From something I'm very, very excited about.

Labels: postcards, tease

...I like to get a good hearty “fuck you” from an editor – my work for this week is done!"

- Elton Pruitt, in response to me...well...you can figure it out.

Labels: jasonrodriguez, material, quotes

...in dental work. Thankfully my insurance covered more than half of it but not much more. Why is this relevant to this blog? Because I'm filling cracks in my teeth that I've obtained from grinding them together. These cracks weren't there six-months ago. Over the past six months, however, I've been really, really stressed trying to get POSTCARDS wrapped up. This stress has led to an increase in teeth grinding. This grinding has led to $1000 cracks.

And in two weeks they're doing the other side of my mouth.

Labels: jasonrodriguez, material

Rodriguez clearly took care in the writers he chose, and it shows in each scene of every story. Breathing life into lies is the art of the writer, but when these lies have a solid past, something to make them more real than the real of feeling, then there is even more burden. Yet all of these writers have met that challenge. In the crafting of stories that are every bit as believable as they are not, this group has created an experience that matches any found in an antique store.

Read the whole review...

Labels: postcards, review

Well...the picture's getting clearer.

July 24th is when the book drops. When you wake up on July 24th, you'll be able to see my grill and hear my words within the pages of The Washington Post Express. If you're in The District, that article will inform you that you'll be able to find me at 7PM at Olsson's Books (Dupont store). I'll be signing copies of the book. If we get crafty about it, we'll have a gallery show. I have plenty of original art from the book.

What will I be doing before the 24th? There's my BBQ, on the 20th. You may get an invite for that. I will likely spend the morning of the 24th riding the train aimlessly, hoping that someone recognizes me while reading their copy of The Washington Post Express. I will sign a book for them and invite them to the Olsson's event. When they ask me, "Where are you off to?" I will make up some story about going to speak to my a) agent, b) publicist, or c) stylist despite the fact that a) he lives in LA, b) she lives in NY, and c) I style myself. Badly. I will likely get a massage in the afternoon since I have a left over gift certificate from my birthday. I will then crack open my bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue and allow myself one drink. I will then go to the signing, make note of who shows, and forever scorn those who don't come.

And then what of the 25th?

San Diego. I am off to San Diego.

And what do I have planned for San Diego?

Well, I need to have some face time with A LOT of people (so, if you want to schedule some of my time, do it now - otherwise, see you at the bar). I need to pitch some new projects. I need to gauge how Postcards: California Dreaming is coming along. I need to buy drinks for a lot of folks. And, of course, I need to promote Postcards: True Stories That Never Happened.

How?

I will have a signing at the Random House booth. I will be on the Villard panel. I will have a MEGA signing (expect around ten people) at a retailer booth...details being worked out. There will be...fun little things...all over the convention. The bars, the food courts, the coffee stands. If you find one of these things, you should pick it up, take it home, scan it, and email it to me. I will be your friend. We will have some items up for grabs at the CBLDF auction. A super-signed copy of the book and some original art. There are no times yet for anything, details are still being detailed, but that's why this is just a preview.

Who from Postcards will be at SPX? Stuart Moore, Michael Gaydos, Phil Hester, Tom Beland, Antony Johnston, Matt Kindt, James Powell, Jason Copland, Joseph Bergin III, Gia-Bao Tran, Micah Farritor, Tony Fleecs, Rick Spears, Rob G, and Bob Tinnell. A

What will you get if you manage to get a copy of the book signed by all of those folks? Props. And, where I come from, props are all you need.

And what of August?

Nothing. Yet. Surgery - I need to get elective surgery in August. I will be at SPX - that is the only thing that is certain. And my surgery. And a wedding and a Christening I must attend.

Labels: jasonrodriguez, postcards

...Don't they tell you government secrets and stuff*?"

- Josh Fialkov, laughing at me on the phone last night, after I told him about my conversation with a creator where I spent the first five minutes quizzing the creator to see if it was really him.

Nobodies perfect all the time...





*In case you didn't know, my day job does, indeed, consist of defense work.

Labels: fun, material, quotes

I have a piece on Newsarama called, "I Heart Page 22." Go check it out.

Page 22. The page that causes me to laugh whenever someone tells me it’s only a matter of time before comics exist solely in trade and hardcover. Page 22 is Daredevil reborn and about to fight Nuke in the penultimate chapter of Frank Miller’s “Born Again.” Page 22 is NYC engulfed in white light after Ozymandias says, “I did it 35 minutes ago,” in Watchmen #11. Page 22 is little Virginia Applejack lying in the woods bleeding and broken at the end of Stray Bullets #2.

Labels: jasonrodriguez, linkylink

Labels: postcards, tease

"...this anthology-with-a-theme should not be missed by those who like their comics in short, punchy and clever doses."

Labels: postcards, review

Ian Brill from PW Comics Week interviewed me last month sometime. Go. Read. I think it's good.

I think a project like this needs community to work. It needs stories from people with different backgrounds and experiences to reach its full potential and to inspire people to find their own stories within these postcards. With a stand-alone graphic novel, you pretty much put this project out there and say, “This is what it is. Take it or leave it.” With an anthology like this, you put it out there and say, “This is the idea. Show me what you got.”

Labels: postcards, press

No, this article isn’t about video games, unfortunately. It’s about pain. Horrible, horrible pain.

You see – we’re setting up a signing at Olsson’s Books in Dupont Circle. This makes me very happy. I love Olsson’s. One of my favorite local bookstores. They have great events there – draw big names into their stores and bring in big crowds to support them. I will do anything the staff there asks to get this signing stitched up.

And they asked for a headshot.

I don’t have a headshot. So when April Flores, my lovely publicist over at Random House, wrote me and told me I needed one – I kind of didn’t know how to respond. I sent her some pictures of me. One of me with a bird on my head, one of me gazing lovingly at the camera, and one of me pouring wine. Unfortunately, none of these were headshots by any definition of the word “headshot.” So I had to make an appointment to get real headshots.

Quick question – what’s the most depressing department store in the universe?

That’s right, JC Penny.

And what’s the most depressing department within JC Penny?

That’s right, the Portrait Studio.

For some reason I decided to take the “easy” way out and get my headshots done at the JC Penny Portrait Studio. I set up an appointment and went Friday after work.

Let me tell you about The Springfield Mall. I’ve been to some bad malls in my day – I don’t know what the Albee Square Mall is up to now-a-days but back when I was growing up in Brooklyn that place had: a) An escalator, b) seventeen shoe stores, and c) a Wendy’s. That’s a bad mall. Speaking of Brooklyn – King’s Plaza Mall is not the type of plaza or mall a king would often be found in. And we have the Ballston Mall down here in the district – a great place to buy ornamental axes and novelty pimp gear. And Landmark Mall…oh, Landmark Mall – let’s not even get into that one.

But the Springfield Mall is a whole different kind of pain. The empty corridors, the food court – the clientèle – the merry-go-round with the bunny on it that gives me nightmares. The left-over-trim from stores long gone – like the discount, no-name clothing store with the Wizards of the Coast layout and decorative store front. There are three arcades in that mall by my count and the biggest store, not counting Macy’s, is the As Seen On TV store. It’s huge – they carry everything you’ve ever seen on TV.

Combine The Springfield Mall with a JC Penny Portrait Studio and you have the worst way to spend two-and-a-half hours.

After being told it’ll be a twenty minute wait for my pictures I made my way to the food court and got a burger from Checkers. I’ve never eaten at a Checkers before but, you know, when in Rome…

I slowly ate my sandwich, figuring the twenty-minute estimated wait time was optimistic considering there were three families in front of me lining up for baby pictures. Boy was I right. I waited two hours to get my pictures taken – a process that took about five minutes. The girl taking the pictures was new – she was real nice but I didn’t feel like I was getting headshots – I felt like I was taking elementary school portraits. Every picture had my body at a 45-degree angle and my head facing forward.

Also, I’m not a good smiler. I can’t smile. The girl took her first picture of me and I said, “I have to tell you – I can’t smile. You have to make me laugh.” I needed to joke around and pretend I wasn’t taking headshots. Because I seriously can’t smile. I can laugh. I can’t smile. Look through my Flickr account if you don’t believe me.

Anyway – I see B&W thumbnails of the pictures and pick out the two best ones. I drive home and show Robin the thumbs and the ones I picked to which she says, “Did you wear a white shirt with a white background?”

I snatched the sheet out of her hands to verify that I did, indeed, spend two-and-a-half hours taking pictures that are going to look downright stupid when they’re developed. I’ll look like a floating head. They will, literally, be headshots.

So now I need to get new ones. Luckily for me, Noel Tuazon came through (like he always does) and made me these:

Labels: material, postcards, press

Postcarding (pohst-kahr-ding]- The act of getting together with friends and filling out postcards.

The DC Conspiracy was postcarding with me this Sunday. Together, we filled out over 300 postcards. What will they be used for? Keep your eyes open...you just may see them around.



You can see me getting down above. Photo courtesy of Chris Shields of CindyCenter.com. He has some more pictures of the get-together, and you can see some other folks postcarding as well.

Labels: postcards, press

Coming soon to Eximious Press - The Postcards Creative Writing Package. Designed for creative writing classes, the supplement will feature used postcards, presented to students the same way I present them to creators in the book. More information on this free package will be available as we near completion. For now, take a look at a sample page:

Labels: material, postcards

Got this in the inbox earlier today:

Jerry Robinson (responsible for the iconic Joker in the Batman series) has joined forces with Washington Women in Theatre to produce an original musical about a superheroine named Astra. She’s a fearless, no-fuss woman who visits Earth for the first time, attempting to save her all-female planet from extinction. Her mission? To capture sperm. While discovering men for the first time on Earth, Astra also observes a confused world in the midst of a Cold War.

This tongue-and-cheek parody about America from an outsider’s perspective was created back in the ‘80s, and has since become a popular Japanese manga by artists Shojin Tanaka and Ken-ichi Oishi. It all started one summer when Washington Women in Theatre co-founder Sidra Rausch approached Robinson in Cape Cod, where the two were both vacationing. A longtime fan, Rausch fearlessly approached him and asked, “how do you feel about feminism?” He was immediately on board. The two brainstormed Astra on the sand that summer, and worked for many years on the concept. The Super Heroine Manga Musical now includes original artwork, thirty never-before-heard songs and Robinson’s legendary spirit.

The show’s national debut will take place at the Warehouse Theatre between July 7-14. Astra is part of the Washington Women in Theatre’s fifth annual festival of new plays. This year’s theme is "Laptops Ladies Playfest.” WWIT encourages original works written, directed and/or highlighting women such as Astra.

Sounds like a great show. The DC Conspiracy is talking about making a trip of it on July 7th - maybe I'll see some more locals there.

Labels: dc, linkylink

How do you celebrate your book's release? Here's how we celebrate ours:



The countdown to July 17th has officially begun.

(And thanks, Mom and Dad, for the gift!)

Labels: drinkydrink, postcards

In their 2007 Graphic Spotlight...

"...The resulting book fills in the blanks with dazzling, poignant tales from both gifted novices and established voices such as Ande Parks, Phillip Hester, Harvey Pekar, and Joyce Brabner."

There's plenty more at the link, I suggest going and checking it out.

Labels: postcards, review

I have to admit: I'm too quick with the "Send" button. Same goes for "Post" or "Publish" - anything that instantly commits my words to the masses. I often get embarrassed when I read back an email and see mistakes; unlike a blog post, I can't go back and edit them.

Edit yourself!

Why do I bring this up? Because here's an email conversation I just had with a Postcards: California Dreaming contributor...

Me (after hearing his story will largely take place outside of California): So, no California at all? I wanted one story to take place entirely outside of California and that's my story. Let me know.

Him\Her: I think this is your story, dude.

Me: Wow - I totally botched that sentence. I meant that was MY story. As in, the one I am writing. And that's the one that takes place outside of California.

Ah - making a creator feel like he/she is the Chosen One and then taking it away by telling them, "No, no, no - that's what I'm doing. And it's my book. So you can't do it too." This is also a great example as to why all story-related conversations should take place over the phone.

Labels: postcards, tips

More times than not, a lot of thought and creative imaginings go into finding just the right artistic style to match up with a writer's story. But when Caleb Monroe pitched me his idea for Dear Santa, Let Me Explain... I knew immediately who had to do the art: Noel Tuazon. Noel's watercolors are perfect for Caleb's heartwarming story. And I do mean perfect. It's as if the stars have aligned and I've been given this supernatural vision that is a perfect future. I'm telling you, these two creative geniuses were meant to work together on this story. (The fact that they've worked together before is beside the point, not to mention much less romantic.)

Anyway, I'm putting together the book proposal and asked Noel to work on a sample piece, knowing that without a script it'd be a placeholder that shows the style more than specifics. What he sent me reaffirmed for me that I made the right decision in getting Caleb and Noel together...

Labels: creators, dearsanta

Seamus Heffernan was my collaborator on Postcards: True Stories That Never Happened. He was the last guy I brought on. Everyone kept asking me who I was going to work with - being that I was the one putting Postcards together, they expected me to partner myself with a big name.

I was never really into that - I've always been about showcasing as many talented up-and-comers as I can. It would have been hypocritical if I went with a well-established, "big-name" guy. So I asked Seamus, a guy I wanted to work with for some time, and Seamus was down. He did a fantastic job (here are some of his pages: 1, 2, and 3) - I'm glad that I got to work with him before he becomes a big-time cartoonist.

And that may be happening soon...

You see - Seamus just sent me his thesis comic. He graduated art school on the 20th of May and this book won the award for Best Fine Art Thesis. The book opened up to be 24"x34" with a hand-made leather and wood cover. The art is all ink and egg tempera. And, the best part, is that it looks like this:





Seamus plans on doing six more books like this.

It was great knowing you, Seamus. Maybe you can sign something for me sometime in the future.

Labels: creators, postcards

I love Jason Copland. I hooked him up with Stuart Moore in Western Tales of Terror #4 and then hooked him up with Matt Dembicki in Postcards: True Stories That Never Happened. I'll bring Jason onto any project I can fit him in. So, when he asked me if I was interested in editing his new book with Michael May, Kill All Monsters!, I was pretty much ready to jump on site-unseen.

Jason sent me the opening scene. At the time, I was finishing up on Elk's Run and ramping up Postcards - Kill All Monsters! was in a completely different creative direction than both of those books. But it was fun. And it was over-the-top and action-packed and still had some great character stuff underneath it so I figured I'd give it a shot.

We finished up the first issue so far - the pitch is going out shortly. I figured I'd share some pages with you guys and give you a look at my first little pieces of editorial insight. I like to do the quiet character pieces, sure, but I have to admit - with the right script I become that little boy with the G.I. Joes, setting up tremendous battle scenes in my bedroom. Except I curse a lot more now.

My first reaction to the opening scene:

I'm seeing this opening sequence with twenty or thirty planes and the only dialog going between the squadron leader and the man at command. Open it up the same way and slowly establish the squadron on the next to last, double wide panel - looking from behind. Last double wide panel repeats the shot but with a big fucking monster hand in the background, coming up from behind a rock or some shit. Then second page is just bam - three planes in his hand, another two crashing into him, the remaining fifteen break off. Recircles, missiles flying, the command screen is showing them going down and the commander is trying to call them back - ordering them back but they're getting slaughtered - giant monster arms swatting them out of the sky, deflecting missiles - total fucking chaos. Throwing planes into other planes. Monster walks off unphased, a graveyard of smoldering planes, the commander trying to get someone to answer but there's no one left.

The monster destroys the entire squadron within ten seconds kind of shit - set up how unstoppable he is.

After Michael told me that the larger story will reveal that the American military is on its last legs and it wouldn't work to show this massive force, I came back with


Ah - you see, I didn't get the whole North American forces depleted thing. There's a fun way to bring that out, actually, and that's by using a rag-tag collection of wounded fighter jets and improvised attack planes. How awesome would that be? Fighter jets from the north, paint chipped and patched up - on their last legs - older planes flanking from the south - Vietnam War hold overs that were refurbished from museums. 727s doing kamikaze dives to distract the monster while a crop duster delivers the old stockpiled-sarin.

That causes the monster to sneeze.

If I see that, I'd know that the military is FUCKED.

Michael took my advice and rolled with it - the tone was set and we had our opening arc plotted out days later. It's a fun little story - I hope you all enjoy it.

Labels: killallmonsters

Black Metal is the new book from Oni Press, written by Rick Spears (who I worked with on Postcards: True Stories That Never Happened) and illustrated by Chuck BB (who I worked with on Western Tales of Terror). Go check it out!

Labels: creators, linkylink

Every so often Something Awful's Photoshop Phriday plays with classic comic covers and the result is "milk-out-the-nose" funny. Go check it out.

Although parts one and two seems to have dropped out of the archive, parts three and four are still available for your viewing pleasure. You should probably read Something Awful's Comic Swat, as well, where they poke fun of some of comics more outrageous costume designs.

Labels: linkylink

He talks a bit about his Postcards story as well as some other books he's doing. I don't know what they are, though, I didn't pay attention to the rest of the interview. Something about Tales from the Crypt or something. Whatevs - POSTCARDS, baby!

Labels: creators, linkylink, postcards, press

Here's a little look at Eric Hobbs' and Noel Tuazon's The Broadcast (edited by me, Jason Rodriguez). We'll have a pitch ready-to-go by San Diego...

Labels: preview, thebroadcast

First off - a very big thanks to LA postcard dealer Sera Sacks. Sera managed to supply me with half of the postcards I'm using for Volume II. Sera is history editor Christina Rice's aunt (and, in case you don't know, Christina Rice is Joshua Hale Fialkov's wife-to-be). Sera was great to work with - Christina and Josh went to her house one afternoon, picked out about 75 cards, mailed them to me, I took the ones I wanted and mailed the rest back. It was a great way to collect California-themed cards. I thanked Sera, sent a check, and told her I'd see her at the wedding.

Then, earlier this week, I get a card in the mail from Sera with two postcards enclosed. One of them is phenomenal and has a guaranteed spot in the next volume of the book.

The front is downright creepy, with a hand-written message on it that says, "I hope you will not be disgusted at it."


The back shows that the card was sent to a Miss. E. Iveson in 1908, I believe. Miss Iveson was apparently staying at Bishop Thornton's Vicarage in Markington Via Leeds. I'm sure that makes sense to the English folks.



It reads:

Dear Ethel.
I passed your place on Thursday morning at 11-45. I knocked at the window but no one answered it. I saw him in the yard so I did not wait. Thursday night all being well.
With the best of Love, THM.

How's that for a story? A man knocking on his lovers widow in the afternoon, sneaking around the yard, hoping not to get caught by "him." The Bishop, perhaps? What a great card...

Labels: collection, postcards

One more post before bed in an attempt to get some more new content on the blog. First, Rob Guillory's Sam Cooke:


I love black & white graphic novels, I love that Sam Cooke. But, honestly...just check out the color:



I also wanted to share with you my "kick-off" email to Rob. Chris Stevens, my cowriter on this project, found Rob and started working with him as the potential artist for this book. I saw the above B&W sketch and fell in love. The subject title was, "That's Where It's At." The email went on to say...

My favorite Cooke song. It took me a wile to appreciate it, though. I was at a party, winding down – last song kind of stuff - and I asked the DJ to play some Cooke. He asked what I wanted to hear and I told him, “Something my lady and I can dance to.” He played “That’s Where It’s At.” I must have heard that song a hundred times but, standing there with my girl, holding her close to me, and singing it into her ear – I got it.

That’s what Sam Cooke does, man – he’s in a state when he sings and, sometimes, you find yourself in that exact same state when the song is on and you feel what he was feeling. The best thing about that song, though? Is the fact that the song is better than Sam and Sam knows it. You see, people love “You Send Me” and “Only 16” but those songs are easy – Sam lays them down and it’s clean as all hell. But “That’s Where It’s At” – that song beats him. It beats him and at one point he laughs (and he laughs a lot in his stuff, granted) but you know it’s because it’s beating him. But Sam would just show us that you don’t have to beat a song to master it. It’s an amazing thing.

Chris has been showing me your Sam Cooke illustrations – they’re amazing. I came up with the idea for this book about a year ago and I’ve been tossing it around with Chris. I guess he got sick of hearing me talk about it and he started writing it. Put the fire under my ass. I’ve been reading Dream Boogie and Our Uncle Sam. The former to help build the structure around these stories and the latter to help us understand the man. I know Chris is gearing up to do an opening story about 8 year-old Sam born to sing. I want to fast forward to the end of the QCs and beginning of the Soul Stirrers. I know I want to take the ending – I want to end this book with “A Change Is Gonna Come”. I don’t want to touch the death, that’s not our story.

But I think, thematically, we want to hit the fact that Sam overcame adversity. Chris’s story – the one with the popsicle sticks – that’s more than just about his audience. Back when he started singing in Chicago, a lot of his audience was rival singers. He knew he was going to sing, everyone knew they were going to sing. But Sam KNEW he was going to sing. I want to touch on this story I read about him getting into some trouble in the white park – the cops telling him that they’ll hang him and no-one will find the body. His first brush with racism. He goes on to make pop songs and crossover hits but he never sounded as alive as when he did shows at the Apollo. I think that spirit is what drives “A Change Is Gonna Come”. Knowing you have people that need you, knowing where people are saying you’re supposed to be, but overcoming adversity and laying down the soundtrack for the Civil Rights movement.

That’s what he did, though, all the time. He overcame. He mastered everything he touched, even if he couldn’t beat it. Just like “That’s Where It’s At.

Anyway – I’m just rambling now. I wanted to say that I loved the sketches. I’m excited for this project. Is going to be beautiful, we’re going to introduce a generation to Sam Cooke.

I think I’m ready to start laying down the first two chapters. How we work it logistically – we’ll figure it out. But I think this going to be a blast – I’m real excited to do this.

Goodnight everyone. Kiss your loved ones. That's where it's at.

Labels: preview, samcooke

If I'm going to start putting together a baseball-themed graphic novel for the masses I should probably start educating the masses on obscure baseball terms. I realized this today when I was at a Nats-Pirates' game with some friends. The Nats had runners on first and second with one out and a left-hander coming up to bat. The Pirates, with their once-comfortable lead now dwindling, put a left-handed pitcher into the game in an attempt to force a double play. My friend said, "Didn't this guy used to be a closer?" to which I responded, "Well, he's a LOOGY now."

No-one knew what I was talking about.

"A LOOGY? A Lefty One Out Guy?"

Nothing. I thought to myself, "What if I used the word LOOGY in the baseball book? Would anyone know what I meant?" So I need to start teaching you - I need to take you to baseball school.

A LOOGY is a left-handed specialist whose only purpose is to pitch to a left-handed batter at a key position late in the game in an attempt to get him out. A left-handed slider breaks down and away from a left handed batter, making it difficult to hit (same goes for a righty on righty). If you're up by a run in the seventh with two outs, there's a lefty at bat, and your opponents have runners on second and third you will, without a doubt, go to your LOOGY. You can always tell the LOOGY on your team: they pitch in almost half of the games within an entire season yet have fewer innings pitched than games played. They'll also only have a save or two, if that much.

