Well I'm moving steadily into doing Torture Squid, but "The Miner and the Cave That Ate Time" trudges on in post-post-production. Here's one of those wide panels:

Pelicans - wide panel glimpse

What the hay is that about? There are ever so many strange and wonderful bits you haven't seen yet. We'll have to wait until it's on the shelves!

This is the first comic by a guy named Colin Panetta. It was sent to me because, by all accounts, Colin Panetta seems like an upstanding dude. It's numbered "-3" reportedly because he's "working up to number one."

I thought it was pretty great. The only bit I didn't like is the logo. And, thankfully, despite the look of the cover, the book seems to have nothing to do with zombies.

It had a scene that genuinely creeped me out, followed by a scene that genuinely made me laugh. The goodness is multiplied by several clever and funny ideas, presented in a way that makes you wonder what the heck is happening. A guy is patrolling an underwater city in a boat, for who knows what reason. He has a talking stun-gun and his boss is a madman who only seems to want to talk about the latest episode of "Freak Out or Die."

The art does have some rough edges, it feels like a student busting out on his first ambitious story, though with some artistic muscle shining though. Really, it's exactly the sort of thing I like seeing: a confident fantasy in a weird and interesting world drawn in a raw black & white style. I love seeing this sort of thing from new artists.

So, go check out the web site for Dead Man Holiday.

Posted by author Jeff Vandermeer on his blog:

TORTURE SQUID: Zach Taylor/VanderMeer Comic to Be Completed Soonish

"Artist Zach Taylor has been working on preliminary sketches for a Torture Squid comic book/graphic novel. I'm providing him with a rough textual treatment for him to use as the basis for the storyline. We haven't sought out a publisher -we're going to finish it first. (Zach, btw, has created some great Evil Monkey for President swag, based on my EM persona, available here. Check it out.)

What're The Torture Squid? Well, they're a ruthless gang of anti-heroes who run amok through my fictional creation of Ambergris. They're described in City of Saints & Madmen, in a story called "King Squid". Below you can find Zach's sketches and also the relevant City text for context. The resulting comic will be somewhat darkly humorous with a fair amount of slapstick. Should be fun."

Check out the rest of the blog post, which includes prose excerpts, here!

Yes, that's right. I'm collaborating on my next project. (I finished "The Miner and the Cave That Ate Time" way back in April. What? I forgot to post about that? I'm a sorry excuse for a blogger!)

I'm really excited about this. If you don't know who Jeff Vandermeer is, go read The City of Saints and Madmen and/or Shriek: An Afterword. He's an incredible fantasy author in the "New Weird" school. He writes awesome books and I'm thrilled to be working with him.

Staple went awesomely. It'll give me just the right amount of motivation to finish the last twenty pages of the book (yes, twenty pages and it's done).

I'm now offering posters of the "Mine!" image (check last post), as well as these two older ones. Repost:

Wasteland

(click for full image)

Clowns and Lawyers

(click for full image)

They are 11x17. To buy, go to the Store Store Store. Um...I mean the Store.

Staple! is going on this Saturday in Austin! So if you're around you best show up. I'll be there with tons of cool posters and mini-comics. But don't be expecting me to have the completed Miner book or anything (that'll be done in a month or so, but, you know, I'll have to get it printed and all that too). The show will be fantastic.

Mine!

(click for full image)

Mine! Mine! He's a Miner! You get it, right? eh? I'm going to have these teaser postcards with the above image to promote the soon-to-be-done graphic novel. Come by the Austin Sketch Group table to grab one!

This is the part where I apologize for not posting lately and you ignore me. I take your momentary lapse in attention as an opportunity to slip in this page count:

Finished Page Count:......77 (of 112)

and this 'wide panel glimpse(tm):'

Fear - wide panel glimpse

and pretend I never did anything wrong. I'm clever, you see. But what you really want to know is my choice as presidential candidate. You read this blog for the politics really; I know you. Well, there's definitely something brewing with this new candidate. If the election were today, he'd get my vote.

Hand of God (nicknamed "Hando" by his friends) was recently bested in the FACA 4 Tournament with his team, The Handy Capables. They went three rounds in the West Division before falling to The Daughters of General Melee. Check the Fistacuffs Blog for the blow by blow.

He'd like to thank his tag-team partner, Magic Fingers MacDoogal, and his manager, Señor Dedo.

Released from medical care after breaking his leg in the fight, he is now considering a change of career.