Kill All Monsters is taking a break, sort of

If you’ve already read last Friday's installment of Kill All Monsters, you’ve seen the announcement.After six straight months of updating every single week (even on holidays), Jason and I need a little break from posting pages.

But NEVER FEAR! We aren’t taking a break from creating the comic and it will be back. It’s just that we’re starting to feel a little rushed and as we head into the second act of our story we want to make sure that it’s the best it can be. In other words, we just need a little breathing room that we haven’t been able to get on the schedule we set for ourselves.

When we come back, we plan to resume that schedule, but we’ll do so with a nice buffer and full confidence that we’re telling the story the way that it needs to be told.

In the meantime, I’ll continue updating the Kill All Monsters! blog with the History of KAM, Jason’s process drawings, and any other giant monsters/robots goodies I find around the Internet. And of course that will be the first place where we’ll announce details about KAM‘s return. Several fantastic artists approached me at SpringCon too about doing more KAM pinups like the one Jason May did, so we'll get that going too.

So stay tuned. Even if you don't follow the KAM blog, I'll be sure to repeat big announcements here. We’re looking forward to lots more monster-killing with you.

Jason May kills a monster

I shared this on the Kill All Monsters! blog already, but in case you're not reading that (you are, right?), I'll post it here too. It's Akemi hating a giant cephalopod by Jason May.

No, "Jason May" isn't a typo. Unfortunately, he's related to neither Jason Copland nor me. I for one could use more talented artists in the family. I'm greedy like that.

Kill All Monsters and Other Updates

It probably isn't smart of me, but I try not to post about it every Friday when new Kill All Monsters! pages go up. For one thing, I know that a lot of folks read it in chunks instead of every Friday, but I also figure that this way it makes a bigger impact when I do say you should go over and catch up. And folks, you should go over and catch up. If the image above isn't enough to do it, I'll add that page 71 features my favorite panel yet for reasons you'll find very obvious when you see it.

Mondo Sasquatch

In other news, the Mondo Sasquatch anthology will be delayed from next month to later this summer in order to make sure that it's not rushed and that the finished product will look as cool as everyone wants it to.

Robot 6



Something else I haven't regularly been mentioning here is my Robot 6 posting. Part of that is because I figure that those of you who are interested in that are probably reading Robot 6 anyway. But also, I've been doing more daily posts over there lately and it would be annoying for me to say something here every time I did something over there.

Still, I would like to direct your attention to a couple of reviews I wrote for some really excellent books: Incredible Change-Bots 2 (although I actually review both volumes in the article) and Pepper Penwell and the Land Creature of Monster Lake. I feel like Change-Bots needs less promotion, because a lot of people already know about it, but Pepper Penwell is just as good and it would be a shame if people overlooked it. Especially people who like junior detective mysteries and laughter.

Jessica Hickman's new book



Cownt Tales artist Jessica Hickman has illustrated a children's book that's coming out this Halloween. Written by Tom Waltz, Little Jackie Lantern tells the story of a young boy who's too frightened to enjoy everyone's favorite spooky holiday. I haven't read it yet, but I can't imagine a project more suited for Jess' interest in things cute and scary.

SpringCon

The SpringCon guest list has been posted (for a while now, actually) and I'm on it. Looking forward to seeing all of you who live in the Twin Cities. Jason and I are working on a second printing of the Kill All Monsters, Chapter One ashcan, so hopefully that'll be ready in time.

A review I didn't write, but am nevertheless responsible for



I meant to say something at the beginning of the month, but my contribution to the White Elephant Blogathon was Cutthroat Island. For which I owe an apology to Non-Union Mexican Equivalent. I'm sorry you had to watch it, but glad you were able to nail so firmly why that movie didn't work.

Win Kill All Monsters original art!

Some lucky Kill All Monsters! fan is about to win this drawing. It's ink on bristol, measures about 8.5″ x 9″ and will be mailed to the winner.All you have to do to be eligible to win it is to go like the Kill All Monsters! Facebook page. Jason and I will draw the winner’s name later today!

