Update!

I just want to let you guys know what's going on.

I haven't abandoned you, I just have been having computer problems. I had to format my harddrive, but my computer is finally working again. Which means my scanner is finally working again! Unfortunately, I lost important blogging programs like Photoshop. So I have to reinstall that.

ALSO...I am pretty much out of space here on Blogger, so I am moving this blog to livingbetweenwednesdays.com pretty soon. My plan is to bring over all the old posts to the new site so everything will be in one place. I am just working on the design now.

Hopefully that Best of 2008 post was long enough to tide you over a bit. I'll be posting again as soon as I get Photoshop reinstalled. It's been far too long without a Super Hunk rating!

Welcome to the Jungle

Sorry, sorry. I totally disappeared again. But you guys must be getting used to that by now.

I am in my final two weeks of grad school, so I expect to have more free time soon. Although, I will also be starting my new full time job on Dec 1 at a local publishing company. So no down time for me! I do have some posts I am working on, though. They will be up very soon. I've sort of had this extra problem where my computer is kinda busted and I have to run it in safe mode until I have time to fix it, so I can't scan anything. It's slowing me down.

Sadly, I'll also no longer be working at Strange Adventures comic shop after next week. It's been a wonderful two years! Like when Homer got that job at the bowling alley.

Now for some good news!

Check this out! My band, The Stolen Minks, was chosen as a featured artist on MySpace this week!!! Right next to Guns N' Roses! Look!!!

Adding to this excitement is the fact that our new album, High Kicks, was #2 on the Canadian independent radio charts for the month of October.

It's all very exciting. But I didn't have to do any of the hard work. My bandmates just got back from a 10 week tour of North America. You can read all about it on their hilarious tour blog.

Thanks Everyone!

I just want to thank everyone who voted for Living Between Wednesdays as the Best Local Blog in this year's Best of Halifax readers survey in The Coast! I got my plaque the other night at the party and it was exciting. This is a big win for nerds everywhere!

Um...I don't have a picture or anything for this post...

Here's a good one of Bruce Wayne suffering through a kiss from a beautiful woman:

From Batman #290...a gold mine for hilarious panels.

Halloween Pictures!!!

Here are some pics from the party I went to last night. Lots of great (and many nerdy) costumes!












I can't get enough of looking at pictures of that Sesame Street alien doing things. It just kills me.

O Captain My Captain

Check me out! I'm cold chillin'!


And now I'm off to kill the Flash party!

More pics tomorrow!

This Halloween I'm Goin' Rogue!

The Halloween party I am going to this year is not until Saturday night, so I won't have photos of the costume today. But this will give you a general idea.

Who exactly are Humpty Dumpty's enemies? Walls?

Ugh. Stupid boring real life is really eating up all my time lately. I have a huge stack of comics from this week that I won't be able to read for days. AND a new issue of Comic Foundry! Yay!

School is over forever in about six weeks. My band is in Atlanta tonight playing a show with the Black Lips, and I am home writing marketing case study reports. Sigh.

It's times like this that I need a hit of comic book craziness. Because only comic books can deliver complete fantastic nonsense like this:

You're not going to see that scenario anywhere else! Certainly not in these marketing textbooks!

And Now The Legacy Continues...

This is not related to comics in any way, but I am currently excited about two things:

1. My band's new album is now #4 on the national campus radio charts!

2. We have a sweet new music video! Thanks, Paul!

YOU THINK YOU GOT WHAT IT TAKES?!

True fact about me: I love low-budget local ads for things.

One of my favourite low budget ads of late is for a local vocational school called Success College (Successitas Pro Idiotas).

Here's what I'm talking about:



And now the really exciting news: the "YOU THINK YOU GOT WHAT IT TAKES?! guy? He was in the comic shop when I was working a couple of weeks ago. My co-worker, Dave recognized him, but was too starstruck to say anything. We LOVE this guy.

Doesn't this ad seem like it's directed by Michael Scott? The criminal becomes a police man at the end? What is going on?!

Vote for Me!

Hi guys!

I'm not, y'know, trying to pressure you or anything...but if you like my blog and you feel like doing this you could vote for me in the category of Best Local Blog in The Coast's Best of Halifax survey. Particularly if you live in the Halifax area, or are familiar enough with Halifax to fill out at least ten categories.

