Mark Sable

My fellow comics writer (and friend) Alex Grecian is best known for his great Image ongoing series “Proof”. But something tells me that’s about to change, as today today marks his debut as a published crime novelist with the debut of THE YARD.

THE YARD has gotten incredible buzz so far, with a great New York Times review that calls it a “deliciously trashy first novel”, and praise from The Bone Collector’s Jeffrey Deaver.

“Victorian London is a cesspool of crime, and Scotland Yard has only twelve detectives—known as “The Murder Squad”—to investigate countless murders every month. Created after the Metropolitan Police’s spectacular failure to capture Jack the Ripper, The Murder Squad suffers rampant public contempt. They have failed their citizens. But no one can anticipate the brutal murder of one of their own … one of the twelve …”

Doing a period piece as your first novel is an ambitious undertaking and I’m glad to see Alex getting recognition for the risk he took. He also happens to be one of the nicer guys in comics, which makes his success easy to root for.

Even if I weren’t a friend and a fan of Alex’s writing, I’d be excited for this book (the first in a planned series). I hope, like me, you’ll pick it up and give it a chance.

May 28

For MEMORIAL DAY 2012 - COMICS FOR THE TROOPS

For most of us, Memorial Day is synonymous with vacation, but for those that have or continue to serve in the military it means much more. In that spirit, I thought I’d take the time to once again mention one small way you can give back to the men and women who continue to serve this country.

One of the most rewarding aspects of working on GRAVEYARD OF EMPIRES has been the chance to interact with so many veterans. Some helped me research the book, many contacted me to thank Paul Azaceta and I for the book, and others reached out to share their stories.

Paul a I will never forget, for instance, the Marine who after showing us his shrapnel scars, asked us if he could used Paul’s amazing image from Graveyard of Empires #1 as the basis for tattoo. He wanted to ink the names of the four men in his unit lost in the roots of the poppy plant.

If you spend time with anyone who’s served, and hear the stories of what they and their loved ones have sacrificed…you can’t help but want to do something. I did. You can too, and it doesn’t have to cost you anything.

If you’re like me, you’ve probably amassed a huge collection of comic books. You may not have room for them, and it’s unlikely you’re going to re-read most of them. The secondary market for comics has collapsed to the point where you not only can’t make money by selling old books, you can’t even get most comic stores to take them off your hands for free.

But there are men and women who could use the diversion that comics provide. War has been described as “long periods of boredom punctuated by punctuated by moments of sheer terror”. There’s not much you can do about the sheer terror short of enlisting, but there is something you can do to help alleviate the boredom.

“Operation Gratitude annually sends 100,000 care packages filled with snacks, entertainment items and personal letters of appreciation addressed to individually named U.S. Service Members deployed in hostile regions, to their children left behind and to Wounded Warriors recuperating in Transition Units. Our mission is to lift morale, bring a smile to a service member’s face and express to our Armed Forces the appreciation and support of the American people. Each package contains donated product valued at ~$125 and costs the organization $15 to assemble and ship. For safety and security, assembling of packages occurs at the Army National Guard armory in Van Nuys, California. Since its inception in 2003, Operation Gratitude volunteers have shipped more than 660,000 packages to American Military deployed overseas.”

I’ve driven hundreds of comics, graphic novels, books, dvds and videogames over to their HQ and the Van Nuys, CA National Guard Armory. I’m not saying that to brag, but rather to give you an idea how easy it is.

My poorly taken photo doesn’t convey the massive volunteer operation they have going, but I felt uncomfortable taking pictures at a military installation, even with permission.

But everything you see here, and more, gets sent directly overseas to the troops:

At the very least, please re-blog, re-tweet and re-post the hell out of this on Facebook so others can.

P.S. Although I hate making this at all about me, for those of you asking where GRAVEYARD OF EMPIRES #4 is, Paul is completely done with the art, it’s just waiting to be colored and lettered, so it should be out in June. Here’s a never page from the final issue to whet your appetite:

May 25

In a week we need reminding why showrunners are so valuable (R.I.P. Dan Harmon’s Community), c/o Dave Press here’s an interview with 3 of the best ones currently working in TV drama:

May 20

So Community’s showrunner, Dan Harmon has been fired…which is just devastating. I may or my have more to say on this later. But for now…I see Dan Harmon twice a month, once at the his Harmontown show at Meltdown Comics, and again at Channel 101 screenings at the Downtown Independent (both of which I highly recommend if you’re in LA).

A few things are clear from these shows: one, Dan Harmon is incredibly grateful for and gracious to his fans (something that may not come across on Twitter, where he’s responding to hecklers, mostly).

Two, I highly doubt the Chevy Chase “feud” was responsible for his firing. I was at the Harmontown show where the infamous voicemail was played. I almost blogged about it at the time, but thankfully a voice inside me said…”don’t be the dick that ruins Community for everyone else because you couldn’t resist sharing your every experience.” But suffice to say, the incident was overblown and taken out of context.

Finally, what’s clear from seeing Dan’s comedic sensibility so regularly - with no disrespect to the rest of the writing staff or cast and crew - Dan’s voice is absolutely essential to the show. It’s hard to imagine Season 4 of Community without him.

My only consolation is that the last 3 episodes were great, and ended the series on a truly high note. Thanks to Dan and everyone involved with the show for #fourseasonsofbrilliance, if not #sixseasonsandamovie

May 18

May 16

As part of my DUPLICATE tumblr barrage, I thought I’d debut the new logo for DUPLICATE (the OGN formerly known as “DECOY”). It’s designed by artist Andy MacDonald’s studio mate Jared K. Fletcher, who I think does some of the best design work in comics today. You can check out his work here.

And of course, if you’re in a comic shop today, you can pre-order DUPLICATE, my sci-fi/espionage OGN with Andy MacDonald (and colors by Nick Filardi) with pre-order code MAY121187.

It occurs to me that, if you’re a new follower, you might not know the story of duplicate, so here’s a quick synopsis to whet your appetite.

DUPLICATE is the story of an seemingly average guy who learns he’s a robot when he miraculously survives a terror attack. But not just any robot - he’s a robot replica for Agent Zekiel Dax, the world’s deadliest secret agent.

Unlike the Life Model Decoys that say, S.H.I.E.L.D. uses, Zekiel’s Duplicate wasn’t created to be used in the field or fake his death. The Duplicate was designed to safeguard Agent Dax’s family and otherwise provide cover while he’s off saving the world.

When Agent Dax is captured, The Duplicate is forced to rescue him…only to learn that the man he was created to replace is a gambling, womanizing gun for hire. When the “family” the Duplicate was programmed to protect is put in jeopardy; this unlikely pair has to team up to save them.

Next up…some interiors by Andy and Nick. If they don’t sell you on DUPLICATE, I don’t know what will.