Just a little teaser… Look out for another one next month!

Hi, heroes!

For your information, I will be sharing table 1710K with my esteemed and bearded co-writer/bff Adam P. Knave at this year’s Baltimore Comic-Con! If you happen to be in Baltimore August 20 or August 21, please stop by our table for book signing and chatting and whatnot!

We’ll have copies of the POPGUN books! Adam will be selling his terrific novel STAYS CRUNCHY IN MILK and his hilarious book of essays I SLEPT WITH YOUR IMAGINARY FRIEND! And I’ll have some of those silly DO YOU BELIEVE IN NINJAS? poetry books!

Oh, and we’ll have a special, discounted, 100 copy run of our one-shot comic AGENTS OF THE W.T.F.! It features stories that appeared in POPGUN 3 and 4, plus some bonus coolness.

Really, to be perfectly honest, it’s going to be the best time.

Love,
D.J.

No more word for now, but if you’re at the Baltimore Comic-Con, we’ll all be there with some more sneak peeks… !

Yes, this is an early, poorly timed announcement due to the fact that the San Diego Comic Con will fulfill all your comic needs for a while, BUT Adam P. Knave and I collected our AGENTS OF THE W.T.F. stories from POPGUN 3 & 4 into one handy comic that we’ll be selling at the Baltimore Comic Con in August! When the proof copy from Ka-Blam arrived, with that glorious Matteo Scalera art, those crisp Palao Ferrante inks, Antonio Campo‘s lovely colors, Thomas Mauer‘s letters of power, and that Cara McGee book design snazziness — I just had to show it off!

And often really hard.

Hm… I hate to write sometimes. When I’m racking my brain to come up with a plot or just something interesting to say. Writing is all well and good, but you have to write something worth reading, right? But lots of people have different ideas as to what is worth reading. Heck, I don’t even know why I read what I read sometimes. I guess if it’s something that someone is willing to stare at until all the words run out, then it was worth writing, right?

Do I have something to say? Well, yeah… I mean, maybe not always some amazing truth or some passionate cause or occurrence that I feel really needs to be expressed, that might really resonate with a reader or whatever. But just thinking something is funny or wacky or might make someone laugh, maybe brighten their day — that is worth it, too, right?

Of course, after writing one has to get the story in front of the eyes that will be doing the reading. The internet, blogs like this one and whatnot, has made that much easier. Still not effortless, though. I used to think that being published in print was the end goal. If I write something that some company is willing to put on paper and bind together and make into a book — boom. Success! I’m done!

Not true. Sure, some writers reach a certain point when the publisher or an agency or magical fairies will take care of the getting the work out to the readers for them, but that’s rare. And even then, lots of authors blog and Tweet and set up interviews and appearances and tour on their own to let people know their work is out.

I guess it’s never as simple as just writing until I hit “the end” and then that’s it.

Honestly, this has become the hard part. How do I get the word out effectively without becoming a pest? And might all this time talking, blogging, Tweeting, Friendstering (I kid) about my writing be best spent actually writing new stories?

It’s all so confusing. Hm… and perhaps not worth writing about, really. Oops.

Writing… freaking writing. Crap. I just can’t help it.

I’d like to thank all the amazing contributors (on all 4 volumes) and the editorial and production team of the book past and present (Adam! Anthony! Thomas! Jeff! Steven! Tim! Dylan! Mark! Joe!) , as well as the swell folks at Image Comics. Wow. POPGUN 4 is DONE… DONE DONE DONE. 512 pages of awesome wrapped in a beautiful cover for only 30 bucks.

Almost 2000 pages of POPGUN since 2007. Whew!

Okay, time to party tonight… Hope you all enjoy the book!

– D.J.

Just a quick reminder that POPGUN 4 from the fine folks at Image Comics hits shelves this Wednesday! Please stop by your Local Comic Shop and pick up a copy…

Also, if you’re in NY, Hanley’s is having a signing on Wed. from 6 to 8.

And, if you’re in LA, Meltdown Comics is having a release party on Wed. from 7 to 10.

Aaaaand if you’re in Oklahoma City, New World comics is having a release party on Friday, Feb 26.

Such good times! We’re really proud if this big beast that is POPGUN 4. Can’t wait for it to be unleashed! Hope you all like it…

Your pal,
D.J.

Why am I trapped in my apartment? Well, I suppose I’m not technically. First there was the crazy LA rain that made me want to just stay in, and now that it’s sunny again, I’ve been feeling under the weather and figure I should take it easy and let my body heal via drinking beverages with vitamin C instead of alcohol, getting decent sleep, and just generally taking it easy. I predict by tomorrow I’ll be feeling back to normal… at least I hope so. Right now I’m so antsy and bored that it’s making my skin itch. Ack! Just… TRAPPED.

Like I said, I’ve managed to be somewhat productive. Edited a big chunk of this crazy Mark Smith and James Stokoe graphic novel called SULLIVAN’S SLUGGERS. Pages 35 to 71… it somehow took me almost half the day, and I still fear I missed a punctuation or spelling error somewhere. It’s coming along nicely, though. I also worked on getting the POPGUN 4 word out. That’s fun, though this whole “pimping” role doesn’t come naturally to me, but hopefully it’s working. And in the writing department, which is where I hope to end up on a more permanent basis, I had some good conversations with my frequent co-writer, Adam P. Knave, on a new project too early to name, for which he found a great artist (also too early to name). Good times! And I got some great feedback on the SOULLESS, MAN WITHOUT A SOUL pitch I’m working on with artist Anjin Anhut… gotta get my revision writing on for that one.

That’s some work, right? And it’s good to keep busy. And I know I need to get even busier. The one problem I have with this writing and editing work that I am doing is that it, as of yet, does not pay the bills. And after the rough economy resulting in day job work layoffs last year and an ill-advised decision to go into freelance post-production that has resulted in no jobs for the past, holy crap, five months, I really need regular paying work.

Ideally, this would come from the comic book work I’m doing. Maybe one day it will. Either way, I’ll keep writing comics (and short stories, essays, maybe I’ll finally get my novel on soon) as long as I can because I really love it and apparently need to do it to feel worth a damn for some reason. But, in that practical bitch called “reality,” I also have to start earning some cold, hard cash.

Once again, I begin to question my Fine Arts degree from a rural Ohio college – or at least how I’ve used this degree (which is, not at all). A friend of mine double-majored in Chemistry and Biology. He’s now a scientist! He makes good money and wears a lab coat to work! If, even with this poofy Fine Arts degree I earned, I still need a day job and will just write on the side, well… maybe I should’ve gotten a more practical degree. I mean, I could write on the side while making a living as a lab coat-wearing scientist! Why didn’t 18-year-old me think of that, because, honestly, never have I gotten a job as a result of my degree… Of course, I no longer paint, act, and have forgotten most of the art history I learned. Hm. I had fun in college and met lots of cool people and learned a lot, but the main point is to help one get a career going… but writing isn’t like most careers, is it? I don’t know. I’m babbling and still feeling antsy despite trying to distract myself with the writing of this blog.

Okay, now my shut in mind is just wandering, and I’m babbling. Maybe I should wear a lab coat when I write. That way I’d at least feel important, you know? Kinda like a… WORD SCIENTIST! Yes!