CAG community

My project The White Rose has made it into public voting – and of course I’m starting in last place, where else would I start?

My undying love (available in both Decaf and Full strength) comes at the relatively small price of a vote for me!
Here’s the linkage: http://www.dimestoreproductions.com/forum-t36664.html

And here’s the official Small Press Idol standings…

SATURDAY 4/18 VOTE REPORT

1.) 554 Votes (+93) – 87 Voters ( +5) Faction – Judges Vote: 3 Yes.
2.) 301 Votes (+54) – 86 Voters ( +7) Maddie Scientist – Judges Vote: 2 Yes.
3.) 234 Votes (+37) – 39 Voters ( +4) The Machine – Judges Vote: 2 Yes.
4.) 224 Votes (+24) – 54 Voters ( +3) Hometown Heroes – Judges Vote: 3 Yes.
5.) 209 Votes (+34) – 49 Voters ( +3) The Associate – Judges Vote: 3 Yes.
6.) 125 Votes (+28) – 45 Voters ( +5) Haxxor – Judges Vote: 3 Yes.
7.) 98 Votes (+15) – 25 Voters ( +2) Project Mercury – Judges Vote: 3 Yes.
8.) 88 Votes (+16) – 33 Voters ( +2) Mr. Man – Judges Vote: 2 Yes.
9.) 84 Votes (+23) – 25 Voters ( +4) Dogman and Lester – Judges Vote: 2 No.
10.) 60 Votes (+40) – 33 Voters (+14) Varsity Squad – Judges Vote: 3 Yes.
11.) 40 Votes (NEW) – 27 Voters (NEW) Steel Rising – Judges Vote: 3 Yes
12.) 37 Votes (+23) – 25 Voters (+13) Earthman – Judges Vote: 3 Yes.
13.) 28 Votes (+20) – 16 Voters ( +9) Dead Duck – Judges Vote: 3 Yes.
14.) 25 Votes (NEW) – 18 Voters (NEW) Diary of a Teenage Heroine – Judges Vote: 3 Yes.
15.) 12 Votes (NEW) – 9 Voters (NEW) Thread of Valor – Judges Vote: 2 Yes.
16.) 10 Votes (NEW) – 10 Voters (NEW) The Underground – Judges Vote: 3 Yes.
17.) 10 Votes (NEW) – 10 Voters (NEW) The White Rose – Judges Vote: 3 Yes.

OK, I just spent the morning (and part of last night) moving my stuff over fromthe “old” CAG Ning site, and man what a pain in the arss that was. Seriously, but any of you folk who are here now already know all of that. So,anywho, now that I’m here, where are the rest of all you Allices? Right now I have to get back into it. I have a couple of (local) article I have to write,a nd then back to the daily grind of The Marvel Comics Index, and hopefully, to getting ready for the NY ComicCon.

Talk to you all again, real soon!

As I mentioned a short time back, a very cool thing happened to me last year when I began freelancing for marvel again. Well I’ve just upped the ante at the close of last year when I was invited to contribute to the new on-going Marvel Universe Index project (or the Official Index To The Marvel Universe #1). The project is designed to produce an on-going reference library that will catalog virtually every comic Marvel ever produces starting at the dawn of the Silver Age. Each issue provides synopses for dozens of individual comics, including back-up strips, introducing you to the characters, teams, places and equipment that appeared within, providing vital information about first appearances, where they last showed up and where they appeared next! Join us as we chronicle the Marvel Universe.

I was invited to join the project by a buddy of mine, Al Sjoerdsma, from SpiderFan. The first issue (pictured) is out now (January, 2009), with my first contributions occurring in issue #2 (Feb.).

So I’m crunching to meet my deadlines, I’m also gearing up to appear at the NY Comic Con next month, where I’ll be at the CAG Table with the rest of the gang.

Back in the late ‘80s to mid ‘90s I was a freelance writer working for the House of Ideas (yes wise guy, I do mean Marvel Comics). During the years I was there, I contributed several articles to Marvel Age, Marvel Vision, Marvel Preview, Marvel Year in Review, and Sales to Astonish. It was a fun ride while it lasted, only it didn’t last. The market crashed in the mid ‘90s and, well I moved on to other endeavors, virtually leaving the field of comics.

In 2001 I returned to comics just as the world was ramping up for the launch of Spider-Man’s first big-screen film, I returned to comics, eagerly gobbling up as many of the back issues that I could find (I‘m closing in on filling in all the gaps, more on that as it happens). Well, this year I managed to circle around and rejoin Marvel as a freelancer.

My first assignment was writing the cover copy for The Art of Iron Man the Movie That book came out two days ago (I saw it on the shelf at Midtown Comics). Today I received the dust jacket from my editor. Let me tell you it was a real thrill, and one of the coolest moments of my professional life.

My second assignment was the cover copy to Supreme Power: Contact Premiere. I turned that copy in on Wednesday. I’m hoping that I will get a third assignment soon.

Sometimes it is good to be me. Today (for the most part) was one of those days. Tomorrow I’m going to be attending the National Comicbook Show in New York, hopefully it will also be a good day.

This past weekend, I got to spend time with my pal Spidey at a local craft show. You can look at a couple of photos over in my gallery, or you could go to here and check out what I had to say on the subject in my regular blog.

Or, you could go here and see a longer post with less pictures on my weekend. I’d write more, but I’m pretty beat right now, and I’m working on a new CAG-Dog story for my pal the Z-Man. So I’m going to go and pretend to do that now.

I just flew in from the NY Comic Con ’08 and boy are my arms tired!

