From teens fighting parents, to robots fighting monsters...

In case you missed it, my very first Graphic Novel, ELK'S RUN (with artist Noel Tuazon and colorist Scott Keating) is getting a deluxe, tenth anniversary re-release from my pals at Oni Press. It's going to be big, beautiful, and have some new exclusive content.  It's out later this year.

And, then, I'll be the writer of the upcoming PACIFIC RIM: TALES FROM THE DRIFT mini-series from my pals at Legendary Comics.  That one's got art by the brilliant Marcos Marz and Marcelo Maiolo.  

It's weird to have these two books announced on the same day.  Plus, I've got THE BUNKER and THE LIFE AFTER issues out today, too. 

In some ways, these books represent the journey my career has been on.  Republishing Elk's Run has given me a chance to look back at what excited me about comics in the first place, and, frankly, it's the character.  The room we have to build characters above all else is what drew me in, and kept me here so long.  My Pacific Rim mini, while being a huge, blockbuster thriller, is still really about a love story between two pilots. It's something that there isn't as much room as you'd need to do well in the movies, but that you can do really, really well in comics.  

Getting to watch two people fall in love, just as Elk's Run is about watching a family fall out of love.  Nice symmetry. Eyes peeled for Emerald City Comic Con this weekend, where more news should creep out. 

Emerald City Comic Con

Hello Seattle!
Well, I said I was taking the year off... 

And I'm clearly failing at that.  Very last minute, but, I've got TWO big project announcements this week, which'll get followed up on at Emerald City Comic Con this weekend in Seattle, WA.  I've only got a few scheduled appearances, but, would love to see any/all/some of you while I'm there.  My schedule is as follows:
 

FRIDAY 

1:30 pm, Comics in Other Media Panel, Hall F

3:00 pm, Legendary Comics/Films Signing, Booth 1804

SATURDAY

5:00 pm, Oni Press Panel, Hall C

6:00pm, Oni Press Signing, Booth 212

SUNDAY

12:00 pm, Oni Press Signing, Booth 212

You'll also be able to find me near The Life After artist Gabo's table in Aritst Alley, which is NN-03.  More programming, ticket info, and such here.

Also, for a first look at those announcements, watch this space, and/or over on Twitter @joshfialkov. 

Hope to see you this weekend in Seattle (and also that it's not miserably cold.  I'll take either/or.) 

Jazz and the Failure of Exclusion

Louis Armstrong

Bix Biderbecke

I've been making my way through Ken Burns' Jazz documentary series.  There's an extended section about Bix Beiderbecke.  If you don't know, Bix was considered the 2nd best trumpeter who ever lived.  Second only to Louis Armstrong.  He was a Iowan farm boy who was inspired by Louis' recordings to teach himself and run away from home to become a jazz player.

In addition to his prodigious talents, he also had an epic drinking problem.  One that would eventually kill him.  But, before that, the documentary talks a bit about how hard a time Bix had because of segregation.  That because he was white, he couldn't go and play with the more advanced black players, and was constantly hitting a wall because he needed to be challenged, and he just wasn't by the white players of the day. 

It's such an interesting, backwards way to think about the race problems of the day, that I've been chewing over it for days.  That segregation hurts both sides that have been split apart.  That the sum is that much greater than the individual parts. The idea that that privilege is it's own sort of handcuffs is so rarely discussed.  And I get why, as the world's tiniest violins plays for the poor white people who couldn't be inspired, while the black people were oppressed, beaten, and pillaged by the dominant culture. 

But, still, I think the core idea is something worth discussing.  That this kid who was handed the world realized that without the best of the best available to him, then the world he'd been handed was a lead balloon.  That by ex-communicating a group of people, you're really ex-communicating yourself. 

The close-mindedness of our era, the us against them mentality that rules politics, and, especially, the inability to have a conversation with someone who's different from you, and not just in terms of race, but in as simple as semantics of ideas.  Without being able to open ourselves up to the other side of the world, to see the brilliance and joy, as well as the outrage and the anger, we're doomed as a society.  We'll constantly stand on the brink of our potential and always fall short.

The story goes that for one night, Louis and Bix met in a hotel room, closed the door, and played together.  The two men driving each other to be better, creating and destroying expectations simultaneously.  It was, by some accounts, the highlight of Bix's life. But, because society was too involved to see the brilliance that could be made from love and acceptance, it's just a story lost to time, instead of an album for the ages. 

Open yourself to the world around you.  Experience things from every side, and put it into your work, make it your motivation.  Or, in other words, love everyone. 

FYI, here's the best jazz song ever recorded. 

If you HAVEN'T seen KEN BURNS' JAZZ, do yourself a favor.  It streams for free on Netflix and Amazon, or, the boxset is linked below.  It's my favorite Ken Burns film, and it'll change how you think about America, Music, and, perhaps most importantly, American Music. 

Jazz : A Film By Ken Burns

$56.28

PBS

Buy on Amazon

Everything Coming up Grady

Get your pre-orders in, people. 