You may think this sounds dumb - that a LOOGY isn't a real position. However, I'll have you know that a LOOGY can stick around for well over 20 seasons since their arm isn't stretched thin like other pitchers. Many LOOGYs have had long, successful, and well compensated careers. LOOGYs win games - very few major league teams play without a certified LOOGY on their roster. It's probably the second most important pitching specialist behind the closer.

And, with that, I'll leave you with a picture of the greatest LOOGY of all time...



Jesse Orosco. I got his autograph when I was nine-years old. I was with my parents in Philadelphia for a Mets-Phillies game and I saw Jesse walking down the street. I got his autograph on a piece of paper from my mom's purse. My father told me to thank him for winning the World Series for us and I did. Jesse smiled at me and handed the paper back and walked on - leaving this kid with one of the greatest memories of his life.

Labels: baseball

Noel Tuazon sent me a page from his Postcards story with Antony Johnston. Now, this is the 8th page I've received so far, one from half the stories in the book, but Noel...he puts the effort in, I'll tell you that much.

First there's the envelope, which I tried very hard not to rip:


Then there was the front side of the cardboard packaging:


And then there was the back:


Finally, I get to the actual page:


You gotta love Noel.

Labels: postcards

Eximious Press' website is up-and-running. I want to eventually get a custom made design but, for now, content! Content is where it's at! The side bars should give you an idea of who we are, who we've worked with, and what we do. I'm going to start porting the posts from past production blogs into this blog as I add new content. There will be information posted on our new projects, old projects, as well as little essays on comics in general.

Thanks for coming by and please subscribe to the feed - we're going to have a lot of great stuff here.

Originally published on May 30th, 2007.

A wonderful review from AICN. I'm not going to post the whole thing, it's quite long, but here's a snippet...

These are intimate, real life stories about lovers and liars, adventurers and cowards, heroes and villains. The time and effort spent in each story is evident. Editor Jason Rodriguez says that postcards were the first forms of text messaging. They were written in code or in-speak, often vague or unclear to anyone except the writer and the person the card was intended for. These snapshots in time were all these writers and artists needed to take off to make this truly memorable graphic novel. If you want to try something new in the indie market, but are afraid to take a chance, try POSTCARDS: TRUE STORIES THAT NEVER HAPPENED. I doubt you will be disappointed.

Click to read the rest...

Labels: postcards, review

Originally published on May 29th, 2007.

PW Comics Week was nice enough to share Stuart Moore & Michael Gaydos' POSTCARDS story. Please go read it and fall in love.

Labels: postcards, press, preview

Originally published on May 29th, 2007.

I get emails now and again from folks talking about what they've done to help promote POSTCARDS. I just got one that prompted me to start a feature where I'll be profiling the fans that went above and beyond the Call of Duty. Dale Rawlings, talented cartoonist, witty writer, Postcards Fan: We salute you...

Hey Jason,

I was in Barnes and Noble in Rockville on Saturday and was walking past the graphic novel section when I saw an attractive woman looking at the offerings from the indie trades shelf. She picked up a copy of Elk's Run and started thumbing through it which provoked me to walk over and start talking with her. I mentioned knowing you and your involvement with the book and the amount of Harvey Awards it was nominated for which sealed the sale for her. I then began talking up Postcards (I saw there is an ad for it in the back of Elk's Run) noticing she had a few other graphic novels in her basket. I walked over to another section afterwards and a few minutes later she came over to thank me for recommending your books to her and she would definitely look for Postcards. Just thought you might get a kick out that.

Dale

I applaud you for not only promoting good comics like Elk's Run and Postcards but for proving to an attractive member of the opposite sex that you have exceptional taste at the same time.

You're the kind of person that I want reading Postcards: Smart.

Labels: postcards

Originally published on May 29th, 2007.

Three weeks. July 17th is the new release date.

This is great news for the book, obviously. You see - now we're going head-to-head with Harry Potter. This way, when Postcards gets crowned the number one book of the year, none of you nay-sayers can say things like, "Oh! But Postcards had a three week head start!"

We're starting at the same time. No handicap. J.K. must be quaking in her muggle boots. People are going to be showing up for their Harry Potter midnight launch party to see the Postcards display and say, "Oh! Postcards came out? I only have twenty bucks on me...next time, Harry, I promise."

It will be a glorious victory. One talked about for many years to come.

Ok, seriously. If anyone can provide me with proof that they went into their bookstore during a Harry Potter Midnight Launch Party and asked for/buys Postcards, I'll make sure that one of my creators gets a sketch postcard mailed out to you or we get you a signed book or something. You can still buy Harry Potter, but if your receipt says Postcards or if you go ahead and make a little film of yourself raising a ruckus because your bookstore doesn't have any Postcards for its Postcards Midnight Launch Party, I will find a way to get something cool to you.

Promise.

Please spread the word, too. I think this could be fun…

Labels: postcards

Originally published on May 22nd, 2007.

I was going to just cut and paste the review but I need to set this up a bit. Library Journal is a VERY important journal to get a good review in. I was sitting on pins and needles waiting to see what they thought about the book. This isn't the actual journal, yet, but this is a nice indication of what's to come, I'm hoping. Between this review and Kirkus selecting us for their 2007 Graphic Spotlight, I'm feeling damn good about this book.

Ok, onto the review...

Postcards: True Stories That Never Happened. Villard: Random. Jun. 2007. 160p. ed. by Jason Rodriguez. ISBN 978-0-345-49850-2. $21.95. ANTHOL

As the title suggests, the inspiration for each of the graphic short stories in this anthology was one of the antique, used postcards in the editor's collection. Sixteen stories by more than 25 contributors, many with multiple award nominations, provide a wide variety of styles in art and storytelling. Each piece is introduced by Rodriguez with an explanation of his expectations from each postcard and how, more often than not, the artists and writers went above and beyond what he imagined. A number of the stories allow for brief, poignant glimpses into the characters' lives, like an American couple taking refuge in Paris during the Depression; two tic-tac-toe hustlers trying for one more scam; a mother hiding her illness from her playful, young daughter; and an elderly man missing his deceased wife. One lighter adventure is a tongue-in-cheek tribute to the Golden Age of comics starring a superhero known as the Midnight Caller. A collaboration by Harvey Pekar, Joyce Brabner, and Matt Kindt illustrates how a life can be summed up simply in the cards and letters one receives. Readers of the popular Flight volumes will enjoy the anthology format, but Postcards will appeal more to those who lean toward real-life tales like Brian Fies's Mom's Cancer, Alison Bechdel's Fun Home, or Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis. Older teens and adults will appreciate the book's themes and art. In addition to the black-and-white artwork, Postcards will feature an eight-page full-color insert, although this was not available in the galley copy. Recommended.—Don Boozer, Cleveland P.L.

(I emphasized the "Recomended")

Labels: postcards, review

Originally published on May 18th, 2007.

Some Postcards creators and I are doing a podcast for cIndyCenter.com and they're taking questions for us here. You don't even need to sign up so, you know, go put some questions up. They're recording the podcast at 9PM Monday so go there now. NOW!

Labels: postcards, press

Originally published on May 8th, 2007.

What a week. This has essentially been Postcards II week. I got eleven people set up so they can start working. I've also had some VERY exciting meetings that I can't discuss yet but, you know, they're EXCITING. All caps all the way.

But I think I'm back. For now. There are things to watch out for! For instance...

1) I'd watch out for the Kirkus Review 2007 Graphic Literature Spotlight. I don't know - there may be a book in there you may be excited about.

2) I'd watch out for a thing or two on Bookslut cause there may be a thing or two about a thing or two.

3) I'd watch out for something in the Washington Post. Because, you know, there could be something interesting in the Post.

4) I'd watch out for an alliance that will BLOW YOUR MIND.

5) I'd also look for anything...out of the ordinary...at San Diego Comic-Con, if you plan on going. Because there may be some things that catch your eye if you're paying attention.

6) I'd watch out for a viral bomb on a local website you may or may not visit everyday. I go to mine everyday, at least. Do you go to yours?

I'd just keep your eyes open. This way, when we take over, you can say that you saw it coming.

Labels: postcards

Originally published April 30th, 2007.

More of a pre-review lead-up to a bigger column but still - it's nice to know that the first person who read the book seemed to really dig it. From Colleen Mondor or ChasingRay.com and writer for Booklist and Bookslut:

Jason Rodriguez collected a bunch of antique postcards and then sent them out to some graphic novelists who crafted the most amazing bunch of stories based on just a few lines and a picture. Postcards: True Stories That Never Happened is a very unique collection and I highly recommend it. It's due out in June and the final copy looks gorgeous. Rodriguez has writers like Ande Parks, Antony Johnston and Tom Beland along and a host of talented illustrators. There's a little bit of everything here but mostly very human drama. I hope the book is successful and a second title appears behind it - this is just a great idea and very well executed. (In the July column along with other books for creative teens although it is written for an adult audience as well.)

Labels: postcards, review

Originally published on April 28th, 2007

I'm a fan of Brian Wood's Local. Perfectly packaged individual stories where we grow up with Megan McKeenan as she travels from town to town and experiences life in a way that's relatable to all of us, no matter where we live. As a fun little warm-up exercise this past week – I've been picking out postcards from my collection that remind me of each issue of Local as a way to prove to myself that what we're doing in Postcards is telling stories about the past that resonate with us today.  

So, here's what I got. And, yeah – this'll probably be a lot easy if you've read Local, so go out and buy the issues and then come back.  

Issue 1's postcard was obvious. It's one of my recent favorites. It was sent on November 12th, 1915 from a Fred Christen of San Francisco, CA to a Louise Costa of Benecia, California. I have two cards that were mailed between the developing couple, this one being the later of the two. It reads (grammar mistakes and all):  

Monday, Nov 8, 1915
Dear Friend,
Just a card to let you no that I got home safe and easy. I was in Oakland at 9 o'clock and was home at ten o'clock. I hope you feel the same and hope that your father didn't say much. It was raining all day down hear and I feel funny on rainy days and wish it would stop. I guess you seen in the paper that there was a big fire in Frisco Sunday afternoon. I will write you a letter tomorrow night and I guess I will get a card from you also tomorrow evening. I am still thinking about when you said cut it out. You no what I mean. But don't cut it out dearie not for a while anyhow. And don't always think that I am going to harm you because I ain't. I love you too much and now don't think of it anymore and you will feel better. So good bye dearie.
With love. From Fred.  
Answer soon and give my regards to Annie. Good bye dearie Fred C.  



When I read this card and focus on key phrases like, "don't always think that I am going to harm you because I ain't," I can't help but hope that Louise simply walked away, much like Megan did. When you read enough of these postcards, especially the ones that imply a horrible life, you find yourself cheering these people on and hoping that they turn things around for themselves.  

Issue 2's card was a bit harder to pick out. There wasn't a lot that seemed to fit this book thematically. That may say more about our modern day courtship procedures than my postcard collection. But I found one that I like, if anything for the novelty of it. This one was actually used in Postcards, and it's possible that my perception of the story behind this card is partially biased by Jay Busbee and Tony Fleecs tale of taboo romance.  

My dearest Frieda,
Well how are you I am just fine. I hope you are the same. Well how did you get home Sunday didn't we had a good time Frieda. I bet our pictures that you took, isn't no good. I wish a made a face. Because I look like a monkey.
Well goodbye. Ella Rothenbriechler  



At the very least, it has the playfulness of picture taking. It's missing the creepy undertones from issue 2, however. These aren't perfect matches, by any means.  

Issue 3's card, I think, captures that feeling of drudging up old memories. Coming home again – if only in a spiritual sense. Likely mailed from Long Beach, California to an unknown destination.  

Dear Sister.
You don't know how I appreciate your thoughtfulness and labor in stirring up so many old friends, many being almost the same as dead to me. No one but you would have thought of it, or taken the work of it. So many, many thanks. It will amuse me many hours reading them over.
J.D.B  



In issue three Frank Locke, at least, seems to be at peace with being back home. Although this postcard can easily be from Richmond, Virginia's point of view. The beloved band coming home after deserting it – the members all but dead to the city.  

A card mailed in 1909 is the one I'm putting up for issue four.  

Look under stamp.
I was in town today. Hope you were not in a fight last night.
Your friend, Arter  



Under the stamp is an "X". To me, the "X" always represented a reversal from what was written on the card. I have postcards that I'm convinced where mailed between mobsters or spies and this is one of them. The "X" is very threatening, like Arter is a hitman in town and he knows Earl got into a fight with someone that he wasn't supposed to. The "X" being the postal version of the "kiss of death." And it's coming from Earl's friend. Makes me think about "Two Brothers."  

Issue 5 – I have a lot of cards that fit issue five. I think that feeling of loneliness and isolation is an American tradition that predates baseball and apple pie.  I finally settled on one that completely breaks my heart. I can't get the exact year off of it, it's old, but it was mailed from Sacramento to Yountsville in Napa County.  

Dear Della
How are you getting along in Yountsville? I am more lonesome here then I was their (sic) for Charlie works all day and is two (sic) tired to go out in the evening. So I stay home all the time and don't know anybody to talk to. How is the Gray Horse? Well, Dell, I don't know anything to write so will close hoping you will send some card soon. With love,  



The saddest part? She wrote this in pencil and her name has faded away. I can make out an "A" and that's it. She's nameless, a ghost. No-one in Sacramento knows who she is. A perfect fit for "The last lonely days at the Oxford Theater."  

Issue 6. You'd think that with all the frontiersmen shacking up with roommates and even bedmates I'd get at least ONE where someone was complaining about the person they were living with. Since I don't have one I had to go with this overarching theme of public accusation. Rumor mongering and talking behind people's backs. For that, I went with a card that was mailed March 23rd, 1923, from an Anna Voorhees of Tittusville, Pennsylvania, to a Mrs. William Bowmaster of Orrtanna, PA. The card reads:  

Dear Cousin Anna
Wish you a Happy Easter. I will ans. your welcome letter later on. Some one from Adams Co. told the girls that you married a man who had a 12 yr. old and I thought they must have made a mistake when you never spoke of him in your letters. That is why I ask you about him.
With love, Cousin Anna Voorhees  



You can almost see the rift form between these two cousins. If it's true, the sender would feel like she wasn't important. If it was false, the recipient would feel like people where spreading hurtful rumors behind her back. It can only end the same way "Megan and Gloria, Apartment 5a" ends.  

For issue 7 I went with a card mailed between two cousins. It's a sweet card – a special connection between two people who haven't seen each other in, presumably, years. Flowers drawn on the backside and some words scribbled in Italian. The card was sent from Milan in 1972 but it went to NE Washington DC – not the greatest neighborhood in the world. I don't know, I read this card and I see something else beneath it all. A story of two cousins that are holding onto the memories of different people.  

I'll write you soon! Dear cousin, how are you? I'm fine. Nadia was sick in the bed for a few days but now she is well. Mummy and daddy are OK and they are working. I'm too much busy at school.
{Italian}
I would like to see all of you again. Goodbye.
{more Italian}  



Now, my Italian is horrible. But the first bit looks like it says: "Fai le condoglianse alla zia Sarah per la morte della zio Emilio. Grazie."  Which I believe says something like, "Can you ________________ Aunt Sarah for the dead women of Uncle Emilio. Thanks."  

The second block is impossible for me to decipher. I have a hard enough time reading the English on these. I can make out words like "uncle" and "ballot" and giving thanks for something beautiful but that's about it. The words are most likely wrong. If you know Italian, feel free to correct me. It seems to say, "Ho diucuticato di dire, zio che ho. Ricer it o la papello e ho digli ottiun voti, in implese bi & & L il voto massino. Grasie aucora per le bellissime vacause che in avete fatto transcorrer. Di cuore, So nia. Qui non posso uskiri perche e Carier ale el napossi picchiuno le rapasse coi nonpaulell"  

For issue 8. Well – Megan made a big decision in issue 8. She was always one to mess up and leave the city she's in. This time, she decided to make a commitment. Since the series is continuing on in four more cities, I assume she's going to get hurt pretty bad. I could be wrong, but when I think about Megan's current state of mind at the end of issue 8, I think about this postcard:  



And that's that. This was kind of fun. Maybe I'll try the same thing with story arcs for Stray Bullets. Maybe that'll inspire David Lapham to finish up.  

Maybe.

Labels: postcards

Originally published on April 25th, 2007.

I'm going to need one Postcards supporter from every state. If you have some writing skills, even better. Drop me a message, email, etc to let me know where you're from. I'm talking about a twenty-minute commitment sometime in the near future. It'll be fun.

Labels: postcards

Originally published April 25th, 2007.

April has been one hell of a month. In case you missed anything, here's EVERYTHING…

Blog@Newsarama
Chris Stevens and GB Tran talk "Blue"
Antony Johnston talks "Best Side Out"
Matt Dembicki and Jason Copland talk "Send Louis His Underwear"
Phil Hester talks "A Joyous Eastertide"
Stuart Moore and Michael Gaydos talk "Tic-Tac-Bang-Bang"

Comic Book Resources
Rick Spears & Rob G talk "Operation Torch"
Ande Parks talks "Taken on Faith"
Robert Tinnell talks "The Midnight Caller's Holiday in Hades"
Matt Kindt talks about working with Harvey Pekar and Joyce Brabner on "The History of a Marriage"
Tom Beland talks "Time" and we show the complete story

Jason Rodriguez interviewed on Newsarama

Jason Rodriguez interviewed on Comics in the Classroom

The Postcards contest had a couple of lucky winners

The Promote Page is launched

The List is launched

We got mentions or press releases posted on the following websites: Comics Worth Reading, The Beat, Journalista, Comics Should be Good, Comics DC, Beer & Meat, Chasing Ray, Neilalien, Comics Curmudgeon, Comic Pants, The Comics Reporter, Antihero Comics, almost all of the creator's sites, and a surprising number of foreign sites that I can't read.

Also this month: I got a coconut, a postcard mailed to Elizabeth Taylor, a gift from the Bathtub Museum, and a blurb from Frank Warren (and I got to meet him, too).

And, in case you haven't realized this, we showed a total of 31 pages of art with all of the above press.

Some of you received postcards from me, mailed to your shop. Some of them had me saying "hey" and some of them had sketches like these or these.

So, what comes next? We all worked really hard this week to show you that Postcards is going to be FANTASTIC. What you need to do tomorrow, when you go into your comic store to pick up your weekly books, is say to your retailer (or feel free to print these out, if you don't want to write it down):

Can you please order me a copy of Postcards: True Stories That Never Happened? It's in Previews, page 368, under Villard Books. Order # APR074039. In case you order your graphic novels from another distributor, the ISBN # is 034549850X. Thank you.

If you don't have a comic store near you, go to your local bookstore and say:

Can you please order me a copy of Postcards: True Stories That Never Happened? It's being published by Villard Books and its ISBN # is 034549850X. Thank you.

If you don't feel like supporting your community, I won't chastise you this time. I'll just tell you to go and pre-order the book on Amazon.

Thanks for those that listened, thanks for the support, and spread the word.

Labels: postcards

Originally published on April 24th, 2007.

One went up late last night and one earlier today.

First we had Robert Tinnell talking about "The Midnight Caller's Holiday in Hades."

One of my biggest worries was trying to write period. This story is not in my usual voice. I actually forced myself to do a few things I would never normally do. In fact, there's one sentence that drove me nuts, but I knew back in the day it would have been phrased as such. And then when it came to his powers I played that a little loose -- as though you could tell the concepts behind him were vague and somewhat evolving and we were stumbling into one of his early adventures -- not quite at the very beginning, but definitely when the character was developing. Because as any student of the Golden Age knows, that's what happened. Superman couldn't fly at one point, right, so I'm deliberately introducing minor inconsistencies with the character. Whether that's bad or good I'll leave to the reader to decide, but it was fun to experiment.

Then Matt Kindt, talking about his experience working with Harvey Pekar and Joyce Brabner.

Yeah, definitely. I kind of felt like I just stumbled onto the set of a movie – Harvey and Joyce are in the scene, doing their thing and making history – and then all of a sudden – hey! Who's that in the background? Me! – How'd he get in there? Just kind of funny to me. Something I won't forget and truthfully I hope I can continue in the future. Harvey had said he'd keep me in mind and I just said, say the word, you know? He's just one of those legendary figures that you just drop whatever you're doing for the opportunity to work with him. Definitely the highlight of my career so far.

Labels: postcards, press

Originally published on April 23rd, 2007.

Ever since I set up the PO Box I've received a fair amount of postcards and letters. I love getting them, I answer when I can. Well - today I got my first coconut (sent to the home address but that's fine, it would likely rot in the PO Box since I only check that once a week or so):

Labels: postcards

Originally published on April 22, 2007.

 I stopped keeping it a secret a while ago: The second volumeof Postcards will be called California Dreaming. Cowboys moving out, moviestars moving in – missionaries, earthquakes, and immigration from the Far East.

I've spent the past couple of months purchasing nothing butpostcards that have been mailed to or from California. Much like with the first volume,you dig through these shoeboxes and you never know what you'll find. Liketoday, for instance, when I was at a postcard show at the Dulles AirportMarriot.

I think this card is the Holy Grail for this volume. I can'timagine the book ending any other way. It was mailed in 1956. Los Angeles was in full Hollywood mode and California was no longer a land of cowboysand prospectors and missionaries. Californiabecame a fantasy – a place that not only created art that inspired nations, butwhere the creators that lived there became our desires. Their lifestyles andtheir beauty and their larger-than-life feel.

Steparic Jvica of Yugoslavia was California Dreamingin 1956 when he sent this postcard to Elizabeth Taylor:

The back reads:

"Dear Mrs.
I saw you in many films and I'm delighted with your actionin films and your own appearance. As I would like to keep you in my lastingmemory I pray to send me your photograph with an autograph.
Many thanks in advance.
Yours sincerely,
Jvica"

 

 

Labels: postcards

Originally published on April 21st, 2007.

Day 2 of our 5 day takeover. Check it out.

There are some similarities in the approach, but it's a very different animal. With both "Union Station" and "Capote in Kansas," I had big historical frameworks in which I had to place my themes and story. With the postcard, all I had was a little glimpse. That gave me a lot more freedom in fitting a story around the material.

Labels: postcards, press

Originally published on April 20th, 2007.

I love it when two creative minds get together and the energy starts to crackle between them, talking about art and future projects. It all happened at a postcards show held at the Dulles Airport Marriot. I, Jason Rodriguez, and Frank Warren, the man behind PostSecret, got together and went postcard shopping.

We talked about our projects – we talked about our art. Frank has a long background in postcards, PostSecret being his third postcard art project. I'm relatively new to the postcard scene but with an unusual interest in the backs of worn and dirty postcards. And we both have books. Frank's are critically acclaimed and are often passed around between friends and family members; catching people off guard with their brute honesty and reliability. Mine pay homage to an older time often confused as being a simpler time, but the correspondences allude to despair, mystery, heartbreak, and scandal.

He was at the show buying photocards of people. I was at the show buying postcards with California postmarks. Frank would ask people if they had any cards like the ones he was looking for and get handed a box. People would ask me what I was looking for and I'd say, "Postcards mailed to or from California during the early 1900s," and got a strange look.

