BRICKJOURNAL columnist Jared K. Burks has written the ultimate resource book for minifigure customization, and it’s flat out amazing. I’m not personally a hardcore LEGO builder, although I’ve got a huge level of respect for what our BrickJournal readers create and display at various LEGO fan festivals around the world. But even if you’re not into LEGO, take my word for it: check out the free PDF preview of Minifigure Customization: Populate Your World!, which ships May 11. I think you’ll be astonished at all the ways he’s found to customize those little plastic LEGO people. (I wish I’d known about Kevlar gloves years ago; they’d have saved me a lot of fingertips being sliced off with X-Acto blades!)

The preview alone is worth your time to read, even if you’re not interested in buying the book from us. The book itself is only $9.95 print ($3.95 digital), and we’re letting current BrickJournal subscribers trade it for one issue of their BrickJournal subscription. Ordering info can be found here.

Jared Burks is a special guest at our own BrickMagic LEGO Festival, here in Raleigh, NC on May 7-8, and giving free minifigure customization workshops. If you’ve never been to a LEGO Fan Festival, I’ve just posted a PDF version of the Program Book for our event at this link, so feel free to download it and get an idea of the fun we’ve got in store for people in a couple of weeks. And hey, if you’d like to attend yourself, go to www.brickmagic.org for all the details, and ticket and hotel information.

To everyone who’s called and written to see if we were affected by the tornados that hit North Carolina this weekend, thanks for the concern. We’re fine; they hit nearby (a little too close for comfort!), but we had very little actual damage.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case for a lot of people here in Raleigh, NC, so please keep them in your thoughts and prayers as everyone around here begins the clean-up process.

But wow, that was one intense storm…

If you’ve ever wanted to know more about unscrupulous 1940s publisher Victor Fox (you know; he published the original Blue Beetle, Phantom Lady, the infamous Superman knock-off “Wonder Man” by Will Eisner, and others), check out Alter Ego #101, shipping in mid-May. We’ve got a PDF Preview available now, and you can pre-order the issue here. It’s more great comics journalism from the magazine that again got nominated in this year’s Eisner Awards for… well, Best Comics-Related Journalism!

…cause Alter Ego has just been nominated for Best Comics-Related Periodical/Journalism in the 2011 Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards. Winners will be announced at the gala ceremony at this year’s Comic-Con International: San Diego.

Me am proud publisher!

Best of all, Roy Thomas will be a special guest of the Con this year, as one of the founders of comics fandom being celebrated. So if AE wins, he’ll get to accept in person. But don’t let that sway your vote or anything. Or the fact that we just published Roy’s 100th issue (with nary a missed deadline over all that time, I might add).

Instead, let the fact that Alter Ego is consistently the best historical record on comics, month after month, sway your vote—that I can live with.

Hats off to Roy, Jim Amash, Bill Schelly (who’ll also be a guest at the Con), PC Hamerlinck, Michael T. Gilbert, Marcus Swayze, and designer Chris Day. I’ve never worked with a more professional and engaging group of people before.

Kirby Collector contributor Adam McGovern and/or his evil duplicates
are everywhere these days — Adam’s story on pop godhood with artist
Paolo Leandri is one giant page in the third, super-tabloid-size issue
of indie anthology funnypaper “pood”
(http://poodcomics.blogspot.com/), debuting at MoCCA Fest on April 9
in NYC (http://www.moccany.org/content/mocca-festival), and the same
team (with star IDW colorist Dom Regan) have a noir fable of obscure
Quality Comics character Alias the Spider in “Crack Comics #63”
(a.k.a. The Next Issue Project #3) from Image Comics, delayed from
December but expected this spring. Meanwhile fifteen first and second
issues of Adam’s adaptations for Italian company GG Studio are out in
America, covering everything from barbarians to yakuza to all-ages
muppet-mystery and all-arrested-adolescents burlesque action-thriller
(www.ggstudiodesign.com). Will he stimulate the comics economy…or
crash it? Pick up the next five and find out!

Walter Simonson’s been a big favorite of mine, even since I first discovered his Manhunter series with Archie Goodwin back in my teens. So naturally I’m pumped to present Mike Manley’s interview with him in Draw #20, due out April 20. The issue also features Danny Fingeroth interviewing writer/artist Al Jaffee (another fave of my formative years, reading MAD magazine), Bob McLeod critiquing a newcomer’s work, a demo by Tracy Butler of the strip “Lackadaisy”, plus Manley and Bret Blevins in another Comic Art Bootcamp installment.

Check out the FREE PDF PREVIEW of the issue, or if you’re already sold on DRAW, you can order the issue HERE in either print (with free digital edition) or digital-only for a measly $2.95.

BACK ISSUE #48 digs up the dirt on “Dead Heroes” and features an extensive interview with and cover by JIM STARLIN! For a free preview of what editor MICHAEL EURY has on tap for this issue, you can download a free PDF preview here.

Or heck, just go ahead and order it at this link (and see a FLASH preview of the issue). It’s a doozie!

After over 100 issues doing a stellar job as the designer on Roy Thomas’ mag ALTER EGO, Chris Day is retiring from the job. Thanks for all the fantastic work, Chris!

This leaves TwoMorrows with an opening for a new Alter Ego designer. So if you’re experienced in Quark Xpress (or InDesign, but we prefer Quark), are interested in working with Roy Thomas to further document the history of comics, know how to meet a deadline, and are Mac-based, you can email a resume to me (John Morrow) at:

twomorrow@aol.com

I just wrapped up Jack Kirby Collector #56, and it’s off to the printer. What a fun issue! It focuses on Jack’s “unfinished sagas”—all those ideas and series that either never got produced, or that he never got to complete properly.

Some would say concepts like his SOUL LOVE blaxsploitation magazine deserve to remain unfinished; we’ve got a complete story from it in the issue, so you can judge for yourself. Me? I think, once you get past the need for supposedly “hip” dialogue, it’s actually pretty solid romance comics (by the guy who co-pioneered the genre, so no one should really be surprised).

There’s a free preview available now in both PDF or FLASH format, so check it out. The issue ships March 30.

The Eagle Awards, Britain’s answer to the Eisners, has just given TwoMorrows two—count ’em, two—nominations in the category of “Favorite magazine about comics”. Both ALTER EGO and BACK ISSUE are up for the honor (and unlike the Eisners, the Eagles are break websites and magazines into two different categories—cause, c’mon, they’re entirely different animals).

Congratulations to both editor ROY THOMAS and MICHAEL EURY for the recognition of their stellar work on their respective mags! I just hope they don’t split the vote… (and don’t ask me which one I’ve voting for, Sophie!).

But you can vote here.