We just sent the final files for Comics 101, our Free Comic Book Day publication, to the printer today. Orders were nothing short of sensational (wish we had numbers like this on our regular magazines!). Be sure to stop by your local comics shop on May 5 and ask for your free copy. Our editors knocked themselves out to come up with some really great “how-to” and comics history pieces, so if you like the kind of stuff we publish, you’ll love this one. And of course, the price is right!

We’ve been getting a lot of e-mails and phone calls, asking if we’ll be offering this publication on our website, or making it available for sale. We will have some additional copies available for ordering at www.twomorrows.com starting on May 5, for people who may not live near a comics store (or whose store didn’t order any). But there will be a small charge for them (to be determined), to cover our printing and shipping costs. Likewise, if there’s any left by then, we’ll bring a few to our upcoming convention appearances to sell at a nominal cost. But you can save your money by getting yours at your local comics shop. That’s what FCBD is all about; getting warm bodies into comic stores!

Thanks to all the retailers who ordered so heavily; and be sure to thank your local retailer when you get your copy. He (or she) had to pay a small amount per copy to help offset our production costs and Diamond’s distribution cost.

There’s an online interview with BACK ISSUE magazine editor Michael Eury, about his new project, The Supervillain Book, on “The Pulse”.

Just look for the feature “EURY & MISIROGLU ON THE SUPERVILLAIN BOOK”, click away, and enjoy!

Hey, it’s late, but it’s still Friday for another hour and 13 minutes, Pete!

Just received the final layout for Brush Strokes With Greatness: The Life & Art of Joe Sinnott. Authored by Tim Lasiuta, the book was designed (beautifully, as usual) by Jon B. Cooke. This is a long overdue tribute to a man who many believe is the best inker in comics history. Joe’s also one sweetheart of a guy, who’s never skipped a beat in saying “YES” anytime we’ve asked him for a favor. He is simply “the best.”
Joe’s been through a rough time of late, first with the passing of his wife Betty, and more recently suffering with health problems. I just mailed his copy of the layout to look over, so here’s hoping that’ll boost his spirits a bit. It should; man, what a gorgeous book! It’s got a great overview of Joe’s entire career, which runs from the Golden Age to present, and it is lo-o-o-oaded with amazing art, including a luscious color section of pieces Joe colored himself. Stan Lee provides the introduction, and Mark Evanier the afterword. This one’ll be released right on time in May; might even be a couple of weeks ahead of time, for Free Comic Book Day, if proofreading goes well.

Editor, designer, author, and all-around great guy Eric Nolen-Weathington was just interviewed about our Modern Masters book series on SilverBulletComics.com. It’s a really nice inside look at how the books are produced.
Here’s the link:

http://www.silverbulletcomicbooks.com/features/117445077524245.htm

A nice honor came my way a couple of weeks ago, when Marvel Comics asked me to write an essay for the upcoming second Fantastic Four Omnibus collection. I get the plum job of penning my thoughts on FF #51’s story “This Man, This Monster”, one of my (and apparently everyone else’s) favorite Lee/Kirby stories. It’s really nice to know that, after 13 years of cranking out the Jack Kirby Collector, people haven’t forgotten our efforts.
Yeah, it’s “work for hire”, so I’m basically signing away my life to the House That Jack Built, but it’s a great opportunity to (hopefully) point out to new readers some of the subtleties that both Stan and Jack added to that remarkable story. I believe it ships this summer, so look for it (not for my meager contribution, but for the great FF stories contained therein).

Fantastic Four TM & ©2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.

The Von Sholly Bundle, containing Comic Book Nerd, his parody of the comics fan press (including the TwoMorrows line), plus both issues of his Crazy Hip Groovy Go-Go Way Out Monsters spoof of old monster mags, is available for those who like to laugh. But then, you knew that already.

Above is the final cover art for WRITE NOW! #16, shipping in July; you’ll see this listed on our home page shortly. This is different cover art than what’s printed in our catalog, because frankly, once we came across this amazing Silver Surfer painting by Mike Zeck and Phil Zimelman, and knowing that the issue’s release will follow right on the heels of the big-budget FANTASTIC FOUR 2: RISE OF THE SILVER SURFER film, we decided it made more commercial sense to switch the cover. Plus, it gives us an opportunity to feature a Surfer-writer’s roundtable in the issue.
Plus, Frank Cho (who did the beautiful Avengers art we’d originally planned to use) will already be getting plenty of exposure in our upcoming Modern Masters volume on him, due out in September (not to mention his section in Comics Gone Ape!, due out next month).

The long completed, but never released, documentary Jack Kirby: Storyteller is finally coming to DVD on June 5th! This hour-long look at the life and career of the King was hailed with cheers when we screened a short excerpt of it at the Kirby Tribute Panel at last year’s Comicon International: San Diego, and features a who’s who of top comics pros telling the world why Kirby matters (plus a few seconds of me putting my foot in my mouth, unless it ended up on the cutting room floor). The documentary is part of the Fantastic Four: Extended Edition DVD from 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment (a 2-disc set that contains the 106-minute theatrical version of the film as well as a 111-minute extended cut), which is being released just two weeks prior to the big-screen debut of Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer on June 15th.

I’m slowly slogging through production on the new issue of the Jack Kirby Collector (#48, out at the end of April), and am currently working on a great article by Robert L. Bryant, Jr. on the Making of Kirby’s Collages. Anyone who read Kirby’s 1965-72 work at DC and Marvel probably remembers these mind-blowing spectacles. No one in comics then (or since) attempted adding collage—an accepted fine art technique—to comics. Jack had a large collection of magazines like National Geographic and Life, and in his spare time (you know, those milliseconds left over between eating, sleeping, and drawing 5 pages a day), he would sit down, clip interesting photo images from different sources, and combine them together to create some really awesome pieces of art.

The one above was used in his one-shot (actually two-shot, but the second issue wasn’t published) Spirit World magazine. Profoundly influenced by his WWII Army experiences, Nazis and Hitler often made their way into work, as shown here. Unfortunately, printing techonology of the time made it difficult to reproduce these collages in color, so they always ran in black-&-white, usually with some comic figures cut out and overlaying them. (In Spirit World, they ran in BLUE-&-white, because somebody up at DC thought blue ink would be more effective than black for a supernatural magazine…)

Alas, in the Jack Kirby Collector, we’re forced to run them in B&W also, but at least I can give you a color preview of this one here. Enjoy!