Despite the differences in our projects, and there are many, we both have a love for the postcard. And it was great spending a couple of hours with him, discussing them.

I had a gift for him but I left it home – this month of promotion has worked me ragged and I'm getting a bit forgetful. He brought me an autographed copy of PostSecret: Extraordinary Confessions from Ordinary Lives. Knowing that I'm a fan of the story behind something (and the fact that I already own the book) Frank gave me a special copy.

The cover of the book has Frank's PostSecret address on it. Occasionally, someone slaps some postage on the book and mails it to him. No box, no wrapping. Just the book. Frank gave me one of these books – a postally used PostSecret book.

I also purchased about thirty postcards. There were so many good ones, I'll be sure to share some with you all this weekend.

Anyway, for now, I'm even more inspired than I was yesterday. I'm ready to go out and make a second volume.

Labels: postcards

Originally published on April 20th, 2007.

First, some plugs. A lot of Postcards activity this month. We had control of Blog@Newsarama for a week, Chris Arrant interviewed me for Newsarama proper, Comics in the Classroom talked to me about the book, and we're coming up on day two of our week-long takeover of Comic Book Resources (Rick Spears and Rob G where the highlights of day one). Please, check them out.

And check out the website! Go to the promote page and do what you can to show some love! Tell me if your comic shop is ordering Postcards so I can add them to The List! Send someone you love an ePostcard! Friend us up on MySpace!

Ok, enough of that. You're here for the contest…

_________________________________

We had a lot of entries. A lot of good entries. James and I read each one. There were some that made us laugh, some that made us roll our eyes, and some that made us…well…feel a little dirty. At the end of the day, we went with one that captured the spirit of the anthology. It was sent by Jeff Siwanowicz of Seattle, Washington.

Charley,
Franklin and I were pleased that you caught a train to visit us for our annual Labor Day supper. Mother left our house the eve of September 7th stating that she had business to attend to in Africa. Her fiancée knows Teddy Roosevelt and has been ranting about the wonders of the African East Coast. She informed us that she will be traveling on an ivory expedition and should return for a July 4th celebration we are attending in Toledo next year. We hope you will be able to make it out again to visit.
Sincerely,
Eva Billman

This story (which, I'd like to add, is 99-words long, one short of the maximum) has everything we look for in a Postcards story. It's grounded in our reality, it's aligned with history, it's clever, and, like a postcard, it represents a fragment of the whole story, leaving our imaginations to figure out the rest.

So, congratulations to Jeff Siqanowicz – your page of Michael Gaydos' art will be in the mail shortly. He sure looks shocked:

Now, as I said, there were a lot of good entries. So many, in fact, that I've decided to give out some runner-up prizes – but the winners are going to have to wait a little while to get them. Two lucky people will be receiving super-signed copies of Postcards: True Stories That Never Happened. What does super-signed mean? Essentially, the copies will be sent out after San Diego Comic-Con, which will allow me to get a LARGE chunk of the creators to sign them. Most of them, really.

The first prize goes to David Lamson who sent us the following entry:

Charley,
Town councilman Whitney Klingbell is a cad. That scalawag treated your mother like a trollop. At the trading post I even heard Lucas Walters and Ule Malloffson laughing about her "dry goods" selling so cheaply. But your dear mother never lacked for gumption. She sauntered into the Town Board meeting, and with great fanfare pulled Whitney's monogrammed monocle from her décolletage. The scandal! The brouhaha! Mavis Klingbell dumped her rhubarb pie right on his bald head. The Gazette's headline: "Red-Faced Romeo Rues Roving Eye." Your mother then hopped a steamer to London, to enjoy autumn beneath Queen Victoria's skies.

It's a grand tale. A real ballyhoo. I found it interesting how many people had Charley's mother either running around with the opposite sex or stoned out of her mind. You're talking about someone's mother, people! Cheers to David Lamson for giving Charley's mom a bit of hardihood – she showed all you undistinguished chaps how to treat a lady!

Then we have the person known only as "Thom." Thom – can you please send me your full name and address? Thanks! The ePostcard feature uses an alias email, so I don't have your email address. Your entry is like the ones I mentioned above, with Charley's mom chasing sex, except, well…very clever…

Charley
We regret to inform you, but your mother was last seen roaming the fields of wheat in ghostlike fashion. True, she is nay a ghost, but age and sun has ravished her once beautiful exterior. Her words float ominously like a sick bird across the stalks that gently bend in the wind, as if they all doff their collective hats to the mysterious visitor. Wheat can be quite the gentlemen if treated properly.

Thanks to everyone who submitted an entry for this contest. I wish I had ten more prizes to give out. But they'll be more contests, likely in July. Check out the blog and the website for any updates. Thanks for your love and support! Postcards: True Stories That Never Happened coming June 26^th to a store near you!

Labels: postcards, press

Originally published April 19th, 2007.

I'm taking over CBR for a week. First up, some talking and some art sharing with Rick Spears and Rob G.

Well, first let me start by saying I never wanted to do this project at all. I'm serious. I have a terribly hard time doing the short 8 to 10 page stories. I guess it's my background in writing screenplays or graphic novels that I'm just more comfortable working out my ideas at length. So, on these short pieces I agonize over them because I have so little room to get my point across. Add to that I had just come off doing two of them for the "24Seven" anthology and I was swearing up and down that I would never do another anthology again when you asked us on. Rob of course says yes instantly leaving me to stop my crying and get to business. So there it is. However, now that it's all done I'm totally excited to be part of this awesome book.

Labels: postcards, press

Originally published April 19th, 2007.

Just got an email from Jan at the Comic Cafe in Bremen, Germany telling me that they'll be ordering some shelf copies of Postcards. So I wanted to take a moment to say, "hallo und dank," to whoever's raising awareness of the book over there and apologize for potentially butchering your language.

Comic Cafe is, of course, added to The List.

Labels: postcards

Originally published on April 18th, 2007.

Chris Arrant interviewed me for Newsarama. Go check it out!

I try to be a postcard guy. I do. I have a stack of about two hundred unused postcards on my desk that I bought off of eBay. I recently used about fifty cards to write notes to retailers announcing the book. I set up a PO Box so people can write me letters and I can write back. The letters and postcards I've received are piling up and the stack of unused postcards isn't going down at all.

It's just weird. We write all through school but I sit down now to write a one page letter and my hand starts cramping, I'm putting white out all over the page because my brain has been trained to go faster than my hand can move – it's a mess.

Labels: postcards, press

Originally published on April 17th, 2007.

If so, let me know, and I'll put them on "The List."

Labels: postcards

Originally posted on April 15th, 2007.

Is Postcards: True Stories That Never Happened good for schools?

Jason Rodriguez things so. Read the interview.

It's hard to gauge these things with comics. There are plenty of literary classics within a wartime setting that are required reading in most schools. Rich in detail, the reader can see a battlefield covered with bodies in their mind. But, with a comic, you actually see the war. And despite how much shadowing and angling you use to murky up the images, there's no denying the fact that what you're looking at graphic representation of a dead body.

Labels: postcards, press

Originally posted on April 13th, 2007.

We'll, we're at the end of week 2 of the Gaydos art contest and the entries are still flying in. We'll raid the mailbag again this week and get Charley to answer a couple of the postcards he's received. I'll let me right-hand man James W. Powell take a crack at the mailbag first…James?

 We've received many good entries, but even some of the more inventive ones fall short of the mark. When I ran across this one, I thought I was in for more of the same, but what I wasn't expecting was a great "twist ending" that would turn the lack of realism on its head…

Dear Charlie,
Mother never left our place. I'm afraid she died two weeks ago. When she arrived at our door, she was naked and had something of a fever. We tried to get her to see a doctor but she is a stubborn women and refused. I wanted to tell you sooner, but she was showing signs of improvement. We couldn't afford a proper funeral, so we had her buried in our back yard. Right next to Julius Caesar and Big Foot.

Your friends do not live here Mr. Frost, please stop writing.

Sincerely-
George Karpen

Charley apparently didn't find the humor in Mr. Karpen's response…

Et tu, Mr. Karpen?
A simple notice that I was sending my correspondence to the wrong address would've sufficed, thank you very much. No need to be rude. And for your information, the notion that my mother would show up on your doorstep without clothes is absurd. Not to mention quite offensive. She is a proper woman, unlike the tramps you obviously run around with..

Charley

Apparently Charley is straight up delusional, since I found this card in the mailbag as well:

Dear Charles,
    It is time that you accept what has happened to Mother.  While it is very difficult to accept, Mother has been missing for over three years.  At this time, I think it best that we accept the facts and attempt to move on with our lives.  The doctors have informed me that you will be unable to leave the hospital's care unless you accept that Mother may have been murdered.  It may seem only weeks to you, but in truth it has been several years.  I beg you, please accept this hard truth.
                                                                         Your loving sister,
                                                                          Eva Billman

Well, Charley just can't take a hit, I reckon.

Dear Eva,
Have you seen mother? It's been over three weeks & you were the last person to see her. Please answer soon, we are starting to worry.
Charley Frost

You have until Wednesday the 18^th, folks. Midnight Pacific Time, let's say. For you Americans, you can get bummed out about your taxes on the 17^th and then celebrate your victory on the 18^th. We'll be announcing the winner here on Friday the 20^th and we've had so many good entries that we may just need to have some consolation prizes. So come on back!

By the way - the two entries above where from Jesse Hanna and Adam Watson, respectively.

Labels: postcards, press

Originally published on April 12th, 2007.

Over the next couple of months I'm going to starting a couple of new projects and I'm looking to find some new creators whose work I may not be familiar with.

There's Postcards II, obviously. I think that'll be starting by the end of April. It'll be bigger than Postcards: True Stories That Never Happened, I'm thinking 20 stories, and I already have some great people signing up. In case you don't know - the first volume of Postcards is coming June 26 from Villard Books, a division of Random House. It features 16 stories inspired by used postcards, told by 30 creators including Harvey Pekar & Joyce Brabner, Phil Hester, and Tom Beland. A full list of creators can be found on the website (linked above). The second volume will focus solely on pre-1920 California-based postcards. We have a history editor on board, Christina Rice, who specializes in early California history (she works at the history department at LA County Library).

I'm going to be taking on the editing chores for a real fun sci-fi project. It's sort of Bladerunner meets Brave New World. Full-color, I want to start pitching it around this con season. I read the draft and realized that this piece needs to be out there.

I'm thinking of kicking up my baseball project again. I've been getting a little interest in it so maybe I should revisit it while I still have Postcards Juice.

I'm sort of taking a more active interest in James W. Powell's anthology he's putting together. James is my assistant editor on Postcards and he seems to be getting some good people interested in his book and the stories are looking pretty good. It's a mixture of cartoonists and essays with spot-illustrations entitled "Dear Santa, Let Me Explain..." I'm writing an essay for it, but I'm putting this out there in case anyone wants to talk to James.

I'm 95% ready to start the Sam Cooke book but I think we have that one stitched up.

So - I'm just looking to say "hi" to folks who are looking to say "hi" to me. So, hi.

Labels: postcards

Originally published on April 11th, 2007.

A couple of the guys in Postcards helped me out by drawing sketches on postcards that I'm mailing to bookstores and comic shops. They all look awesome, by Tony's are especially righteous because three of them are on 1980s style Sea World cards:



Who wouldn't want a limited edition Tony Fleecs/Sea World sketch card?

Labels: postcards

Originally published on April 6th, 2007.

Go check it out.

I didn't really think about that while constructing the story, but I suppose you're right…some of the cards conjure up more emotional situations than others. I think, subconsciously, I was attracted to the LACK of emotionalism in this one, and intrigued by what kind of bond might exist between the two men.

Labels: postcards, press

Originally posted on April 6th, 2007.

Well, we launched our little Michael Gaydos art competition on Monday and the results have been pouring in. James Powell and I have been reading all of the entries and realizing that Charley's mom – she's been busy the past three weeks.

We managed to sit Charley down and get him to respond to two of the postcards he received. The first one, James Powell picked out for him to respond to. The message to Charley read:

Dearest Charley,
Your mother left soon after you. She has taken herself on the road as a performer in Hotel Bella Muerte's Traveling Sideshow. Putting her facial hair to good use, she was last seen in Tulsa with The Fratellini Sisters and Sensei The Mystic Man.

You left your poetry box in the kitchen. I will save it until the next time we gather.

XOXO,
Mrs. Eva

Charley wrote back:

Lovely Eva,
I should've known! I warned mother not to get hooked up with that bunch, but Sensei always did love mother's eyes, and we both know she's powerless against his charms. There's no telling what trouble she'll get into this time. Now what will we ever do with these cases of hair-removal tonic?

Always,
Charley

P.S. I left my poems for a reason, my dear. I hope you find them…appealing.

There was one postcard that caught my eye. You see, I'm a Mets fan. I have fond memories of watching the '86 Mets win game 6 of the World Series – my loud family huddled around the TV set praying for a miracle in a man named Mookie Wilson (and getting it). At any rate, Keith Hernandez played on the Mets in 86, as well, and, well, I always thought he was something of a god. This postcard Charley received proves it:

Charley,
You'll never believe it. Mother and I were walking along the promenade when all of a sudden a burst of lightning appeared and a man emerged. Wearing denim dungarees and a patchwork sweater, he introduced himself as Keith Hernandez, a baseball player from the future who had been sent to fix time itself. He suddenly snatched mother and they both disappeared.

She returned just yesterday with tales of her adventures, bringing back with her the most intriguing mementoes. An alabaster penguin, a sketchbook of prehistoric creatures copulating and a ripened pineapple. It is all a mystery to me…

Eva

Well, Charley doesn't know Keith and what he's capable of like I do, so he responded…

Eva -
Wait a minute…denim dungarees and a patchwork sweater? Did he also have a mustache and dashing smile? My darling, Eva, be weary of that man! He claims to be from the future, from some team called the Metropolitans of Queens (as if anyone can ever take the place of the beloved Brooklyn Superbas!), but that scamp simply abducts women and  gives them some form of opium or, as my daughter called it, "the finest sticky-icky to ever leave Jamaica." (She got that witch-talk from him, of course.)

I am ashamed of you, you should have not let mother go to him. I'm afraid she'll be lost forever to the "skyrockets in flight, afternoon delight." (Again, Claire's term. That huckster has ruined her good.)

Charley

And that's all for next. Keep sending those entries in. We'll get Charley to respond to a couple of more cards next Friday, and then on the 20^th we'll announce the winner of the contest. Thanks for all of the submissions so far!

 

The above submissions, by the way, were from Carolyn Belefski and Jess Chin, respectively.

Labels: postcards, press

Originally published on April 5th, 2007.

I made a pretty big mistake - in a lot of the press releases and, extremely embarrassingly, on the website bio page, I've omitted Joyce Brabner and have not properly credited her as a coauthor of The History of a Marriage. I'll be taking my apology to a broader public on the proper forum, not just this production blog, but I just wanted to start getting it out there that Joyce Brabner was an equal partner with Harvey Pekar on their story and I made a mistake by not recognizing that.

Labels: postcards

Originally published on April 5th, 2007.

Phil Hester says some words on his story, "A Joyous Eastertide"

In a lot of fiction today characters are not much more than Frankenstein's monsters comprised of all their past tragedies and traumas, and I'm not sure people are really like that. People I know anyway. I think people make choices about how to deal with those things. Some are successful and some are not, but I wanted to portray a character who had that moment of choice crystallized.

Labels: postcards, press

Originally published on April 4th, 2007.

Well, I had a good day. I knew it was going to be a good day because it started out good. I go to the PO Box and there's a postcard in there waiting for me. Carye Bye, curator of the Bathtub Art Museum in Portland, Oregon, sent me a used postcard she thought I'd like (if you're reading this, Carye, your thank you is coming - in the form of a postcard, of course).

The card captures the most joyous of moments in only two words. It doesn't need a lot of set-up, but I'll just say it's the kind of card that really captures the spirit of Postcards.

Front:

Back:

It might take a moment to get it so look at it again.

Thanks again, Carye! If anyone wants to send me postcards, my address is:

Labels: collection, postcards

Originally published on April 4th, 2007.

Day three of our little spotlight.

I've always enjoyed drama/horror films where things look fairly normal but them something strange happens. You don't know exactly what's going on, but you know it isn't good. Kind of like Jimmy Stewart's character felt in Hitchcock's Rear Window—he thinks he's witnessed a murder, at least all the signs are there, and indeed someone was killed. I wanted to convey that sense of mystery and dread in the story I wrote.

_________________

Also, I got something really cool in the mail today. I need to scan it in tonight and then I'll share it with you all.

Labels: postcards, press

Originally published on April 3rd, 2007.

We all have that crazy aunt. That one that's kind of embarrassing to have around. She talks really loud about her neighbors when they're in earshot, maybe she wear her hair a little too high. We always try to avoid that crazy aunt.

Something tells me that Miss Annie Sislie of San Matao (sic), California was trying to avoid hers but the crazy aunt just wasn't getting it:





Ah, the handwriting, the valentine card, the declaration to "quit looking for a letter from [her]" - crazy auntie, I think you found yourself a home in Postcards: California Dreaming.

Labels: collection, postcards

Originally published on April 3rd, 2007.

Antony talks up his Postcards story, "Best Side Out"...

I've always been attracted to melancholy, tragic stories. I can't help myself. And with this card, I think I saw a very sad but unfortunately common tale, especially in the pre-suffrage times it was sent, where two sisters have been separated by circumstance and the paths of their lives; and one of them is desperately unhappy about it.

Labels: postcards, press

Originally published on April 2nd, 2007.

I'm sitting here, watching two EBay auctions count down. Both of them big wins for Volume II. 30 minutes to go.

I have a pitch for Volume II out to one of my favorite writers. I put this guy up there as one of the finest American authors of the past hundred years. I don't expect him to say yes - I don't even expecting him to answer - but I'm waiting.

I need to call Harvey tonight. That's always stressful. The man is just bigger than me. And it's not like he has that kind of ego or that our conversations aren't cordial - it's just that my usually "everything's under control" mentality kneels before his presence, even on the phone. I sit and drink a beer and get myself in the right mindset and wait - just a little longer.

Got a good amount of entries for the Gaydos art in but not as many as I'd liked. I'm waiting for that surge. I bought a week-long classified on Comics Curmudgeon because it's cheap as hell for the traffic he gets. The people there seem one degree removed from my target audience but one degree is easy most of the time. The flow from his site hasn't been steady just yet, but I'm waiting for him to update and bring his regulars back.

I had an epiphany today. The perfect place to have a Postcards signing. Even a mini-launch party, if you would. It's so random but so perfect. I mentioned it to the guys who would be involved and it was such an "Ohhhhhhhh" moment. Smiles on faces. Email's out. Just waiting for the response.

25 minutes to go on the auctions.

Waiting for a win.

Labels: postcards

Originally published on April 2nd, 2007.

I'm guest blogging on Newsarama for the week. First up, a conversation with Chris Stevens & GB Tran.

It is a hopeful story, in the end. And I owe my collaborator GB Tran thanks for helping me see that. The original ending spread, when I was picturing it in my head drawn by another artist we were talking to, it was much more downbeat. It was in the script. But GB talked to me about taking it in the other direction and he was dead right. It works better overall and it really makes it a perfect lead-off story. If I'm allowed to say that.

More...

Labels: postcards, press

Originally published April 2nd, 2007.

On June 26th, Villard Books will publish Postcards: True Stories That Never Happened, a collection of stories inspired by editor Jason Rodriguez's used, antique postcards. The book features tales of romance, adventure, hardship, and mystery from over 30 creators, including Harvey Pekar, Joyce Brabner, Phil Hester, Tom Beland, Michael Gaydos, Antony Johnston, and Matt Kindt.

The team behind Postcards is offering you an opportunity to win a page from Stuart Moore and Michael Gaydos' "Tic-Tac-Bang-Bang." Neatly framed and delivered to your door, this wonderful work of original art from the illustrator of Marvel's Alias and The Pulse can be the centerpiece of your collection - if you tell us a good story, first.

On September 27, 1909, Charley Frost of Mandale, Ohio, sent a postcard to Mrs. Eva Billman of Muskingum County, Ohio. Charley wrote:

Dear friend
Where did mother go when she left your place? We have not heard from her for over three weeks & we did not know where to write to. We thought likely you would know.
Charley Frost

Do you think you know where Charley's mother went? If so, tell the
Postcards' team in 100 words or less before April 18th by sending an email to charley@eximiouspress.com. Jason Rodriguez (and his right-hand-man assistant editor, James W. Powell) will pick the best of the bunch and send the entrant his or her well deserved page of Michael Gaydos art.

Feel free to visit the contest page to view the artwork you can win and a copy of the postcard that'll be inspiring your story. There will also be updates every Friday when Jason and James discuss the more...interesting...entries. And then come back to the contest page on Friday, April 20th, when we'll be announcing the winner.

So get creative and send us your tale. Impress us with your true story that never happened and we'll send you a fantastic piece of original art.

Labels: postcards, press

Originally published on April 1st, 2007.

I just realized I spent the past week saying how great Postcards is and why you should be buying it and I didn't really post any content except for the Get to Know James W. Powell piece. So, I took some pictures.

This is the far shot of my corner. Robin and I share an office. She gets it during the day when she runs Washington DC's largest pet sitting office from our place. I get it by night when I make great comics like Postcards. The main point is - we don't slack in here. I'll show my side, she wouldn't be happy if I showed her side.


Usual stuff. Scanners, printer, decorations, computer, etc. There's a lot of white space on the wall bu that's because this is a new desk - I used to have a hutch. I'm getting some art framed to hang there. The main thing you should be concentrating on, however, is the postcards collection towards the front of the desk. Allow me to zoom in...


There are four main items to the collection. First there's The Journal:


The Journal is a book that I write about my favorite postcards in. I write when they were sent, what they say, and if I have any thoughts I want to catalog they're in that book. I love this book. The first page of this book says that there's a reward if found. I would likely pay a good chunk of money to get it back. And, no, I don't take it to conventions. I rarely take it out of the office.

Then there's The Binder.


The Binder is where I store some of my favorite postcards. The ones that are in the journal have numbers so I can quickly look it up and see what I observed about it in the past.

Then there's The Box.


Generally, The Box is filled with postcards that I'm not crazy about or that I haven't really put much thought into yet. With a lot of cards, I see something there, but I don't know what it is I see yet. So they go in The Box.

Finally, we have The Stack.


The Stack is where I keep blank postcards. I've been using them recently for promotional purposes. I'll also use them if I want to digitally capture my handwriting on a certain type of postcards material, although I rarely like the way it looks.

And that's the collection. It grows weekly. Eventually I'll be moving my comics out to make room for my postcards, I'm sure.

Labels: collection, postcards

Originally published on April 1, 2007.

Greg Burgas writes...

Villard Books offers Postcards: True Stories that Never Happened on page 368.  Jason Rodriguez has been putting this book together over the past couple of years, and I'm very keen to see it.  Creators tell stories based on a postcard from a hundred years ago and what's written on the back.  Groovy.

