Doing his part to keep comics history alive, Kirby Collector columnist Adam McGovern has a story in the tabloid newsprint anthology “pood,” from Big If/Blurred Books. Adam teams with artist Paolo Leandri (his partner on the Ignatz-nominated “Dr. Id”) for a Twilight Zone-ish parable taking up a full page of “pood”’s 17 x 23-inch format. Fifteen other creators from comics’ cutting edge have a page each too. It premiered exclusively at the indie-comic MoCCA Fest in April to rave reviews and was picked up by Diamond (order code MAY100817) for release in comics shops July 14. Sample it in this YouTube clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpuZg2klfKs. So check out “pood”: as Adam says, it’s “cutting-edge comics like they did ’em in 1910!”

Hey, gang, TwoMorrows Publishing is closed from June 18-25 for convention and vacation travel, but our 50% off magazine sale is still going on! So feel free to place orders over the next week, and we’ll get them processed the week of June 28. I hope you’re having a great summer, and I hope to see some of you at Comic-Con next month!

You guys and gals have repeatedly asked me something to this effect for years now:

“Hey John, I love the half-price Ultimate Bundles you offer, where I can get, say, EVERY issue of Alter Ego or Back Issue at half-price, but I don’t want to buy the WHOLE SET! I’ve already got a few of the issues; can I just get PART of the bundle at 50% off?”

Well, no, you can’t. Logistically, we’d go nuts trying to figure up the cost of, say, the KIRBY COLLECTOR ULTIMATE BUNDLE, less 7 random issues that you already own, then try to figure up one for your neighbor who has all but 3 of the issues, and so on, and so on.

BUT…

Now through June 30 , we’re having our “Build-A-Bundle” Sale, where almost all of our mags are 50% off. So you can create an order with any combination of the issues you want, and they’ll be 50% off. (Only the latest issues are excluded from this sale, but even those are 15% off, making this your best chance ever to fill the holes in your collection.)

So go crazy! The Half-Price “Build-A-Bundle” Sale includes:

Back Issue! #1-34
Jack Kirby Collector #23-52
Draw! #4-17
Alter Ego #2-86
Rough Stuff! #1-12
Write Now! #1-20
Comic Book Artist #9-25
BrickJournal #2-5

plus other miscellaneous humor and one-shot magazines, all at 50% off cover price. We’ve even got a select group of books that are also 50% off during the sale.

But you HAVE TO order at www.twomorrows.com by the end of June to get this deal.

AND PLEASE BE PATIENT!!! We’ve already been inundated with orders for this sale, and while we normally get orders shipped within a day or so of being placed, we’re currently running about 3-4 days later than usual on shipments. We’re working overtime to get to them all, and if you’ve paid extra for Priority Mail shipping, we’ll fill yours first in each batch that’s processed.

Our pal and do-everything-guy Eric Nolen-Weathington just got back from Charlotte, NC, where he manned our booth at Heroes Con (still one of our all-time favorite conventions). Here’s a big shout-out to everyone that came by the booth; sales were brisk, and according to Eric, the conversation was fantastic as usual at our booth.

Next up is the Big Kahuna: Comic-Con International in San Diego, from July 21-25. We’re frantically getting several new books and mags to press the next couple of weeks, so they’ll be on hand for the expected 125,000 attendees to scoop up. (Not that all 125,000 show up at our booth, but most days it FEELS like they’re all there at once!)

Before Comic-Con, BrickJournal editor Joe Meno and I will be at the BrickWorld LEGO convention in Chicago, and then I’ll be taking a week off with the family, plus working in a trip to the Grand Canyon with our kids on the way to Comic-Con. As usual, it’s going to be a fun, fast-paced summer, and will be over way too soon, but I plan to enjoy every hot, steamy minute of it, wherever I am. Hope you do too!