"The Marketplace is the Enemy of the Artist" and other lies Orson Welles told us...

So, I love Orson Welles.  He's one of the greatest filmmakers who ever lived, managed to more or less invent an entire genre of storytelling (so much Film Noir started with him, plus the personality driven documentary to just name two.)  He conquered a bunch of different industries before slowly losing his rep in Hollywood.  And then he spent thirty years making incredible films under horrific circumstances.  That video up above is from a few days before he died.  

In it he says something I've seen people quoting all week.  

"The Marketplace is the Enemy of the Artist." 

Far be it for me to call bullshit on the patron saint of fighting the powers that be, but... The fact is his success and freedom early in his career was BECAUSE of the marketplace.  Because he built up his reputation to a point that a studio gave him money, final cut, and complete authority, despite having only really done a few student art films before hand..  They trusted his success with the Mercury Theater on the Air and in the Theater.  

I could go on about the mistakes he made in his career and the missed opportunities he seemed to thrive on.  But that's not the part that bugs me.

The idea that making a living by making art somehow makes you a sell out, THAT's what bugs me.

I've got bad news for you, Orson.  Unless you're a rich kid or have a wealthy patron, finding a way to live off your art is, in fact, the whole point.  I do what I do because it's not only my most marketable skill, but it's something I genuinely enjoy doing.  Do I sometimes do jobs just for the money? Honestly, not that frequently, but, yes, I've done it in the past.  But, some of those jobs have become some of my favorite (and my fans favorite) work.  

For example... I wrote two MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE comics.  Despite being the right age, I have almost no warm memories or fuzzy feelings for the furry underpants gang, but, it was a job, and I found something that excited me.  I loved writing both of those books, and I do think they're some of the best work for hire comics I've ever done. 

Hell, I, VAMPIRE, while something I loved as a kid, was a job I took because it was a good solid paycheck while my wife was struggling with cancer.  It's one of the most definitive pieces of my work, and what people most associate me with (and my longest run on a series), but, it was just a job.  A job I loved and cherished, and fought tooth and nail for the quality and purity of what we were doing. 

But, there still came a day when they said, "This is ours, we want you to do it this way, or you're fired." And, I managed to find a way to make it my own and keep it going on, well maybe not my own terms, but terms that were acceptable for all involved.

Making money from your work is no more of a sin for an artist than it is for a carpenter or a doctor.  Finding a way to focus all of your energy into that creative work, as far as I'm concerned is the very objective of an artist.  Only by freeing yourself of the distractions and interruptions of your non-creative life, can you actually get to the bit where creating is actually truly gratifying.

Please. Make money from your art. Make as much money as humanly possible.  Because then, you get to satisfy one of those two conditions that allows someone in this day and age to create art for art's sake.  You get to be a rich kid.  Or, at this rate, a rich middle aged kid. 

THE PULL - Episode 1 - Interview with ME

Video Autoplays, so, LINK: 

I'm in the 2nd hour, but, watch the whole thing.  It's lots of fun. 

One Year Later

New personal record I think. And I want to throw up.

"New personal record I think. And I want to throw up."

I don't want to die. 

I don't mean that in the sense that everybody wants to live forever.  I literally decided I didn't want to die.  I've had health problems pretty much from the time I was a little kid.   Some of that is rooted in my mom being unaware she was pregnant with me, while undergoing major back surgery (and the drugs that go along with that not being, ahem, great for the fetus...) to a massive bout of food poisoning when I was five or six years old.  I still remember the days (and what feels like weeks) I spent in the hospital on IV's because I couldn't take in solid food.  

I still have minor panic attacks when I see bees, thanks to my managing to get stung by about sixty yellow jackets (which I'm deathly allergic to) as a little boy, sending me into anaphylactic shock.  

I remember falling out of the hatch of a friends treehouse and catching my foot on the ladder, breaking my ankle but sparing my head.  And, for that matter, falling head first into an orchestra pit, and breaking my arm WITH MY HEAD.  

There's more things (hemochromatosis diagnosis in college, near diabetic coma a decade ago, I should really stop this list...) but, the fact is in spite of all the terrible things that I went through, and clearly had the will to fight through them, I always figured I'd die young.   It's something my friends and I have always joked about.  My buddy Tony Fleecs has always called me "Mr. Glass."  I've broken nearly every finger, toe, both arms, my coccyx, both ankles, and my nose.  I've been diagnosed with fibro myalgia, type '1 1/2' diabetes, osteo pinea, keratoconus,  a half-dozen kidney stones, a shattered vertebrae, and (famously) crippling migraines.  In other words, I've been falling to pieces pretty much from the jump. 

I figured, I work my ass off, I'll get the best work out of the way, and any time left over, that's bonus.

And then I met her.  Yes. It's that story.  I fell in love with someone so much better than me, so much more talented than me, and so much kinder than me.  When Tony made his first crack to her about my health, "How does it feel to know he's going to die before you?" And then, she started to cry. When I saw that look on her face, it started something.