Labels: postcards, press

Originally published on April 1st, 2007.

Randy Ladner writes...

Postcards: True Stories That Never Happened (Villard Books): Man, have I been looking forward to this anthology. The basic idea is that a bunch of creators took old postcards found in antique shops and, using the postcard and the sentiments written on them, created stories. It's one of those genius "why didn't I think of that?" ideas, and not only did editor Jason Rodriguez come up with the idea, he's backed it up with an unbeatable roster of talent: Phil Hester, Tom Beland, Daniell Corsetto, Gia-Bao Tranh, Rick Spears, Neil Kleid, a whole bunch of my indy favorites plus some big names like Harvey Pekar. Even in a month when there's a new volume of Flight on tap, this is the anthology I'm most looking forward to.

Labels: postcards, press

Originally published on April 1st, 2007.

Friends, fellow creators, fans of all things comics...

Today starts the big Postcards Push. Postcards: True Stories That Never Happened is currently in Previews (Villard Books, Order # APR074039) and I was never one to ignore the direct market. So, I need to get people buzzing around this book, and this email will tell you how you can help.

First, Postcards is a collection of 16 stories inspired by used, antique postcards I've collected over the years. It features work by some of the top talents in comics today, including stories from Harvey Pekar, Joyce Brabner and Matt Kindt, Phil Hester, Tom Beland, Stuart Moore and Michael Gaydos, and Rick Spears and Rob G. You can get a complete list of stories, creators, and bios at the official website. Just click on "Stories & Creators."

Ok, promotion...

I put a handy-dandy "Promote" page on the website. On that page you'll find wallpapers to spruce up your desktop, banners for your website, badges that make great avatars, and 8 different handouts (for significant others, mothers, comic shops, bookstores, librarians, teachers, congress(wo)men, and complete strangers) that you can print, clip, and distribute as you see fit.

Later tonight or tomorrow I will be sending out a press release that'll launch a very fun contest where the winner will receive an original page from Stuart Moore (Earthlight, Detective Comics, New Avengers/Transformers) and Michael Gaydos' (Snakewoman, Alias, The Pulse) story, "Tic-Tac-Bang-Bang." The details of the contest can be read here. Essentially, entrants are asked to read a 98-year-old used postcard and tell me the story they see behind it. The winner will be announced April 20th and the artwork will be professionally framed.

You can send someone an e-Postcard here. It's fun, it's easy, and there's a picture of a mule saying, "Hello Pal." What more could you want?

Starting April 2nd, there will be a series of five conversations posted on blog@newsarama. These came out really well; the creators involved with Postcards have given great insight into their process and motivations. Please check them out. If you like them, link to them. We will be posting conversations with five different creators at CBR either the following week or the week after.

If you have any local newspapers that may be interested in reviewing or featuring Postcards, or doing interviews with me or any of the creators, please let me know.

And, finally, Postcards is on MySpace. So friend us up, subscribe to the blog, leave some comments - whatever you like to do when you're on MySpace.

That's it for now. Any questions, comments, concerns, interview requests, or requests for review copies can be sent my way. Hate mail, death threats, or lawsuits can be addressed to James W. Powell, my right-hand man.

Thanks!

Jason Rodriguez
http://www.postcardsanthology.com

Labels: postcards, press

Originally published on April 1st, 2007.

Starting Monday there should be a fair amount of Postcards talk. You see - I like marketing. I'm good at it. I do a lot of it at my day job and get nice bonuses as a result of it. On Monday we officially launch the contest for some Michael Gaydos art and the first of ten conversations with the creators gets posted (the first five on Blog@Newsarama and the second five at CBR). Since I'm expecting new and old visitors to the site, I added a "Promote Postcards" section. It has banners, badges, wallpapers, and flyers that you can use to give Postcards a push during the month of April (which is when it's soliciting in Previews). So go check them out, please, and show some love for the book.

And if you don't want to click the link, at least check out these righteous badges:

Labels: postcards

Originally published on March 31st, 2007.

Advanced notice for the subscribers.

Labels: postcards, press

Originally posted on March 28th, 2007.

The following notes are what I sent Gia-Bao for page two and three of Blue:

For these spread I'm seeing more of a composite than a single image - something that captures a feeling. Storybook land is childhood - that cheap amusement park you went to because your parents couldn't afford to take you to Disney Land. You wanted to go there every-fucking-week. In Brooklyn we had Nellie Bly (which I'm likely spelling wrong). I used to beg my parents to take me there. Mini-golf, the boat ride, feeding the goats. My favorite ride was the big potato-sack slide. Looking back at it now, it's a dump, but we take our younger cousins there and they think it's the greatest place in the world. Glorified carnivals, that's all these places really are. Rigged games with cheap prizes and fried foods. But as a kid, it's a fucking vacation every weekend.

Smithville is city boy in the country. Country stores and ice cream parlors. Lakes to feed ducks. Everything is easy for the tourist but different enough to feel country.

Boardwalks, to me, were always about the spectacle. The video games, the performers - he haunted houses, of course - buying novelty t-shirts. On one trip to Wildwood I bout a shirt that said, "Hey, Pee-Wee! Button your fly!" I thought it was the greatest shirt of all time. Until the following year when I returned to Wildwood and my parents bought me an airbrushed Wolverine t-shirt. I'll never forget that - they paid 50 dollars for that mother fucker and we were broke as shit. There were the rides, mostly spinning ones designed to get you to hurl. I actually cried my first time on the Gravitron, this thing you stood in and it spun around and stuck your ass to the wall. I looked over at my cousin Steven and my face got stuck to the side, my tongue was stretching out of my mouth. Scary shit for a kid.

Chris, feel free to jump in and smack me around.

Imagine my smile when I got this in the mail today:

Labels: postcards

Originally published March 28th, 2007.

"Warning: The inventive writers and illustrators who crafted these transporting stories from old-world postcards may just convince you to trash your Blackberry and buy some stamps."

-Frank Warren
Author,
PostSecret: Extraordinary Confessions from Ordinary Lives

Labels: postcards

Originally published on March 28th, 2007.

When you go to your comic shop today, make sure you tell them to order a copy of Postcards! It's currently being solicited in Previews, order # APR074039. I'm going to make some handy-dandy order forms you can hand to your retailer later tonight.

If you don't go to comic shops, you can still pre-order Postcards: True Stories That Never Happened on Amazon (or go to your local B&N and request a copy).

We have lots of great stuff coming up. A contest where you can win some original art from the book, published conversations with creators from the book to be featured at Blog@Newsarama and CBR, plus plenty of other interviews and features in the works.

So, that's Postcards. Elk's Run is in bookstores RIGHT NOW. It'll be in comic shops NEXT WEEK. I got my copy yesterday - it's gorgeous. Despite the fact that I edited this book, and was intimately involved with the material, I gave it a reread and I have to say, it rocks. It's nice revisiting a book months after you completed it and realizing it's really as good as you've been saying it is. Elk's Run is also available on Amazon, if you want to be lazy about it.

And that's that. Buy my books!

Labels: postcards

Originally published on March 27th, 2007.

Last time: Get to Know Micah Farritor.

I think it's time you all got to know a little bit about Postcards' creators. What they've done in the past, how they came to work on the book, and what it was like working with them. All of the bios/stories will be posted as a bulletin and a blog - I suggest you subscribe to the blog if you don't want to miss any. I'll be featuring creators in the order their story appears in the book. And on that note...

I've told James' story countless times. In a nutshell, James, having just finished an editing gig for The Wicked West, wrote me in attempt to chat about how to get editing gigs. I received him email at a time when I was feeling particularly overwhelmed with Postcards and immediately offered him an assistant editing position on this book, thus answering his question, "How does one get gigs in comics?"

Luck. And skill. But mostly luck.

James was invaluable as an editor. I originally carved out eight stories for him to work on. He eventually ended up supplying feedback to all of the stories and becoming my main interface with Jason Hanley, who was doing letters for the book, so that I could meet all of Random Houses' requirements. He recommended Antony Johnston when we lost a writer and he recommended Matt Kindt for Harvey Pekar' and Joyce Brabner's story (I loved Matt so much he went on to design the entire book). Most importantly, towards the end, as the edits on Postcards continued to ramp up, James kept me focused and honest. I occasionally saw a shortcut and wanted to take it, but James wouldn't let me. That's a good guy to have around.

James was also in a great position to pitch a story. For one thing, he was showing off his storytelling skills. Also, and probably more importantly, he knew which postcards the other creators were rejecting. In other words, he didn't have to ask me if it was ok to pitch me a story and then wait for me to send him postcards; he just had to pitch me a story. And that's what he did. And it was good.

This was James' first attempt at writing a comic and, like most people, the pacing was off. That's a huge problem newcomers in comics have. They start off too fast or too slow and then find that they need to play catch up at the end of their piece. You end up getting panel-packed pages with a lot of information and a jump in time every couple of panels - it doesn't work, usually. I told James that and, to my surprise, his next draft was damn-near perfect. He removed several scenes that weren't necessary to the plot, whittled the characters down to the three principles, and even managed to shave a page off of the original script.

Fast learner - I like that. The second draft was solid and I approved "Cora's Dress" for the first volume of Postcards. We eventually found an artist in Drew Gilbert but there'll be more on that tomorrow.

Labels: postcards

Originally published on March 22nd, 2007.

Last time: Get to Know Josh Fialkov

I think it's time you all got to know a little bit about Postcards' creators. What they've done in the past, how they came to work on the book, and what it was like working with them. This is the twelfth of thirty installments - I'll try to do this daily. All of the bios/stories will be posted as a bulletin and a blog - I suggest you subscribe to the blog if you don't want to miss any. I'll be featuring creators in the order their story appears in the book. And on that note...

Ah, Micah Farritor...

Josh Fiakov recommended him. A while back we were working on a pitch for a book called, among other things, The 8th. Josh was writing it, I was editing it. The book went through about ten title changes and four artist changes so I forget what it was called when Micah was the artist. The 8th was a real roller-coaster that never happened. We even ran an ad for it in Elk's Run #2 or #3, I believe, but it was called Ritual Homicide at the time. I never talked to Micah directly while he was working on pages but when Josh offered him up for his Postcards story I knew it was a good call.

Micah was the second illustrator to get art in (Matt Kindt was the first). He sent character and environment sketches to Josh. Josh was so excited about them that he instantly forwarded them to me, sort of behind Micah's back. I didn't care, though, I was so excited about them that I instantly wrote Micah and said, "Josh showed me the sketches you did - they were amazing."

Early in the books development, I used Micah and Kindt's sketches to build up interest in the book. I showed them to Dallas Middaugh at Villard before sending the pitch. Everyone loved them, if it wasn't for Micah and Kindt's sketches I likely would have had a tough time filling in the gaps on Postcards and an even harder time selling it to Villard. I ended up including all of Micah's sketches into the Villard pitch and his artwork was highly commented on.

And then I got his pages.

They came in during San Diego Comic-Con. Friday night, I believe. Micah sent them to Josh and Josh showed them to me.  They were, in a word, magnificent. I called Micah up and asked him to upload the high-res versions to my server. Sunday morning I got up early and printed them out before my 10AM meeting with Dallas. Dallas flipped through them, saying things like, "Oh wow," and, "This is amazing." On the last page his eyes bugged out a bit and I think it's safe to Micah helped me close the deal with Random House.

There were no edits needed - no comments. The story came together nicely and within 24 hours of its delivery I was showing it to Dallas as the first completed story for Postcards. Of course, Jaco had to lay the letters down. That took several iterations - there is a lot of French in the script and we went from almost textbook French to slang French to proper Parisian French. I had no idea what the difference was, honestly, and simply relied on different people telling me such-and-such should be so-and-so and why. I just nodded my head and found comfort in the fact that I only surround myself with people I trust.

And that was Homesick, the first completed story and a very strong one at that. Very little dialog, no narration, and heavy on the subtext - just the way I like my anthology stories. I think it's going to surprise a lot of you.

Next time, we'll move on to James W. Powell and Drew Gilbert's Cora's Dress.

Labels: postcards

Originally published on March 21st, 2007.

Last time: Get to Know Danielle Corsetto

I think it's time you all got to know a little bit about Postcards' creators. What they've done in the past, how they came to work on the book, and what it was like working with them. This is the twelfth of thirty installments - I'll try to do this daily. All of the bios/stories will be posted as a bulletin and a blog - I suggest you subscribe to the blog if you don't want to miss any. I'll be featuring creators in the order their story appears in the book. And on that note...

I've written about Josh so many times that I'm essentially cutting and pasting at this point.

In a nutshell, my comic career starts with Josh. Many years ago (like, three), I desperately wanted to be a comic book writer. There were two major problems: a) a lot of people wanted to be comic book writers and b) I didn't know how to write comic books. My comic books were beyond bad, the fact that I ever thought they were as good as or better than most of the stuff being produced at the time is downright sad.

To make a long story short, I had an opportunity to become a submissions editor for an up-and-coming independently produced anthology entitled Western Tales of Terror. This anthology was being published by Josh Fialkov.

Over the next couple of years I learned a lot about comics and made a lot of connections. Western Tales of Terror introduced me to talented creators. Working on the book taught me how to properly manage a comic's production. And, most importantly, going to shows and dinners with Josh showed me how to properly network with folks. Editing Elk's Run, a much loved comic and a soon-to-be much loved graphic novel from Villard Books, finally gave me the critical success I needed to launch Postcards. And Postcards ended up at Villard thanks to my connection to Elk's Run.

So, basically, my career has consisted of me snatching the crumbs that fell from Josh's plate and turning them into French Bread. Or Italian Bread, if you like that kind of thing.

I already mentioned Western Tales of Terror and Elk's Run. Josh also wrote stories for Boom! Studio's Fused Tales and Harris' Vampirella, as well as the creator-owned Punks with Kody Chamberlain and the new webcomic Three Rivers with his Elk's Run collaborator, Noel Tuazon. In addition to the stuff you can buy/read right now, Josh must send me a new pitch to look at every week, and it's only a matter of time before he becomes comics' version of Ben Stiller.

(You see, I say Ben Stiller because the guy is in every movie ever made. So, I'm saying that Josh will be very busy, and stuff. Not that Josh will be in every comic because he won't turn a comic down. So, it's really not a great analogy, it's probably a horrible one, but I'm just sort of hoping it catches on.  I want the back of Josh's next comic to read,

"Josh [Fiakov]" is "Comic's version of Ben Stiller"
- Jason Rodriguez

Anyway...)

I can't speak highly enough of Josh's comics, his vision, and the opportunities he gave me. That's really the entire story behind how he came to Postcards - he simply deserves it. That's it.

His story, "Homesick", is fantastic. Well researched and subtly heartbreaking. When he turned it in he told me he thought it was the best thing he's ever done and I have to agree. That's really it - when it comes to Josh you're just going to have to take my word for it. I made a career out of my belief that Josh is one of the best writers in comics right now and that belief hasn't steered me wrong yet.

You'll love his story - and you'll love his collaborator, Micah Farritor. We'll talk about him tomorrow.

Labels: postcards

Originally published on March 20th, 2007.

I know I haven't been around the past two weeks. I was in Italy, getting engaged, and organized a bunch of Postcards promotions upon returning to the states. Postcards solicits in April's Previews, and in order to generate some buzz next month you'll be seeing at least:

1) A week-long stint of press on Blog@Newsarama.
2) Round table discussions at two different websites.
3) A contest where you can win a page from Stuart Moore and Michael Gaydos' story.

Additionally, some retailers will be getting a different kind of promotion as original art cards gets sent out via our wonderful US Postal System. Who wouldn't want a postcard from Gia-Bao Tran?




I'll also start posting up the "Getting to Know..." features again starting tomorrow - I haven't given up on that endeavor.

So, plenty to come - keep your eyes open.

Labels: postcards

Originally published on March 2nd, 2006.

Yesterday: Get to Know A. David Lewis

I think it's time you all got to know a little bit about Postcards' creators. What they've done in the past, how they came to work on the book, and what it was like working with them. This is the eleventh of thirty installments - I'll try to do this daily. All of the bios/stories will be posted as a bulletin and a blog - I suggest you subscribe to the blog if you don't want to miss any. I'll be featuring creators in the order their story appears in the book. And on that note...

I can't take any credit for Danielle Corsetto being in Postcards - that was all Dave Lewis.

I asked Dave who he would like to work with and he gave me three choices. I have to confess, these features are supposed to be honest, of the three people Dave suggested, I tried someone else first. And said person wasn't Dave's first choice - Danielle was.

I don't know why, really - I was just digging the other girl's work, who will, for obvious reasons, remain nameless. It happens. I wasn't aware of what Danielle could do yet. I've read Girls with Slingshots, I enjoyed it, and Danielle was a sort of an honorary member of the DC Conspiracy and that was pretty much that. Right after offering the Postcards gig to this other creator, however, I read Jim Dugan and Danielle Corsetto's Crazy Papers. It was like a big, "Ohhhhhh...yeah, she would be great for this," type of moment. I won't say I was hoping the other girl would turn down the project but I certainly wouldn't have been overly upset.

And, of course, the other girl turned down the gig. So I went to Danielle with it - told her what the book was about, who was in it, etc. Danielle told me she really wants to do it because of her love for Michael Gaydos (who's also in the book, obviously). That was good enough for me - I hooked her and Dave up.

I liked working with Danielle. She was a bit slow starting, mainly because Dave was a bit slow getting the script in, but once she sat down to draw it up she really turned it out with hardly any guidance from me or James. As a matter of fact, Danielle even drove through Dillsburg, Pennsylvania, where the story took place, and took pictures of the town. You don't get that kind of dedication, usually - especially not for a 7-page anthology story.

(She'd likely be pleased to know that Michael Gaydos, her reason for coming onboard the book, ended up using those photos as well. The story he worked on took place in Dillsburg, as well.)

Her pages came out great. From thumbs to roughs to inks to inkwash, it was wonderful watching every step of the development process. Dave's story is one of my favorites and Danielle's pages are some of my favorites - together they just make for a really strong story.

And Danielle's fans...wow! I've had several people write me and tell me that their favorite creator in the book is Danielle. When she posted the Villard release on her blog, she sent several hundred visitors to the website on the first day. People just love her - I love her, now. Love her work and love her enthusiasm. Her energy is infectious. I hope you all start reading her work, get to know her, and feel the same way.

And I have to thank Dave for showing me the light on this one.

Ok, that's it for the Res Libero team. Next time I will move onto Josh Fialkov and Micah Farritor's Homesick. That won't be for a couple of weeks, though, because I'm off to Italy tonight. Some of you may even get a postcard sent from the Vatican's sole post office.

Talk soon!

Labels: postcards

Originally published on March 1st, 2007.

Noel Tuazon, one of Postcards talented illustrators, sent this to me:



That's me on bass, Josh Fialkov on lead, and Robin, my girlfriend, on drums. "Three Rivers" is Josh and Noel's phenomenal new webcomic that you should be reading and not an actual band. Although, it if it were an actual band, I imagine it would rock.

Labels: postcards

Originally published on February 28th, 2007.

Yesterday: Get to Know Jason Copland

I think it's time you all got to know a little bit about Postcards' creators. What they've done in the past, how they came to work on the book, and what it was like working with them. This is the tenth of thirty installments - I'll try to do this daily. All of the bios/stories will be posted as a bulletin and a blog - I suggest you subscribe to the blog if you don't want to miss any. I'll be featuring creators in the order their story appears in the book. And on that note...

I knew of Dave Lewis for a while. Like I said last time, Dave used Jason Copland on Mortal Coils, a book that received a lot of critical acclaim but suffered the same fate as most indie books with critical acclaim.

I wrote Dave an email very early in my comic career. I don't even know if he remembers this. Josh Fialkov told me Dave was a good guy, I found out Dave lived in DC, and I dropped him a line. I got Dave's full story when he responded to my email. Dave grew up in Framingham and now lives in DC with his girlfriend who grew up in New York. I grew up in New York and moved to DC with my girlfriend who grew up in Framingham. I was amazed by this factoid, I let Dave know, and likely weirded him out - he never responded.

My next run-in with Dave was at a Barnes & Nobles in the Clarendon area of Arlington. The Cat Vacuuming Society, a local writer's group, was hosting a panel on graphic novels featuring Carla Speed McNeil, Steve Conley, John Gallagher, Christian Berenek and, of course, Dave Lewis. Carla had a pretty big crowd around her after the panel and, sadly, I wasn't familiar with Steve or John's work at the time - so I talked to Dave.

He claimed to remember me but I'm thinking he may have also thought I was one of those crazy comic guys that follow around other guys. I just kind of got that feeling and I'm usually not the paranoid type so I tried to cut it short and move on.

My next run-in with Dave was at SPX 2005. At that point, I was solidly known as "Josh Fialkov's editor." I had dinner with Josh, Dave, and Neil Kleid at a Mongolian BBQ a couple of blocks from the Holiday Inn. A good conversation - Josh told the tale of Speakeasy which, at that point, was already looking hopeless to us (it's at Random House now). Dave sought out advice on how to publish Empty Chamber (it's at Silent Devil now). And Neil, well - Neil's Neil and if you know Neil you know what I mean (and that's not a bad thing). Brownsville was coming down the pipe so he talked up his experiences with NBM a bit.

Several months later I was at New York Comic-Con 2006. The show was overcrowded - I had an exhibitor badges (courtesy of Saul Colt) and there was still a point where I had to wait outside for about an hour while the fire inspectors did something. And who was I waiting right in front of?

David Lewis.

At this point I already read Lone & Level Sands (the original, black and white edition) and counted it amongst my favorite graphic novels of 2005. We talked a bit about his book before I introduced him to Postcards. Dave wanted in and I let him in.

I had a hard time pairing Dave with a card. I knew I could challenge him, he's a scholar, and I wanted to give him a card that worked his researching muscle a bit. I sent him one that I originally thought no-one would want to use, and buried within a cheesy poem he saw a fiery spirit and the affection of an impressionable girl. "Res Libero" is a wonderful story, well researched, and we went with it.

I paired him up with Danielle Corsetto, but that's tomorrow's story.

Labels: postcards

We're more than just a great book:



Once again, NYCC was a blast.

Labels: postcards

Originally published on February 25th, 2007.

I left my camera home - had to buy a disposable camera. Otherwise, I'd post pictures.

Got the show at around 1PM with my Dad and my friend Gennaro. My dad didn't have a pass so we snuck him in thanks to the good folks at Silent Devil. I showed my dad around - took him to the Random House booth where he thanked Dallas Middaugh for treating me so good. It was, admittedly, cute.

Yes, cute.

My dad met Neil Kleid, Tom Beland, Tony Fleecs, A. David Lewis, Rob G, and a bunch of non-Postcards folks. My dad was a bit overwhelmed by it all but he had a good time.

After my dad left I met up with Mark Bernardin of Entertainment Weekly and Calvin Reed of Publisher's Weekly. Went and grabbed some dirty water dogs with Gennaro. Gennaro's girlfriend, Jess, showed up afterwards and we snuck her in with my badge.

We went up to Artist Alley and I hung with GB Tran and Indie Spinner Rack a bit before making my rounds and talking to new artists.

