also write the graphic novel script.

Project B: A graphic novel project commissioned by a client who wanted the story to tie closely into a particular locale.  It also needed to incorporate the various personalities working for the client as characters in the story.

Project C: Treatment to graphic novel about a famous historical personage, now deceased, for a client with rights to tell stories about this person.

Here’s how it’s worked out so far.  Project A seemed like a layup.  The guy who brought me on is an old friend and a fan of my writing, and knew my exact strengths and pitched me based on those.  I wrote a treatment, which the client liked.  It was about 7-8 pages long and approached the central myth in a fashion I thought was refreshing and cool.  It was a story I would enjoy scripting, and it wouldn’t require a ton of extra research (as I know a fair amount about the setting already.)  I presented the treatment, and it was well-received (and I was paid for it – not a lot, but something.)  I had a meeting with the client to discuss – seemed like that went well too.  Then, a bit later, I was given a greenlight to proceed with a revised treatment based on some significant alterations to the story, after which I would write a script for the graphic novel.  The new treatment (because that’s what it would be, really) would be unpaid work, and the page rate on the script was… audacious (in a bad way.)  It was also unclear whether I was expected to ghostwrite this, or if I’d get real credit.  After looking at everything I have to do right now, not just Projects B and C but also my various creator-owned scripts, screenplays, day job, family, occasional social schedule, etc., I decided that I couldn’t spare the time (at least not for that compensation/possible lack of credit) and I passed.  It was a weird feeling, to think that I would turn down someone who wanted to pay me to write their story, but honestly, there was some relief in there as well.  Two writer friends had warned me off working with this company, and one even went so far as to say that if I did the job, I’d be a moron, as they were clearly planning to use the script/graphic novel to get a movie deal (and were positioned to do so – it wasn’t like they were guys off the street; they have a Hollywood pedigree), which wouldn’t involve me.  Anyway, that was Project A.

Project B is set in a city that I really like, despite many reasons not to.  The project was a chance to research the city and figure out a cool story involving many of its iconic locations, like a love letter to a place that really doesn’t get much love these days.  That was the main draw to the project for me.  The story also has to involve the clients’ store, and its founders have to be characters – those were some of the weirder elements – but it’s a challenge I was willing to take on because of the chance to write a book about the city.  This one actually came together really easily.  I did my research and thought about it for a while, then came up with a draft almost in one go.  I did a ten-page, detailed treatment.  It needs to pass three hurdles of review before it’s greenlit to script – the guy who brought me on, a sort of middleman, and then the guys at the store.  So far, the first hurdle has been crossed, and I’m waiting on the other two.  Funny thing about this one is that I don’t get paid unless it goes to script (although it has an excellent page rate).  So, I’m hanging out in the wind a little bit, but I’m not too bothered.  Even if it gets negged, the worst that comes of it is that I spent a few days tooling around this city I love so much, doing “research.”  Not so bad.

**UPDATE – since I posted this, the second hurdle was crossed, so now it’s on to the guys at the shop.  If they like it, we’re off to the races.

Project C is the most challenging.  It’s supposed to be a story about a fairly well-known person, who I actually didn’t know that much about when I got the gig.  So, I’ve been doing a lot of reading and research to get a grasp for who this person really was, and how they might function as a character in a story.  The problem is that as far as I can tell, she was about as two-dimensional as a love interest in a Transformers movie.  Like a magazine cover.  I know there’s more – there has to be – and I’m fortunate in that the client has a large archive of information I can access.  I feel like I just haven’t cracked it yet, but I hope that I’ll find a way into the character that will give me a way to hang a story on her.  An interesting thing about this one is that I know another writer who also worked on this project, and had similar issues to mine.  I consider him to be significantly more talented than I am, and if he couldn’t make it work then I don’t know how much of a chance I have.  I haven’t broken the story at all – I have an opening scene, and a few ideas, but nothing more.  I have to deliver a treatment in less than a month, though, so time’s running out.  It’s a real challenge, and it would also pay quite well if it goes father, so I’m hopeful.  We’ll see!