And even if you aren't...I have some suggestions:

Best Local Website: could also be Living Between Wednesdays!
Best Salesperson: Dave Howlett at Strange Adventures. He has seriously earned it and anyone who shops there knows it.
Best Author: Darwyn Cooke or Faith Erin Hicks
Best Comic Artist: Darwyn Cooke, Steve McNiven, Faith Erin Hicks, or Mike Holmes
Best Halifamous person: Darwyn Cooke
Best Visual Artist: Paul Hammond and Seth Smith of Yo!Rodeo
Best Comedian: Picnicface
Best Comic Store: Strange Adventures!
Best Independent Book Seller: Strange Adventures
Best Local Film: 6015 Willow

There! Those are ten official endorsements by me.

Vote here!

Rock and Roll!

This is not related to comics at all, but I want to mention that tonight my band is throwing a big CD release show tonight to launch our third album, High Kicks.

The show is at Gus's Pub in Halifax starting around 10:30pm. You can also check out this article about us in the local paper: check it out!

Tiina's name is spelled wrong throughout the article, but other than that it's pretty cool.

The CD is released on the New Romance For Kids label out of Montreal, and is available wherever music is sold, although you might have to special order it. It will also be available on iTunes (where you can already buy our other two albums).

Random Updates

Item!

I have been watching so much Buffy lately. I believe I have mentioned this before, but I had never watched the show before. Now I have just finished season six (the downer season). This means that I FINALLY got to see the musical episode, which I always refused to watch until I had watched the rest of the series leading up to it. I felt that I had to earn it.

Anyway, it was amazing, of course.

This show is so addictive. I am not exaggerating when I say this: lately I spend more hours a day watching Buffy than I do paying attention to the events in my own real life. I am starting to forget where one ends and one begins. Which is weird.

I always thought those girls who were all into Spike when the show was on, and bought Spike calendars and such, were total losers. Like, he's clearly unattractive and whatnot. But now I am totally so into Spike. So I really liked season six.

And Angel sucks. Suuuuuucks. Although I am enjoying his show more than I was led to believe.

Item!

I have my final exams for the summer (that sounds so wrong) next week and then I have two weeks of freedom. I have been thinking about different ways to spend these upcoming two weeks, and I have decided to do absolutely nothing. I may never get that chance again! So, I'm not going anywhere. I'm just going to hang out at home and maybe try to finally clean and organize this apartment. I have already gotten all the action figures in one place. I got lots of nice decorative items for my wedding and they just don't really go with Cheat Commandos figures.

Item!

Spider-Man Loves Mary-Jane is back! I had some serious doubts about this, mostly because Terry Moore was taking over. Not that I think Terry Moore sucks at writing (I'm not a Strangers in Paradise fan, but that's more because of the genre than the writing), I just didn't think he was the man for this job. Especially because, prior to taking the gig, he had never read the comic before.

I also feel that, while this is definitely a different kind of Marvel comic, in that it is set in high school and centres on a teen girl and her love life, it's still a Marvel super hero book. One of my favourite things about it is that we see, in almost every issue, a different Marvel character. We see Spider-Man fighting various villains, and new heroes and members of the Spider-Man family get introduced into the cast all the time. It's a great way to let young readers, and in particular, young female readers, learn about the Marvel Universe. So I sincerely hope that Terry Moore will continue that.

I read the first issue, which came out yesterday, of the new series. I was worried that it was going to be a re-launch, but it did actually continue where Sean McKeever left off. And it was pretty good. I think it captured the spirit of the original series.

But, man, what I wouldn't give to have McKeever back over at Marvel doing what he does best: writing all-ages Marvel comics. I feel like he's being wasted a bit over at DC.

I hate exclusive contracts.

Sorry Boys

Going to the Chapel...

So I'm getting married this Saturday.

I feel that everything is in order but I have been told by many people to be prepared for something unexpected to happen.

I think that reading countless wedding issues of comics has taught me that it is wise to be prepared for, y'know, anything...

The important thing is that, no matter how stressful the situation, you can depend on your partner to be strong and help you through it:

That's how you know you married the right person.

(If they can get rid of Jack the Ripper and take you back through the time-barrier when things are rough).

Photos From HeroesCon

Here, finally, are my photos from HeroesCon. As I said, I didn't take very many. Here are the best ones.

