Interpretive Nature Walks

I clipped this from the newspaper about seven years ago. I find the juxtaposition between the headline and the photograph from a separate article to be really amusing.

In Comic Book Stores Today

One of the wonders of writing for anthology comics like CARTOON NETWORK BLOCK PARTY, is that a long period of time can pass between when I write a story and when it sees publication. When I say long periods of time I'm talking about a range between several months and occasionally a few years. It all comes down to balancing the story types, featured characters and available page counts of an individual title. Sometimes, the amount of time that transpires between when I write a story and it sees publication is long enough that I've even forgotten the story in question.

Such is the case with issue #55 of CARTOON NETWORK BLOCK PARTY, available today, and which I've not yet seen. The solicitation copy reads:

Written by Robbie Busch, John Rozum, Sam Agro and Scott Cunningham; Art by Robert Pope, Cindy Morrow, Scott Roberts and Andy Suriano; Cover by Robert Pope
Bloo enters a joke contest, the Powerpuff Girls play in the Professor's lab, Dexter makes breakfast the hard way and Adam and Jake join the band!

Based on the order of listed writers and the order of listed stories it appears that I'm responsible for the writing part of the Powerpuff Girls story which looks to have been drawn by Cindy Morrow. However based on the very basic description, I have absolutely no idea what story this is, or how long it is.

This, by no means, should suggest that this story is subpar. It just means that my once steel trap like mind is now more like an aluminum sieve. When a story shows up that I've forgotten about, I'm usually pleasantly surprised to be reaquainted with it. So, if the Powerpuff Girls strikes your fancy (or the fancy of your kids) drop what you're doing and run out and get a copy of this comic book now, before it's too late.

Kids and Comics

Wonderchroma.com, a webzine devoted to music and geek culture debuts today. Among the contents is the first part of an excellent article by Daniel Crown on the comic book industry built on an audience of children and now, possibly doomed because it now ignores children as potential readers. Daniel interviewed me for the article which includes much of my insight on the problem. Part one can be found here. Part two will appear in next week's issue.

My Family

This drawing labeled "My Family" was done when I was in kindergarten. I think this single image explains a lot about me. I am the one in the middle. Surrounding me are a giant bat, a ghost, some other flying figure, a green-skinned Frankenstein's monster type, and a mad woman. The back of this sheet of paper is taken up by an enormous drawing of a spider web with a fat red spider in its center, and my initials rendered with a backwards facing "J."

In Comic Book Stores Now

Scooby-Doo #142 is available in comic book stores today. It sports this nice atmospheric cover by Robert Pope and Scott McCrae and a story that I wrote as well. It's an installment of my popular "Velma's Monsters of the World." This time the monster is the Chenoo which lives in the American Northeast, just where I recently moved to. The excellent artwork is by Scott Gross and Jorge Pacheco.

1980s Saturday Morning Animated "Watchmen"

Whether you are planning to see WATCHMEN this weekend, or not, you really ought to watch this terrific opening title sequence created by Harry Partridge for the non-existent 80s cartoon series made from the graphic novel. This is pretty perfect and funny and has a catchy theme song too.

Settling In

Having been run out of Ann Arbor, I'm just resettling on the East Coast, waiting for my possessions to catch up with me. Once they do you can expect a whole bunch of exciting new posts, most likely beginning towards the end of next week.