My feeling about work-for-hire is that I’m lucky that it’s happening at all.  The idea of being paid to write is still pretty awesome.  That said, I think I’m also lucky that I don’t need writing money to pay my bills.  It’s certainly great, because it offsets some of the costs of the creator-owned stuff, but I also have the leeway to say no to a project without wondering how I’ll keep a roof over my head.  So, for me, right now, I guess work-for-hire needs to have something more than just money involved for it to make sense.

To put it another way, in the immortal words of Nomi Malone, “I’m a dancer!”

And now, back to work!

I didn’t realize quite how intense December’s schedule would be when I scheduled a signing for the first weekend after New Year’s at the amazing Third Eye Comics down in Annapolis, Maryland.  Truth be told, I was a little burned out this past week, and I had to gear up a little to get excited for the event.  I had a signing experience when I was in Los Angeles that wasn’t everything I had hoped it would be, and the idea of slogging down to Annapolis for a repeat of that scenario didn’t sound too appealing.  Now, when I do one of these events, I’m not a prima donna about it, really.  I know that I’m not anything that special in the comics world – there are tons of incredible creators out there, most of whom have bigger followings than I do.  So, I don’t need to be treated like a king, but it’s still time away from home, and expense, etc.  For me, it’s about everyone acknowledging that we’re all in it together and everyone doing their best to make it work out well.

I set up a signing at Third Eye on the advice of Jim Zubkavich of Skullkickers fame – he told me it was one of the very best he’d done, and he couldn’t have been more correct.  The folks at Third Eye went WAY above and beyond.  I might not need to be treated like a king, but I’m human – it’s pretty nice when it happens.  Allow me to explain…

Third Eye isn’t the biggest shop I’ve ever seen, but it’s extremely well-organized and laid out.  The store never feels cramped, even though it contains just about everything you’d ever want as a modern comics buyer.  It also has what I would consider to be the secret weapon for a successful direct market – a guy behind the counter who goes the extra mile to make sure his customers are finding exactly what they want, as well as what they don’t yet know they want.  That’s Steve Anderson, the owner.  He’s extraordinarily enthusiastic and upbeat, and very smart about how he positions himself and his store.  He greeted every person who walked in, often by name.  He stepped out from behind the register many times to hand-sell books to people based on things he knew they liked.  Does it take a little extra energy, and a particular type of person to make an approach like that work?  Of course it does, but from the conversations I had with Steve over the course of the day, it pays massive dividends.  He passed along the numbers he moves on some of his titles, and it’s phenomenal.  There’s no question that, well, giving a shit seems to work.  If we had a few hundred more guys like Steve running around in the DM (and I know he’s not alone in his commitment and skill as a comics retailer, but there can never be enough) the industry would be in phenomenal shape.  Comics don’t sell themselves – not these days.  They’re specialty, almost luxury items, and smart salesmen (like Steve) approach them that way.

So, that’s the type of store you’re dealing with. On to my particular experience there:

I came into the DC area a day earlier for some research on a new project (more on that after the signing writeup), and drove down to Annapolis early Saturday morning.  The weather was incredible all weekend (mid to high 60s, which is weird for early January, but I’ll allow it), and when I got to the store around 9 there were already people lined up waiting.  Considering the shop didn’t open until 11, that was a very solid sign.  Steve had made sweet mix CDs for the first 15 people in line (he tends to do clever stuff like that), but it was still a cool thing to see.

I killed an hour reading the paper, then walked in at 10 to get set up.  I met Steve, his wife Trish Rabbitt and their very able co-worker Torma, all of whom helped to keep things running like clockwork for the whole day.  I didn’t take any pictures, which was dumb, but the signing area was set up with a sweet display of 27: First Set trades and the Second Set floppies.  We added in some Strongman Vol. 1s and some 27 t-shirts I’d brought down with me, and we were good to go.  Spent the next little while shopping, since I’d missed getting to my NYC shop that week and Steve was giving me a killer discount.  Landed some trades I’d been meaning to get for a while (Witch Doctor, Return of Bruce Wayne) and one I hadn’t heard of – Chase, a collection of DC stories drawn by JH Williams III from the 90s that looks incredible.