The real fun came after the show. I went to the Random House dinner, met a bunch of folks, drank wine, ate tuna steak - sat next to Timothy Zahn - and talked up the book.

Went to the Marvel party with Tony Fleecs. Chatted with Stuart Moore a bit, he's doing a Transformers/ New Avengers book that should be fun. I got to meet Michael Gaydos, too, and I thanked him for the tremendous job he did on the book. Had a drink with Rick Spears and Rob G before going to the PCS party.

Got to the PCS party where I got the VIP badge, free drink tickets, and two hours of free pool. Neil Kleid, his wife, Laurie, Carla Speed McNeil, and Mark Bernardin were all there, got to talk to them for a little bit. After they left I hung with my friends for the rest of the night. I didn't leave until 4AM, took a cab back to Brooklyn.

Good times, lots of fun. Can't wait to next year.

Labels: postcards

Originally published on February 24th, 2006.

Day one of NYCC. I only got to stop by the con for two hours or so. Went straight to the Random House booth. Postcards was represented on posters, bookmarks, and, of course, postcards. Talked to Dallas a bit about who I'd like to get to blurb the book. Elk's Run was also well represented there (I edit Elk's Run, as well). All of the stuff for Postcards plus full-color copies of the book.

Walked around and saw some friends. Tony Fleecs, David Lewis, Evan Keeling, Matt Dembicki, and others. I couldn't get upstairs - the line was too long. Today.

Went to dinner with some friends and called it a night. Tonight is the big day. Meetings, Random House's New Author Dinner, and parties. Can't wait!

Labels: postcards

Originally published on February 23rd, 2007.

Yesterday: Get to Know Matt Dembicki

I think it's time you all got to know a little bit about Postcards' creators. What they've done in the past, how they came to work on the book, and what it was like working with them. This is the ninth of thirty installments - I'll try to do this daily. All of the bios/stories will be posted as a bulletin and a blog - I suggest you subscribe to the blog if you don't want to miss any. I'll be featuring creators in the order their story appears in the book. And on that note...

I like to think that I "discovered" Jason Copland. I know that's not entirely true, A. David Lewis published Jason in Mortal Coils and, technically, Jon Hook pointed me towards Jason's work. But, you see, Jason's really good - and firmly planting my feet in the ground and claiming I discovered him will make me look like a genius ten years from now.

So, here's my story and I'm sticking to it. I discovered Jason Copland. It was when I was editing Western Tales of Terror. I stumbled across his website amidst a sea of would-be comic artists and said to myself, "Wow - this guy kind of has a David Lapham/Carla Speed McNeil thing going on." Incredibly clean lines, strong blacks, and powerful, energized storytelling. So, I plucked him out of the ether, saved him, if you will, and I put him on Stuart Moore's "Other Folk's Troubles," the headliner for issue four. If it wasn't for me, Jason would be doing caricatures in a Six Flags amusement park (or whatever equivalent they have in Vancouver). Beautiful caricatures, no doubt, but beautiful caricatures of loud tourists with who'll say things like, "HAH! I do have a big nose! You're so good!"

No, Jason needed to be making comics, and that's why I chose Him.

Sorry, I missed my 8:20 flight to New York Comic-Con because I went to the wrong airport. I'm on standby for the 10:30. I'm a bit - silly - right now.

I wanted to work with Jason again after Western Tales of Terror. Unfortunately, A. David Lewis was using him on his newest graphic novel, Empty Chamber. Great book, don't get me wrong, but I had to wait a full year to work with Jason again. Getting him on Postcards required a bit of shifting. I toyed with putting him on three stories but with the first two the writers brought their own guys on and with the third one Jason wasn't quite right for the piece.

Matt Dembicki's pitch for "Send Louis His Underwear" came around the same time Jason was showing me this new, looser style he was working with. It was a perfect match and I put them together.

Matt's script was very loose - no breakdowns, four pages. Jason expanded the script to five pages, packed 16 panels on some of them, and made the silent story as rich and dark as it was supposed to be. He did a fantastic job.

We had to get a couple of fixes from him. Despite the fact that story was silent there were two panels that required a tight shot of legible writing on the back of a postcard. We had to blow up some panels as a result and even then we decided to put captions down that reiterated the text on the postcards. We also needed Jason to draw the back of the postcard he and Matt were using and digitally placed it in several panels where the back of the postcard was blank.

In the end, the story looked great. I'm a big fan of the ultra-concise yet fulfilling pieces. Next we'll move on to A. David Lewis and Danielle Corsetto's "Res Libero". Have a good New York Comic-Con, if you're there, and maybe I'll be seeing you.

Labels: postcards

Originally published on February 21st, 2006.

Yesterday: Get to Know Joseph Bergin III

I think it's time you all got to know a little bit about Postcards' creators. What they've done in the past, how they came to work on the book, and what it was like working with them. This is the eighth of thirty installments - I'll try to do this daily. All of the bios/stories will be posted as a bulletin and a blog - I suggest you subscribe to the blog if you don't want to miss any. I'll be featuring creators in the order their story appears in the book. And on that note...

I've known Matt Dembicki  for over two years now. He's the local creator behind Attic Wit, Mr. Bid, Coexistence, and Spadefoot. Matt was also one of the founder members of The DC Conspriacy, the local comic creator group I roll with. One might say he's the godfather. I know I kiss his ring every time I see him, at least.

Matt was the original editor on the DC Conspiracy's Dr. Dremo's anthology before Evan Keeling took it over (and I'll be taking it over starting at volume 5). He was the primary force behind the DC Conspiracy's AARGGH! Comic Grant, an award we give out to within-the-beltway youths to publish their original comic. He ran press for the DC Conspiracy's Counter Culture Festival both years we had it - this past year we were featured in the Washington Post twice, Daily Candy, and Wonkette. He's the guy that gets us out to the small press and 'zine shows around the area and organizes trips for us to go to the Frank Frazetta Museum.

In other words, Matt's the kind of guy that's good for comics.

Besides being a great friend, Matt is also an incredibly talented writer and illustrator. When he saw the postcard I had in mind for him he pitched me a five-page, perfectly-self-contained, silent story. It was different than anything else in the book. Whereas we had a great balance of laughs, adventures, romance, and retribution - Matt's story is a tale of evil. Unapologetic and unpunished evil.

It was such an interesting take on a card that seemed so innocent that I had to approve it. There is absolutely no story like it in the book, thematically. It's also the shortest story in the book by two pages. It's quick, it's good, and it satisfies you. I couldn't be more thrilled to publish it.

I hooked Matt up with Jason Copland - I'll be talking about Jason tomorrow. Together they put together "Send Louis His Underwear," and you're going to love it.

Labels: postcards

Originally published on February 21st, 2007.

...the possibilities for Postcards Volume II grows with it.

Labels: postcards

Originally published on February 16th, 2007.

Last night, I dreamt the worst idea ever. It was about the third volume of Postcards. But first, a little background.

The second volume of Postcards was originally going to focus on foreign postcards. Since that would involve bringing multiple translators on board (as well as, you know, buying a lot of foreign postcards) I decided to push that idea back to the third volume.

The second volume will be entitled Postcards: California Dreaming and will use only California based postcards mailed between 1900 and 1920. So, the era when the cowboys where moving out and the movie stars where moving in. I'm currently getting all of the postcards for this volume sorted out with the help of James W. Powell (coeditor extraordinaire) and the newest addition to the team, Christina Rice, our California historian. I'll start recruiting at NYCC this year.

But, little plug aside, my dream last night was about Volume III. I dreamt I put together the volume, based entirely on foreign postcards, and called it:


The cover would be a battle scene reminiscent of the American Revolution.

When I first woke up I thought to myself, "I have to write this down before I forget it." I then realized that the title was horrible, made no sense (there weren't even postcards during the American revolution), says nothing about the use of foreign postcards, and a sprawling battle scene gracing the cover of the book might paint the wrong picture. I then decided I was better off forgetting the idea but, unfortunately, I can't get it out of my head.

So I pass it on to you. Enjoy it.

Labels: postcards

I'm going to take a break from the "Getting to know..." articles and tell you all the story of how Postcards ended up at Villard. It's a long story - the whole process took about seven months - but who knows, maybe some people will enjoy it.

Like all things in my comic career - the move to Villard started with Josh Fialkov.

I've been editing Josh for a couple of years - first with Western Tales of Terror and then with Elk's Run (as well as a bunch of not-yet-published projects). I, as some of you may recall, had a turbulent history. We self-published three (out of 8) issues that essentially dried up all of our money and made it so we needed to find a publisher. At San Diego Comic-Con 2005 our savior came...

...in the form of Speakeasy Comics.

A lot of people just groaned.

Anyway, Speakeasy was great at first. They collected the first three issues in a "Bumper Edition" with a cover by Darwyn Cooke and, eventually, put out the fourth issue (at this point we had seven issues completely finished). I won't get into what went wrong at Speakeasy, most of the theories I've heard on the internets address the main points, but suffice to say, Speakeasy went under.

We immediately began talking to Dallas Middaugh. He's been tracking our book for a while and saw an opportunity when Speakeasy fell through. Since this story isn't about Elk's Run, I'll just get to the point and say that Dallas acquired Elk's Run for Random Houses' Villard imprint.

Josh was the one that first introduced Postcards to Dallas. The way I heard the story, Dallas asked Josh what he was working on next, Josh mentioned Postcards, and Dallas told Josh he wanted to talk to me. That night, Josh called me up. I answer my phone and Josh says, "SO! I don't want you to get mad at me, I don't know if I overstepped my boundaries, but I think Random House wants your book."

I was conflicted. For those of you who follwoed this book early on - I was originally gung-ho about self-publishing it. I was doing at article on PCS at the time called The Hive that was all about bringing comics to new markets. I figured people would think I was a bit of a sell-out. But then I realized who these "people" where; friends, mainly. Folks who just wanted to see the book succeed. And Random House is the largest American publisher - that move would really help the book succeed. And it wasn't like taking the book to Villard meant that I still couldn't market it on my own. In fact, it meant that I could focus more of my time on marketing the book.

So I told Josh I'd love to speak to Dallas.

It was probably late-June 2006 when I first talked to Dallas. I told him about the book, the creators involved, and how the idea came to me. I told him who I thought the primary and secondary audiences were, my own plans for publishing the book, and what I'd need from them to make sure this move worked from me. My main request, by the way, was to make sure my name was firmly attached to this project; otherwise I'm just the editor, and few people pay attention to comic editors. In other words, I wanted people to know this book was Jason Rodriguez's Postcards, not Postcards featuring Harvey Pekar.

At the end of our conversation Dallas recommended I get an agent before we continued our talks. Josh recommended I use his guy, Chris, and that was good enough for me. Chris closed the Elk's Run deal, after all, has worked with Dallas in the past, and this deal was about 95% closed. I figured I'd have a contract in hand by the end of July.

So naive (you can't do the fancy "i" with MySpace?).

I talked to Chris for a bit on the phone - told him everything about the book and my plans for it. He was ready to go and called Dallas later that week. While Chris and Dallas got started on the business end of things, I was tasked to put together a pitch that Dallas can show to his bosses. And I had two weeks to do it.

I knew I needed artwork for the pitch so I tried to rope in pages, thumbs, and concept sketches from whoever was available. I think I did a good job - within two weeks I had:

1) Two finished pages from Matt Kindt for Harvey Pekar and Joyce Brabner's story
2) A finished page and a rough page from Phil Hester's story
3) Two roughs from Tom Beland's story
4) Two penciled pages from Jake Allen for Neil Keid's story
5) Concept sketches from Tony Fleecs for Jay Busbee's story
6) Concept sketches from Micah Farritor for Josh Fialkov's story

I also ended up getting character sketches from the Fraim Brothers for Robert Tinnell's story but those came in a day too late to be put into the pitch. (Bonus! Read the original pitch! It's a big file, over 8 Megs - download it first.)

I printed out five copies of the pitch (at work, of course), spiral bound them, and early-AM overnighted them to Random House's New York headquarters so that Dallas would have them first thing Monday morning. Dallas sent me an email upon receiving them, said they looked great, and started showing them around. Apparently his bosses were down because Dallas went ahead and started the profit/loss scenarios and the whole acquisition process went back to Chris on my side.

Here's a little bit of trivia. There was actually a slight chance the acquisition was going to be announced at San Diego Comic-Con's 2006 Random House panel, a whole six months before it was actually announced. But, you know, these things take time, and the book wasn't actually acquired yet.

I did get to meet with Dallas at San Diego. We had a Sunday morning meeting at the Marriot - Random House had a private conference room. I felt kind of - important. The day before Micah finished his pages for the book - they looked great -I printed them out at Kinko's so I can hand them off to Dallas.

Dallas gushed over the book, repeatedly told me they wanted it, the p/l scenarios looked good, and an offer should be coming soon. I left there very, very excited and with the desire to tell everyone what was going on. I couldn't, however, so I called my mom. She was basically crying, she knew how this has always been a dream for me. My dad was equally excited. I got back to the hotel, Robin was still sleeping. I ordered us room service, woke her up, and told her all about the meeting over breakfast.

The offer came in shortly after. Chris did a good job of negotiating a bigger advance so I can fairly compensate all of the guys who were, up until that point, working solely for the love of the project. At this point we thought the book was going to be announced in time for the Small Press Expo - October 2006. But, again, these things take time - I still needed to sign the contract.

Meanwhile, I was up in New York for a weekend in early November and I was invited to meet with the folks at Random House. Dallas was in Japan (he's the Del Rey Manga guy as well, in case you didn't know), but I got to meet with the other people behind the book.

I was very nervous. I wanted to be a writer since I was a little kid - walking into Random Houses' headquarters was the culmination of many dreams. I walked into the building and it was overwhelming. Glassed in bookcases stacked to the ceiling and displaying titles like The Catcher in the Rye - it makes you immediately feel like you're a part of something with a celebrated history. I got my badge, took the elevators up, and met with Tricia Narwani who was standing in for Dallas. We piled into Ali Kokmen's, the marketing manager's, office along with Brandi Robinson, the publicist for Postcards, Brian McLendon, director of publicity, and Scott Shannon, the publisher.

I had a suit on and it was hot. So I took my jacket off and noticed the embarrassing pit sweat - I kept my arms down for the rest of the meeting. I told them all about the book, little anecdotes on all of the stories, showed them pages and the original postcards - it was a great meeting. Everyone there seemed jazzed about the project and couldn't wait to dive into it.

After an hour the meeting adjourned and I went on my very-merry way. I called Robin first, obviously, and then my mom (I'm such a momma's boy). Then I went over to a nearby Irish pub and started calling some of the creators. I called Tony Fleecs, of course, to harass him about getting his pages in. I called Tom Beland to chat for a bit. I tried calling Chris Stevens but he's difficult to reach sometimes. I had a couple of drinks while waiting for friends to show up, then had some more drinks, then went back to Brooklyn where I ate dinner and drank some more.

There was much celebrating that night.

A short while later we got the contract. Chris negotiated several points and it was finally ready for signing the week before Christmas. I signed it on Christmas Day and overnighted it back to Random House the day after. A couple of weeks later I received my first third of the advance along with the counter-signed contract. A couple of weeks later Villard announced the book.

And that, my friends, is the complete story on how Postcards ended up at Villard. It's been great so far, they love the book and it's officially in the hands of production right now. At New York Comic-Con they'll be promoting it and on Saturday night I get to go to the new-author's dinner, where I'll be schmoozing with editors, press, and buyers from the major chains.

I look forward to a long relationship with Villard - I want to do several volumes of Postcards and I know we'll do right by each other for the benefit of the book.

And if you're still reading this, you're quite the trooper.

Labels: postcards

Originally published on February 14th, 2007.

Postcards will be represented at the Random House booth (I believe it's 458). I'll be at the booth from time-to-time but mainly I'll be walking the floor, meeting and greeting and taking care of some Postcards (I and II) business. If you think we may have business - drop me an e-mail or a PM to make sure you have my cell phone number.

I'll be at the show Friday, Saturday, and maybe Sunday for a little while. I will be carrying pages from the book with me, some postcards, some promotional/informational stuff.

I will wind up at the Pop Culture Shock after party on Saturday night after a dinner thing. It was a great time last year - if I don't see you at the show I'll see you there.

Labels: postcards

Originally published on February 14th, 2007.

Yesterday: Get to Know Ande Parks

I think it's time you all got to know a little bit about Postcards' creators. What they've done in the past, how they came to work on the book, and what it was like working with them. This is the seventh of thirty installments - I'll try to do this daily. All of the bios/stories will be posted as a bulletin and a blog - I suggest you subscribe to the blog if you don't want to miss any. I'll be featuring creators in the order their story appears in the book. And on that note...

My first introduction to Joseph Bergin III came when Josh told me he'd be illustrating Saul Colt's story in Western Tales of Terror #4. I wasn't familiar with his work and his website, at the time, didn't really seem to capture the tone Saul's story required. I took Josh's word for it and didn't offer any objections.

On WToT I always asked for thumbnails or pencils or something before finished artwork came in. I rarely got it, but I asked for it (with Postcards it was a requirement). I didn't get anything from Joseph until I got the final art - all four pages - and even that was a bit behind schedule.

But talk about someone instantly becoming one of your favorite artists. Like nothing I've seen on his site - an odd combination of cartoony and almost photo-real work, Joseph's pages are some of the best ones we published in WToT. I obviously wanted him Postcards.

He was excited about working with Ande Parks. Honestly, there were three potential artists for Ande, all of them equally talented, but Joseph was the one that WANTED to work with Ande. The other guys thought it would be fun, Joseph thought it would be quite fantastic.


So I put them together. Joseph did a great job on the pages - the thumbs worked well and his first cut at the finals were really good. Ande and I both had some edits for Joseph, we compiled them and passed them along. Joseph seemed to like the fact that we were giving him some overall pointers, not necessarily specific to this story, and he fixed everything up nicely. The pages look great.

Now, it doesn't end here, unfortunately. I have one more anecdote, one that paints me in a not-so-great light but I need to be fair when doing these behind-the-scene things, don't I? Ande offered to letter his own story but I had Jason Hanley (Jaco) lettering every story that wasn't hand-lettered. Ande was fine with that, he made a lettering script before the pages went to Jaco and asked if he could OK them when Jaco was finished. No problem.

Jaco letters the pages, I ask James W. Powell (assistant editor) to go over it, make any necessary suggestions, and send it off to Ande. At the time, we were getting a lot of stories and artwork in so a little delegation was necessary.

James checks it out, makes a couple of edits, and eventually gets it out to Ande. Within the hour Ande writes back, "I feel really bad saying this, but you guys used the wrong script."

I never replaced the script on the server with the lettering script - Jaco and James were working off of the wrong one.

Extremely embarrassing. I apologized - a lot - and got Jaco and James using the right script. Obviously, before we sent pages back to Ande for a second time, I checked them out and gave my own inputs.

And that's the story behind Taken on Faith. Next time we get into Matt Dembicki and Jason Copland's Send Louis His Underwear.

Labels: postcards

Originally published on February 12th, 2007.

Yesterday: Get to Know Tony Fleecs

I think it's time you all got to know a little bit about Postcards' creators. What they've done in the past, how they came to work on the book, and what it was like working with them. This is the sixth of thirty installments - I'll try to do this daily. All of the bios/stories will be posted as a bulletin and a blog - I suggest you subscribe to the blog if you don't want to miss any. I'll be featuring creators in the order their story appears in the book. And on that note...

The story behind how Ande Parks came to Postcards is really quite simple. I had about fifteen of the sixteen stories allocated when I was looking at my bookshelf and saw Capote in Kansas sitting there. I said to myself, "You're an idiot," got a hold of Ande's email, and invited him to be a part of the book. He wanted in, I sent him a postcard, and that was that.

Ande belongs in Postcards. Between Capote in Kansas and Union Station, he is writing some of the best historical fiction on the stands today. I'd like to call Ande's invitation an epiphany but, in reality, it was more of a "duh moment."

Ande pitched me his story while I was at a Cleveland Indians game. Every summer I try to do a couple of new ballparks - Robin and I hop around America for a week and see some cities we normally wouldn't see. He called me up, heard the crowd noise, probably heard the effect a couple of beers had on my ability to speak clearly, and asked if he should call back later.

Wanting to hear his pitch, I found a quiet area of the park and asked him to give me the short version. He told me a story that I was able to relate to - that almost everyone who'll read it will be able to relate to. It's really the perfect type of story for a book like this - one that feels like a story about our lives, played out a hundred years ago.

I asked him to script it up, paired him up with Joseph Bergin III, and a couple of weeks later his final script came in. I don't even remember asking for any changes on his script - it was solid from the start.

Next we'll move along to Joseph Bergin III, the illustrator on Ande Parks' Taken on Faith.

Labels: postcards

Originally published on February 9th, 2007.

Yesterday: Get to Know Jay Busbee

I think it's time you all got to know a little bit about Postcards' creators. What they've done in the past, how they came to work on the book, and what it was like working with them. This is the fifth of thirty installments - I'll try to do this daily. All of the bios/stories will be posted as a bulletin and a blog - I suggest you subscribe to the blog if you don't want to miss any. I'll be featuring creators in the order their story appears in the book. And on that note...

I had Tony Fleecs on speed dial for two months. This wasn't because we were calling each other on the phone to discuss our feelings or the current political environment. I had Tony on speed dial because I'd call him every night and say, "Tony, how're those pages coming?"

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

One day Tony Fleecs mails me a PDF of In My Lifetime. This happens on occasion (it's been happening more frequently recently); people want me to give them feedback on their work and I try to say a couple of things. But what set Tony apart from everyone else is the fact that Tony's email was so B.F.F. (Best Friends Forever, in case you skipped first grade) that I actually spent several minutes trying to remember where I knew him from.

I didn't know him from anywhere, really - the Bendis Board but I only go there to promote stuff, usually. Turns out B.F.F. is just Tony's style. And that's how he gets you.

I witnessed the B.F.F. style at San Diego, as well. Tony and his crew were wearing In My Lifetime t-shirts that Tony's mom made. They were a crew in every sense of the word – they rolled tight and pulled you in if they liked you - I felt like I walked into a bar in Worcester on a Sunday with a Tom Brady jersey on. It was a big B.F.F. crew.

I should point out that I loved In My Lifetime. It's one of my favorite books from last year. It was a no-brainer to get Tony in the book. If I had room I probably would have given him his own story - he's a tremendous writer-illustrator. But I didn't have room and I knew his style would work well on Jay Busbee's story so that's where he went. He was more than happy to be a part of the book. At this point we already had Pekar, Hester, Beland, Gaydos - the book was already solid - Tony was excited to be a part of it and he told me, on several occasions, that he felt like he was the "small guy" in the book.

Tony helped out early - supplied some concept sketches for the Villard pitch that went out last July (yes, we first pitched Villard seven months ago). His stuff looked great - he had the perfect vision for the story. I didn't see pages for some time, however. As a matter of fact, two weeks before the "soft" art deadline, Tony called me up and we talked a bit about his direction for the project. He wanted to do a 40-panel grid layout, complete with digital tones, photo manipulation, and an ink-wash, for the 9-page story.

