Bleeding Neon

Specifically, mine:

Yes, it’s January and after a minor mix-up at the printer, The Utopian #2 is finally available for you kids to get your grubby little hands on. I have to drop my usual humility here and say these look pretty friggin’ good. It’s amazing how much better this story reads as a complete comic book, as opposed to a one-episode-weekly webcomic. And those covers? Man, Steve Downer’s colors really made my art POP on the standard cover (left), and Hernan Valencia just knocked it out of the ballpark with the deluxe cover (right).

If you pre-ordered a signed copy from me, I’m dropping those in the mail today. And if you didn’t, you can click this link to have one shipped directly to your mailbox, or if you’re in Las Vegas, please drop by Alternate Reality Comics (4800 S. Maryland Parkway) and pick up a copy from Ralph, the world’s greatest comic shop owner.

Oh, and if you happen to be the world’s second or third greatest comic shop owner, you should be carrying this comic for your unwashed geek masses. They’ll love it. Contact me!

Is anyone else bored by this yet? I’m guessing not entirely, because a lot of people I know who follow my exploits (boring as they may be) still haven’t glommed on to Detox Week yet or are actually ASKING for updates. Crazy, right? But we all know this is really just an excuse to get me to update this blog, which wasn’t happening in any way, shape or form before.

I didn’t feel too great yesterday morning. Just some, er, post-digestive stuff. I wonder if that rice I made was either undercooked or just didn’t agree with me. Either way, I felt a lot better over the weekend eating mostly-raw, so, well, we’re not going to try to do that rice again.

One of the things I realized last night (though it should have been obvious before) is that I’ve been spending about 300 percent more time in the kitchen than normal throughout this process. Making every meal by hand takes time! A lot of time! Time that, honestly, I don’t have. Seriously, we’re talking multiple hours a day, between the chopping, cooking, cleaning, storing, etc. No wonder we drove our mothers insane!

Of course, my time already is strained. The band is starting to get active again (met with potential new bassist last night again, had a pretty decent jam), more freelance work is looming, and full-on roll-out of Omega Comics Presents is beginning. Something has to suffer, and looking at how terribly my time has been consumed and how much I’m beginning to feel strangled by my own obligations (not to mention the lack of time I’ve been able to spend with Sara, which I’m sure has not thrilled her), I’m dropping down The Utopian updates to once weekly, on Wednesdays. It’s just too much for me to write, pencil, ink, color and letter two full comic pages every week even as I’m editing an anthology, writing, drawing and lettering eight pages for each issue of that and trying to actually hit my other work deadlines.

I’ve been so stressed about trying to “get ahead” in order to just get out of town for two or three days. And I don’t like that feeling. But I also can’t just, as Sara suggested last night, go on holiday with the webcomic. If I do, honestly, I’ll never pick it back up. The weekly obligation is what keeps me driven to the end goal. I don’t work well without deadlines. Like most work-for-hire creators, you can give me a deadline a month ahead and I’ll start and finish the article/illustration/story the night before the deadline. That’s just the way it is.

So yeah. I guess it’s that time of the day where I review what foods I consumed yesterday, huh? You know, when Detox Week is over, I might start keeping a food journal anyway, to really force myself to pay attention to everything I eat. Until then, here’s yesterday’s line-up:

• Breakfast: 1 banana, 1 cup “Dynamo” juice blend
• Morning snack: 1 apple pie Larabar
• Lunch: 1 bowl homemade vegetable stew (I think I’m definitely going to be making this once a week from now on)
• Afternoon snack: Approx. a handful of raw almonds & walnuts, plus 1 serving of dried, unsweetened pineapple rings
• Dinner: 1 can Amy’s Organic Lentil Vegetable Soup (also becoming a new staple)
• Evening snack: 1 piece raw “fudge” from Go Raw Cafe, plus two stalks celery with organic peanut butter

Though I’m not usually one to tout my own artwork around here (as opposed to my everything else), colorist and illustrator Steve Downer did such a whiz-bang job taking my black-and-white line art for the cover of the second issue of The Utopian (coming in January) and transforming it into a Work of Awesomeness™, that I just had to share:

Yeah, I know, right? For reference, here’s the line art I sent Steve:

So for what reason would you not pre-order this comic right now? I don’t know, I just don’t know.