Doors opened at 11, and wow.  Line stretched through the store, and I was busy signing and talking to people for the next three hours and change.  We had a few dips here and there, but by and large traffic was very steady.  Steve and his team made sure everyone knew what was happening, who I was, and what 27 and Strongman were all about.  It was a great mix of people who were already fans and had brought in their issues or trades for me to sign, plus folks who were hearing about my stuff for the first time.  Totally gratifying and fun. I’d take my books down there in a minute, and I know we’ll do something again once Strange Attractors, Letter 44 and my other 2012 books start to hit.

I could say more, but the whole thing just left me with a really optimistic feeling about the industry.  Just a great rah rah “go comics” sort of day.

Other items – happy new year!  2012 will be epic, I think.  In the week between Christmas and New Year’s, I finally got a greenlight for Letter 44, a project I’ve been working on for nearly a year, and pitched back at NYCC.  I can’t quite announce who it’s with yet, but I’m extremely excited about it.  I’m deep into research, some of the heaviest I’ve done since I wrote The Land of 10,000 Things back in 2000-2003.  I like research, though.  It feels like I’ve enrolled in a self-guided adult education class about weird, hyper-specific things.  In this particular case, I’m researching:

• Executive branch procedure
• US government covert action and black-ops
• Bleeding-edge plans for manned spaceflight

I know something about all of those subjects already, but as I’m going through the research process, I’m learning how much I don’t know.  Still, it’s fun.  Once we’re grown up and sort of set in our lives, reasons and opportunities to gather in-depth knowledge about new subjects are rare.  Life is busy enough just trying to keep the lights on, without tracking down a copy of Executive Order 12333.

I came down to DC a day before the Third Eye signing in order to get some in-person perspective on US government.  That included a visit to NASA Headquarters (just the lobby so far, but still cool), the Capitol, National Mall, and the Air & Space Museum.  I only had a single afternoon, so I’m sure I’ll take another trip, but it was definitely worthwhile.  There’s no substitute for actually going to a place you’re going to write about.  Your observations aren’t going to be the same as anyone else’s.  For example, I was impressed with the scope of DC.  The streets are quite wide and the buildings are generally low, so the sky seems broad and endless (unlike in NYC, for example).  A small thing, but a detail I wouldn’t necessarily have been aware of without the visit.  And of course, Air & Space is absolutely incredible, and I’ll go there every chance I get whether I’m writing Letter 44 or not.  Apparently they’ve just opened up a secondary location down in Virginia with bigger air/spacecraft they can’t fit into the main museum, and I can’t wait to check that out.

I’ve got six serious, active projects right now (by which I mean projects that have other people involved, with deadlines and publishing plans and money in the mix, no matter how few or how little), and I’m in a phase I recognize from times I’ve been in this situation before – one where I’m always, almost unconsciously, evaluating my activities minute-to-minute to decide whether they’re “productive.”  So, I justify writing this blog because I consider it to be productive in that it’s connecting with readers and potential readers – it’s marketing/outreach.  I chose to take a train to DC and back because I would get the 3.5 hours each way to work.  I let myself do something for entertainment purposes only if I decide that I need to balance out work with something “fun,” in the way that you sleep in order to recharge to be able to get things done the next day.  I’ve been turning down social occasions unless I think there’s a secondary purpose to going (which is just awful, I realize.)

In the past, this type of situation has been temporary.  I get through the crunch and I can let go of the reins a little bit and let life just be life.  It feels a little different this time, but I’m hopeful that I’ll get to downshift again.  This is okay for a few months, but I could see the fun factor starting to fade a bit if it goes on too long.

Wow, after the exciting stuff at the beginning, this got a bit depressing, eh?  To end on a high note, here are the six projects I’m working on, in greater or lesser detail depending on where they are:

1. Strange Attractors – OGN about a guy who turns NYC into a sort of engine, and what happens when he turns the key.  Due Q3/Q4 from Archaia.

2. Letter 44 – limited series about the research items I mentioned above.  Coming Q4 from[_________]

3. [Project Jazzhands] – 6-issue series being drawn by [____________]. My first foray into superheroes, sort of.  Inspired by old Stephen King books.