And if you haven't checked in on the webcomic in a while, today would also be an excellent time to do that. Things just got ugly. Literally.

Michael goes Mondo (Sasquatch)

Casey Criswell (Cinema Fromage) has announced a Bigfoot anthology that he's co-editing with Louis Fowler (Damaged 2.0) and Rod Lott (Bookgasm, Flick Attack). As the title Mondo Sasquatch suggests, it's a collection of sasquatchian short fiction, which would make it worth picking up even if it didn't have an awesome cover by Jim Rugg (Afrodisiac) and I didn't have a story in it.

But it does and I do. So even better!

When Fowler opened the door for submissions, here's how he described what they were looking for:

Anyone can do a typical Bigfoot-scares-teen-campers tale…we want something different. Stories can put the creature in any time or any place or any situation, as long as it is entertaining! Think your story is too “B-movie”? Chances are we’ll like it even better. Think your “take” is too insane? We want to read it!

So, yeah. Should be a lot of fun.

I certainly had fun with mine. It's called "Bigfoot and the Bone Face Murders" and it's a Western steampunk murder mystery with Bigfoot as the detective. The first sentence goes, "Bigfoot came to Wolf’s Creek looking for the man who killed his bear."

The book's scheduled for a May release and I'll definitely keep you updated as new details are revealed. For now, check out Cinema Fromage for the full list of authors and story titles.



Speaking of hairy creatures, new Kill All Monsters! pages are up and the Kill Team runs into a monster considerably smaller than the kind they usually fight. Too bad they aren't in their robot suits at the time.

Kill All Monsters! update

Kill All Monsters! continues to update every Friday and if you haven't checked in in a while, now would be a good time. The Kill Team are out of their Bots and exploring Paris on foot. Even though they've got rid of the giant monsters plaguing the city, that doesn't mean all danger is past, as they'll soon see. And their being on the street also means that we get to see Jason's glorious, up-close depictions of the ruins of Paris. If you at all dig post-apocalyptic adventure, this should scratch that itch very satisfyingly.

I think I've finally hit on a nice formula for the KAM! blog too. The original tagline for it was Not Just a Production Blog, but I feel like I went too far in the other direction and made it Not At All a Production Blog, so I'm working to correct that. Next week I'm going to start sharing stories of how KAM! has developed from concept to its current form and I've already started linking to Jason's process posts that he's been doing on his own blog. Not that I'm abandoning the extra stuff like art posts and links to giant monster and giant robot comics.

I'll also link to reviews and KAM! got some cool ones this week. Jay from the Exonauts blog (and a frequent commenter here) has some extremely nice things to say about the comic and Steve Niles gave us a mention in his weekly Creator-Owned Spotlight column at Robot 6. Much thanks to Jay and Steve for not only reading, but for writing about it too.

Kill All Monsters! pp 39-41

Three more pages of Kill All Monsters! are up and we now have contact between Paris and Africa. But just who are those people watching the Kill Team and - more importantly - how is Akemi going to get home?

Elsewhere...Kill All Monsters!: The Ashcan

A few cool things happened this past week.

As announced on the Kill All Monsters! blog and Jason Copland's blog, we’re printing a very limited edition KAM ashcan. Depending on how quickly the printer works, Jason will be taking copies to ECCC in early March and I’ll have some a couple of weeks later at C2E2. If there are any still left, I’ll take some to SpringCon in May as well. If you’re not going to be at either of the March shows and don’t want to take your chances about SpringCon, the best way to get yours is to contact Jason either at j(dot)copland(at)telus(dot)net or through Twitter.

The ashcan will have 28 pages (the entire first chapter of the story) of black-and-white interior art and a full colour cover, all in a landscape format. Again, this is going to have an extremely limited print run. Once they’re gone, they’re gone and Jason’s even going to include a small KAM ink drawing if you order from him. Price is only $10, which is a steal for Copland art.

