Remedial Niger

Thanks, Professor Cole. Now, a single post to send your friends who are still confused over the whole Niger-to Wilson-to-Plame timeline, with little things like, oh facts and such.

Zombie Tales #3: The Dead

New guy Ed Tadem using a very interesting, kind of indie style with a color wash for my story "Four out of Five" in the third of BOOM!'s Zombie book-pocalypse -- Zombie Tales: The Dead.




And this panel from Michael Alan Nelson's story, "The Miracle of Bethany." Yes, that is the Vatican. A zombie story set in the Vatican. No, that's not controversial at all.

Mike's finished his blogged novel DINGO. There are already Hollywood mininons poking at it with their evil sticks, and so some publisher with a brain may wish to swing by and take a look.

Oh, and sadly, I only have the small version, but this is Dave Johnson's art for the cover of Cthulhu Tales.




Laurean down in the Cthulego post comments asked how these anthologies came together -- jam session or assignment? For the first Zombie Tales, it was, if I remember, Ross Richie, Andy Cosby, Mark Waid and myself talking about zombie movies, and why they seem to be, er, unkillable. Each of us had a viewpoint on why the zombie myth had resonance, be it isolation, fear of death, decay, loss of identity ... Ross pointed out that separate approaches to the same mythos was, in fact, an anthology.

Ross was just about to launch BOOM!, so it seemd like synchronicity. Or he played us magnificently. If he did, he deserves the win. We had so much fun doing the first one (total story/creative freedom), and it was very well-received, so we just kept hopping on every time Ross asked us if we wanted to do another. The Cthulhu one was kind of an assignment, if Ross calling and saying "Hey, I've decided I really like the anthology style, want to do a Cthulhu book?" can be considered an assignment.

Writing short comics is a great way to exercise certain screenwriting muscles. It's all the challenge of a short story, with the added element of anticipating and structuring the art. It's almost a workout for storyboarding a short film.

It's Just Nice to Be Nominated

The nominations for the Koufax Awards, sort of a best-lefty Blog-Oscars are going up category by category. I appreciate that somebody nominated Learn to Say Ain't for Best Post and Lunch Discussions #145: The Crazification Factor for Best Humorous Post. Terrifyingly, the Crazificaton Factor has become a semi-legitimate discussion term out there in the political miasma. Yikes.

I wince at Learn to Say Ain't being nominated, to tell you the truth. Although I stick by my point, in rereading it I now have a different set of skills, have done far more political writing, and would have approached it somewhat differently. All told, though, with the current arguments about "message" and "framing" still raging, its relevance seems only to have increased. I think it's actually incomplete without its follow-up. The follow-up, if I may engage in some blunt self-criticism, is the better post (and the other people commenting on it are far more insightful than I am. The comments on that on are spiffy). Even more I realize I need to go back and expand on this stuff with some of the meme-theory research I've been doing. Great. More research, when I could just puke out half-baked ideas like Goldberg and Apuzzo and get paid for it if I crossed the aisle. "Trying" sucks, kids.

"Crazification" is mostly funny because my friend Tyrone is funny. Although I'd urge you to blow off the "Ain't" post, vote for "Crazification" so I can thank Tyrone in the speech.

Anyway, whoever nominated, thanks. Voting is not open, but when it does, I will turn you loose, crazed "don't-really-like-me-but-are-just-here-for-Blue-Beetle-updates-actually" minions!

Cthulhu Tales: The Beach

First bits of art coming in for Boom!'s Cthulhu Tales, this page from Michael Alan Nelson's The Beach.