4. [Detroit book] – 5-issue limited series about bringing Detroit back from the brink.  Probably out Q2/Q3 2012.

5. [Untitled Edie Sedgwick project.]  Basically what it sounds like.  Due later this year, I think?

6. [AR] – sci-fi action adventure.  Just about to start scripting, probably 6 issues.  Release date unclear.

So if I turn down an invitation to do something ostensibly fun, now you know why.

This is going to be a hell of a year.

However, I’ve ended up in town from time to time, and last week I zipped out for six days to have a few meetings, see friends, do some writing and take care of some other business.  It was an entirely comics-focused business trip, which I thought was pretty cool.  First time I’d gone out there for that reason.  I hadn’t been to LA since I was on Jeopardy in 2009, so about two years.

First night, I swung by a comics shop to pick up the latest issue of 27 Second Set (#4, if you’re counting), and who happened to be there but Brian Michael Bendis!  He wasn’t doing a signing – he just stopped by to look at comics.  I don’t know Brian very well, although we’ve briefly met a few times here and there.  Super gracious guy, and it was fun to chat with him for a minute.  The experience well and truly reinforced the LA stereotype that you see celebrities everywhere (even though he’s from Portland, and I didn’t see any other celebs while I was there.  Still!)

I had an honest-to-goodness Hollywood meeting the next morning, which was pretty much as advertised.  Nothing life-changing even if the opportunity comes through, but it was good to have the experience.  I think one of the things I really took away from the LA trip is that ideas are capital out there (other places too, of course, but really out there), and it’s worth thinking about what my own ideas are worth and how I can use them.  Personally, I think it makes more sense to write a great comic that I own (or share with the artist) rather than get paid a small amount to write something for someone else.  I’ll do hired gigs when they come by (and I picked up two while in LA that I’m very excited about), but it has to be made worth my time.  I mean, I could spend that time working on one of my own stories, for better or for worse.

This attitude was generated in part by a conversation I had with a good friend of mine out there – a comics writer who I’ll decline to name at this point.  In a nutshell, he helped me to the realization that if someone thinks your ideas are worth something, then don’t sell them cheap just because you’re excited that someone will pay you at all.  There are a lot of ways to get screwed in the business (for example, write a work-for-hire comic that gets turned into a movie, and the upside belongs to the person who hired you, even though they can hire you for basically nothing to write the comic but would have to pay five figures to hire a Writer’s Guild person to write them a treatment, and more for a script.)  Anyway, it just made me decide to be a bit careful about the jobs I take, assuming I continue to get offered stuff at all, which is not a foregone conclusion.  I have a ton on my plate right now, which is phenomenal, but that doesn’t mean people will keep putting things on it.

Returning to the LA trip rundown – I checked out the La Brea Tar Pits, which were super cool and weird.  In fact, here’s a photo!

TAR. EVERYWHERE.

I’m sure Los Angelenos think that’s no big thing, but for me, the idea of a huge lake of tar filled with the corpses of Ice Age animals is wild enough, without sticking it right in the middle of one of the largest cities in the US!  The air smells like new asphalt, and the little museum (just visible in that photo in the upper right) was very interesting, particularly the restoration room in the middle, where they’re actually working on the bones found in this and other pits.  By the way, those elephant-looking things must have just escaped from the circus.  I thought it was pretty sad that no one was doing anything to help (that baby creature in the middle there was obviously super bummed), but what can you do?  I guess if everyone helped the animals to get out of the pit the museum would go out of business.  One of those moral conundrums you hear about.