Well, truthfully, I really didn’t fly in from the Con, I took the train home, but I did fly back from Dallas, TX the day before the con (I was out there working for a client), stopped home long enough to unpack, do laundry, repack, and catch a night’s sleep, and snag a train into the City the next morning.

Well I spent three days at the con hob-knobbing with all of my fellow CAG and GWP buds. It was a great show, I personally cam home with several pounds of very cool crap (comics, press kits, a few mags, and some other assorted goodies). Plus (one can only hope) more than just a few good contacts.

I know that we got CAG in front of some podcasters as well as other pros. We had a very impressive turnout at our annual Indie party, and we awarded some very well-deserving CAGsters with some awards. Congrats to all the winners.

I’m going to keep this short, as I’m still going through stuff and recovering (came home to some intensive client work). So I’m still trying to decompress from the weekend, but for your enjoyment I posted some photos of the event. Check ‘em out and let me know what you think.

(now I have to wrap up my script for Phillip, and it will all be good.)

As you can see on my personal page, I have a new “picture” truth is, it isn’t so much of a pic, as it is a fabulous illustration by my good buddy Fabio. I met Fabio when CAG Creative Director, and GWP Frontman Mark Mazz introduced us and got Fabio to illustrate my short story, Ghost Writer, for Psychosis! #2. I loved the illo so much I’ve decided to use it as my official pic.

Thanks Again Fabio, you’re the best!

Let’s see if we can get Mark to hook us up for another go-round, eh?

Bob

Hey, while I realize that CAG is an Indie group, and (theoretically) we don’t care so much about mainstream comics, the reality of it is that isn’t quite so. We all got into this field because we love some existing character or genre or other.

Now while we may want to to publish our own characters and stories, we still love what brought us here in the first place. For me, that character is Spider-Man. I’ve been reading and collecting Spidey since 1962 so when I read what happened to him in the current One More Day/Brand New Day storyline I freaked.

I’m totally not happy about it all, and made my unhappiness very apparent in a post on my personal blog. Needless to say, this post was spoted by a reporter from Newsweek, who contacted me, and well, for that story, you’ll have to go to Newsweek and read the story she wrote.

How Cool is that?

Over the weekend of November 16-18 Big Apple Conventions staged the National at the Penn Plaza Hotel in New York City. I attended, and took some pics (check out my photo blog). I also got to meet and hang out with a bunch of my old friends as well as make new ones. As you can imagine, this is always entertaining. For a detailed report, you can jump over to my personal blog.

While I’m sure that I’ll be talking about this for some time, I wanted to spend a small amount of time here saying that — in spite of whatever is going on in my life (good or bad) attending an extended convention was fun because — it was just nice to spend a weekend in a funnybook environment where I could wander around the place like a rock star.

Seriously. I’m not saying that I’m a big-shot in the field of comics, it is just that there, in that time and space, I am with like-minded people, many of whom are friends, and all of whom are into similar things. So, yeah, for that brief time, we were all rock stars.

If you were there and we just met (Hey Everett and Susan), I hope that you come back for more. If you weren’t, then I hope that the next time out you do come.

That’s right kids, the Nationals, a Kick-ass convention held right here in New York City is being brought to us courtesy of the fine folks at Big Apple Con.

Big Apple is run by a gent named Mike Carbonaro (no relation, I am told to John Carbonaro, owner of The T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents). I met Mike about 100 years ago when I was around 18. It was one of the very first NYC conventions that I had ever attended. I purchased from him a British-produced, hard-bound reprint of a Spider-Man annual. The next con, I noticed that he had a couple of more, only I didn’t have any money.

I told him that I wanted them, but didn’t have the dough, and could he hold them for me? He did. A year later, at a different con, he saw me, and passed me a paper bag with the bound volumes in it. It was probably 15 or 20 years later that I ran into him again, in San Diego of all places, at the International convention. He remembered me, and we caught up a bit.

The Next time I saw him was a year or so later when he started holding his own cons in NYC. I brought my (then 5-year-old) son with me to that show. Well, that was some 10 years ago, Now he holds the coolest ongoing cons in the city.

Here is info about the National. I’ll be there, hopefully you will as well.

The Big Apple Convention presents Hayden Panettiere, Kristen Bell, Walter Koenig, Katey Sagal, Neal Adams, more at National Convention NYC, November 16-18!

On November 16-18, the Big Apple National Convention, NYC’s longest-running comic book/sci-fi/fantasy/horror/pop culture convention will occur at the Penn Plaza Pavilion, 7^th Ave at 33^rd Joanna Krupa, Brian Clevinger, Dan “the Beast” Severn, and many, many more from movies, TV, pro wrestling, centerfold models, scream queens, athletes, and more. Over 100 comic book creators will be present including legendary comic book artists Neal Adams, Steranko, Carmine Infantino, Sergio Aragones, Joe Sinnott, along with fan favorites like Adam Hughes, Billy Tucci, Tim Sale, Mark Texeira, and underground creators S. Clay Wilson, Spain, and Mark Bode. St./ This will be it’s biggest show ever! Special celebrity guests include Hayden Panettiere, Kristen Bell, Katey Sagal, Walter Koenig, Gigi Edgley, Mira Furlan, Butch Patrick,William Mapother, Soupy Sales, Celeste Holm, Debbie D, King Kong Bundy,

There will be free giveaways, prizes, panel discussions, art seminars, special film showings, performances, the NY Jedi, live action role playing, gaming, and much much more, and of course Captain Zorikh’s Costume Contest! Be sure to visit the website for all the details.

Tickets are $18 per day in advance, $20 at the door, $40 for all three days, available through the website.