And speaking of Kill All Monsters!,  I think it's been a couple of weeks since I mentioned that the webcomic is still updating with three new pages every Friday. If you haven't checked in for a bit, we've now seen some of the giant robots’ base and the Paris and Africa scenes are starting to connect.

This week I also had a story accepted to a prose anthology that I'm pretty excited about. More details as I'm allowed to reveal them, but the theme of the anthology will be a lot of fun. And in equally mysterious news, I was also invited last week to participate in a webcomic anthology that's going to be a blast.

Over at Robot 6, the latest Gorillas Riding Dinosaurs column was about the recent hullabaloo over creator-owned comics. I didn't mention Eric Powell's video, because while I agreed with a lot of what he was saying, I didn't think it was particularly helpful in the sense of offering any solutions for fixing the problems it identifies. As Tom Spurgeon says, that doesn't make it valueless, but I much prefer the thoughts of guys like Steve Niles and Skottie Young who have an approach they want to try.

Elsewhere...Spelck!

Who’s this handsome fella? We’re not telling yet, but you can see him in action in this week’s installment of Kill All Monsters!.

Over at Robot 6 this week I reviewed (Critiqued? No, I can't make myself call it that.) Brecht Evens' Night Animals, a book that's as awesome to look at as it is disturbing to think about.

I also did a good job of keeping up with my new blogs. Both Amazon Village and Dear Dairy featured the same kinds of art posts, comics linking, and news you're used to seeing here, but I also started an Amazon of the Week feature (Which Companion of the Doctor kicked it off? Only one way to find out.) and shared some Cownt fan art by an artist from White Wolf Games. And of course, don't forget the Kill All Monsters! blog, focusing on giant robots and giant monsters.

Elsewhere...New Blogs!

Here's what else I've been up to online lately.



We started Chapter 2 of Kill All Monsters! this week. I'm curious to know what people are thinking of it so far, but I also realize that it's early days yet and a lot of you are waiting until we have more up so you can read in larger chunks. No worries, I do that too. But if you are keeping up and have thoughts (encouraging or constructive), I'd love to hear them.

I reviewed Return of the Dapper Men for Robot 6. It's a lovely steampunk fairy tale and goes in my Top Five Stories Ever About Childhood and Growing Up (alongside stuff like Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan). It's as thought-provoking as it is charming.

And finally, I apparently went crazy on Friday and started two new blogs. Both are spin-offs of this one, featuring stuff that I used to cover a lot of here, but have had to cut back on for various reasons. Dear Dairy: The Cownt's Blog will cover vampires and other classic monsters while also digging a bit deeper into the Cownt's world. Amazon Village is all about tough, heroic women.

The reason for spin-off blogs is that I still want to talk about monsters and adventurous women, but can do without having that content increasing the size of my daily pile. So this blog will get top priority (focusing mostly on sea and jungle adventures) and I'll work on the other two as I find time. Hopefully that will be regularly. Add them to your RSS reader. Follow them. Love them.

Kill All Monsters! pp 24-26

Chapter One comes to a close with the first look at one of our heroes outside her Bot. With all the monster fighting that's been going on so far, I'd sort of forgotten how much of a genius Jason is at facial expressions and body language. I'm so proud to be working with him on this thing, you don't even know.

Out with the old...

As I said last year, I love the week between Christmas and New Year. I love the quiet and the time to reflect on the past while planning for what's next.

I'm having a hard time feeling it this year though. I suspect that's because it's been such a strange year, full of challenges, but also victories. On a personal level, my family and I are glad to put 2010 behind us. I was unemployed for seven months (except for writing, but that doesn't pay any bills) and my wife's mom was diagnosed with cancer around the 4th of July. She was gone by the end of the summer.

On a creative level though, Jason and I finally got Kill All Monsters! out (or started anyway) and that's something that we've been working toward for a long time. There's still a lot of work to be done on it, but I'll leave that for tomorrow's post.

