I can’t think of any better symbol of independence this week than the well-run operation that freed Ingrid Betancourt, the eleven Columbians and three U.S. contractors, without even firing a shot. My hat is off to those Columbian Commando spies and the American intelligence advisors. And of course, those hostages who have somehow endured it all. Welcome back, survivors.

I was confused yesterday when at a place by the Columbia River where there’s always a great view of Mt. Hood, because the volcano was gone. Then I found out it’s from haze created by all the fires burning in Northern California, coming all the way up here. I wish as much good luck to people in those areas as possible, and to all the firefighters breaking their backs around the clock. That’s from the Big Sur area, above.

That’s just part of the line signing the What If book last week, from left it’s Matt Wieringo, Mark Waid, Karl Kesel, Stuart Immonen, and Chris Giarusso. This is just one of the many crystal clear images you’ll find in Pat Sun’s photo pool of the show, which I forgot to link the other day. There’s cosplayers in there too, don’t worry.

That one of course, is one of the copies gang-signed by many of the contributors at Heroes Con last weekend. But you can find a clean copy at your local comics shop now. It turned out great. My only complaint is that from fear of trademark infringement, I was asked to alter my Gorilla General so he wasn’t so directly Planet of the Apes. Here’s my original image that goes with my text piece in the book…

And yes, the drawing makes sense in context. Essentially I was drawing in the tradition of Mike’s sketch blog, indulging whatever occurred to me at the moment. There are some beautiful tributes in there and an excellent opening by Matt “Mafus” Wieringo. Proceeds benefit the Hero Initiative.

Also this week: X-Men meet Machine Man. Again, IN STORES NOW.

Well dadburn! I thought my quick hotel ramble was lost to the ether, but Steven Gettis performed an autopsy on WordPress and fished it out. So here’s what I rambled…

You know, there are no flights back to Portland from Charlotte until late in the day, so I’ve been cooling my heels in the Westin Hotel lobby, mostly sitting by Rick Remender, Kris Justice and Andie Tong. If you have to hang out, there’s much less comfortable places to do so. I’m trying to gather my thoughts about Heroes Con, but at the moment it just seems like my mouth ran non-stop and that’s my impression. No one’s going to write anything better than Tom Spurgeon’s summary of the weekend, so you might want to go there now. A lot of us shared good memories of Mike Wieringo over dinner and at the Hero Initiative signing for the What If: Mike Tribute book. Mark Waid made me forget how to breath by telling a really inappropriate anecdote at a key moment. Matt Wieringo raised some real money to go to the scholarship in his brother’s name, especially at the art auction held over at FUEL Pizza that Friday night. By the way, there will be more of that online soon. Darwyn Cooke told me of some of his secret plans for upcoming work that I would preorder NOW if I could. Heidi Mac introduced me to the international man of mystery Ben McCool. Kelly Sue let me hold The Baby Fraction, young Henry (he’s already helping plot Iron Man), who is a solid little crawler and easily one of the most beautiful boys since the Baby Parker appeared three years ago. Which reminds me of the very sweet Ladd Family who returned to once again cartoonists little care packages full of snacks as their girls showed all the mini comics they made lately.

Thomas Fleming told me more of the fallout from that Who Sucks.com site taking my “myostatin deficiency” joke about him literally- he was contacted by the BBC for an interview. No one will ever believe he actually lifts weights. I got to catch up with old friends like Richard Case, Chris Kemple and Scott Hampton, but I didn’t get to eat at Lupie’s this time. Josh “Batman Strikes!” Elder told some hilarious stories of his misadventures in Manhattan (well except for how he always gets punched or stabbed with miniature flags, they’re hilarious) and told me of his outreach programs to get kids reading comics. Dusty Harbin put together a really impressive Indy Island this year, and as usual I tried to steer people over to take advantage of Roger Langridge’s crazy cheap original art prices before he realizes what he’s doing.

Thought I was going to catch up with Ross Ritchie, then he disappeared into the night. Matt Brady and his lovely wife gave me some Newsarama candy, that I really should not have eaten All At Once. I sketched a fair amount of Gorilla Men in people’s Agents of Atlas hardcovers, and a few Venuses. I still haven’t seen what Leonard Kirk draws in them when he’s handed one. I annoyed plenty of other people by not sitting at my table enough (hey, I keep running into East Coast friends I don’t get to see anymore, it’s hard to make it back to the seat). I didn’t even have enough time to go over into the next convention hall for the DUB convention and shop for some flossin’ spinning rims, so cut me a break. I found out Barry Kitson was briefly a member of one of my favorite bands, XTC.
Shelton Drum had the Dead Dog Party over at Heroes Aren’t Hard To Find and I got to hear some good trash talk from Dave Johnson (no one does it better). We all ate barbecue and Matt Fraction and Ivan Brandon helped me trash our fellow creators, oh how I love it. On a nicer note, no one does a better imitation of Ed Brubaker than Matt. And no one argues the merits of The Transporter movies more than Robert Kirkman. After everyone talked up Shoot ‘Em Up, I feel I should finally rent it. Oh there’s so much more… but I better get a taxi.