I've been fat since the fifth grade.  At my top weight I was around 265, which for a 5'9" guy is... a lot.  I chiseled away some of that weight, and quit smoking (mostly), and managed to get my diabetes mostly under control.  And, as if to make damn sure things changed, she got pregnant.  And we had... her.  Hold on, let's get a picture of her in here for extra heart meltings.

Train in vane.

"Train in vane."

But, even, then, primary to everything was getting enough work to pay for her to have the best life possible.  And I worked and worked, killing myself to get faster and better to make sure I could provide for her.

And then I got sick.  The migraines got worse. A simple flu would stretch out for weeks.  Slowly but surely, I came to realize that there are things more important than earning the most and working the best.  Things like her.  Both hers, actually.

And so, around two years ago, I bought a Fitbit and I started using a standing desk.  Then I started doing every phone call while frantically pacing my neighborhood like a crazy person.  Eventually I started jogging, and about one year ago today, I ran a 5k.  I did okay.  After that we (my wife has come on the crazy journey with me) started doing a race every month or so, all building up to the Disney Avengers Half Marathon.  

That kicked my ass, but, I did it.  I was the kid who used to walk around the track and smoke cigarettes while Gym class was going on.  And I ran a fucking half marathon.  

And then today... We did a 10k.  Which, technically, is not as impressive as a half marathon, BUT... I've been really, really sick once again.  I'm on week four of a cold, brought on by a change in my diabetes medication (as the one drug I've taken for a decade became suddenly ineffective).  Last night, I got home from attending Mary McCoy's wonderful launch party for her new book DEAD TO ME (name dropped only to help her sell a few books), and was about ready to die.  I was nauseous and dizzy, and ready to call it quits.  And then I looked at my daughter.  I looked at my wife.  I went to bed at 6pm, and woke up at 4am (which was really 3am, thanks to DST.)  I felt good enough to go.  Not great. Not 100%. But, I could do this.  Without having trained in a month, with an empty stomach and a cloudy head.

And I did it.  

In fact, I didn't just do it.  I beat my best time.  By a LOT.  Close to 5 or 6 minutes shaved off my usual time.  And I did it sick and tired.  And as I ran today, I felt shitty.  Really shitty.  I felt broken of spirit and weak of body.  

And then... I thought about them.  My two precious women, the literal wind beneath my broken, weak wings. And I ran. 

And so, in some ways, I've always been.  Before I was running towards death.  Smoking and eating my way to an early grave.  But now, I'm running away from it.  I'm running to make sure I'm here to watch my daughter graduate, become a Doctor/Lawyer/Marine Biologist (simultaneously) and to celebrate a retirement of some sort with my beautiful, regal queen of a wife. 

I'll never stop running. If things go bad, and I backslide, I know that it won't be for long, and it won't be permanent, because I have the most important people in my world there to support and lift me up.  

That's what today meant. That's what running means.  And that's why I'll be here for as long as humanly possible. 

Sneak peak at BUNKER 12

Joe Infurnari has an early look at our upcoming crazy Prison issue of THE BUNKER. Go check it out. 

And right here is the cover for said issue. 

Proudest of...

This weekend, I attended the Long Beach Comic Expo.  While there, I got to sit on an over stuffed Image Comics panel.  Towards the end we got asked a pretty typical question, that started at the opposite side of the table.  ”What are you proudest of in your career?” I sat there and thought about it.  I listened to each of my panel mates thoughtfully answer about the piece of work or story or accomplishments that made them truly proud, and then finally it got to me.

What I’m proudest of, what makes me the beam with joy most about my comics career is… that I’m working with my best friends.   The people I collaborate with, on each of the books I’m making right now, are some of my absolute favorite people on earth.  They’re my betters, my contemporaries, but, most importantly, they’re my friends.  

The relationships of honesty and trust that I have with Joe Infurnari, Gabo, Kody Chamberlain, Tony Fleecs, and Bernard Chang, each of whom are doing books that we co-own, makes me feel immensely proud to be their partner. 

But, it doesn’t actually stop there.  The more I’ve thought about my answer, I realized it’s true in my personal life, too.  My wife is my best friend. The reason our marriage thrives is that we don’t just say we’re best friends, we actually are.  We’re completely honest with each other, share everything, and hide nothing. 

My daughter, she’s my best friend, too.  I love her, and respect her little crazy child brain, and all the insanity that spews from her.  

Making friends was always hard for me as a kid.  Hell, even as an adult.  I’m head strong and have a big mouth, but the upside is that you never don’t know where you stand with me.  So, to stand here now, surrounded by people i love and cherish… 

I should add right before I gave my answer on that panel, I gave the quick warning that after watching and reading lots of My Little Pony (thanks to the wife and daughter), this might come off a bit… stilted, but, Friendship really IS Magic.  Look at the things you’ve done, the things you’ve accomplished, and just think how it would’ve been possible without the people who surround you, support you, and cheer for you. 

So, there’s your sentimental story for the day.