"As long as you get them in on time."

"No problem."

And so began our two months of endless phone calls. I was never really upset - a soft deadline is just that, soft. We weren't ready for his files yet and, wanting to make Tony a bit of a stud in this book, I rather he took his time.

I liked talking to Tony every night, I got a good look at his process, and all of his conversations had the B.F.F. tone to them. We joked around, traded stories, congratulated each other all the time. 

Tony wasn't taking long with the pages because he was being lazy about them. He just wanted them to be the best possible representation of his work that. He knew that this was a book with a lot of established creators in it. He knew, earlier than most people involved, that Villard, a division of Random House, the LARGEST publisher in AMERICA, was extremely interested in the book. Tony knew that his pages had to be something spectacular because a lot of people were going to read them. And, my God, they're spectacular.

People who've seen them have drooled over them. I have a proof of the book in my office that several friends have flipped through - most of them put Tony's pages on their list of high-points. I've had a creator, who'll remain nameless, say that we should just take a particular panel from Tony's story and make it the COVER of the book. Because his work was classy.

He took his time and the work shows. I harassed him everyday and, in return, got to take part in every step. I approved the layouts, the pencils, the tones, and the wash. There were days when he'd call me at 4AM his time (7AM my time) to give me an update. He left a voicemail, of course, because I was still sleeping.

And it was fun. Stressful, towards the end - we had a day to letter it - but fun. And with his pages, we had the third story in the book, Meet Me Tonight in Dreamland... The story, like Tom Beland's Time, looks back at a life but with the intention of solving a mystery. I think it's a great example of what two folks can do when they want to prove that they deserve to be in a book like this.

Next we'll talk about Ande Parks and Joseph Bergin III, the team behind Taken on Faith.

 

Labels: postcards

Originally published on February 8th, 2007.

We get the best envelopes:

Labels: postcards

Originally published on February 8th, 2007.

Yesterday: Get to Know Tom Beland

I think it's time you all got to know a little bit about Postcards' creators. What they've done in the past, how they came to work on the book, and what it was like working with them. This is the fourth of thirty installments - I'll try to do this daily. All of the bios/stories will be posted as a bulletin and a blog - I suggest you subscribe to the blog if you don't want to miss any. I'll be featuring creators in the order their story appears in the book. And on that note...

Earlier this week I talked about Chris Stevens and said that he is one of my oldest comic friends. Well, Jay Busbee has about a year on Chris.

Jay goes back to my first attempt at comics - Marvel's Epic Line - when Stephanie Moore was reading submissions (more like fan-fiction) from every would-be writer imaginable. I sent three pitches in, myself. One of them took a while to be rejected and when I got the rejection letter it was moderately personalized - it's kind of what inspired me to keep going (and, eventually, make better comics than I originally intended to make).

Jay and I "met" on the X-fan board that hosted Stephanie's Epic Q&A. I'm not sure if it was ComiXfan at that point, yet, but that's eventually what it morphed into. After Epic folded, I migrated to Digital Webbing. Jay Busbee was there, as well, and we got to helping each other out.

When I met Jay in person for the first time, at Wizard World Chicago 2004, Jay told me he landed a gig in Western Tales of Terror #1 - a book that also featured Steve Niles. Upon returning to DC, I proceeded to write a story for a future issue of the anthology. While hanging around the WToT message boards, I saw a message from Joshua Fialkov, the book's editor, saying that they're buried in submissions. I sent Josh a PM, offering to be the submissions editor on the book, and that turned into the submissions gig which turned into an editing gig for WToT and Elk's Run, which made it so I can produce Postcards.

So, in a way, I kind of credit Jay for where I am right now.

Jay went on to do Sundown: Arizona for Arcana as well as a couple of novels and writing for several sports journals. He has some fantastic comic pitches in his hands right now and I think you folks will be hearing more from him in the future.

He was a shoe-in for Postcards. He's my friend and he's good. The postcard I gave him was one of my favorites - it has a somewhat risqué front and a touch of intimacy scrawled on the back. It was also sent by a woman to another woman living in the same town.

Jay's pitch was fantastic - he took a mysterious card and built an even bigger mystery around it. I had one major edit: don't be afraid to make these women lovers. Jay revised his script and we rolled with it.

His story was originally titled Didn't We Have A Good Time? but we changed it to Meet Me Tonight in Dreamland... after the decision was made to have it follow Tom Beland's Time.

Next we'll talk about Jay's collaborator, the talented Tony Fleecs. I loved working with Tony and I have quite a few anecdotes about my experiences with him.

Labels: postcards

Originally published on February 7th, 2007.

Is currently beating me. But only by a little:



Pre-order Postcards and help us beat that muggle-loving, four-eyed wizard and his half-breed friend.

Labels: postcards

Originally published on February 7th, 2007.

Yesterday: Get to Know Gia-Bao Tran

I think it's time you all got to know a little bit about Postcards' creators. What they've done in the past, how they came to work on the book, and what it was like working with them. This is the third of thirty installments - I'll try to do this daily. All of the bios/stories will be posted as a bulletin and a blog - I suggest you subscribe to the blog if you don't want to miss any. I'll be featuring creators in the order their story appears in the book. And on that note...

Tom Beland; was an obvious choice for Postcards. For a book that was going to represent a wide range of genres there was no better choice than someone who revitalized the romance genre in comics. True Story Swear To God is one of my favorite books and it managed to get Tom a couple of romance books at Marvel Comics. When a Direct Market/Capes Powerhouse takes a chance on your niche, you know that's the kind of guy you want.

Unfortunately, I had no lead on him whatsoever. No-one I readily spoke to had a connection to Tom Beland. It was bizarre. I had connections to him through friends of friends but that would entail telling friends of friends about Postcards early in it's development - at a time when I was already running low on real estate in the book - and I find it stressful getting pitches from folks I'm not looking for pitches from yet.

So I figured I'd just contact Tom off of his website. I sent him an email introducing myself and the project and asked him to call me if he was interested. He called later that day - left a voicemail. I listened to the voicemail and got ridiculously excited - I called Robin up to do a little "whooping" to calm me down before calling Tom back.

I chatted with Tom for a bit, told him more about the project, and he seemed really into it. I sent him a postcard to pitch with that evening.

I remember Tom pitching me his story while I was driving somewhere. It was a great pitch; it captured how a single postcard can define someone's entire life. I loved it and told him I'd love to have it in the book.

Tom seemed excited to work on it as well. He helped out early with the Villard pitch, sending in layouts for two of his pages long before any artwork was due. I met him for the first time at San Diego Comic-Con - he told me how he was excited about the book until he found out Harvey Pekar and Joyce Brabner were in it, at which point he felt a little bit of pressure.

But he was a trooper - got his pages in on-time and his story was great. I was actually a bit choked up after reading it and I knew what was coming. Tom's been great since, offering to help out however he can with the book's marketing and promotion.

Tom's story, Time, is a perfect example of what someone can do when the love with the project.

Next we move on to the third story in the book, Meet Me Tonight in Dreamland..., by Jay Busbee and Tony Fleecs.

Labels: postcards

Originally published on February 6th, 2007.

Yesterday: Get to Know Chris Stevens

I think it's time you  all got  to know a little bit about Postcards' creators. What they've done in the past,  how they came to work on the book, and what it was like working with them. This is the second of thirty installments - I'll try to do this daily. All of the bios/stories will be posted as a bulletin and a blog - I suggest you subscribe to the blog if you don't want to miss any. I'll be featuring creators in the order their story appears in the book. And on that note...

It took a while to land the right illustrator for Chris Stevens' story, Blue. I needed someone with the right look - this was going to be the opening story, after all - the reader's first exposure to the caliber artists we have inside the book. We talked to a couple of people but varying schedules and a lack of funding made them all fall through - this was before Villard came along - this was when I was fronting the cost of the whole book (and my budget couldn't support pesky things like advances).

It got to the point where the illustrator for Blue was the only person the book was missing. I was anal in the selection process - I kept figuring I'd find the right person eventually.

I was walking down the small press aisles of San Diego Comic-Con 2006 with Josh Fialkov when I spotted Gia-Bao (GB) Tran's work. The first thing to catch my eye was the cover for Content #2 - I quickly moved on to everything he was offering at his table. Josh was impressed, as well - he purchased some of GB's books (and Josh isn't the type to buy books, usually). I told GB about Postcards; told him I'd love to see him in future volumes and that we should keep in touch. He agreed, we exchanged business cards, and I went about my business.

That night I flipped through Content #2. There is this one panel where a mass of military transports and helicopters are fleeing Saigon and heading off to the horizon -towards an arched rainbow topped with skyscrapers, corporate logos, and busty women. It's beautiful- filled with fantasy, planes flying off towards a better world - I saw this style rendering Blue's two-page splashes and knew that GB was my guy. He could handle the reality and the fantasy of Blue; he could suck the reader into an Atlantic City that only exists as a memory.

I ran GB by Chris, essentially saying, "This is the guy." Chris agreed and I shot an email to GB offering him the story. He graciously accepted. I showed his work to Dallas Middaugh at Villard and even Dallas agreed - GB is a superstar that we just happened to come across early in his career.

I loved working with GB. I sent him tons of reference photos of Storybook Land, Brigantine, Wildwood, Lucy the Elephant, Atlantic City, and the Jersey Turnpike  - I attempted to immerse him in the environment. His layouts were amazing, his pencils where even better - I thought his inks were the tops until I saw the inkwash he laid over them. I hoped for something as good as some of the sequences in Content #2 but instead received artwork that exceeded my expectations. He brought his own little spin to Blue and killed on the pages I needed him to kill on.

Between Chris Stevens and GB I couldn't be happier with the way Postcards opens.

Coming up next time we'll take a look at Tom Beland and his story, Time.

Labels: postcards

Originally published on February 5th, 2007.

I think it's time you  all got  to know a little bit about Postcards' creators. What they've done in the past,  how they came to work on the book, and what it was like working with them. This is the first of thirty installments - I'll try to do this daily. All of the bios/stories will be posted as a bulletin and a blog - I suggest you subscribe to the blog if you don't want to miss any. I'll be featuring creators in the order their story appears in the book. And on that note...

Chris Stevens is one of my oldest comic book friends. Back when I was getting my feet wet, when I was hanging around Digital Webbing and writing mediocre-to-poor pitches for Image and Dark Horse that I hope no-one ever read, Chris was the guy doing the good work. He was starting work on an incredibly ambitious graphic novel, now under the working title of Dream Compass. It was a collection of his own stories, being illustrated by guys like Art Adams, Jae Lee, and Farel Dalrymple. Wanting to get into comics, Chris seemed like the right person to get friendly with. So whereas I initially talked to Chris because he seemed like he had some fancy coattails to grab onto, it didn't take long for him to become a good friend.

I met him in person at SPX 2004. We sat at the bar together for a couple of hours, exchanged stories, and drank heavily. He showed me some of Art Adams and Jae Lee's early pages and I was floored. I was on my first comic gig at the time - I was about a month in to my submissions editor chores for Western Tales of Terror.

Over the past couple of years I've seen Dream Compass develop. Chris has a vision for the book that he's never compromised. That caused the book to develop slower than he originally planned, but it's also causing the book to look and read better than he's ever imagined. His vision also brought some amazing people to the book, including James Jean on book design, one of my favorite illustrators.

I promised him a spot in Postcards early on, like I did with a lot of folks, many of whom were, regrettably, bumped. Chris stayed in my face, however, and I sent him a postcard that I thought was perfect for him. Chris grew up outside of Atlantic City and his childhood stories center around a drastically changing environment. One that was raising casinos and pushing out families. I had a postcard in my collection with a picture of the Atlantic City boardwalk in the early 1930s, drenched in moonlight, looking nothing like it does today. I thought Chris would kill with that card. I wanted him to focus only on the front and tell a story that showed how even the image on a postcard tells a story.

He liked the idea but not the postcard and, instead, pitched me a story that focused on a somewhat-forgotten Atlantic City attraction. Lucy the Elephant - a building with a colorful history that was shaped like, well, an elephant. It's popularity as an attraction died as casinos began to pop-up and it is now a historic landmark rarely associated with the city. It was the perfect pitch for the type of story I wanted - the only problem was that it wasn't based on a postcard I owned.

I quickly rectified that problem by looking for, and purchasing, an old Lucy the Elephant postcard. It was the only story that I sort of "cheated" on but it was worth it - Chris pitched me a great story to open the book with and, at the end of the day, I have yet another excellent postcard in my collection.

Admitedly, it took him a while to get the full story in. He wrestled with the ending a bit, trying to keep his story personal while at the same time trying to live up to the task of writing an opening story. He read me his script over the phone while I was in a hotel in Chicago. Robin and I just checked in, we were itching to go out (Chicago is one of our favorite cities, we visit it every year), but I took twenty minutes to listen to his script.

It was perfect. Honestly perfect. Chris went back to work on it some more and I enjoyed Chicago - he mailed me the final script a week later.

His story is entitled Blue. We'll get to his collaborator, Gia-Bao Tran, tomorrow.

Labels: postcards

Originally published on February 2nd, 2007.



I reckon some creators will be hearing more about it at NYCC.

Labels: postcards

Originally published on January 29th, 2007.

...minus the postage.

The "Mail an ePostcard" option is live on the Postcard site. Choose from six different postcards, each selected from my private collection. Write whatever you want to write and send it to whoever you want to send it to. For an added bonus, try to use bad grammar or broken English - that's what most of my postcard collection looks like!

And while you're there, read a bit about the book. Check out the creators and stories. Preorder the book from Amazon.com. Have a blast - 1910 style!

- Jason

Labels: postcards

Originally published on January 28th, 2007.

Last night the DC Conspiracy hosted our second annual Counter Culture Festival at Dr. Dremo's. There were people selling comics, clothing, artwork, and novelties followed by belly dancing, improv comedy, and four righteous bands. Matt Dembicki, Evan Keeling, and I were the three main organizers of the event and I'm going to have to pat our backs a little bit - we had about three-to-four hundred people show up over the eight hour festival and pack themselves into Dremo's.

I promoted Postcards, of course (and sold Western Tales of Terror for a dollar a comic - I wanted to get rid of them and I managed to move 94 comics over 3-and-a-half hours, not bad). I had a binder set-up with sample pages from the book, the original postcards, copies of the cover taped up on the wall behind me, and these little mini flyers I made for the event:





Everyone seemed really excited about the book. That gets me pumped - these weren't just comic folks (I'd probably estimate around 20% of them where into comics). One guy even flipped through the postcards and then flipped to the preview pages and asked, "Oh - so it's all illustrated?"

"Yeah, it's a 160 page graphic novel."

"I didn't know they made comics like this."

Anyway - great show, great people. Can't wait for next years.

Labels: postcards

Originally published on January 22nd, 2006.

For starters, I agreed to serve food at Robin's boss's yearly "employees only" party because I know one of said employees is married to someone who I think should know about Postcards. Well, she wasn't there. This could have been the casual connection; now I actually have to ask for the intro. On the bright side, I got plenty of free wine and food and after an hour of carrying trays around we were out of food and I just went into mingle mode.

I had my sights on a big eBay auction, one that would have made my life much, much easier for Volume II of Postcards. I sniped the guys $88 bid with a minute to go, put in a maximum of $200 thinking, "Who'd imagine I'd double his original bid." My bid went in at $107. With 4 seconds to go my competitor put in a bid over $200 and won the auction for $202. I thought I had it locked up. There's one more auction I have my eyes on ending a couple of days for now. Unfortunately, the guy who beat me at 2:30AM yesterday already has a bid in for this one. He seems to be a reseller, though - I'm just going to make him an offer on whatever he pulled out from me. I'm going to pay a ton for it, though. I may need to come through a third party.

Attempts to settle on an accountant and publicist just ended up with more names being thrown into the ring. I think I just need a recommendation at this point.

It wasn't swing-and-miss just for Postcards, either. Pats and the Saint lost; the last two teams in the playoffs I actually cared about.

Oh well. At least I got name dropped in the Washington Post as a comic creator. It's nice to get name dropped. To quote Vast Aire, sometimes I feel like "I'm pointing at the moon, and you're looking at my finger."

And I got a Wii. That was exciting.

Labels: postcards

Originally published on January 22nd, 2007.

Noel Tuazon read my bio on the new Postcards website and found inspiration in a typically uninspired formality:

Labels: postcards

Originally published on January 17th, 2006.

I'm writing a letter to the PostSecret guys right now and it's tough. Seriously. I've become so accustomed to keyboards, spell check, and the delete key. Dependent on them, actually.

I started by asking the receptionist at my company what kind of paper I should use. Notebook paper just didn't seem right. Whereas she agreed a letter should be written on some nice stationary that says something about me, as a person, we also both realized said stationary is not currently in my possession and I had to settle for notebook paper.

It took several false starts before I got in the letter writing groove. The first false start was a result of spelling the recipient's name wrong. That would have been embarrassing. The second false start was the result of a horrible opening paragraph. It was just cheesy - I was essentially opening up my letter by saying how weird it was writing a letter and that went on for about a page. It was...awkward. The third false start was the result of remembering I never liked blue ink.

I finally got in the groove and I wrote the letter. Now I'm thinking I don't like it. I feel like I rushed it at the end because my hand was cramping. I also folded it like I was going to put it into a standard envelope but then realized the postcard I was sending (not my own secret, rather a postcard from my collection - a secret that's been discovered some 100-years later) wouldn't fit in a standard envelope so now I'll must likely have unnecessary folds in the paper.

I think I'm going to try it again. I'm currently reading Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln... It's a brilliant book, a 900-page biography of Lincoln and his three rivals for the Republican ticket, Seward, Chase, and Bates. I'm amazed at how often these folks wrote the densest of letters. These guys would be in DC, writing home to their families and friends on a daily basis. While writing 4-hour-long speeches and keeping diaries. These guys would hand write pages upon pages each night. And here I am, agonizing over a two page letter.

Anyway - I want to write more letters. I want some good-ole-fashioned pen pals. If you want to write me a letter (or a postcard), send it to:

Jason Rodriguez
PO Box 17851
Arlington, VA 22216-7851

(By the way, a couple of months ago I started a "Bringing the Postcard" back promotion where folks were to send zip codes to the above address and, in return, some people would receive postcards back from creators in the book. I'm going to relaunch that idea soon because, well, I had the wrong zip code on the original release. Turns out a lot of mail didn't get to me. Sorry, if you're reading this now and wondering why I never acknowledged your existence.)

I'll try and respond to as many letters as I can. But I want letters. Hand-written and full of cross-outs and white out and the occasional spelling mistake.

Labels: postcards

Originally published on January 16th, 2007.

    ...approximately, until POSTCARDS is released.

I've had a busy couple of weeks, between traveling and putting the finishing touches on the book. It's all coming together, however, and the next few weeks are going to be very exciting for POSTCARDS, I gather. For one thing, our website is almost completed. It looks fantastic, designed by Jessica Sokol and developed by Gennaro Monaco. Since we're going live with it in a couple of days, I figure a little look for you all won't kill me...

http://www.postcardsanthology.com

It's not completely finished yet but I couldn't be happier with how it's coming along.

Big announcements coming soon. Finally. New York Comic-Con plans are formalizing. San Diego too. The Washington DC Counter Culture Festival is two weeks away, an annual party at Dr. Dremo's thrown by the DC Conspiracy (or which I'm a member). I'll be there with a book filled with Postcards.

So, a lot going on - exciting weeks ahead. Stay tuned.

Labels: postcards

Originally published on December 25th, 2006.

On Christmas, no less.

Labels: postcards

Originally published on December 20th, 2006.

...the non-creative part.

I love the creative part of making comics. Getting people involved, getting their best work out of them, putting together the book, marketing it - all great stuff.

But here's the thing. I'm signing a contract and there's a check coming to me. That sounds pretty simple, and I know some of you are rolling your eyes and saying, "I wish I had that problem," but let me take you through all of the crap I had to do over the past month.

First I had to make my company legit. Eximious Press, LLC. Employees: Me. Lot's of paperwork, a couple of fees, but I'm opened up and ready for business.

Sort of. Because then I had to get my tax ID. And register my logo for trademark.

Now I'm ready to sign that contract.

Sort of. Because I also need to come up with 34 agreements for all of the creators in the book that spell out the printing rights, advances, subsequent royalties, etc. My agents doing the bulk of the work (after I provided examples of my payment structure that I generated in Excel) with the agreements but I need to check out each one to make sure everything's in order.

34 agreements almost ready to go, contract ready to be signed - send me the check, right?

I needed to open a bank account for my business, though. So I set that up, checking and savings. Now I can write out my checks.

34 checks. Plus separate checks for the designers, letterers, James (assistant editor). Then, after I write these checks, I'll need to generate 1099 forms for everyone so the IRS knows that their payment amounts aren't to be included as my income. And, looking ahead, I'm going to be writing out 34 checks every quarter and needing to keep tabs on the amount paid in order to generate 1099's every year the book's receiving royalties.

So I had to buy QuickBooks Pro. Got it at Costco this weekend, I still need to get the check paying package. Spent a day learning how to use it and I just spent the past couple of hours adding the information for all 34 creators. Now I need to find out how to go back and enter all of my expenses for the past year (a bunch of books, a new computer, the Adobe suite, a new All-in-one, a separate scanner, New York Comic-Con, San Diego Comic-Con, SPX, business cards, pamphlets, web hosting, etc).

So now I have my company, I have the agreements being generated, and QuickBooks is almost ready to go. Contract's in the mail. Check'll be coming as soon as I sign it. The company seal is on its way (I actually needed a company seal for my bank forms).

And all this was to PREPARE for the business side of this book.

Labels: postcards

Originally published on December 20th, 2006.

img src="http://www.jasonrodriguez.com/Mule.jpg">

What a cute card.

The back reads:

"Thought of you when I saw this card. Reminds me of the little mule you couldn't kill. Been quite hot today. We are not used to that being up north and at the coast for a month. Expect to be home soon for our vacation. [Signed by two currently illegible names]."

How cute!

(I'll get a scan of the back when I get home and update the blog - I forgot to upload it last night.)

Labels: postcards

Originally published on December 14th, 2006.



What a cute card.

The back reads:

"Thought of you when I saw this card. Reminds me of the little mule you couldn't kill. Been quite hot today. We are not used to that being up north and at the coast for a month. Expect to be home soon for our vacation. [Signed by two currently illegible names]."

How cute!

(I'll get a scan of the back when I get home and update the blog - I forgot to upload it last night.)

Labels: postcards

Originally published on December 12th, 2006.

...I'm holding Postcards. Seriously, I'm typing with one hand, and using the other to hold Postcards. It's still hot - I just pulled it from the printer.

I'll put it down now, if you don't mind.

It's not the whole book, of course; there are stubs in there for the title page and indices and stuff like that. But the 148 pages of meat that goes in-between the 12 pages of front and back matter are finished and in my hand.

16 stories and their chapter breaks. Some folks are already reading it, even - I'm anxiously awaiting their thoughts. I'm going to be sending the final stories out to the creators soon (tonight, hopefully) for their thoughts, as well.