Me holding the beautifully-lettered sign made by Kris Black for me when he picked me up at the airport:

That was taken in my very sweet hotel room at the Hilton.

Me and Robert Kirkman:

Do I look like I'm running on two hours of sleep? I think I do.

And here I am with the Chapman brothers and the beloved Homestar puppet:

This is a photo I snapped from my seat at the Collaboration in Comics panel. In this photo you'll see, from closest to furthest, Matt Fraction, Darwyn Cooke, Cliff Chiang, Barry Kitson (mostly hidden) and Jimmy Palmiotti. Pretty all-star.

Buffy artist Georges Jeanty does a sketch for my pal Tiina.

Benito Cereno, Nate Bellegarde (sketching Two Face for me!), Darkseid, and Mister Miracle (passed out).

Me and 3/5 of the Dollar Bin crew (Brian, Tre and Adam) at the after-party):

Here are some photos of the Heroes Aren't Hard to Find comic shop in Charlotte, which put on the event. This is the afterparty. This shop was completely amazing. I work at an amazing comic shop, so I am not easily impressed by other shops, but this one is rad:

They run all the wires from the computers and stuff through those giant Spider-Man and Doctor Octopus statues. Isn't that awesome?! (oh wait, you can't see Spider-Man in either of these photos...well...he's there...fighting Doctor Octopus).

Outside at the party:

It was a great time!

This one's for North Carolina! C'mon and raise up!

Alright, let's get this HeroesCon recap underway.

First of all, the five boys from The Dollar Bin were the greatest hosts ever. Adam, Brian, Devin, Tre and Kris are all really nice guys and even spoke to me again after I totally ditched them on Saturday night when Darwyn Cooke invited me to dinner with Matt Wagner, Michael Golden and Francesco Francavilla and their assorted and lovely dates. Because...what are you gonna do? Say no to that?

Alright, so that ends the shameless namedropping portion of this post. I do want to say that I met a lot of my idols this weekend, and every single one of them was completely awesome and nice. I'll get to that in a minute.

North Carolina is a nice place and the people there are very friendly and have great accents. There was less taking off of shirts and spinning them round their heads like helicopters than Petey Pablo suggested, but it was still fun. I was something of a curiosity around the con as a Canadian who seemed to have strayed very far from her Nova Scotia home. My accent also seemed popular with the locals.

You know what else rules about North Carolina? The food! My first night there I ordered something called the Pork Three-Way at a BBQ joint. As if I could not order that. And if you are ever in the Charlotte area, I highly recommend the Cajun Queen restaurant. It's pretty outstanding. Don't let the blinding grape-coloured website fool you.

So I met a ton of people whose work I have admired for a long time, including Cliff Chiang, Matt Fraction, Amanda Conner, Jimmy Palmiotti, Frank Cho, Guy Davis, Phil Noto, Jason Aaron, Robert Kirkman, Dean Trippe, Adam Hughes, Mark Waid, Peter Laird, Stephane Roux, Nicolas Gurewitch, and Chris Giarusso, along with the above-mentioned people I went to dinner with. Amanda Conner gave me one of her sketchbooks she was selling. Man, I just love her stuff. And Matt Wagner is just a really great guy. It's so nice to meet people that you've been a fan of for so long and they are just awesome.

I also got to meet Josh Elder, which was exciting as we've been conversing through email for some time. He even gave me a signed copy of his book, Love Bytes. He's a great guy and I really hope Mail Order Ninja gets picked up by someone so we can get some new books!

AND...I got to meet Matt and Mike Chapman of Homestar Runner fame, which was a really big deal for me. I have been tuning into that site regularly for five years now. Meeting them in person seemed so crazy because it was like "Wow! You guys are real!" They were really nice and easy to talk to and I got a Poopsmith sketch from Matt, shown here:

He said it was the best one he ever drew. And then told Robert Kirkman that he got the second-best Poopsmith he ever drew. I compared my sketch with Kirkman's and concluded that mine was indeed better. Mostly because it had a bigger shovel. Rachelle 1, Kirkman 0.

Robert Kirkman, by the way: really nice guy.

I actually have no complaints about a single person at that con. I hear stories sometimes of fans going to cons and getting some pretty rude treatment from their heroes. I have nothing but good memories.