BACK to present day. Rick and I made it to the airport on time, and instead of suffering in Southern heat for two days while no US AIRWAYS jet would take him home, he went straight back to Portland, while I had to go to San Francisco first. My connecting flight was delayed, but then I was able to catch another by running across two terminals. I’m sorry to bore you with airline foibles, I just want to cut to the heart of my travel: by the time I reached Portland I SMELLED HEINOUS. Are there any airports that have pay showers available? Because I would be all over that.

More things happened, of course, but durn if I can remember it. I’m sure Patrick Sun will help jog my memory with the terrabytes of photo files he took and will no doubt upload soon. In the meantime you can look at pictures of Superstud LoveMo-chine Chris Sims over at his report. My main impression is surprise from not being humidified to death in Charlotte during the Summer- every day there was a key rainstorm that cooled things down just in time. Shelton Drum probably arranged that too. Thanks Shelton!

Well, I wrote a rambling run-down of my Heroes Con experience, and WordPress munched it up for some reason. Which rarely happens. I’ll try again tomorrow if this flight doesn’t wipe it all from my mind…

This coming weekend is the HEROES CONVENTION in Charlotte, NC! With a line up such has never been seen outside a mega-show like Comicon International. Darwyn Cooke is a special guest, so I’m hoping they made shirt with his art on it. I’m going to be there Saturday and Sunday, mostly at whatever table I’m put, but also…

At the HERO INITIATIVE booth, where we have a big gang-signing for the What If? featuring Mike Wieringo’s final work. On Saturday 3:00-4:00 will be all of these contributors: Richard Case, Todd Dezago, Cully Hamner, Stuart Immonen, Barry Kitson, Nathan Massengill, Jeff Parker, Val Staples, Mark Waid,and Matt Wieringo. On Sunday, that line up minus Stuart will be there from 3:30 to 4:30. We look forward to seeing you at the booth, and the sales of the book go to a great cause.

As you see, Mike’s brother Matt will be there, which leads into the next big announcement…

Matt Wieringo has created a scholarship in his brother’s name! The RINGO will be connected to the Savannah College of Art and Design, helping some prospective cartoonist cover costs in the Sequential Art program there. Read the full press release here at Chapel Hill Comics’ site.

It’s going to be a big weekend, I look forward to meeting you there.

Agents of Atlas are in the SECRET INVASION: WHO DO YOU TRUST? Special, in fine comics shops everywhere. Poor Namora! How did those Skrulls catch her? The whole book is full of good stuff, but buy it to support your favorite team from the 50’s in the modern day. It should be interesting to see the reactions of the majority of readers who probably didn’t read their miniseries and will wondering who the hell these people in the flying saucer are.

That reminds me, there’s only two days left to vote for Atlas in the Eisners!

I meant fightin’, of course! Here’s me and Steve Sunu briefly talking about Incredible Hulk: Raging Thunder over at the Wizard site. You can tell I did it over the phone because I always sound like a nimrod if I don’t use email. And sometimes, if I do.

Which is now a mere two weeks away. Wow. I guess it’s actually summer, though we in Portland don’t know that because it’s cold and rainy here for some reason. But I’ll be there with a lot of terrific talent to sign this if you can make it. Anyway, here’s the Hero Initiative press release giving you the low down…
————————————————————————————————-
When artist Mike Wieringo passed away, he was in the middle of his latest Marvel Comics book, a What If? story. Mike had completed seven pages of what became a massive 27-page story. With Mike’s passing, Marvel Comics generously provided access to the script and Mike’s art to The Hero Initiative, and Mike’s friends stepped up to finish the story, and pay tribute to Mike. Now, What If…This Was The Fantastic Four?: A Tribute to Mike Wieringo is a massive, 48-page tribute book that contains the full story, and additional written tributes to Mike.

The tremendous list of talent participating in the book includes Jeff Parker, Arthur Adams, Paul Renaud, Stuart Immonen, Cully Hamner, Alan Davis, David Williams, Sanford Greene, Humberto Ramos, Skottie Young, Mike Allred, Barry Kitson, and Val Staples. Cover artwork is by Mike Wieringo and Paul Mounts, and The Hero Initiative is publishing the book with the full support of both Marvel Comics, and the family of Mike Wieringo.