Looking back on my goals for 2010, I didn't achieve a lot of them. Looking for work took a lot of time (or at least I'll blame it on that) and there were a couple of comics that I wanted to start writing and never got around to. But launching Kill All Monsters! easily makes up for that. My dream for it is that as the story unfolds, it'll eventually come to mean half as much to readers as it now does to Jason and I. And where those other projects are concerned, I have done some thinking about them and have a better idea not only about what they'll be, but how quickly I can realistically write them. More on that tomorrow too, I suppose.

Robot 6 has also gone well this year. I started contributing to the weekly Food or Comics? feature and that's been a lot of fun while forcing me to stay on top of which comics are hitting stores every week. And this blog continues to be successful. By which I mean that I love doing it and interacting with you guys over pirates and jungle girls.

I also finally figured out how to use Twitter and Facebook in ways that complement this blog. Not that I'm doing it perfectly (or even well, necessarily), but at least I have a basic understanding now of the strengths and weaknesses of those communities and how they're different from a blog. That was a huge light bulb moment for me this year. I can be kind of slow sometimes.

That's enough reminiscing, I think. Tomorrow I'll talk about plans and goals for 2011, but until then have a Happy (and Safe) New Year's Eve.

Elsewhere... the Kill Team introduced themselves

Kill All Monsters! | Meet the Kill Team



All this week at the Kill All Monsters! blog we ran character profiles for the three members of the Kill Team and the organization they work for. They've also been handily collected for your convenience at Review 2 A Kill.

And, of course, three more pages of the comic went up yesterday while two of the monsters went down.

Gorillas Riding Dinosaurs | FX2: The Lost Land



I reviewed a comic that gets closer to the title of my column than any comic I've ever covered there. No gorillas ride any dinosaurs in The Lost Land, but a cowboy does (or a prehistoric reptile anyway). It's a fun story with great art. Don't let its being a sequel keep you away from it. I haven't read the first FX and I never felt...um....lost.

Kill All Monsters! pp 12-14

New Kill All Monsters! pages are up and the battle just may be turning.

Kill All Monsters! Pages 9-11

It's Friday and you know what that means. Catch up with our robot-driving heroes as they try to catch a break and actually kill some monsters.

Elsewhere... monsters were killed.

Kill All Monsters!: The Blog



Remember to bookmark the Kill All Monsters! blog if you like your giant robots and monsters. It's much more than updates about the webcomic. This week, for instance, I reviewed Skyline and linked to a couple of great, giant monster strips by David DeGrand and Katie Cook.

Blood Song



In this weeks What Are You Reading? column at Robot 6, I talked briefly about Eric Drooker's lovely and heart-breaking Blood Song.

Food or Comics?



If I only had $15 to spend on comics this week, it would go to Alpha Flight and Salimba, Paul Chadwick's comic about a pirate-fighting jungle girl. Hit that link to find out what I'd get with more money than that.

What Looks Good for January




This week's Gorillas Riding Dinosaurs was a look at the cool, new adventure comics coming out in January. Lots of space pulp and Sherlock Holmes, among other awesome things.

New Kill All Monsters! pages are up!

The next three pages are up at Review2AKill! Things get worse for the humans and we get a peek at a couple of the pilots. Check it out!

Kill All Monsters! Begins: Paris When It Crumbles

The first five pages of Kill All Monsters! are up! Please go read them and let me know what you think. We're just getting started, but we'll be updating every Friday with three new pages until the whole thing's done.

Dear Monsters...

Just a reminder that the Killing of All Monsters commences tomorrow.

Also, David was sick last night and I wasn't able to post this, but the second half of our interview with Ian Explosivo went up yesterday. Unfortunately, we didn't have time to discuss Taco Salad, but we did get to talk about why Jason and I decided to make Kill All Monsters! into a webcomic and how that format has affected the way we're telling the story.

Kill All Monsters! Interview

Speaking of Ian, he interviewed Jason and I for Review2aKill and the first half of the conversation was posted today. We talked about how Jason and I met and the origin of the comic. Tomorrow: I share my recipe for Taco Salad (or we talk more about giant monsters; you'll have to tune in to find out).