Enter The Chimp

Welcome to Trainee Day here at Kung Fu Monkey. Your host, John Rogers, has been kind enough to let me take his monkey out for a spin and get a feel for blogging on a regular basis each Wednesday.

I’m Mark Waid, author of the graphic novels KINGDOM COME, SUPERMAN: BIRTHRIGHT, EMPIRE, JLA: TOWER OF BABEL, and somewhere just short of nine hundred comics stories over the past twenty years. For the past eighteen months, I’ve also been serving as Editor In Chief at BOOM! Studios, an up-and-coming comic-and-graphic-novel publishing company (www.boom-studios.com) that you may have heard of every time John brags about his resumé. And in between, I’ve been at various times a publisher, a line editor, a colorist, a letterer, a designer, a liaison with toy companies and outside media, a proofreader, an artist...I’ve been involved in every phase of comics production short of being the guy who staples the things together. That, I’m saving for my old age. Right now, while I’m still young enough to type, John’s been kind enough to lend me his forum on a regular basis so I can talk craft (and history) (and process) about comics and pass along what I’ve learned about How It’s Done. John swears there’s a demand for this. John also liked Down With Love, so we will see.

In the coming weeks, I’ll be sharing with you excerpts from the various university lectures and how-to’s that I’ve formulated during what I bemusedly refer to as “my career,” as well as throwing out some points for fierce debate (as if the internet consisted of anything else). I’ll also be happy to answer questions as time and space allow. Remember, though, I’m new at this form of communication, so be gentle with m--

Ow.

Goddamn it, somebody already threw something.

And John refuses to let me put up the chicken wire.

Next: 101.