Stop by the Hero booth to obtain your very own copy before it is available everywhere on June 25th. The book retails for $4.99. In addition, the following ten talented men will be signing the book at HeroesCon: Richard Case, Todd Dezago, Cully Hamner, Stuart Immonen, Barry Kitson, Nathan Massengill, Jeff Parker, Val Staples, Mark Waid, Karl Kesel and Matt Wieringo so don’t miss out on this once in a lifetime opportunity!

“Thanks to Marvel and The Hero Initiative, Mike’s friends got to work with him one more time and I get to experience seeing one of my brother’s comics on the stands again. That’s a thrill I never again hoped or expected to have. And it’s for a great cause that Mike would have been proud to be a part of,” said Matt Wieringo.

Do you work in the comics industry somehow? Do you like to get drunk with power and influence the careers and reputations of comics creators? Then you want to follow this link and vote in the Eisner Awards. You have until June 13, but better do it today to be on the safe side.

Oh hey, lookit what I just found scanning around in that list in the category of Best Graphic Album–Reprint… Agents of Atlas Hardcover, by Jeff Parker, Leonard Kirk, and Kris Justice ! If you take the ridiculously short amount of time to register and vote, I’d say that’d be a nice little box to check. Especially on behalf of Leonard Kirk, as you may have heard the truism: Leonard Kirk does NOT like to lose. Plus, it could speed up their next series. But hey, no pressure!

Dave Richards and I follow up that Sentry news over at Comic Book Resources. I left out the interesting turn of events at the series’ end, because I just assumed you would assume that there would be one.

-And that Paul Tobin is too. And Nick Dragotta is drawing! Well this sounds like a hoot. Here’s something from Marvel on it all.

Here’s a quick interview Laura Hudson did with me over at Publisher’s Weekly. And you can read a preview of tomorrow’s X-Men: First Class over at Toon Talk. It’s the ANGEL ISSUE.

Just the other day I was looking grimly at all the plastic bags that we accumulate at home, and thinking about that bigger-than-the-United-States-size blob of plastic in the Pacific Ocean, feeling horrible about the environment in general. Now I read about Daniel Burd, the Canadian teen who won the hell out of the Canada-Wide Science Fair in Ottawa by finding microbes that break down plastic bags in three months.

Right the F ON, Daniel! I hope my kids are thinking like you when they’re teens. Heck, I hope one day I think like you- readers here may remember vague allusions to my own 10th grade science project- which some would call Garden Slug Torture- which even had it not failed would have not helped the environment in any way whatsoever.

Daniel used household yeast and water in dirt to degrade the plastic, and then started tracking down the most effective bacteria, which had to be pretty exciting from a problem-solving standpoint. What gets me is that his reasoning was so simple and straightforward: plastic does eventually degrade, and microorganisms must be behind it, as they are with most things. Now, it may turn out that this is hard to replicate on a big enough scale to be used in landfills, or it makes greenhouse gases and we’re still screwed, but I think we should all turn to the engineers and scientists in Industry now and give a collective IN YOUR FACE, LABCOATS! What, do you grown-ups not have any YEAST available to you? Man, I wish Obama would select me for Vice President and put me in charge of Nerds so I could go around lording this kid’s work over everyone.* I do however feel a little bad for the runners up in the science fair, sitting there with their lame-ass styrofoam orreries and crudely drawn charts about the life-cycle of cicadas when they heard Daniel may have pointed the way to massive environmental change.

*Come on you nerds, get busy! Stop trying to add more flavors to toothpaste! Why are you trying to make iPods even smaller? Make me a computer battery that lasts all day, Poindexter! And when you figure that out, make it big enough to use in electric cars! You in the back! Quit trying to figure out a way to stop things like kudzu from spreading! Just find something it’s useful for or make it an ingredient in a potency drug so people will go out and harvest it for us! And you next to him, find a way to get THC out of hemp and make it different colors like red or purple so John Law will stop cracking down on it and let it save the forests! Get to work(whip-crack sound)!

My studiomate Jonathan Case is finally deciding not to keep all of his work a secret, and has put a chapter of his SEA FREAK up online for free reading. We’ve been leaving him alone to work on this fairly massive project, and once it’s done I assure you you’ll be hearing of him everywhere so you might as well get in on the ground floor. I predict you’ll like the crab characters as much as I do.

Don’t forget, MA Avengers #24 is on stands today.

I woke up in the middle of the night, foolishly decided to poke in online, and saw that Rory Root had died after surgery. Even if you’ve never been to the West Coast, if you’ve read any national article on comic books you’ve probably seen a quote by someone with the alliterative name of a comics character who owned the famous Comic Relief shop in Berkeley. And if you had anything to do with independent comics then you had a champion in Rory. His fellow Bay area retailer Brian Hibbs has a remembrance over at Savage Critic. Rory was a great help to me when I published The Interman, and was always someone I looked forward to talking to- listening to, really. Another very hard loss for Comics.