Where Have All the Crack Shots Gone?

Damn it's been a busy week! Not a lot of time to post. I'm working on several things right now, larger scale projects, so I'm probably not going to have time for too many of the smaller Crack Shots style reviews over the next few months or so. But what I'm working on is exciting indeed:

- 14 Days in Sri Lanka - back in December/January my wife and I visited Sri Lanka. It was an amazing and very personal trip on many levels, as we explored Rachel's family history (she is half Sri Lankan), made a Buddhist pilgrimage, and toured the tsunami ravaged coastline. I've been madly working to get the first of a planned six issue photo comic mini-series finished for MoCCA this weekend (which is why no posts this week). I'm pretty happy with how the cover came out, though it looks murky in the scan for some reason. The colors on the actual cover are much sharper.

- I have also arranged a major interview with the writer of one of this year's most noteworthy books. I'm very excited about it, and when it's ready (probably in 3-4 weeks), I hope it'll be great.

- Shelf Life. Maybe I was crazy to commit to this whole Love & Rockets project, but I'm determined to see it through. I know I need to work on shortening the amount of text in each review, so that will be a goal going forward. At this point, I have finished reading the first 4 issues, and am halfway through the review of issue #3. Starting with #5, each issue drops from 64 to 32 pages each, so I'm hoping that over the summer, I can start to fly through this a little more quickly.

- And if all that wasn't enough, I am also very close to finalizing two other mini-comics projects. The first, The Blue Spade, I mentioned a while ago in one of my Crack Shots columns. At that time, we (artist Tim Twelves and I) had 12 pages in the bag, and I thought we might put it out, but after thinking about it more we decided it was better to wait and put out the first issue with a full 24 pages. If I had to guess right now, I'd say The Blue Spade #1 will be out sometime in the Fall.

My other project, however, is very close to being finished. It's a collection of 5-6 poems and a short story, tentatively called A Sudden Rise in Life, illustrated by Leontine Greenberg, a good friend and an unbelievably skilled artist. I'm really excited about this particular book as I think it showcases my best work to date, and Leontine's art is just stunning. Hopefully this will be ready by August.

- Oh yeah, and I'll try to have a MoCCA report sometime this weekend or Monday at the latest.

- And then there's my reading pile. Actually, its more like a mountain as I've fallen way behind. And I haven't even bought any of the First Second books yet. Right now, I have Miriam Katin's We Are On Our Own, Joe Daly's Scrublands, Chad Michael Ward's Autopsyrotica, Mom's Cancer by Brian Fies, The Squirrel Mother Stories by Megan Kelso, Superman: Red Son (got this as a gift), the Blurred Vision anthology, the Attitude vol. 3 The New Subversive Online Cartoonists anthology and the latest Comics Journal with a David B. interview. Not to mention the 8 volumes of Buddha I bought and only read the first one. Or the many ongoing titles I'm at least 6 months behind on (Y: The Last Man, Kabuki, Ex Machina, Detective Comics (still haven't finished David Lapham's story), etc.). Or the pile of schwag I got at Free Comic Book Day of which I've only read a few books.

- As I alluded to last weekend, I am plowing my way through Linda Medley's massive Castle Waiting hardcover graphic novel. I'm about 2/3 of the way through at this point, but I just haven't had time to sit down and focus on it like I'm used to. I plan to do a more in depth review soon. I'm also half way through Dan Nadel's excellent Art Out of Time, which as the title itself promises, presents many great unknown cartoonists.

- I've also got 2-3 stories left in Jonathan Lethem's Men and Cartoons, a short story collection very loosely themed by Lethem's love for old Marvel Comics. Like most short story collections, it's hit or miss, but there are some very good stories here. Not sure if I'll do a review or not, but I do recommend the book for fans of Lethem's writing. I'm definitely looking forward to his Omega the Unknown mini-series from Marvel. Especially since it's illustrated by Faryl Dalrymple!

So as you can see I'm pretty busy these days (actually it looks a lot worse when I list it all out like that), but it's all good stuff and I'm excited about it all. But I do think it's time to take a break and catch my breath before I keep buying more stuff.

Ahh, who am I kidding!