31st December 2008 / Dead Space / Wasteland / Free Stuff / Pre-order
Two quick snippets of news before the New Year:
First, 
WASTELAND #25 is now available to pre-order. I don’t normally mention WASTELAND solicitations here, but this is a special case.
It’s almost hard to believe that we’ve made it this far—very few indie series survive a full year, let alone to a quarter-century of issues—so to celebrate, we’ve put together a double-length full-colour anniversary issue, with painted art by Christopher.
The order code is JAN094382 and the issue will be on sale around March/April, following the conclusion of the current Dog Tribe story arc. You can see the full-page solicitation from the January PREVIEWS on Flickr.
Second, as part of its annual New Year tradition with Image Comics, Newsarama has made the entire first issue of DEAD SPACE available for free.
If you’ve been living under a rock for the past few months, this is the prequel to the acclaimed video game of the same name and was recently released in a hardback collected edition. Try before you buy.
Happy New Year, everyone. See you on the other side of midnight.
23rd December 2008 / Musings
So. That was 2008, then.
It’s been a pretty non-stop year for me, and a thoroughly enjoyable one.
I spent most of January writing the DEAD SPACE game script, though of course at the time I wasn’t allowed to talk about it. It was a pretty intense workload, but a completely new challenge for me that I relished. And many of the game reviews have commented on the script’s quality, which makes it all worthwhile.
February was a mad month. I attended WonderCon to promote the DEAD SPACE comic launch, and was wholly unprepared for the enormous level of interest in the book, both at the con and our Isotope party (where Ben and I were nominated as the best-dressed creators they’d ever hosted, a nice touch). We were also shown around the EA campus, and encountered another enormous line of fans. I started writing WOLVERINE: PRODIGAL SON, scripted the No Known Survivors stories, and bought a new guitar.
I spent most of March writing more DEAD SPACE and WOLVERINE, and made another run at The Bloody YA Fantasy Novel that never seems to be finished (It still isn’t).
April left the starting grid with a mind-boggling realisation of just how much work I’d already done in 2008, then moved into high gear when my work for the DEAD SPACE game was announced at the same time as the attachment of Jennifer Garner and Hugh Jackman to a movie version of THREE DAYS IN EUROPE. Later in the month, the first WOLVERINE art was released to the press, and there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth.
May was quiet on the press front, but behind the scenes I started work on another graphic novel adaptation from a series of children’s books. Would you believe that, even though it’s now December, I still can’t actually tell you what they are. This month also saw the death of comic retailer extraordinaire Rory Root, who remains sorely missed.
It was similarly quiet in June, which I spent mostly writing more of the same. Two nice surprises were finding the POINT BLANC graphic novel on the School Library Association’s Boys Into Books list—one of only four to make the cut—and being asked to do a Writing Masterclass for Travelling Man in Leeds. The rest of the month was spent finishing DEAD SPACE and writing as much as possible of everything else, because…
If it’s July, it must be San Diego. I don’t remember much of the month itself, because it was a blur of intense work and desperate deadline-chasing, but I do remember the con, where I had a great time promoting both DEAD SPACE and WASTELAND. It was also where I learnt that JULIUS had been optioned for film, which undoubtedly helped lift my spirits while I was running back and forth between booths at top speed.
In August I started work on both the EAGLE STRIKE graphic novel and the second volume of WOLVERINE. It’s doubtful either of these books will be out until 2010, which just goes to show you what a mad world publishing is. This month also saw the launch of No Known Survivors, and my musings on the state of digital comics.
September was another quiet one publicly, apart from the last issue of the DEAD SPACE comic and WASTELAND #20, featuring art from Eisner Award-winner Chuck BB. I wrote more EAGLE STRIKE and composed Sanctuary Four for the WASTELAND soundtrack (with my new guitar, natch). To cap it off, the NFL season got underway and saw my beloved-but-previously-useless Miami Dolphins starting a controversial new quarterback and somehow thrashing the Patriots, which cheered me up no end.
Things got busy again in October, with the release of the DEAD SPACE game and its inevitable flurry of PR, the conclusion of No Known Survivors, and my somewhat last-minute attendance at the MCM Expo in London—where I met a few Brit comics people I’d never chatted to before, shared a smoke and philosophical chat about sci-fi fandom with Michael Hogan, and generally had a great time. October is the month I became a full-time author in 2002, and for some reason it’s always busy. If these two events are somehow connected, the reason eludes me.
In November, I stayed up all night hoping Americans would prove the last eight years were just a horrible blip of temporary insanity. They did. Once that panic was over I finished EAGLE STRIKE, wrote some more WOLVERINE, and started work on yet another Super Seekrit thing I can’t talk about, sorry. I also finally cracked and bought a PS3, which has surprisingly turned out to be one of the best purchases I made all year.
And so we come to December, which at any other time would have been a fairly normal month, except there’s this bothersome thing called Christmas that has seen me frantically running around getting various scripts tied up before everyone shuts down for the holidays.
Finally, throughout the entire year I was of course writing WASTELAND on top of everything else. In fact, since January I plotted two story arcs (The current story, Dog Tribes, and the next arc, Back On The Streets) and wrote eight issues—including #25, which will be a double-length anniversary issue. Other jobs come and go, but WASTELAND is always there, and will be for at least the next two years. I feel honoured to be writing one of the few creator-owned ongoing comic series that has actually survived, and indeed is thriving, in the current market. I sincerely thank everyone who supports us, because we literally couldn’t do it without you.
And that’s it for me until the New Year. Have a great holiday.
18th December 2008 / Wolverine / Pre-order
Volume 1 of WOLVERINE: PRODIGAL SON, the shōnen manga reinvention of Wolverine I’m writing for Del Rey Manga, is now available for pre-order through comic stores (it’s been available on Amazon for some time).
The solicit text tells you nothing you don’t already know, so you’d be better off looking at my own page if you want some hints as to what it’s actually about.
The Diamond code is JAN094152, the ISBN is 9780345505163, it’s 150pp of non-stop fight comics for $12.99, and on April 7 2009 you should buy it. Because I promise you, you’ve never seen Logan like this before.
10th December 2008 / Appearances
Quick reminder to those of you in the area: I’ll be at Travelling Man Leeds this Saturday (13th December) from 1pm onwards, to sign copies of WASTELAND Book 3 and the DEAD SPACE hardcover collection (not to mention anything else you have, but those two recently-released books are the main reasons I’ll be there). If you’re around, pop in and say hi.
4th December 2008 / Wasteland / On Sale
The third WASTELAND trade paperback collection goes on sale today.
Titled “Black Steel In The Hour Of Chaos”, it’s 128 pages long, collecting issues #15 through #19—which means those pages are filled with wall-to-wall action and politics, as the Newbegin council struggles to keep it together while the city is under siege by an army of Sand-Eaters.
Don’t just take my word for it. Here’s what people said about this story arc:
“Almost perfectly paced from issue to issue… packed with story.” (Comic DrawerBox)
“A complicated, unsettling reality involving precarious existence that essentially hangs on a thread at any given moment. Grade A+” (Thirteen Minutes)
“Damn, this is a good comic.” (Comics Should Be Good)
And just in time for the holidays, too (He said, hintingly).
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