Also while in Los Angeles, right across the street from the lake of tar, I visited the G4TV network offices to tape an appearance on Blair Butler’s Fresh Ink Online.  Really fun.  We each ran down our favorite five recently-released single issues, and then I did a little bonus interview on breaking in, some upcoming projects, etc.  I like Blair a lot – she’s very genuine and truly, truly loves comics.  The shows are up, if you care to watch.  Here’s the first:

http://www.g4tv.com/videos/56714/charles-soule-reviews-walking-dead-locke-key-batwoman/

and here’s the second:

http://www.g4tv.com/videos/56713/charles-soule-bonus-interview/

Other than some good times with various awesome friends and colleagues who live in the city, the other part of the trip worth noting from a comics perspective was a visit to the offices of Archaia Comics, the publisher of one of my next big books, Strange Attractors.  I’ve already shown a bit of artwork here, and I’m excited about how the book is coming together.  This was the first time I’d gotten to speak with the book’s editor, Rebecca Taylor, about the finished script, and it was extremely enjoyable.  You never know how it’s going to be when you get notes from an editor, but Ms. Taylor (or Tay, as she’s known around the office) had some excellent thoughts.  Pages are coming in on that one steadily, and I think we’re on target for a mid-2012 release (or so).  More on that soon.

So, that was LA, pretty much. Saw a few movies (you have to, right?), left with enough new projects to pay for the trip and then some, and got to hang out with friends I don’t see that often.  I’m not going to say it flipped my opinion around on Los Angeles – it’s still a weird town – but it was definitely one of my better trips out there.

If you’re reading this on December 20, 2011 wish me luck.  I’m supposed to get a phone call or email today about something big that I’m dying to have come through.  Fingers crossed.

I thought for a minute about how thrilled I am that soon I’ll be able to read new comics work from an ultra-talented writer whose stuff I’ve loved in the past, and was surprised that I hadn’t felt exactly that way in a bit.  Now, that absolutely does NOT mean that I haven’t been excited about new work from other creators.  I read tons of comics, and I absolutely get jazzed when I see a new issue from Jim Zubkavich or Josh Fialkov or B. Clay Moore or Nathan Edmondson or Cullen Bunn or any of the many other writers whose work I love.  The difference is that I know those guys personally, in either a big or a small way.  And while I can’t totally pin down why it’s different when we’re all sort of putting out work together as opposed to me just being a guy at home finding new books and digging them, it absolutely is.  I suppose it’s the difference between on a sports team and rooting for it to win and rooting for the Detroit Lions.  You can do both, but the reasoning behind each is different, as is the way each one feels.

In a way, I sort of miss the old days, because for some reason I don’t get as much of the ‘holy shit I can’t wait’ feeling anymore (Saga and books like it being something of an exception).  I’m rooting for the people more than I am the books, because I think that any one book isn’t (or shouldn’t be) what defines your career.  I want all the guys I know to succeed (which is a thing that’s pretty cool about comics – I don’t see a lot of petty jealousies and rivalries, for the most part.) That’s not to say that there’s not a sense of healthy competition between comics writers, of course.  There’s definitely some, “what’s he doing that I’m not?” when people level up, or get a nomination, etc.  But as long as the people getting those bumps are cool (and they are) and talented (and they are), then it’s usually just a reason to buckle down even harder on my own work to get myself to the next step, whatever that will be.

I meet more people in the business all the time, at all levels, and it makes me wonder if things will continue to evolve this way.  We’ll see.

In other updates, I’m headed to LA this coming weekend for a bunch of adventures.  I’ll be appearing on Fresh Ink Online this Thursday with Blair Butler to discuss this week’s coolest new books (and perhaps a certain final issue of 27: Second Set hitting shops tomorrow, 12/14), I have a signing at Meltdown Comics on Saturday, December 17 from 3-5 PM, and I have meetings with a number of very cool people about a number of very cool projects.  2012 is looking quite good from a new stuff standpoint, actually.  I have two things already locked down, and by the end of the week I could have another four set up at various spots.  That’s not even including two or three projects in the pitch development stage… busy!

