Little Mysteries

Birthday Roundup

I meant to do this sooner, but I was having too much fun. FCBD kind of kicked off a birthday week here, from which I am starting to recover. First, I'm getting piles of comics, next thing you know, comics arrive in the mail from friends (Thanks Grant and Sherilyn, just what I always wanted: Kirby's Demon Omnibus) and then the parents come to town for a fun visit, mom having made a good supply of her son's favorite peanut butter cookies...

So, I've basically been laying on the couch, reading comics and stuffing myself with cookies for the last week. Best Birthday Ever.

The highlight in the middle of all of this was artwork showing up on my twitter doorstep on the big day, orchestrated (I found out later) by my best girl, Kirsten (whose own art piece graces the top of this update).

• The first to arrive was this piece by Chris Sims (writer for the Eisner-nominated Comics Alliance, co-writer of Awesome Hospital) showing a senses-shattering team-up. To top it off, Mr. Sims also gifted me with the gift that keeps giving: Batman, namely Morrison's Batman. It's pretty likely that I will draw anything he wants, forever, at this point.
  
• Next was fellow Action Age Comics artist Matthew Allen Smith (artist of Solomon Stone) who stole my heart with this Steranko homage.
• Rusty Shackles (TableTopFetus, Creator of Twitter Art Jam) made me feel like I had front row tickets to the most awesome and medically beneficial concert ever.
• Chad Bowers (Die Comics Die, co-writer of Awesome Hospital) forwarded me this medical paradox by Adrian Rodriguez and Amit Ghadge. Babies having babies, sure. But babies delivering babies...?

It was a blast wake up to all of these on my birthday, and really put the whole experience over the top. Thank you, everyone.

FCBD!

Saturday was the 9th annual Free Comic Book Day. As it always falls within a week of my birthday, I'm usually flush with some extra b-day cash to go on a day-long adventure. I usually try to hit my favorite stores, not so much for the free stuff, but to see how this day works in terms of outreach and community-building within the comics retail environment.

One of my favorite stores is Ralph's Comic Corner just north of Oxnard, run by Mike Sterling. I don't get up there as often as I'd like (it's about 55 miles from where I live, which in Southern California miles is more like 80 miles). It's a great store with a nice selection of everything, friendly employees and a relaxed atmosphere. This year, I wanted to gift Mr. Sterling with a small token of gratitude:

This horrible drawing combines two of Mr. Sterling's interests. I hope he likes it. I'm afraid my terminal shyness got the better of me, so I may have come off a little crazy stalker + process server...

Well, more than normal, I guess.

I just wanted to offer thanks and appreciation to guys like Mike at Ralph's Comic Book Corner, and the workers and owners at other comic book shops, who use Free Comic Book Day not as an opportunity to get a few extra bucks out of their already existing customers, but to develop a new fan-base for comics, so that dads and moms can bring in their kids and introduce this medium I love to a whole new generation of readers, writers, and artists.