A couple of loose ends, of course. Intros, outros, bios, ToC - all of that stuff needs to be finished up. Cover's done, though. I'm sure there'll be plenty of little tweaks. Plenty of administrative and promotional work but I enjoy doing that kind of stuff, honestly. And then...

Well, there's volume II, of course. I've never denied there'll be a volume II or III. IV may be pushing it. I have a wish list of creators for II; I think NYCC will be where I first start feeling around for interested parties.

I'm starting to think beyond Postcards, too. I know this is Postcards' MySpace account but Postcards' is just the first of many books I plan to produce or publish over the next couple of years. I still have this baseball graphic novel I'm dying to do and recently I've been getting really excited about doing a book centered on Sam Cooke. I'm not sure if it'd be a biography or an anthology of stories inspired by his songs or what but I've been thinking someone needs to bring Sam to this generation and his story is as inspiring as his music.

But for now, Postcards, right? The book looks fantastic - I can't wait for folks to read it. There's just such a wide range of genres and art styles yet they all seem to belong together. I've read through the book and with some stories I laughed out loud while with others I actually got a bit choked up. The book is balanced - there're no stories that are overpowering the others and every story shines in its own way.

I really couldn't be more proud. Come July, a lot of folks are going to be talking about the 34 people in this book.

Labels: postcards

Originally published on December 9th, 2006.

This one kills me.

It was sent March 29, 1909 and the front has this almost stalker-ish image on it.



You can't read the back because, apparently, another postcard stuck to this one and someone tried to peel them apart. All you can make out are fragments of sentences:



"Had a stroke of paralyse [sic] Monday and is very..."

"...the doctor said..."

"...can't live..."

Labels: postcards

Originally published on December 9th, 2006.

I participated in Part II of Neswarama's holiday gift-giving guide. Go check it out in case you're wondering what to get me for Christmas (hint: used postcards).

Labels: postcards

Originally published on December 6th, 2006.

Because I really need this.

I've been tracking that domain since I first came up with this book, sitting around and rubbing my hands together while saying, in 2010 I'm going to snatch postcards.com right out from underneath this guy.

Oh well. I guess he's on it.

Labels: postcards

Originally published on December 6th, 2006.

(FIY, MySpace hasn't been sending my messages from this account so, if you write me, include an email to reach you at.)

When Tony Fleecs told me he was doing Meet Me Tonight in Dreamland using a 40 panel grid layout I just kind of laughed and said, "whatever."

Well, he did it. He only used 21 of the 40 panels on the first page, though. Slacker.

Labels: postcards

Originally published on December 5th, 2006.

Last week Caleb Monroe interviewed Phil Hester on writing short comics. This week he interviews Hope Donovan (Rising Stars of Manga), Kazu Kibuishi (Flight), Joe Pruett (Negative Burn), and I (Postcards) on editing anthologies. It's a good piece. I wrote all of my answers while stoned on pain medications after I injured my back so I talk about my "great ego" and admit that there are bad anthologies in existence with bad editors. Plenty of pull-quotes if you want to start a "Jason Rodriguez is full of himself" campaign.

Labels: postcards

Originally published on December 1st, 2006.

Let me start by showing the back of this postcard:



For those who can't make it out, it reads:

Hello Bill,
How are you? We have fine sleighing. I am just tired out today as I went to the city yesterday, it was such a terrible day. We had an awful time driving home. With this card I am sending a slight remembrance. Let me know if you get it. A Merry X-mas is wish of
Abbie

Ok, so. I bought this card because I thought the whole terrible day/awful drive angle had potential for a future volume. I'm sitting at me desk, working a bit on the book, and I start thumbing through my postcards, looking for inspiration. I read this card and I'm stuck on the line, "With this card I am sending a slight remembrance. Let me know if you get it." It's such an odd line to me, "slight" and "get it" kind of stuck out - I start wondering how these people are related, you know? All I know is a woman is sending it to a man. In order to get another clue I flip the card over to see what the front looks like:



Look at the picture and tell me what "slight remembrance" Abbie was sending to Bill, hoping he'd "get it." That little minx.

Labels: postcards

Originally published on December 1st, 2006.

16 banners to choose from, one from each story. Which creators excite you the most? Feel free to link to their banner and let everyone know.

Labels: postcards

Originally published on November 28th, 2006.

...the Hindenburg of short stories.

That's Phil Hester talking about his story for Postcards. I'd like to think it's the best thing he's ever done. You can read the whole interview here.

Labels: postcards

Originally published on November 28th, 2006.

My office's receptionist officially has a crush on Phil Hester after receiving this fax:

She has to get in line, though. I've had a crush on Phil for years.

Labels: postcards

Originally published November 27th, 2006.

If we were still in the 90s, Wizard would be calling The Dr. Dremo Anthology Volume 3 "hot" because of a Postcards cameo. They'd go on to say that Postcards is sure to become the big hit of Summer 2007 and The Dr. Dremo Anthology Volume 3 would be where it all started. The Anthology's value would have went through the roof (especially since there'd only be a couple of hundred in print), the second printing would be released with a million-copy print-run and a foil cover, and Volume 4 would sport a tri-fold Joe Quesada hologram cover and a pin-up by Jim Lee.

It wouldn't be worth the paper it was printed on, now, but in the 90s...oh, the 90s.



The above panel is from a story written by Jeff Barrus and illustrated by Jacob Warrenfeltz, the team behind the wonderful The Alberic Heresies. In case you're not sure whether or not the above panel counts as an actual cameo, I'll show you the next panel...



And since I'm the narrator for POSTCARDS, I'd call that an official cameo.

Labels: postcards

Originally published November 26th, 2006.

I just wanted to share this with everyone because I thought it was extremely cool. Postcards has a story in it called "Best Side Out" written by Antony Johnston (Wasteland, Queen & Country) and illustrated by Noel Tuazon (Elk's Run). The story is inspired by the postcard below:

The narrative that runs over the story is text from a postcard that was written by the same woman who sent the above. I wanted to make sure that the reader knew this right off the bat so I asked Jason Hanley (who's lettering the story) to recreate her handwriting to the best of his abilities.

Jason went above and beyond what he was asked to do. He isolated individual letters and words from the original postcard and used it to "build" a new postcard written by the same person. The result is amazing - it looks like it was mailed 100 years ago, as if I purchased two postcards sent from the same person. See for yourself:

I can't stress enough how important a good letterer is.

Labels: postcards

Originally published November 26th, 2006.

Many of you know the deal with POSTCARDS - 16 stories inspired by used antique postcards I've collected. Most of these cards are around a hundred years old and talk about quarantines, secret admirers, world wars, and sickly mothers. We have stories from Harvey Pekar, Joyce Brabner, Phil Hester, Tom Beland, Stuart Moore, Michael Gaydos, Rick Spears & Rob G - 33 of comics greatest creators. Each of these cards were purchased for no more than two-dollars (and most of them cost 25-cents) and yet we managed to make an amazing book out of them.

I'm not planning the second volume yet. That'll likely start in March. But I am actively looking for new postcards to build the second volume around. Last weekend I went to a couple of antique shops in Williamsburg and Petersburg and purchased 28 postcards. I have enough cards to last me five or six volumes, most likely, so there really shouldn't be a need to buy the following cards. Wouldn't that be considered cheating, after all? And a waste of money? I don't know...

But a postcard sent from a Jewish prisoner in a Concentration Camp? How amazing would that be in a future volume?

Or 12 pre-Holocaust postcards sent from a Jewish woman living in Germany?

How about a postcard from Babe Ruth? Or Harry Houdini? Thomas Mann?

I think about the odds of finding cards like these in an antique shop for 25-cents and they're not encouraging. But do I really even need them?

Labels: postcards

Originally published November 23rd, 2006.

 

Labels: postcards

Originally published on November 19th, 2006.

I figured I'd show you all a couple of the cards that are being featured in the upcoming volume of Postcards. The first one is being turned into a story by the incredibly talented Phil Hester. It's an Easter card, sent March 23rd, 1923. It was one of my favorites – I love how it starts off like any other card and then dives into the whole, "I heard a rumor you married a man with a twelve-year-old boy" thing.





This next card was the one I decided to use for my story (cowritten with my cousin RJ and illustrated by Seamus Heffernan). This one was mailed March 16th, 1909 and it rocked me when I first read it – the way the quarantine was addressed so matter-of-factly, as if it was an everyday occurrence at the turn-of-the century. You try to set-up a quarantine area now and people will be rioting in the streets trying to escape it. In this postcard, however, the guy who sent it is going INTO a quarantine area and says he doesn't care about it.





One more, for now, turned into a story by Stuart Moore and Michael Gaydos. There was so much that can be done with this card that was mailed on October 8th, 1909. The mysterious "X" beneath the stamp, "hope you weren't in a fight last night." I'm glad Stuart took this card and had fun with it, turning it into a tale of tic-tac-toe hustlers.

Labels: postcards

Originally published on November 18th, 2006.

I usually don't like spending more than a dollar on a postcard. I occasionally get the two dollar card if the story on the back has a lot of potential but I have yet to come across a three-dollar card that I deemed worth buying...until today.

I'll scan this card in when I get back to NoVa but I had to share as much as I can with you all as soon as possible. I'll post the scans on Sunday.

Williamsburg, Virginia. The card was sent September 27th, 1909 to an Eva Billman of Muskingum, Ohio from a Charley Frost of Mandale, Ohio. The front of the card sports some flowers and says, "Many happy returns of the day." The back reads...

Dear friend,
Where did mother go when she left your place? We have not heard from her for over three weeks & we did not know where to write to. We thought likely you would know.
Charley Frost

How many stories come to mind when you read those three sentences? How many ways does the mother die? What does the man look like that she ran off with it? What childhood memories did she decide to revisit?

There's an amazing story behind this card - a once-in-a-lifetime type of story. If you're a writer, a card like this is all the muse you'd ever need. It's someone's life, it's heartbreaking, and it's inspiring.

It was in a shoebox for $3, filed in a section labeled "miscellaneous."

Three dollars.

I promise you it will be in Postcards Volume II.

Labels: postcards

Originally published on November 16th, 2006.

The past couple of days have been exciting for Postcards. Busy, too. About 80% of the book is done, the rest is on course to be finished by the end of the month as originally planned. About half of the stories in the book are hand-lettered by the artist; those are all basically finished and turned in. The other half is hand/computer lettered by Jason Hanley who's tearing through them as quick as he can. There's a new rule for future volumes - if you're going to tell a story that relies heavily on text written on the back of postcards, you need to keep it to about two sentences and try to dedicate a quarter of the page to the panel. I'm blowing up panels, cutting text, and taking liberties as to where people would write the address on these cards.

Friday was most likely one of the proudest days of my comic-making life so far. I can't talk about it yet, though, but I have the story all typed up and ready to be posted as soon as I can. It was a very good day; let's just put it that way.

I had to fill out an author questionnaire - it ended up being about ten pages long. I also included a four page attachment that gave little anecdotal tales behind all of the stories in Postcards. I think I'm going to share those down the road a bit, when the time is right. Probably after the book is a hit and sells 100k copies.

Anyway, I could tell you all about the gorgeous Gia-Bao Tran pages I've received or how Tony Fleecs is tearing up his pages but you guys don't care about that, you want to see some art. So, how about some Tom Beland...

Labels: postcards

Originally published on November 5th, 2006.

I had three things on my Postcards to-do list today and I haven't done any of them yet. It's not that I haven't been working on Postcards; it's just that more high-priority Postcards business keeps popping up. So it's 1:30AM, I'm tired, and I'm just pushing through the night with a pot of coffee and a Harry & David Pumpkin Spice Roll (it's delicious).

I figured I'd take a break and pop in. I have Sam Cooke playing on the computer, "You Send Me," probably one of my top-3 all-time favorite songs. I hear Sam Cooke and I just shut my eyes and fall in love with everything, come back from it and feel inspired to create great comics. It's been a big music day. I started with Michael Jackson's Off the Wall, played some Commodores afterwards, followed that up with some Platters, a little Sam the Sham and Pharaohs to help me get to my second wind, moved on to a hand-picked play list with a nice sampling of Jill Scott, Alicia Keys, Stevie Wonder, and, of course, Dionne Warwick's "Walk on By" (I love that song so much it's embarrassing). But now it's Sam Cooke, I'll end the night on Sam Cooke. I have his entire catalog (including some Soul Stirrers) on shuffle and I'll keep it going until I fall asleep.

I've always wanted to do an ambitious music-themed anthology. Something different. Silent stories - package the book with a CD and let it serve as the soundtrack. Whenever I hear "You Send Me," for instance, I think about summer. I think about block parties, the whole family sitting on the stoop, a grill going, eating watermelon - the TV on the table attached to an extension cord that's hanging from a second story window. The Mets' game is on. The Johnny Pump is open, sprinkler cap on - kids refilling their water guns and balloons and getting ready for another round or water wars. Playing football in the street and not having to worry about traffic passing through. Manhunt and handball and suicide and stoopball. You make that into a silent story and make it so the reader can flip through the pages while playing "You Send Me" and they'll feel me - we'd connect for two minutes and thirty-five seconds. They'd get what this song does to me, how it makes me feel, they'd get a piece of my childhood.

But, for now, Postcards. I should get back to that...

Labels: postcards

Originally published on November 3rd, 2006.



The only clue to her abduction is this postcard:




Postcards' editor, Jason Rodriguez, claims the case has been solved and answers will revealed in July of 2007.

Give love...

Story by Jay Busbee: http://www.myspace.com/jaybusbee

Art by Tony Fleecs: http://www.myspace.com/fleecsdesign

Originally published on November 1st, 2006.

...sort of.

77 of 160 pages lettered and ready to go, so, slightly less than half.

BUT...

9 out of 16 stories lettered and ready to go. More than half of the stories. And all 2 of the remaining stories should be finished over the next couple of days.

It's coming together quickly now...

Labels: postcards

Originally published on October 30th, 2006.

I haven't shown any new pages in a while, I've been busy putting the book together and coordinating the remaining pieces, so I figured I'd drop a super treat on you all and share three pages of "Quarantined", cowritten by my cousin RJ and I and illustrated by Seamus Heffernan. Enjoy…

Labels: postcards

Originally published on October 19th, 2006.

Anthology round-table at Newsarama

I talk a bit about editing anthologies along with Ivan Brandon (24Seven) and Cheese Hasselberger (House of 12).

"The worst experience I've had so far was when I had to cut someone from a book after he turned in his pages. This was for WToT, they came in on the deadline and they just looked rushed, not at all what we were expecting. But they were fixable, and we sent notes, and never heard back. So we had to replace him. The email I got back - I still feel bad about it. And that's what you should be aware of. That people are going to disappoint you and you are going to disappoint people. I had to cut three people from POSTCARDS who were attached to the project from day one. One of them was even a very good friend of mine and another was someone whom I've worked with in the past and whose work I adore. I also lost a writer (and that loss is what led to some of the shake-ups that caused me to cut people). You need to plan for this kind of stuff, though. Writers will bring their own artists on board and people will leave your book - the more stories you have the more likely that'll happen. You plan ahead; the moment things started to look sketchy with the writer in question I started feeling around for a replacement. The day he left the book I filled his slot. And that's how Antony Johnston and Noel Tuazon got a story in the book. I couldn't ask for a better "fill-in" team."

Go read the rest...

Labels: postcards

Originally published on October 6th, 2006.

When I go through the list of contributors for Postcards people tend to say, "Wow. Michael Gaydos." They then ask, "What's his work look like in black & white?"

It looks like this:

Wow. Michael Gaydos.

Labels: postcards

Originally published on October 3rd, 2006.

Found some time to make some new banners...

Labels: postcards

Originally published on September 22nd, 2006.

9/15/06

Made some phone calls since I was actually able to talk today (I was sick last week).

Called Tony Fleecs to see how he's doing on pages. Since he's running a bit behind he's going to send me the pencils first so Jaco can start lettering the pages while he inks.

Called Tom Beland. Tom's doing fine – he's hand lettering his story so he has a bit more wiggle room. We chatted a bit about the Eisner's and the Harvey's and then I let him get back to work.

Called Chris Stevens to see how the collaboration with Gia-Bao was going. Seemed to be moving along smoothly but I shot an email out to GB to check in and say "hey". GB responded with an update and asking for some additional reference photos. I dug up some photos of New Jersey landmarks: Storybook Land, Smithville, Wildwood, Ocean City, and Brigatine.

Wrote first drafts of the chapter breaks for five stories: Chris Stevens & Gia-Bao Tran's, Harvey Pekar, Joyce Brabner & Matt Kindt's, Joshua Fialkov & Micah Farritor's, Jason Rodriguez (me), RJ Rodriguez & Seamus Heffernan, and James W. Powell & Drew Gilbert.

9/16/06

Went to the library and researched the history of postcards some more.

Found a great passage on the evolution of the postcard in PICTURE POSTCARDS IN THE UNITED STATES 1893-1918. Felt inspired to write the inside jacket copy.

Wrote chapter break for Phil Hester's story. Decided it should follow my story due to their similar starting points and polar opposite endpoints.

Wrote chapter break for Antony Johnston and Noel Tuazon's story. Decided it should follow Josh and Micah's story due to similar relationship struggles. The narrative structure of the book is becoming clear – a reader will get more out of this if they start at the beginning and read towards the end than if they were to simply go to a random story and read it.

Hijacked James Meeley's website and turned it into an advertisement for Postcards. James has been making some waves on the comics' blog-o-sphere and he packed up his site and ran away. I figured all the links going to non-existent pages were a waste.

9/17/06

Back at the library before monthly DC Conspiracy meeting.

Sent book copy written so far to James Powell for feedback.

Wrote chapter break for Ande Parks & Joseph Bergin, Robert Tinnell & The Fraim Brothers, Jay Busbee & Tony Fleecs, and Neil Kleid & Jake Allen.

9/18/06

Received updates from Michael Gaydos and Danielle Corsetto. Their pages should be coming in shortly, very excited to see them.

Got an interview request from Neil Kleid for something he's working on.

Got updated layouts from Gia-Bao Tran forwarded to me from Chris Stevens. They look fantastic.

Got Joseph Bergin III's pages in. They look great. I decided to hold off contacting him until I talk to Ande Parks about them.

9/19/06

I got James Powell to send Michael Gaydos some requested photo refs.

Neil Kleid sent me the interview questions. They were great; a lot of thought was put into them.

Got Ande's comments on Joseph's pages, incorporated them with my own and sent them out. Joseph agreed with everything and he'll be tweaking the pages a bit.

Called Chris Stevens to go over Gia-Bao's new layouts.

Followed-up with Matt Kindt where we are design-wise. He needs to get started but we're waiting on approval of our cover design, first. We want the interior design to fit with the book cover. To make it more stressful, he's going on vacation at the end of the month. I'm going to be in Durham the same week; I'm debating bringing my desktop with me. It isn't that big with the flat screen and it has all of my files and software on it.

Stressful time coming. When this book takes off I'm going to buy the Adobe Suite for James Powell and send him to class so he can learn how to use it. It would make things much easier for Volume II.

9/20/06

Had a bit of back-and-forth with Gia-Bao Tran. Indie Spinner Rack is interviewing him next week and I had to make sure he knows what he can say and what he can't say.

James Powell sent out email reminders to all of the creators we haven't yet received bios from.

Sent in my interview responses for a piece on anthologies I'm contributing to. I think my answers were strong but entirely too long, I have to imagine they'll be cut down. I'll post the full answers on the MySpace page when the interview goes up.

Tinkered with some of the previously written chapter breaks according to James' notes.

9/21/06

Seemed like a slow day for POSTCARDS. I was brainstorming ideas for a new column I should be launching with C.H.U.D. However…

Received some of Danielle's completed pages and flipped out. They're fantastic. No notes to give back except, "Excellent job".

Labels: postcards

Originally published on September 22nd, 2006.

Danielle Corsetto, the cartoonist behind the much loved GIRLS WITH SLINGSHOTS, the wonderful CRAZY PAPERS (written by Jim Dougan), and the BATBOY cartoons in the infamous Weekly World News has collaborated with A. David Lewis to bring a story of love, expectations, and let-downs to POSTCARDS. Here's a little taste of what to expect:

 

Labels: postcards

Originally published on September 20th, 2006.

Storytelling

I was having drinks with Matt Dembicki this past Sunday. He has a story in POSTCARDS, illustrated by Jason Copland - it's somewhat of a silent story, the only words guiding it are the words on the postcard I assigned him. We were saying how great of a job Jason Copland did with the script - how you can read the story without knowing what's on the card.

I got Joseph Bergin III's final pages two days ago. Once again, you can read the story without the dialog. All 8-pages, Joseph did that good of a job with his storytelling. I wanted to share these three panels, in particular:

You know what's going on in this scene even when looking at them completely out of context. It's quite a beautiful thing.

Labels: postcards

Originally published on September 16th, 2006.

A postcard used by comic legend R. Crumb. Currently at $200. I'm trying to justify the purchase. It's a tax write-off, at least.

Originally published on September 16th, 2006.

I'm drafting the inside jacket copy for Postcards and I'm including a descriptions of the first postcard ever produced. The first postcard was copyrighted on December 17, 1861. It was an advertisement for postcards, a white card with black font reading:

 

This Postal Card offers great facilities for sending

Messages or for rapid correspondence.

 

It is only about half the price of paper and envelopes.

It is ready for instant dispatch.

It is a convenient mode for ordering goods.

It is valuable to travelers, affording ready communication.

It is useful to societies sending notices.

It is of advantage to merchants for circulars.

It lightens the mails, cheapens the postage...

Labels: postcards

Originally Published on September 15th, 2006.

I'm starting a true, day-by-day Production Diary for Postcards. I'll be posting it every week for those interested.

9/8/06
In preparation for Baltimore Comic-Con I printed out 75 copies of the following flyer:

Cut it up into quarters so I had 300 hand-outs available for folks interested in the book. Purchased a snazzy three-ring binder and inserts to hold my entire postcard collection; loaded it up. Also printed out sample pages for the binder. Purchased 24-cent stamps and blank postcards for our "Bringing the Postcards Back" promotion - I'll be giving blank, ready-to-mail postcards to some creators at Baltimore Comic-Con.

9/9/06
Talked up Postcards at Baltimore Comic-Con. I mainly focused on retailers and creators. Since we haven't announced a publisher yet, and since the book's release is ten months away, it's still kind of early to be targeting individual fans. Don't get me wrong, I talked to plenty of them, but I tracked down retailers, creators, and press folks.

I gave postage-paid Postcards to Danielle Corsetto, A. David Lewis, The Fraim Brothers, and Josh Fialkov. Robert Tinnell was at the show but I didn't get to give him any cards. I'll hit him up at SPX, most likely. The Fraim Brothers handed me the final MIDNIGHT CALLER pages burned onto a CD along with print-outs of the story. Very professional, makes me want to work with them again.

Carla Speed McNeil had a table next to ours, got to talk to her a bit. I don't think I'm surprising anyone or revealing too much if I were to say I desperately want her in the second volume of Postcards. I was on my best behavior.