We’re about to go to press with Back Issue #42, our “Wild West Issue”, and had a perfectly lovely Tony DeZuniga cover illo of Jonah Hex all planned for it, when we designed it several months ago. But back then, we were working from a less-than-optimal scanned image, which worked fine for the small promotional images we use, but wouldn’t repro well at full size. We thought we’d be able to get a better scan by presstime, but alas, it didn’t happen.

So, the above is our NEW cover art for issue #42; still Tony DeZuniga art, still Jonah Hex, but one that’ll reproduce up to our standards. And hey, I think it’s arguably an even more dynamic cover than what we’d originally planned. Kudos to designer Michael Kronenberg for the new layout, and to editor Michael Eury for tracking down this alternative DeZuniga image.

And don’t miss the new interview with controversial Hex and Spectre writer Michael Fleisher in this issue. He’s been missing from the comics scene for around 20 years, and some people even thought he’d gone to the Great Beyond, but we’re happy to report he’s alive and well, and gives us great insight into his work on Jonah Hex.

This blog has been pretty quiet for some time, and below is a link to a news video that’ll give you an idea why.

http://news.mync.com/site/news/video/10838/

In addition to my regular chores keeping our various publications coming out on time, TwoMorrows has been organizing the BrickMagic Festival for LEGO Fans, which took place this past weekend. That video is of me appearing on our local NBC news station, during the two-day set-up for this massive event.

The sheer amount of work involved coordinating such an event was far more than I ever imagined (and I imagined a LOT of work ahead when we signed the papers with the hotel that hosted in last year). And we’ve still easily got a solid week of work just to clean it all up, send thank-yous, and hopefully get a little rest.

It was, by most accounts, an overwhelming success. The LEGO builders who came to display their creations seemed to have a great time during the private convention on Thursday and Friday. The vendors had some of the best (in some cases THE best) sales of any event they’ve attended. And the public came in droves, and were really impressed by the displays, special guests, and panels we assembled.

It wasn’t perfect. The event had some technical glitches early on Saturday morning, but a slew of volunteers helped up immeasurably in fixing the snags, and by Sunday, things were running very smoothly. We learned (and are continuing to learn, through feedback) so much that’ll help us make future events even better. And the final head count topped just over 8000 public attendees over the two-day public event—a response that still has all our heads spinning.

Hats off to everyone who took a chance by attending our first event, and especially to our volunteers, guest of honor Nathan Sawaya, all the AFOLs (Adult Fans of LEGO) who displayed their work, to Maria Anderson, Michelle Kaney, and Jennifer Kearney for their efforts above and beyond the call of duty, to Joe Meno for his perseverance, my Mom and Rich Meyer for hanging in there with me the whole time, and especially to my wife Pam, for the nonstop attention to detail that kept us all from falling apart during the long, hectic, but totally invigorating weekend. We’ll definitely be back again next year!

Note to TwoMorrows customers who use Paypal: Because of a bug between Windows 7 and Paypal, we’ve temporarily had to disable the Paypal payment option, due to the high volume of ticket customers for our BrickMagic Festival, who were having difficulties with Paypal.

All other payment forms (Visa, Mastercard, AMEX, Discover, and Check/money order) are still available for your purchases at www.twomorrows.com

We will be re-enabling Paypal again within two weeks, as soon as the BrickMagic Festival is over on May 10. Thanks for your patience.

Long time no post, but I’ll get back in the swing soon. But first, gotta mention that ALTER EGO is nominated for “Best Comics-Related Periodical” in the 2010 Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards! Congratulations to editor Roy Thomas, and the whole Alter Ego crew (Jim Amash, Chris Day, Bill Schelly, Paul Hamerlinck, Michael T. Gilbert, Marcus Swayze, and all the regular contributors) for their hard work paying off with this honor.

The awards ceremony takes place Friday, July 23 at Comicon International: San Diego. ALTER EGO won this award a couple of years ago, and we’ll be on hand to see if it wins again this year.

If you’re an industry professional (artist, writer, letterer, colorist, editor, publisher, inker, etc.), you can vote online at:

http://www.eisnervote.com/