Personal Highlights of 2008

2008 was jam-packed with stuff. Let's take a look at some of it, in a little picture essay entitled "How I spent 2008".

ANGEL:AFTER THE FALL and SPIKE:AFTER THE FALL continued continuing. I think ANGEL came into it's own this year, the second half of the series is, in my opinion, way better than the first half, and I couldn't be more proud of the work we've done. Also, working with Chris Ryall, Franco, Mr. Mooney, Mr. Runge? I highly recommend it to anyone who has the means. A great supportive, super talented creative team. And the covers by Alex Garner? Yes. He should draw covers for every comic, book, phone book, Bible, record album, cd cover, and movie poster.
EVERYBODY'S DEAD was 15 years in the making (wrote it as a movie 15 years ago, almost made it with Artisan, now Lionsgate, 10 years ago). Five issue limited series, so far my creative highlight as a comic writer. The brilliant Dave Crosland on pencils/inks and Len O'Grady on colors made the decade-plus-half-decade wait to tell the story worth it. And Meltdown Comics was nice enough to throw us a party to celebrate the release of the book:


That's me and Dave. We had beer in our cups and we drank a whole lot. Dave and Jim Mahfood did live art (you can kinda see it on the wall behind us) . The party was also for the comic HAZED, which you should all check out.

It was the best party I've ever been to (and I've been to at least three other parties), we met the guys that run comicsoncomics.com, which led to me doing their show. You can find it by typing "comics on comics" into itunes or by clicking the link above. I'm in the first episode, but man, I would have killed to be on the Geoff Johns episode, as he's my favorite comic writer.

Also, the Meltdown Party? Chris Ryall slept on my couch that night. The next morning it smelled like potpourri and blueberries. Why? That is the mystery of Chris Ryall.

I also went to the San Diego Comic Convention and signed a bunch of books and hung out with a lot of great people. Need proof?


See? I clearly have a pen for signing and I'm hanging out with two great people. One of which is Chris Ryall, the other of which is Josh Jabcuga, the writer of the wonderful MUMMY prequel (drawn by Stephen Mooney!).

My wife and I bought a house which I won't show you on account of who wants to look at a house, but the house DID allow us to get THIS dog from the pound:


Her name is Peanut and that's what she looked like when we got her. Underfed and nervous and sickly, but a few months later she looked like this:


Wait, no. Sorry, that's my friend Rich. Peanut looked like this:


Also in 2008, we put up a short that we shot called PROFILES IN COURAGE. It's a fake documentary about a movie we made many years ago, and I think it's quite wonderful. We slapped it up on Funny or Die, and YOU CAN SEE IT HERE! A plug from Defamer gave us a flush of hits on it, and people seemed to dig it. That was pretty sweet, thanks Defamer!

We also returned to recording PARTY TRUCK USA, a podcast available HERE and on Itunes (who found us new and notable!). It's fun.

I also worked on movies for Fox and Dreamworks but since they're not in production yet I don't have any pictures to put up. Oh and a TV show for Fox 21. Again, no pictures. Sorry.

So yes, it was a good year creatively, plus we got that dog. If we could combine the two, have a comic about a puppy that fights vampires, that would be perfect.

I'll be back in a few days with a look ahead to 2009. I hereby predict it will involve vampires and, fingers crossed, goats.

Thanks everyone! Happy New Year!

Guess what I finished writing?

ANGEL:AFTER THE FALL # 17 has been written in bits, kinda like chapters and such. I write a few pages, and when the "scene" comes to an end, I send it off to Franco.

Well, the last few pages were sent in last night. Now I can just sit back and rest easy and enjoy the pages as Franco draws'em and sends'em in. Of course there will be proofreading and writing stuff for the trade, but the bulk of the work, the heavy lifting, it's all done on my side.

I'm sure a longer, more thought out emotional post about this experience will come eventually as we get closer to our last two issues coming out, but for now, let me just say thank you to everyone who read it, got excited about it, talked to me about it, and supported the book. It was a long, fun, stressful, insanely rewarding road.

The funny thing is, as soon as I send in the pages, Franco and I start talking about what we're doing next. He misses Beck and Tok. So do I.

(NORTH) POLL!

Got a poll up over to the side. Just wondering, which comic-centric character do you most miss? Do you want more Beck in your life? Missing Tok? Want to see more Invisible Biv? Let me know!

HO HO HO

Hope everyone's having a great holiday season. Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, I'm sorry I'm killing your favorite characters, and to all a good night!

What's everyone want this year?

ANGEL:AFTER THE FALL # 15 this week!

This one's a corker! Read it before the internet spoils it for you!

Urru is back!

Fun with action figures

So ANGEL:AFTER THE FALL action figures, that would rock, yes?

There won't be ANGEL:ATF figures, sadly. But let's pretend.

Answer these in the comments section:

1. What five would you want to see in the first wave?

2. Must have ATF-specific accessories for each figure?

3. Build-a-figure?

(in case you don't know, lately they're doing this great idea where each figure in a wave comes with a piece of a bigger figure that you can assemble. For instance, a wave of MARVEL LEGENDS came with piece of Galactus, so if you bought each figure, you could assemble a giant Galactus).

4. Who would be the chase variant figure?

(in case you don't know, again, a variant figure is a version of one of the figures painted differently or given different accessories. They're usually packed one or two per box so they're rare. For instance, a green Hulk's variant figure could be a gray Hulk).

_________

Have fun! I'll post my answers later today!

ANGEL 16 cover!

Alex Garner is a genius. Just amazing.

This is the issue I proofed this weekend. It is pretty awesome, I think you're gonna dig my last couple of issues. Really proud of how it's coming along.

Penultimate

Just finished my proof-reading for my second-to-last issue of ANGEL:AFTER THE FALL. Franco did an outstanding job on this one. And the colors, ooooooooooh the colors. Stunning. This issue is big. Game-changing big (I can't stand that phrase after the 2008 election but it fits here, I promise).

It came out wonderfully, I think you guys are gonna love. But now I'm all sad. Oh sure, the world of ANGEL will continue and thrive (but with an all-new game, as it is CHANGED!) but AFTER THE FALL is winding down.

Ah well, onwards and upwards or something. Off to go celebrate my one year anniversary.

Of being married, not writing ANGEL:AFTER THE FALL. Though that would be accurate as well.

To Do.

I have a huge list of things that have to be done in ANGEL:AFTER THE FALL # 17. This much to say, so many characters to juggle before I exit stage right, I had to make sure not to leave anything out. I would love to show you the list, but it's all kinda spoilers, so I thought I'd put it up, with key words missing. See if anyone else can decode it!

1. Angel is _____________.

2. Angel gives ____________ to ____________.

3. Wesley and _____________ get a __________ in their ________.

3. Angel misses ______________ ____________, ___________ blowing.

4. Angel and ________ talk (with ______ and __________ helping in the background).

5. __________ says ___________ _________ _______ Wolfram & Hart's ___________.

6. Angel points out that THAT is a great thing, "_________ ain't__________ see you ________."

7. ___________ says he's ready to _________ at a moment's __________.

8. ___________ is guarding ____________ in Silverlake.

Also, Chris Ryall was nice enough to send a scan of the page from Wizard Magazine that featured our little book. We had a moment of the year!