Four years ago today, I was in San Francisco with Kieron Dwyer for the release party of my first graphic novel, LAST OF THE INDEPENDENTS and, really, the launch party for what has become my career. Here, at the end of my first term as the President of Comics, I thought it a fine time to look back into the angry abyss to find that it gazes for thee, oh yes, it gazes for thee.

What?

Taking stock between LOTI in summer '03 and now, even counting the dead year where finished work rotted but nothing came out-- Go Team Comics!-- sees the release of four published shorts, fifty some single issues in the can, another graphic novel, and a half-dozen collections with a half-dozen more on the way. And I have a morgue file with 30 some projects in it adding up to literally hundreds pages of pitch work, script samples, botched liftoffs, written sketch pages, aborted projects or just plain old finished but never-published work.

MK12 got huge and I left; writing comics in my spare time suddenly became my only source of income and, very quickly, a more than full-time gig; we bought a house, found two dogs, got pregnant, and loved and lost and tried to live the best we could.

That earliest comics career instinct of playing at being the Coen Brothers or Steven Soderbergh looks like this today: I'm working on four ongoings at the moment, three for Marvel and one at Image. The Marvel books, PUNISHER WAR JOURNAL, THE ORDER, and THE IMMORTAL IRON FIST mean that I can afford to do CASANOVA at Image for nothing, where whatever money we DO see I shunt over part and parcel to my collaborators. The schedule gets grueling but I'm getting better at gaming it, at working it to the advantage of my sanity. The goal now is to write a little less and earn a little more but keep up this particular model. At least for the time being.

So on the horizon, then:

I'm halfway through CASANOVA v2.

I know about when and where I'd like to stop doing WAR JOURNAL; I have a year blocked out on THE ORDER; and Ed and I have a ball with IRON FIST and have at least through the early twenties sketched out in our heads, assuming, of course, that these books are allowed to run their course.

I know what my next big Marvel project will be, so clearing off my plate a little bit before getting to it is a fine idea.

I'm taking notes on two graphic novels, THE AMERICAN (about Lincoln's re-election campaign in 1864) and THE EMPRESS OF JAPAN (American baseball players barnstorm around Japan in 1934).

Later this summer I hope to have a new version of this site up and running. I need to update here daily. Something, anything, Jesus Christ, you can't just let it sit for a month. Its the slowest blog ever. Sloblog.

(Although, in my defense, these scripts don't write themselves, and I'd much rather have scripts going than a regularly updated website.)

(I'm a little stuck this morning, yes, why?)

The baby is due Sept. 21st. I've blocked out a Sanity Schedule, a to-do list of books I'd love to have in the can before the baby comes so I can have some family time and not totally go batshit poopers. It makes for a busy summer, but it'll be well worth it on the other side.

My stuff at Amazon

My stuff at Midtown Comics

Alright. Here's to the next four, then. Thanks for reading.

Coming up:

The last of the Arnold Drake things, because like a dozen people asked me about it at Heroes Con.
The Jack Kirby Apocrypha-- I want to do a similar tour through the post-FOURTH WORLD, pre-animation work of The King.
Hopefully regular content.