And on top of meeting lots of my heroes, I also made lots of new friends! Benito Cereno is a regular LBW reader, and is a very nice guy and a talented writer. You may have read the Image-published Hector Plasm (which is fantastic and you should get it from your local shop), or the also excellent Atom Eve two-part Invincible tie-in. Or perhaps you've read Tales from the Bully Pulpit, which is drawn by Graeme MacDonald, who is from Halifax (which was in a movie with Kevin Bacon)! Small world!

Anyway, he's very cool. And his art partner, Nate Bellegarde, is also really nice and he drew me this sweet Two Face!
I also met Rob Ullman, who is insanely talented and loves hockey! Almost as much as I do! You should check out his site and everything he's written/drawn. Dude is awesome. And he gave me this amazing print of Barda listening to her Mother Box/iPod!

AND I got to meet some fellow bloggers and blog readers! I met the Invincible Super-Blog's Chris Sims in person after months of gmail chatting. I also met Andrew Kunka, aka Dr K. And I met Chris Haley, who was kind enough to walk me to my hotel late at night.

So the Dollar Bin guys worked insanely hard the whole weekend, running around and recording the panels and interviewing the stars. Especially Adam. I barely saw that guy. Thanks to their efforts you can listen to a lot of the panels on their site. I was at the Collaboration in Comics panel they recorded with Darwyn Cooke, Matt Fraction, Cliff Chiang, Barry Kitson and Jimmy Palmiotti. And you can listen to it at that link. They will have many more posted soon, so keep checking.

They also have some interviews up on their site. They have one with Mark Waid, and one where Adam and I are interviewing Jimmy Palmiotti. Palmiotti is an easy interview because he is hilarious and talks a lot. If you listen to the end of the 10 minutes, you can hear a guest appearance by Amanda Conner. There will be an interview I did with Jason Aaron going up soon. I'll let you know.

And now it's time to post some pictures and some scans of sketches I got.

Francesco Francavilla was great to talk to, as was his wife. He told me all about how he refuses to draw rape scenes in his comics, and that sort of thing only happens off panel in his books. It was really great to hear that. He drew me this great sketch of Zorro as a wedding present! Isn't that nice?

He also generously gave me a copy of his book, Sorrow (rhymes with Zorro) which was written by Rick Remender. I haven't read it yet, but the art is certainly beautiful. By the way, are y'all reading Zorro? Because it is awesome.

After three days of searching for him, I finally got to meet Jeff Parker, who as you probably know if you read this blog, is one of my very favourite writers. He doesn't do art so much anymore, so it's easy to forget that he can also draw. Check out this sweet Cyclops he did for me!

Awwww...it was great to meet you too, Jeff Parker!

I got Dean Trippe to do a Superman sketch for me. I absolutely love it.

He did a Batgirl sketch for my friend Tiina, too, but I forgot to scan it before I gave it to her. Trust me. It's great.

Oh, and I was also lucky enough to see a lot of commissioned sketches being drawn by various artists. There were some really amazing ones that made me jealous. I know that Cliff Chiang has the ones he did up on his site. You should check them out. The Mister Miracle is so good I want to explode.

I seem to have misplaced my camera, so I can't post any photos from the weekend yet. I honestly didn't take many pictures. I wish I had taken more. I was just so busy running around looking at everything! I want to do another post where I talk about all the mini-comics and such that I picked up. I picked up some fantastic ones from Jason Horn, Rob Ullman, and Pat Lewis, among others. Rob Ullman has an old timey hockey stories comic! It's like he can read my mind!

It was really an amazing weekend. As I've mentioned, I'd never been to a con before, so I don't have much to compare it to, but this seemed exceptionally amazing to me.

I don't know if the DC Nation panel from HeroesCon is going to be on the DC website, but I did ask a question about Catwoman at it. I learned that she'll be showing up in Detective Comics...fighting Hush...booooooo.

I am sure I am forgetting lots of stuff, but I am getting tired of writing the words "really nice."

Canada Cracks Down on Nerdiness At The Border

I have many awesome stories about HeroesCon, which was pretty much the best weekend ever. I'll post a lot more over the next few days, but I want to start with a story from yesterday when I was flying home.

After a long day of delayed flights and airport confusion, I was taken aside at customs and put in one of those side rooms so they could grill me and inspect my luggage. At midnight. Because, y'know, I'm pretty suspicious. I think my mistake may have been saying I was at a comic book convention.