• So, writing a book.  First of all, it’s hard, and it takes a long time.  My suggestion is to start with something small, just a short story.  Think of them as a sketch (or more realistically, a series of sketches) before you jump into the main event that is writing a full-length novel or comic.
• I would structure each story as a separate exercise, within which you’re working on a different element of telling a story.  Each one will help you to understand how your brain comes up with ideas, and will also limber up your brain so it can come up with ideas.
• Start simple.  Write a story about some random object – let’s say a sunflower, or a jug of milk, or whatever.  Write one in which the color blue figures prominently somehow.  Stuff like that.  The rest of the story doesn’t matter – just figure out a way to integrate one concrete thing.
• For round 2, keep going with the single idea (a rabbit, the moon, a laser, the measles…), but try writing in different voices to see how they work – first person “I did this…”, third person “she did that, and then he did this…” etc.
• Round 3, description.  Go someplace interesting and try to describe everything you see in as much detail as possible.  Then put that aside and do it again, but try to describe the mood of the place, only using the details that are important to that mood.
• Once you’ve done those things, time to graduate – write stories in which one emotion or another is important.
• Write stories in different genres (horror, romance, sci-fi).  Write with different kinds of characters as the protagonist – give them limitations and challenges to overcome, and interesting strengths.  (A story about a ballerina with one leg, or a story about a blue person who lives in the sky, or a story about a person who can leap tall buildings in a single bound but is terrified of heights…)
• Again, each little story can be just about trying to figure out how to do one thing.  Once you’ve gone through all that, you’ll see that the stuff you practiced in the beginning starting to creep into the later stories, just naturally.
• And once you feel like you’re able to confidently do all of those things, you’re probably ready to combine them in ways you find interesting to tell your own longer, book-length stories – because all of those techniques get used in every book, in varying ways.

Those were my words of “wisdom,” such as they are.  I grew up in a musical household, where I was taught the violin through the mastering of a long series of exercises.  You get one right, you move on to the next one (which generally would use the skills developed in the previous exercise as a foundation.)  Eventually, you get to the point where everything’s completely natural, and then you can make your own music.

I wrote, conservatively, half a million words in my “serious writer” phase before I was ever published, and the next half million I write will all serve to improve the million after that.  Small things equal big things.  Your approach may vary, but that’s what’s worked for me so far.

I think that it’s important to pay that forward – Haley Joel Osment and Kevin Spacey taught me that much, at least.  (They also showed me a bit about telling believable stories to police detectives and a great deal about how to craft a successful performance as a sad, child-sized robot.)

(Yeah, that was an A.I. shoutout.)

Anyway, when I get asked to look something over, or to give advice on breaking in, or to talk about page rates or similar questions, I do my best to find time to answer.  I did a long Q&A session over on reddit’s comic book board recently, which was great because I was able to reach thousands of people in the same time it would have taken me to explain all that stuff to just a single person over email or at a con.  You can see that here, if you’re interested.

I’m very flattered whenever anyone seeks me out to ask a question – I’m really not that deep into the industry at this point, and I make a ton of mistakes and there’s still a lot I need to learn.  I really enjoy helping people when I can.  However, there’s also a point where my willingness to help someone out is exceeded by that person’s expectations of what I should be giving them.

This post has been triggered by one specific guy – he seems nice enough, and I am CERTAINLY not going to provide his name – who is very excited about his book and wants it out there in the world right now, right away.  He friended me on Facebook and started popping up in the chat window from time to time to introduce himself and ask questions.  I’m usually happy enough to do that, as I’ve mentioned, but it started to be that every time I logged into the thing (it’s a bad enough timesuck as it is without getting into FB chat conversations) he’d pop up and ask for more, more, more.  He wanted to send me his book to review for comments – I said sure, go ahead.  Then he asked for my mailing address and told me what he would charge me for the book.

I explained that I was already taking some time out of my schedule to read his book and see if I could give him any tips – that’s farther than I would usually go, in fact.  I also tried to convey that you don’t ask a guy to do you a favor and then ask him to pay for the privilege.  (See, this is where I’m starting to feel like a curmudgeon.  I feel like my position is justified – I AM busy, and I WAS doing the guy a favor – I’m not Alan Moore or Axel Alonso, but I think I give decent comments on people’s stuff.  On the other hand, he’s just a kid – he’s 21, he told me – who really loves his work and wants to see how he can get it into the world.)  He agreed to just send me a PDF.

