XOMBI Listed Among Best Comics of 2011

As 2011 comes to a finish, I was happy to see that Xombi made many lists compiling the year's best comics. The trade paperback collecting the series will be available in early February and can be pre-ordered at a comic book store or independent book store near you, or, if you must, through Amazon. There is a link below.

To coincide with the release of the trade paperback I will be running a bit of an issue by issue annotated commentary here as I promised last Fall. Keep checking back for details.

The above artwork of Xombi's David Kim among some stellar company is by Craig at Craig's Comic Land.

Ornaments On Our Tree

I've been busy juggling work and preparing for the holidays, so I've not had a chance to bring you any of the meatier posts I'd been planning. So for now, I present some holiday oriented eye candy with these views of some of the ornaments decorating our tree. 

Marvel Monsters in the Morning

At 7:00 am EST Cartoon Network is rebroadcasting "This Man-Thing...This Monster"  one of the episodes of Super Hero Squad that I wrote. The episode features a large number of the monster characters from Marvel Comics, such as Werewolf By Night, Dracula, the Living Mummy, and Man-Thing as well as a few cool surprises.

If you're up that early check it out. Watch it with your kids.

Hellraiser Masterpieces #3 Now Available

I forgot to mention this, but Hellraiser Masterpieces #3, published by Boom! Studios was released last Wednesday. A companion to the current ongoing Hellraiser series, also published by Boom!, Hellraiser Masterpieces reprints stories from the Hellraiser series published in the late 1980s -- early 1990s by Marvel's Epic imprint. Three of my earliest comic book stories were written for this run, and all three have been collected in the current issue. This is the first time any of them have been reprinted and also the first time that they appear together under one cover. You can see the table of contents below if you're curious about the line-up and the excellent artists I was paired with.

Comic Book Resources has a preview of this issue which you can see here which shows several pages from the "Homecoming" story. While I loved Mark Texeira's art for this story, the story itself was heavily altered by editorial and became something more obvious and also gentler and with a just desserts type ending that was contrary to the harsh, more pessimistic ending that I wrote. The other two stories I was rather fond of.  I haven't seen either in ages, and wonder how they hold up today. 

Clive Barker's Hellraiser universe was one I really enjoyed getting to play in and would love to return to.  I also wrote an origin story to the Lemarchand puzzle boxes which appeared as an issue of Clive Barker's Book of the Damned which I'd always wanted to expand upon, and two other Hellraiser stories which were completed but for which artwork was never commissioned since the Marvel series came to an end. 

Hellraiser Masterpieces #3 is available at a Comic Book store near you, or can be ordered by your local comic book shop. 

MAD SCIENTIST #24 Available for Pre-Order

Issue #24 of Mad Scientist magazine is available for pre-order via their website. This an excellent magazine for fans of classic horror, fantasy, science fiction, dinosaurs and comic books and is only $5.00 per issue. The new issue includes a piece of artwork and a short article by me as well as a lot of other great stuff.

Ask Me Anything #15

It's time once again for "Ask Me Anything." This feature runs on the first Monday of every month and gives you the opportunity to ask me anything you might be wondering about me, my work, or anything at all.  This month I'll also be responding to a couple of questions from previous editions of "Ask me Anything" that I've been remiss in answering, and had intended to get to last month before my work schedule got the best of me. 

Head down to the comment section and post your question. I'll either post my answer in the comment section as well, or answer it in a special post all its own sometime later in the month.

Please take the time to view the previous questions so that we don't wind up with a lot of repetition. I've been asked a lot of good, thought provoking questions in the past as well as some really banal ones. all of which I tried to answer. You can see the previous questions by visiting Ask Me Anything  #1, #2 ,  #3, #4, #5, #6 , #7 , #8, #9,  #10,  #11,  #12 , #13 and #14.  Answers not found following the questions can be found in the archives section for each associated month.

Now ask away.

I Bring You Holiday Cheer

Do you still need a special ornament for your tree? Is it lacking something such as a Frankenstein monster head, a grinning cat, robot or a squid? If so, visit my friend, Tom Taggart's etsy shop and look at his selection of hand crafted ornaments. Each is about the size of an apple, or baseball and are light weight so your tree's branches won't sag when you hang them up. I have a number of these on my own tree and they look great right along the more typical Christmas trimmings. Tell him I sent you.

If you still need to select holiday cards to mail out, check out Cara Scissoria for a wide selection of pun-filled, humorous, and often political cards. Tell her I sent you, too.

Now that you've got your cards, and your tree take care of, you'll probably need something to put under it.  For the animation fan on your list, might I suggest a one of a kind  original cut paper collage portrait of some of their favorite characters? It just so happens that I have a number of these in stock. They're affordable and can be found here.

While the trade paperback collection of Xombi won't be available until February, young superhero and comic book fans might appreciate some of these other items I had a hand in.

Kids interested in action, adventure and strange creatures might like Cartoon Network: Ben 10 Alien Force/The Secret Saturdays (2-in-1) book which collects most of The Secret Saturdays comic books I wrote along with a bunch of Ben 10 stories as a bonus.

The Super Hero Squad is a television series aimed at younger kids and features the super heroes from Marvel Comics such as Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, the Hulk, Wolverine and others in a wide range of super hero action adventures with quite a bit of humor thrown into the mix. Volume 2 and Volume 3 of the DVD compilations of the series each have an episode I wrote.