Anyway, I got all my bags opened and emptied and the whole time was getting this from the security guy:

Dude: You like comics?
Me (exhausted): Yes
Dude: What kind of comics?
Me: Lots...of...comics?
Dude: You collect comics?
Me: Yes
Dude: You buy any down there?
Me: Yes. A few. And some artwork
Dude: You have receipts for that?
Me: No...they didn't really have any receipts there.
Dude: You own a comic shop?
Me: No!
Dude: What do you do for a living in Nova Scotia?
Me: I'm a student.
Dude (opening bag and holding up comics one at a time and flipping through each one forever): Daredevil, Fantastic Four...what did you think of the movies?
Me: Um...they were ok? Not great?
Dude (holding an issue of Superman Family): When would this comic be from?
Me: The seventies sometime?
Dude: How many comics do you own?
Me: I don't know...thousands?
Dude: How long you been collecting those?
Me: Years?
Dude (takes out my sketchbook and flips through it): How long does it take these guys to draw these pictures?
Me: A few minutes, usually?
Dude: You always take a sketchbook with you?
Me: It was my first time to a convention, but probably I will.
Dude (holding up an Invincible comic suspiciously): I've never heard of this guy.
Me: Uh...he's new...

Yeah, so it went on like this, with the guy inspecting each and every book and nerdy item in my suitcase. It was really pretty embarrassing.

Meanwhile, at the Charlotte airport when I was leaving all I got from security was a guy smiling and pointing to my shirt and saying "Aquaman! Alright!"

Oh Carolina

Item!

There is an article about me in this week's issue of The Coast, the local alternative weekly paper. You can check it out online here.

Item!

I am off to Charlotte, NC tomorrow morning for HeroesCon! As I mentioned before, I have never been to a con before, so I am very excited. I have no idea what to expect, but I am sure I will have lots of fun and meet lots of cool people.

I am going to be hanging out at The Dollar Bin's table in the Indie Island section. I am bringing buttons and 'zines to promote the blog. If you're at the con, come say hi! I'd love to meet y'all. And if I'm not at their table, I'm probably following Steve Epting around asking him to describe in great detail exactly how he draws Winter Soldier's muscles.

Item!

Upon returning from this trip, I am going to be making a few changes to the blog. For one, I am going to drop the whole "This Week's Haul" reviews thing because it's obvious I can't keep on top of it. And it's kinda boring anyway. Instead I'm going back to a looser format where I just recommend things I like, and make fun of things that deserve to be made fun of. I mean, obviously Daredevil is an awesome comic and everyone should read it. I don't really have to say that every month, do I?

Alright. I'm outta here. I'll post some pictures of my trip when I get back. I'm so excited!! I'm gonna eat so much pit BBQ!

Mike Holmes Rules!

I wanted to share this awesome sketch that local cartoonist all-star Mike Holmes did for me. I asked for a sketch of me having a beer with Hal Jordan. Here it is:

Pretty great, eh?

He also just did this amazing poster for an upcoming show, featuring Windom Earle, Wordburglar, The Gideons and my band (The Stolen Minks). I'm Batman on the poster.

Exciting!

I've said it before and I'll say it again, DC needs to hire this guy to draw Teen Titans.

To see the fantastic comics that he's done for the local weekly paper, check out his Flickr site. His ongoing True Story series is especially awesome, which has him drawing true stories that people send him. Here's the story that I sent him:

So, in summary, Mike Holmes is awesome.

Charlotte, Here I Come!

I am officially going to Charlotte, NC for HeroesCon in June! I am very excited. Not only have I never been to North Carolina before, I have never been to a comic convention before! I hear this is a really good one.

The nice boys from The Dollar Bin invited me down, so I'll be hanging out at their table (I believe) when I'm not running around the convention centre totally overwhelmed and exploding with nerdy glee. Or when I'm not eating as much pit BBQ as humanly possible.

So if you are going to be at HeroesCon, let me know and we can meet and chat and stuff. Or drink beer. I like beer.

I have a limited knowledge of Charlotte. I basically associate two things with the city: BBQ and Charlotte Hornets Starter Jackets:

Stylin'! I picture every resident of Charlotte wearing this at all times.

I can't wait!