I read it.  It’s not the worst thing I’ve ever seen, but I don’t think it’s pro quality at this point.  I do think he’ll get there if he keeps working on his craft.  That’s basically what I told him – I gently explained that I thought his stuff has potential, and he should keep hammering away and eventually he’ll have his own book out on the stands (or the tablets, more likely.)  I didn’t really give specific beat-by-beat comments, because I didn’t feel like he’s at a point where that would have helped.  He needs to learn from experience – and if I’m being honest, I didn’t have the time to give a line-by-line critique.

He wasn’t thrilled.  He said that someone else had told him that he should start over and redo the whole thing, and he thought they were so, so wrong, because he’d already put a lot of money and time into what he had.  (What I probably should have said then, but didn’t, is that money and time don’t automatically equal quality – hello, Transformers movies.)  In a delightful twist, he also asked me if now I would buy a copy.

I’ve been ignoring his emails and FB messages since then.  Most recent one was to ask how he could get the book published at Image.  The short answer is “you can’t, not in the form your book currently exists,” but I don’t want to crush the guy.  What I want him to take from his interaction with me is a sense that he should just keep working and refining his talent.  Instead, I suspect he has a general feeling of resentment, possibly doesn’t like me or my stuff anymore (if he ever did), and his original sense of entitlement hasn’t been whittled down to where it probably needs to be.

I feel kind of bad about the whole thing, like I mishandled it somehow, even though I recognize it’s possible that this fellow didn’t want to hear anything except that he’s the second coming of Mark Millar.  He didn’t want a critique or advice, he wanted validation (and possibly to sell a copy of his book.)  Instead, where it stands today is that I would never recommend his work to anyone (even if it does improve), because my interactions with him left a bad taste in my mouth.  On his end, he may never do what he needs to do to get better.  Bad result on both sides.

Bottom line – if you’re asking for help (in comics or otherwise), recognize that people have stuff to do, and be as gracious as gracious can be about your request.  You want to leave people feeling good that they helped you out, not feeling like they wasted time they should have used for something else.

So, am I a jerk here?  I don’t know.  Most of the time, I love helping people out, and I’m not going to stop doing it.  I have a feeling this guy was a one-off.  Truth is, most comics people are awesome.

With 27 Second Set, we decided to continue the series’ tradition of using homages to famous images of musicians as the covers for each issue.  First Set used members of the 27 Club.  Second Set is using one-hit wonders.  As I write this, Issues 1 and 2 are on shelves, as well as available digitally, for those who prefer reading on smartphones, tablets and laptops (Issue 3 is out next week, November 23).  The cover for Issue 1 is an homage to Vanilla Ice.  The cover for Issue 2 references The Buggles.  It’s one of my favorite covers of the whole series – Scott Forbes really nailed it.  I’ve posted it before, but I think it’s so great I’m going to put it up again:

Homage to the Buggles' "The Age of Plastic" album cover, by Scott Forbes.

However, that gorgeous image wasn’t our first attempt.  Originally, I was completely certain that the best idea for this cover would be to use the cover to Chumbawumba’s “Tubthumper” album.  You know, this one:

Thump that tub!

My thinking was that it’s an instantly recognizable cover, it has some nice graphic design, and it would be easy for Scott to do, since it’s basically just one head.  I was going to use Valerie Hayes as the “head” (she’s the one-hit wonder witch who serves as the main villain of the second arc, and issue 2 is largely about her).  Scott did exactly what I asked and came up with this:

Tub that thump!

That’s not to say that image isn’t cool, because it is, and the final would certainly have been even cooler.  However, what we realized is that the cover was going to be creepy, and not in that way a cool Hellblazer cover or one of the new Animal Man covers tend to be, but in a “that’s an unappealing face and I don’t want to look at it or read a book with a character like that in it” kind of creepy.  Again, not Scott’s fault at all – this was my call and it wasn’t a very good one.  Once we realized that this was probably sort of a dead end, we started to kick around new ideas.  Devo, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, the Divinyls and a bunch of other artists were considered before we settled on the Buggles, and I’m so glad we took the time.  Scott banged out the new cover lickety split, and the results speak for themselves.

The covers for #3 and #4 went much more smoothly, and I look forward to talking about them a bit in months to come.  We’re at the halfway point of Second Set, and things just weirder and more awesome from here, believe me.