Received an email from someone I want to interview for the website. I've never interviewed anyone before so now I'm freaking out - I don't want to be one of those boring interviewers.

9/10/06
Another day at the show. A lot of retailers in town on Sunday meant a lot of folks to talk to.

Received finals from Drew Gilbert and thumbs from Seamus Heffernan. Sent Drew the ftp info he'll need to upload the finals. Jake Allen sent me some rough sketches for the last couple of panels we're tweaking. They looked like they'll work so I told him to lay them down tighter.

Emailed John from All the Rage to thank him for the mention. Two weeks in a row!

9/11/06
Got notes back to Seamus on the thumbnails. Mainly wanted to see some changes on page one - there's a husband/wife scene where they seemed too distant because they were never clearly visible in the same panel.

James wrote me to tell me he's sick. I'm coming down with something too. The thought of us both being sick freaks me out.

Josh's last night in town - I hung out with him and put off Postcards work for the night.

9/12/06
Worked the day job then went to Baltimore for an Orioles/Red Sox game. Nothing for Postcards. Doesn't help that I'm getting sicker.

9/13/06
Found a postcard trading group on MySpace - 790 members. Signed up and introduced myself, told folks about my "Bringing the Postcard Back" program. Tried to make it not look like spam. Nobody seemed to care, either way. Win some, lose some.

Gave Chris Stevens permission to share some of Gia-Bao's layouts publicly.

Called James and looked at our schedule. We're on track - I asked him to follow-up with the creators that owe us bios and I'll follow-up with the creators that owe us artwork.

Caught up with Tony Fleecs, Phil Hester, Joseph Bergin III, and Danielle Corsetto. Everyone's working away, no need to worry on our end.

Got very sick. Fever, chills, aches, and vomiting. No more Postcards work.

9/14/06
Stayed home from work, sick all day. Watched Arrested Development Season III and answered emails as they came in.

Jason Hanley gave me an update on the lettering/design work. We'll be fine on that end, most of the stories are to be hand-lettered by the creative teams, anyway.

Seamus sent a new page 1 - it's perfect.

Emailed my agent looking for some advice on something I really can't talk about yet but I will say his answer had some information in it that made me smile. A lot.

I put together Seamus' thumbs into a PDF and used the comment feature to lay down the final lettering and make some comments where necessary. Sent it out and I'm now waiting to see if Seamus is good with the final copy.

Emailed someone in response to my agents email. Again, can't talk about that. Maybe I'll come back and fill in the blanks later.

Chris Stevens sent me some notes he sent to GB for their story, BLUE. Chris is a great writer. He scares me sometimes.

Attempted to write some of the chapter breaks but my head was too cloudy from the meds and lack of sleep - went to bed early, instead (and early, for me, is 1AM).

Labels: postcards

Originally published on September 8th, 2006.

No, there won't be a POSTCARDS table. I am carving out a little corner at the Elk's Run table, however. Elk's Run is another book I edit; it's written by Joshua Hale Fialkov and illustrated by Noel Tuazon. It's nominated for seven Harvey awards: Best Writer, Best Illustrator, Best Series, Best Cover Artist (Datsun Tran), Best Single Issue (Issue #3), Best New Talent (Joshua Fialkov), and Best Letterer (Jason Hanley). Sadly, there's no "Best Editor" award but I take some credit for the other seven nominations.

But, back to POSTCARDS. I will have some art from the book on display as well as my postcard collection that inspired the anthology. So, feel free to come on by and thumb through the cards. I looked through many shoe boxes in antique stores from 6 different states and hand picked a hundred cards over the past year. You get to skip all of that since I have them all nicely filed in a binder.

So come on by (we'll be at Table 74, right next to the Harvey Awards table), say hi to Josh and I, and then go to the Harvey Awards Saturday night and cheer us on.

Also, two POSTCARDS creators will be at Baltimore:
The Fraim Brothers: Table 12
Danielle Corsetto: Table 51
So check them out as well.

Labels: postcards

Originally published on September 6th, 2006.

I want to introduce you folks to Gia-Bao Tran (GB) and Seamus (pronounced Shaw-mus) Heffernan.

I met GB at San Diego Comic-Con this year - he had a table at the small press pavilion. His Xeric-award winning comic, CONTENT, caught my eye and I began to gush quite profusely (even broke-as-no-joke Josh Fialkov bought a copy). You see, I've been looking for the perfect artist to team with Chris Stevens on the lead story for the book. We've talked to a couple of folks already but they were both too busy - I was getting a little worried, honestly. This is the lead story - when Chris pitched me this story I knew it was the way I needed to start the book - it complimented Harvey Pekar and Joyce Brabner's story perfectly and the two could work as book ends for the anthology. They'll allow me to run a narrative through the book. I saw the whole thing unfold instantly.

But the lead story also has to have the right artwork. I pitched GB POSTCARDS and he seemed interested. A week after I got home from SDCC I offered him the gig and he took it. Just yesterday I got the layouts for their 9-page story, including this spread:

And it's the kind of spread that makes you smile and realize you made the right choice.

Speaking of "making the right choice" there's Seamus Heffernan.

I first talked to Seamus over a year ago, I was trying to get him on WESTERN TALES OF TERROR, I believe. For whatever reason it didn't work out; we fell out of touch with each other. He went traveling across Europe and we cancelled WToT and put all of our time and effort into ELK'S RUN.

I was talking to three different artists for my story in POSTCARDS and I couldn't decide which one to go with. They were all good, but none of them were perfect. Here comes Seamus, writing me to catch up and see what I've been up to. I take a look at some of his new pages and the improvements he made over the past year was astonishing (and he was great before).

I pitched him POSTCARDS and he jumped on it. We went back and forth over the story and yesterday I received his first concepts sketches:

And they're the type of sketches that make you smile and realize you made the right choice.

I love finding new people and taking a chance on them. This book will be filled with folks whose work you likely won't be familiar with. Joseph Bergin III did a four page story in WToT #4 - he's going to floor you. Jason Copland has some books coming out but WToT #4 probably had the highest distribution out of all the stuff he's done in the past - you'll want to see more from him after POSTCARDS. Tony Fleecs' IN MY LIFETIME is one of the greatest books of the year and his work for POSTCARDS is going to be jaw-dropping. Micah Farritor's pages are absolutely breathtaking - his rendition of Paris is awe-inspiring. Drew Gilbert is going to capture childhood innocence and neatly frame it within a 9x6 page.

And they'll be alongside Phil Hester and Michael Gaydos and Matt Kindt and Rob G and Tom Beland. Noel Tuazon from ELK'S RUN. Danielle Corsetto from GIRLS WITH SLINGSHOTS. Jake Allen from BROWNSVILLE. The Fraim Brothers from WOLFBOY.

Brand new talents alongside up-and-comers alongside established pros. It's going to be one hell of a gorgeous book.

Labels: postcards

Originally published on September 4th, 2006.

It gets a "Most Original Project Of The Year!" Factor of ten out of ten. Check it out.

Labels: postcards

Originally published on September 2nd, 2006.

A stylish three binder and inserts to hold postcards. For Baltimore I plan on having all of my postcards on display - the one's I've purchased at antique stores and flea markets and any postcards I might have received at the P.O. Box.

200 modern used and unused postcards on EBay for ten dollars. The used ones will be for my amusement, the unused ones will be sent to folks who send postcards to our P.O. Box. I'm sending blank postcards with postage paid to several of the books creators so they can respond to some of your postcards.

Taking Robin out to the berry farm on Monday - we'll hit some antique shops while we're out there and get some new postcards.

I used to get excited for trips to Best Buy. Now I like to compete with old people over who gets to flip through a shoebox filled with postcards first.

Labels: postcards

Originally Published on August 31, 2006.

I can't show an entire page from Robert Tinnell and the Fraim Brothers collaboration. It's just too action packed and fun - you'll read it and go crazy knowing you won't be able to read the rest you'll. But, in case anyone's wondering how, exactly, a superhero story fits into an anthology with stories inspired by antique postcards, here's one panel:

Hey - I gave all 16-teams a postcard and told them to create the story they saw behind it. This is what Robert saw and I love him for it. Wait until you see Stuart Moore and Michael Gaydos's story about two tic-tac-toe hustling brothers.

Labels: postcards

Originally published on August 30th, 2006.

Between July 1st, 1907 and June 30th, 1908 there were close to 700-million postcards mailed within the United States alone - approximately 8 postcards for each individual living here. This was the Golden Age of Postcards. The low postage and improvements in printing technology made postcards a very simple, attractive, and cost-effective form of communication.

What we're left with now is thousands-upon-thousands of dusty shoeboxes filled with 25-cent postcards in antique shops across the country. Pieces of peoples' lives - talks of quarantines, wars, sickly mothers, and secret admirers occasionally being shuffled through but often discarded by collectors because they're in "bad shape".

We've moved to email. Shaping pixels on a screen with no personality - spell-checks catch our mistakes - communication is instant and free, allowing for meaningful conversation along the lines of:

Jason -
'sup?
- Josh

POSTCARDS wants to bring the postcard back. A 160-page anthology produced and edited by Jason Rodriguez (coedited by James W. Powell), POSTCARDS tells stories inspired by these glimpses into a person's life. Why did the mysterious "E" brave a quarantine to see his friend Elmer? Did Earl Shafer ever return from World War II? Did Anna really marry a man with a 12-year-old son, as her cousin suspected? An all-star line-up, including Harvey Pekar, Joyce Brabner, Matt Kindt, Phil Hester, Tom Beland, Stuart Moore, Michael Gaydos, Josh Fialkov, Ande Parks, Rick Spears & Rob G, Robert Tinnell, Neil Kleid, Antony Johnston, and Noel Tuazon, have set out to answer these questions and more.

POSTCARDS is set to be released July 2007, but we can't wait that long to bring the postcard back. We want your postcards. We want a glimpse into your life. If you have something you want to tell us about yourself, please send a postcard to:

Jason Rodriguez
P.O. Box 17851
Arlington, VA 22201

Include an email address on the card - if something catches our eye we may be asking for permission to post it on the POSTCARDS MySpace page (http://www.myspace.com/AllYouLeave) or Production Blog (http://www.allyouleave.com). If something really gets us excited we may even ask for permission to feature it within a future volume of POSTCARDS. Also, feel free to include your return address - you might get a reply postcard from someone in the book with a little bit about their life or even a sketch.

So pick out some fun postcards and get to writing - purchase proper postage (that's 24-cents, in case you haven't mailed a postcard within the last couple of decades) - send us a postcard. Send a postcard to your mother or your boyfriend or your friend from college while you're at it.

Help us bring the postcard back.

Labels: postcards

Originally published August 28th, 2006

I have a couple of press-things lined up but you know how those things go, people dragging their feet and all.

"The book doesn't come out until next July but Civil War's going on now."

So, I figured I'd reveal the entire line-up here for the first time, for the folks that are into the book approximately 11 months before it comes out. Why not? The books almost completed - over the past two weeks we got over half the stories turned in, we're working on cover design and incidental illustrations now, lettering what needs to be lettered. The book will be 100ogether and ready for printing by the end of November. Some people see 11 months to release, I see 3 months until we start planning Volume II. So, here we go...

Production Team:

Produced by Jason Rodriguez (That's me)

Edited by Jason Rodriguez and James W. Powell

Letters by Jason Hanley (Half of the stories will be hand lettered by the artists; Jason takes care of the other half and puts the book together for the printer)

Cover and Incidental Illustrations by Matt Kindt (Everything leads to Harvey, Joyce, and Matt's story - the cover, the 16 introductory pages, the intro, etc, all have a common theme that guide the anthology towards the final story)

Storytellers (in alphabetical order by first author):

1) Tom Beland (True Story Swear to God)

2) Jay Busbee (Sundown: Arizona, Western Tales of Terror) and Anthony Fleecs (In My Lifetime)

3) Matt Dembicki (Mr. Big, Attic Wit) and Jason Copland (Western Tales of Terror, Empty Chamber)

4) Joshua Hale Fialkov (Elk's Run) and Micah Farritor (The Living and the Dead)

5) Phil Hester (The Coffin, Green Arrow)

6) Antony Johnston (Wasteland, Stormbreaker, Queen & Country) and Noel Tuazon (Elk's Run)

7) Neil Kleid (Brownsville, Ninety Candles, Ursa Minors) and Jacob Allen (Brownsville)

8) A. David Lewis (The Lone & Level Sands, Empty Chamber) and Danielle Corsetto (Girls with Slingshots)

9) Stuart Moore (Firestorm, Para, Lone) and Michael Gaydos (Alias, The Pulse, Snakewoman)

10) Ande Parks (Capote in Kansas, Union Station) and Joseph Bergin III (Western Tales of Terror - lots of great stuff coming from Joseph in the future, watch this kid)

11) Harvey Pekar (American Splendor), Joyce Brabner (American Splendor: Our Cancer Year), and Matt Kindt (2 Sisters, Michael Chabon Presents: The Amazing Adventures of the Escapist)

12) James W. Powell (coeditor on the book) and Drew Gilbert (Rosemary's Backpack)

13) Jason Rodriguez (me, editor behind Elk's Run, Western Tales of Terror, and the upcoming Tumor and World's End), RJ Rodriguez (my cousin), and Seamus Heffernan (another wonderful new illustrator worth checking out here)

14) Rick Spears & Rob G (the team behind Teenagers From Mars, Filler, and Dead West)

15) Chris Stevens (Has an upcoming anthology with his stories illustrated by Jae Lee, Art Adams, Farel Dalrymple, Nate Powell, and James Jean) and Gia-Bao Tran (Content - a wonderful new illustrator worth checking out here).

16) Robert Tinnell (The Feast of the Seven Fishes) and The Fraim Brothers (Wolfboy) And there you have it. That's POSTCARDS.

Labels: postcards

This FAQ will be updated regularly. If you have any questions not in this FAQ, send them to Jason Rodriguez.

1. What is Eximious Press?

Eximious Press started as a publishing company founded by me, Jason Rodriguez. We were going to publish Postcards: True Stories That Never Happened. But then Villard/Random House acquired the rights to the book and we were left asking ourselves, "What is Eximious Press?"

"Graphic Novel Production" is a nice way to describe what we do. The books we'll be editing, writing, and packaging are all given our full attention. I know I turned down a lot of editing gigs because I didn't feel the projects were that good. These are the books I want to see on the shelves - some of them are brought to us (like Elk's Run, The Broadcast, and Dream Compass) and some of them are started in house (like Postcards and Dear Santa, Let Me Explain...)

2. So, you won't be publishing?

I wouldn't say that. I believe in all of the books we're producing. If the stars align and I feel like taking a risk one day, we may add "publishing" to our list of services.

3. And who's this James W. Powell person?

James W. Powell is my assistant editor on Postcards. He started putting together his own projects and I started envisioning Eximious Press as a collaborative of people who's editorial vision I trust. Plus, I already made him a business card.

4. So I can be an editor aligned with Eximious Press?

I have to really, really, really like your editorial vision. Really like it. Or owe you money.

5. Can I bring my project to Eximious Press?

I'm always willing to hear a pitch to see if I can help you out but I've turned down my best friends several times. The project has to be something that's fun, beautiful, and something that I feel has a place in comics - preferably a niche not yet explored. If you think you have such a thing, drop me an email.

Every now and then, a Christmas comes along that doesn’t quite go according to plan. Like the time Mom forced you to wear that ugly green and red sweater to school (you know, the one Grandma hand-sewed with the reindeer and the little bells). Or the time Uncle Rico had just a little too much eggnog and tripped into the Christmas tree.

We all have a similar story of our own. A true holiday disaster story. These are the moments that define us; these are the tales that give each family its character. And the telling of these stories become a holiday tradition all their own, just like watching Frosty the Snow Man or suffering through a slice of Aunt Martha’s fruit cake. These stories make us laugh, they make us cry, they make us shake our head in shame.

Told through illustrated essays and sequential comic art, Dear Santa, Let Me Explain... is the book that collects these stories. These aren’t just the stories your family laughs about each year as they gather ‘round the table for Christmas dinner, but also the ones the adults repeat in barely contained giggles over spiked hot chocolate after the kids have gone to bed.

Dear Santa, Let Me Explain..., edited by James W. Powell, is 24 of the funniest, most heart-warming stories ever told about Christmas, even if they aren’t all about bows and candy canes.

Dear Santa, Let Me Explain... is available for acquisition. Please contact James W. Powell with any questions.

Labels: dearsanta, jameswpowell

Action-packed mayhem in an apocalyptic future where giant monsters rule the earth. The world governments are backed against the wall and out of options, waging a war with their remaining planes and rockets, and slowly giving into their only option: extinction. But rumor is getting out that the African defense forces have created the only device that can destroy the giant monsters: Giant Robots.

This mini-series, edited by Jason Rodriguez, is written by Michael May and illustrated by Jason Copland. It is available for acquisition; please contact Jason Rodriguez with any questions.

Labels: jasonrodriguez, killallmonsters

A suspicious suicide takes place in a technologically-advanced society where implants allow people to see only what they want to see - with one exception: the detective who sees the world as it really is. In a world where perception is everything, how can this one woman convince its inhabitants that a murder has taken place and, more importantly, the killers are the people who are supplying them their utopia?

Written by JJ Kahrs and edited by Jason Rodriguez, this graphic novel is in its early stages of development.

Labels: jasonrodriguez, rosecoloredcrash

October 30, 1938. A lightening storm causes the power to go out in a small town, right as the residents were learning about the Martian attack on planet Earth. A story of survival, betrayal, trust, and revenge set on a dark and stormy night, while the rest of the world was becoming aware that the broadcast was nothing more than a radio play.

Jason Rodriguez is the editor behind this graphic novel, written by Eric Hobbs and illustrated by Noel Tuazon. The Broadcast is available for acquisition; please contact Jason Rodriguez with any questions.

Labels: thebroadcast

The story of a 22-year-old kid that comes up from the minors to play for the biggest media-team in the league and makes a legitimate run for Joe DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak.

This project, written by Jason Rodriguez with an artist TBD, is in the early stages of development.

Labels: baseball, jasonrodriguez

With each passing generation the number of people who are aware of Sam Cooke's music dwindles. Sam Cooke was a gospel singer turned pop sensation during the height of the Civil Rights movement. His first pop-single, "You Send Me," was considered the first true cross-over hit after selling over two-million copies. He went on to dominate the music industry. His records flew off the shelves. "A Change is Gonna Come" became the anthem of the Civil Rights movement. Elvis and The Beatles wanted to be Sam Cooke.

And then he was murdered.

This graphic novel will focus on the man's life and his accomplishments. His drive from a young age, his ability to charm an entire crowd, and his unrelenting climb to the top of the pop-charts. Written by Jason Rodriguez and Chris Stevens and illustrated by Rob Guillory, the Sam Cooke project is available for acquisition. Contact Jason Rodriguez for further information.

Labels: jasonrodriguez, samcooke

Dream Compass is a graphic anthology written by Chris Stevens and illustrated by Art Adams, Jae Lee, James Jean, Farel Dalrymple, and more. Edited and packaged by Jason Rodriguez, the all-ages appropriate Dream Compass is composed of several stand-alone stories including: the adventures of a young Jane Goodall, a submarine crew's exploration of a submerged North America, a broken-down war veteran and his spoil of dogs, and more.

Dream Compass is available for acquisition - please contact Jason Rodriguez for further information.

Labels: dreamcompass, jasonrodriguez

The second volume of Jason Rodriguez's Postcards series. This time we're featuring 24 stories from well over 40 creators inspired by pre-1920, used, California-based Postcards. James W. Powell is back as assistant editor and we've added a history editor: Christina Rice from the Los Angeles County Library's History Department. Check back for more information as it's released.

Labels: jameswpowell, jasonrodriguez, postcards

You've seen them at flea markets and in antique shops and used bookstores across the country. Vintage postcards with handwritten notes from the past, evocative messages that capture a thought, an expression, a concern, a snapshot of someone's life once upon a time.

Jason Rodriguez has collected a remarkable array of these correspondences, dispersed them among thirty-three of comic's greatest creators, and asked them to each create a story about the person who sent it. The result is a vividly imagined, gorgeously rendered graphic novel anthology illustrating tales of romance, adventure, hardship, and mystery. In [POSTCARDS], these gifted artists share some of the most rich and inventive work of their careers.

[POSTCARDS] will be available on July 17th, 2007 from Villard Books, a division of the Random House Publishing Group. It features stories from Harvey Pekar, Joyce Brabner, & Matt Kindt, Phil Hester, Tom Beland, Stuart Moore & Michael Gaydos, and others.

Labels: jasonrodriguez, postcards

In an era filled with threat levels and faceless enemies, the people of Elk's Ridge have created their own slice of heaven--serene. Serene, safe, and completely cut off from the rest of the world. When the evils of the outside world start to invade, the townspeople will do anything that it takes to keep their existence intact... even murder. Forced to decide between a life of isolation and fear, or the unknown outside world, the teenagers of the town must face their parents and their own worst nightmares in a game of cat and mouse that can only end one way.

Jason Rodriguez was the editor on the critically-acclaimed and Harvey-nominated Elk's Run. The full color 8-issue series was originally published by Joshua Hale Fialkov's Hoarse & Buggy Productions for three issues. Necessity caused Fialkov to move the book to the now defunct Speakeasy Comics where the first three-issues were collected in a Bumper Edition (with a gorgeous cover from Darwyn Cooke) and the fourth issue made it to the shelves before the company went under. A year later, the entire story was collected by Villard Books, a division of the Random House Publishing Group, and can now be read in its entirety.

Labels: elksrun, jasonrodriguez

Jason Rodriguez was the submissions editor for issue one and editor for issues 2 through 5 of the cult-indie hit Western Tales of Terror. Published by Joshua Hale Fialkov's Hoarse & Buggy Productions and featuring fan favorites like Steve Niles, Tony Moore, Tom Mandrake, and Phil Hester, the anthology had a successful run and even landed itself on Diamond's Top-300 Comics list.

Labels: jasonrodriguez, westerntalesofterror

Jason Rodriguez got his comic book start as the submissions editor for Western Tales of Terror. After a month, he was promoted to editor and was asked to edit Joshua Hale Fialkov's 8-issue miniseries, Elk's Run. Elk's Run was collected and published by Villard Books in April 2007. Jason's newest project, Postcards: True Stories That Never Happened, is a collection of stories inspired by used, antique postcards he's collected over the years. The book, also being published by Villard, features stories from some of comics greatest creators.

Jason has several new projects in development and he's always looking to meet new talents. Feel free to contact him with any questions. He can also be found at The Moose in the Closet, MySpace, Twitter, LiveJournal, and Flickr.

Jason lives in Washington DC, where he's one of the original members of the DC Conspiracy, with his fiancée, Robin, his dog, Becky, his four cats, and a bird that drives him nuts.

Labels: jasonrodriguez

Jason Rodriguez
Email: jrod AT eximiouspress DOT com
Snail Mail:
Jason Rodriguez
PO Box 17851
Arlington, VA 22216-7851

James W. Powell
Email: james AT eximiouspress DOT com

Labels: jameswpowell, jasonrodriguez