San Diego 2011: Puppets and Podcasts and Pictures-a-Plenty!

Comic-Con International 2011 in San Diego, CA has passed us by, and as in years past, the show is a bear. I survived…and I’d call it successful, but for getting sick on that very last day. Suffice it to say I flew high while I flew but it was a rough landing.

That said, the show was not without highlights and plenty of sketches, so let us talk about that!

Before the show even started, as I walked to the convention center for Preview Night, I happened to see and recognize Scott Aukerman and Kulap Vilaysack, host and co-host, respectively, of the podcasts “Comedy Bang Bang:The Podcast” and “Who Charted?”, also respectively. These are both great shows to which I listen regularly, so that was, at least for me, a celebrity sighting worth mentioning. Scott’s the man behind the must-see comedy show at LA’s UCB Theatre Comedy Bang Bang: Stand-Up (formerly Comedy Death Ray). There is a definite linkage between comics and comedy, and if you listened to Episode One of MY podcast, “Stuff Said”, you’ll know it’s a thing I’m sort of fascinated by (heck, I even did this comic (contains mild language), the closest I’ll come to “performing” stand-up).

The point of all that being: hey, listen to those shows, they’re great!

But surely you’re asking, “Gregg, what’s the story with that puppet at the top of this post?”

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How I Spent My Comic-Con 2010 Vacation

So, vacation’s the wrong word for it, because it’s very much work-work-work, but who am I to deny the playful flow of a post title?

But yes, Comic-Con 2010 ended on Sunday, 7/25, and as always, it was a whirlwind.

Many sketches were sketched, among them a “Punisher being annoyed by SpongeBob and Patrick”, a series of Batman related head shots (I was particularly pleased with the Clayface; hopefully I’ll get a scan of that soon), and interestingly enough, two separate requests for me to draw people’s dogs.

I’m happy to say a nice number of people picked up copies of the X-BABIES paperback collection, and I got to meet a nice bunch of folks who’d read and enjoyed the series when it came out at the end of last year. On the flip side, there were those two “industry” dudes who in one conversation passively mocked the X-Babies, but the less said about them the better (save for the fact that, if they read X-Babies they’d see that we were taking jabs at them, so ha-ha indeed!).

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X-BABIES: STARS REBORN – “Graphic Novel” Edition

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Tomorrow, June 3, the X-Babies mini-series I wrote gets released in its “graphic novel” collected edition; all four issues, alternate covers, and even some design/development sketches…96 pages under glorious paperback stock covers!

With its release, I wanted to share an e-mail sent to myself and (X-Babies artist) Jacob Chabot  shortly after the release of X-BABIES #4 in January. It’s a long one, even edited a bit for content (and be warned, there are spoilers) but worth sticking with it. The sender, Dennis, wrote:

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X-BABIES: While You Wait…

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X-BABIES #4, the final issue of the the X-Babies mini-series I’ve gone on and on about lo these past many months, won’t be out yet for another 30 days, on 1/27/2010. That’s 30 days on top of the past three weeks since issue three rocked the comic book reading masses to their core*! That’s a long wait. What are you supposed to do then if you want your X-Babies fix?

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X-BABIES #3

X-BABIES #3 is on sale today at better comic shops everywhere. It’s an issue I’m really proud of and happy with, chock-a-block with all kinds of good comic booky stuff. And the last five pages…oh man…I only hope people dig it as I much as I do. So check out X-BABIES #3, “Chase, Fight, Snikt!” … Read more

X-Babies #2 On Sale Tomorrow.

X-BABIES #2 (of 4) hits comic book shops tomorrow, 11/11/09. It’s a fun issue, chock-full or superhero action, X-Babies bickering, hyper-subtle references to podcasts I listen to, and some characters not seen in Marvel Comics’ history in over 25 years. Check it out! Also, I just saw Jacob’s inks for the last page of issue … Read more

X-BABIES #1 Reviews: “This is not a serious comic…”

So X-BABIES #1 has been out for just over a week and reviews have popped up here and there. Some have been formal reviews, others discussions on newsgroups.

Reviews tend to range from the “this is fun” to “what’s the point of this?”. But overall reviews have been positive, mostly focusing on Jacob’s fantastic art and its uncanny cuteness. Phrases like “oh, and there’s a story too” were usually what followed a thorough heaping of praise upon Jacob (which he deserves). The occasional negative seemed more to question the motivations or reasons for the series less than the content. Hopefully they’ll stick around for the next three issues to find out. Though the other common negative was the cover price of $3.99, to which I cannot disagree. That four dollar price tag tightens my jaw, too.

So to that end, I thank each and every person who bought the first issue and thank in advance anyone who buys the next three.

But if you’re bored and want to follow along, here are links to all kinds of reviews:

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Hanley’s Signing: 10/7/2009

For the release of X-BABIES #1, I was invited, along with artist Jacob Chabot, to appear at Jim Hanley’s Universe at their Manahttan location. The good news was we had a great time, met a lot of people interested in X-Babies, did a lot of drawing, and sold the store out of all their copies of X-BABIES #1.

The bad news: they sold out of X-BABIES #1 and some folks weren’t able to get copies. BUT, they might have more copies this Tuesday, the 13th, so not all is lost.

For those of you who couldn’t make it, here are some photos from the event (thanks to Mike for manning the camera):

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Signs outside let passers by know the who and the what.

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