Sep 07 2007

Midnight Sun GN Available for Pre-Order

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Yep, that’s right–I’m gonna have to wrap up this book and bring it on home, come Hell or high water, ’cause SLG’s taking orders for the thing right now. Here’s the skinny on the book itself:

The year is 1928 and an Italian airship expedition to the North Pole has mysteriously disappeared. Excitement changes to uncertainty when the Italia and her international crew reach the pole, issue a celebratory radio communiqué, and are never heard from again. As a worldwide search effort gears up, a down on his luck American newspaper reporter is dispatched to the top of the Earth to cover the event.

Written and illustrated by Eisner Award nominated cartoonist Ben Towle, this 144 page graphic novel collects the three issues of the SLG Publishing comic book series and then adds in what would have been issues 4-6 in one handsome graphic novel. The complete story will be presented for the first time.

Damn straight it’ll be handsome! Better get you one–no, two–today! You can pre-order the book at a sizable discount directly from SLG:

Here’s the main Midnight Sun promotional page off the SLG site. On it you can:

Pre-order the book from SLG. The posted price there is already 10% off cover, but enter “msun” at the checkout to get an additional 20% off.

…or from Amazon:

Pre-order it from Amazon.com

If’n you’re one of them sissy-types, what can’t jump in the water until you’ve tested the temperature thereof with your dainty little foot, you might be interested to know that you can download the entire first chapter for free as a PDF on that page as well:

Free PDF

Crazier still is this YouTube “trailer” the folks at SLG have put together for the book:

Sep 05 2007

The Spitsbergen Airship Museum

I had been scouring the web, looking for some illustrations of the airship Italia I wanted to potentially reference for my work on the final chapter of my forthcoming graphic novel, Midnight Sun, when I stumbled on the website for the Spitsbergen Airship Museum. It looks like, at this point, the museum is in-progress and expected to open in 2008. In the meantime, though, they appear to have acquired some pretty amazing airship-related items, including a ton of Italia stuff. Here are a few of the illustrations I had been seeking out; apparently the museum has copies of the original newspapers in its collection:

It’s interesting to note that, although there were only a small handful of books written in English about the Italia disaster, that apparently–judging by the museum’s collection–pretty much everyone involved in the crash itself and/or the subsequent rescue attempts seems to have written a book in his native tongue. The the post-sensational event “book deal” is a phenomenon neither new, nor uniquely American.

Sep 04 2007

Dame Darcy Update

The vote totals have been hidden (for reasons not really explained) and supposedly the contestants are appearing on the site in random order…. but, for whatever reason, whenever I refresh the “Who’s Winning” page over at the Flavor of Love site, I’m getting the same 25 people over and over again… and among them, Dame Darcy.  A portent of things to come?  Let us hope so…

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Aug 30 2007

Blogs I Has Been A’digging

Here’re a few blogs that I’ve been frequenting of late which, for whatever reason, don’t seem to turn up linked much from the usual places.

Satisfactory Comics

This blog is run by Isaac Cates and Mike Wenthe, the longtime collaborative cartoonists behind Elm City Jams and Satisfactory Comics.  They’ve just started blogging relatively recently, but previously they’ve posted on the importance of having a daily routine, previous jam constraints, and now they’re doing a really interesting step-by-step walkthrough of their contribution to the upcoming anthology, Elfworld #2.

Atom Bomb Bikini

The above link is to Richmond cartoonist Rob Ullman and don’t click on it if’n you don’t like boobies.  Rob’s been posting pretty much every day for the last month or so and all kinds of interesting stuff has showed up, including lots of sexy comic book gals, his illustrations from present and past Savage Love columns (a syndicated sex advice column Rob does spot illos for).  Also, it looks like Rob’s considering getting some die-cut stickers done and he’s soliciting opinions on several design contenders.  Pipe up here.

JChrisCampbell.com

Like Rob, South Carolina cartoonist & illustrator J. Chris Campbell has been posting pretty much every day for the last month or so.  In addition to Chris’s really cool illustrations of robots, monsters and whatnot, he’s been posting from/about a ton of conventions.  Apparently Chris has been on the road heavily promoting his book Zig Zag #2 Adhouse Books.  While you’re at it, check out the recent interview with Chris by those podcastin’ fools at The Dollar Bin.

Aug 30 2007

It’s Voting Time!

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 No, not for any of those jackasses in the race for president of the U.S., but for cartoonist/musician Dame Darcy!  If you’ve enjoyed her past appearances on “Blind Date” and “Fifth Wheel” (and I know you have), please take a few days off from work to spend online, voting continuously for Dame Darcy to be the next lucky gal to court perpetual embarrassment and annoying hip-hop “never was” Flava Flav on his inexplicably popular reality dating show “Flavor of Love.”

Vote here, Boy-eeee!