Crogan's Vengeance: my new book

Well! It's been a semi-productive weekend so far. I've got the next scene pretty tightly thumbnailed, and I'm doing my pencils as we speak (taking a break to do this blog). I'm hoping to be completely done with the first third of the book (a fair chunk, to be sure) in two weeks - up through page 38 by Friday.

Oh! For those of you who haven't heard the specifics, my book deal was announced at the San Diego Comic Con last weekend! Here's the skinny:

Oni Press (publishers of such great books as Scott Pilgrim, Northwest Passage, Courtney Crumrin, and Capote in Kansas) is publishing my graphic novel series the Crogan Adventures.

The first of these books is Crogan's Vengeance:



Each book (to be released every 18 months) will feature a different member of the fictitious Crogan family as they have a variety of exciting adventures. I'm having a great deal of fun doing tons of research (you'd think that part would be over by now, but I end up having to look up something -- usually multiple somethings -- on almost ever page on which I work), drawing, writing piratey dialogue, choreographing action scenes, etc.

Woo! I'm now allowed to talk about it in detail to anybody, so anyone writing comic-related news stories feel free to pester me.

The Oni announcement has already been covered by a few news sources: Newsarama, Comic Book Resources, even some foreign-language sites. The best advance press of all has come from Indie Spinner Rack, a great comic review and news podcast based out of NYC. One of the hosts read the 26-page preview I gave them, and was REALLY complimentary. If you want to find it on iTunes, it's episode 91, at 50:05. If you want the highlights, phrases were thrown around like "I was rivetted," "I couldn't put it down," and "look for this book, it is so good, it is SO good." Wooo! That's the best review I've ever had, and the book ain't even done yet!

On another note, I've been reading some AWESOME books by an author whose stuff I've enjoyed in the past,
Arturo Perez-Reverte. He's penned a series about a Spanish soldier-of-fortune named Captain Alatriste, and I'm enjoying the heck out of 'em -- it was originally a research purchase, but I'm totally enthralled. Under the hopes that there may have been a movie made at some point, I IMDBed it, and had a real shocker --
there IS a movie.



It's starring our fellow countryman, Viggo Mortenson, and for some crazy reason it doesn't have a US release date, even though it's already on DVD in Spain. If anybody has a copy of this puppy (it's called Alatriste, by the way), let me know! I'm dying to see it. All I watch anymore are period pieces set between 1600 and 1820 (I'm trying to stay in the right mindset for working on the book) and I've just about run out of new ones.