Also, over at Pop! Goes the Icon, we began posting never-before-seen previews from inside the first issue of Omega Comics Presents, which comes out February. More will be coming soon. Stay tuned.

I know I promised a while back that I was going to try to post something every day here, or at least as often as possible. Sadly, in the hectic (but happy!) life of Pj, “as often as possible” is often not often at all. Sorry about that. But I’ve been extremely productive, not only getting caught up on producing the semi-weekly webcomic The Utopian, slinging journalistic assignments and overseeing the launch of a whole friggin’ comic book company, but also planning out your weekends for you.

Yes, I’m throwing a party for you kids. OK, fine: It’s a party for me. More specifically (as the title of this post may have led you to believe), it’s a release party for the launch of The Utopian print comic. And it not coincidentally is the same weekend as the Vegas Valley Comic Book Festival (to which I know you’re all coming, right?). Here’s the flier:

No cover! $5 Corona buckets! Door prizes! Doesn’t it sound great already? No. Oh … well, I’ll be there. And Yayo Taco (4632 S. Maryland Parkway) has like the most awesome tacos ever. And we’ll just be hanging out, drinking and eating all in mutual love of comics. How much better does it get? It doesn’t. So be at Yayo on Sunday, Nov. 8 at 7 p.m. Early enough for you to get in bed for work on Monday but late enough for you to go to church or nap or whatever. And if you are on Facebook and are planning on coming, please RSVP and let me know. It helps to have an idea of how many peeps are coming, you know?

In the meantime, I’ll be doing stuff. That’s all you really need to know.

Comic book guys are sexy.

In case you hadn’t noticed by my multiple Twitter and Facebook posts, The Utopian #1 shipped this week. Response has been fairly positive. Not only did I get a healthy amount of pre-orders for the comic (all of which I signed and shipped in one day), but I — surprisingly — received orders through Haven Distributors, which means at least one comic shop wanted to carry The Utopian. Pretty cool. I’ve received more requests than expected, so I actually re-ordered more books from the printer just so I have enough to go around at the Vegas Valley Comic Book Festival on Nov. 7. All of which is pretty cool. Unless everyone is blowing smoke up my rear, it means at least a few people actually like what I’ve been doing with The Utopian. I’ve started working on the next chapter, and I’m enjoying the heck out of writing and drawing the new stuff, which hopefully means you kids will enjoy reading it. Oh, and if you’re in Vegas and want to pick up a copy (and avoid the online ordering hassle/shipping fee), it’s being carried locally at Alternate Reality Comics on Maryland Parkway. Go there, it’s a rad shop and owner Ralph is the man.

The Rebel Yell, UNLV’s twice-weekly student-run newspaper (for which I was editor-in-chief briefly during college), ran an awesome story about my comic book activities in its Oct. 15 issue. Written by current EIC Jorge Labrador, it covers a lot of ground, including revealing plans for things I haven’t made public elsewhere (and also has awesome quotes from my pal Aaron Thompson, all the way from South Korea!). However, one thing that got left out from my interview was exclusive news about the lineup for the first issue of Omega Comics Presents, the new anthology series Pop! Goes the Icon will be publishing starting next year. I now have contracts signed for all the creators involved in the premier issue, though I won’t be making the official announcement until after the Comic Fest. But I will leak a bit of news related to that here: The lead feature for the series will be an ongoing serial called “Omega” (now it all fits, right?) written and drawn by yours truly. It’s an action-suspense drama, completely unlike The Utopian, and hopefully will be awesome. More on that coming soon.

Aside from occasional CD reviews and mini news bits, things might be quiet around the journalism area of Awesome City as my attention turns toward publisher duties with PGTI and band stuff, as I’ll be aggressively preparing my home studio for recording even as we’re shopping for a new guitar player. Stay tuned.