The most recent Publishers Weekly Comics Week contained a writeup about the recent SLG Hardcover collection of its Haunted Mansion series.  The book collects the first six issues of the anthology, issue five of which contained a story I did about one of the few non-ghost characters in the Mansion cast, the Loup Garou.  I received my contributor copy of this book a few weeks back and it’s gorgeous.  I’m not fully-versed in SLG’s past publishing history, but I’m guessing this is the most lavishly produced book they’ve ever done.  If you run across it in a store, be sure to pull it out of its slip-case and check it out.

John Morris has posted a lengthy review of Midnight Sun on his blog, CreativeKungFu. John has a lot of good things to say about the book, but in the interest of full disclosure, this probably isn’t the most objective review out there. See, John and I have known each other for years, having first met as students at NC’s Davidson College in the late 80s. We were later bandmates in Come on Thunderchild and its earlier incarnation, Elextroluxe. Since then, music’s taken a back seat for me, but John continues to perform in a mind-boggling array of Charlotte-area bands including The Alternative Champs, Tyre Fyre, Snagglepuss, and Nighthawk.

One thing that John mentions that I’m glad to see touched upon is the humorous aspects of the story. Midnight Sun is for the most part a straight drama, but like any genuine representation of human goings-on, there’s intended to be some humor there as well. With “serious” graphic novel memoirs getting a lot of attention from legit press, there’s been a sort of backlash among fans of comics’ pulpy, raunchy, funny qualities that’s given rise to an unfortunate perceived division between folks who like “serious” comics and those who deem anything that’s non-funny pretentious.

Also, John’s a pretty kick-ass painter and figure artist, so have a look at the art on CreativeKungFu while you’re there.

Here’re a couple of early (and positive!) mentions of Midnight Sun around the internets:First, Scott Tingley has posted an expanded review of the book over at comicsintheclassroom.net. Scott mainly reviews books for younger readers, so I was slightly surprised that he wanted to read a copy of the book for a possible review. As he notes, there’s some off-color language (no “F bombs,” though), some drinking, and a few other odds and ends… I guess, though, that shouldn’t preclude older high school students from being able to check it out. On the other hand, I know as an occasional teacher that folks can get pretty touchy about comics in particular, given the visual element.

Second, over on the Comic Geek Speak podcast (episode #346), Midnight Sun gets a great mention from one of that shows guest contributors, Charlito from Indie Spinner Rack. This episode is titled “Looking Ahead to 2008” but Midnight Sun managed to sneak in there despite its December 28th release date since the episode was posted on the 21st, and presumably was recorded much earlier. Even though I know the ISR guys, both as a fan of the show and from working on a story for the ISR anthology, Awesome, it was really cool to turn up on Charlito’s list. More surprising, though, was that one of the CGS hosts (Shane, if I’m recalling correctly) knew the book from its earlier incarnation as a serialized comic.

Anyway, I’m appreciative of the kind words from both…