The Recap

April has been one hell of a month. In case you missed anything, here’s EVERYTHING…

Blog@Newsarama
Chris Stevens and GB Tran talk “Blue”
Antony Johnston talks “Best Side Out”
Matt Dembicki and Jason Copland talk “Send Louis His Underwear”
Phil Hester talks “A Joyous Eastertide”
Stuart Moore and Michael Gaydos talk “Tic-Tac-Bang-Bang”

Comic Book Resources
Rick Spears & Rob G talk “Operation Torch”
Ande Parks talks “Taken on Faith”
Robert Tinnell talks “The Midnight Caller’s Holiday in Hades”
Matt Kindt talks about working with Harvey Pekar and Joyce Brabner on “The History of a Marriage”
Tom Beland talks “Time” and we show the complete story


Jason Rodriguez interviewed on Newsarama

Jason Rodriguez interviewed on Comics in the Classroom

The Postcards contest had a couple of lucky winners

The Promote Page is launched

The List is launched

We got mentions or press releases posted on the following websites: Comics Worth Reading, The Beat, Journalista, Comics Should be Good, Comics DC, Beer & Meat, Chasing Ray, Neilalien, Comics Curmudgeon, Comic Pants, The Comics Reporter, Antihero Comics, almost all of the creator’s sites, and a surprising number of foreign sites that I can’t read.

Also this month: I got a coconut, a postcard mailed to Elizabeth Taylor, a gift from the Bathtub Museum, and a blurb from Frank Warren (and I got to meet him, too).

And, in case you haven’t realized this, we showed a total of 31 pages of art with all of the above press.

Some of you received postcards from me, mailed to your shop. Some of them had me saying “hey” and some of them had sketches like these or these.

So, what comes next? We all worked really hard this week to show you that Postcards is going to be FANTASTIC. What you need to do tomorrow, when you go into your comic store to pick up your weekly books, is say to your retailer (or feel free to print these out, if you don't want to write it down):

Can you please order me a copy of Postcards: True Stories That Never Happened? It’s in Previews, page 368, under Villard Books. Order # APR074039. In case you order your graphic novels from another distributor, the ISBN # is 034549850X. Thank you.

If you don’t have a comic store near you, go to your local bookstore and say:

Can you please order me a copy of Postcards: True Stories That Never Happened? It’s being published by Villard Books and its ISBN # is 034549850X. Thank you.

If you don’t feel like supporting your community, I won’t chastise you this time. I’ll just tell you to go and pre-order the book on Amazon.

Thanks for those that listened, thanks for the support, and spread the word.

Virginia Tech

I went to grad school at Virginia Tech and Robin’s getting her MBA from them now. Granted, it’s the Northern Virginia campus, and not Blacksburg, but we both have friends and professors based down there that we worried about and tried to get in touch with. One of Robin’s friends slept late, of course, and she was frantically calling him all day until he finally woke up and found that he had a ton of messages on his phone.

It’s just tragic. I remember when Columbine happened. I was a junior at Boston University, having a cigarette in the Towers’ smoking lounge where I was an RA. There was a girl in the lounge, she was chain smoking and staring at the TV. I started a conversation with her and she told me she was from Littleton, her little sister was currently enrolled in Columbine, and a couple of the families she knew were already notified that their children were killed.

What do you say to that?

I sat next to her and watched the news reports with her in silence until she wanted to leave.

It’s the same feeling I got when I was watching September 11th unfold. I had friends and family that worked in or near the Trade Center. All the while, I watched the Pentagon burn from my balcony. And you just worry – because you could be that girl in the smoking lounge. Waiting by the phone to hear who else you know was killed by a sudden tragedy.

Sudden tragedies. I’ve dealt with them on smaller scales, a lot of deaths in my family and some of them sudden and unexpected. But if you’ve dealt with them or not, it’s hard not to realign your perspective after something like this happens.

I have Robin to thank for that this time.

Yesterday wasn’t the greatest day. Work was killing me, the comic thing hit a couple of minor bumps, and it was a pile-on sort of day. All the while I’m watching the news and hoping everyone I know is alright while praying for the families that lost people. That’s what us bad Catholics do when there’s a tragedy – we find God again and try to phone in favors.

“By the way, thanks for everything you’ve done for me lately, sorry I haven’t checked in for a while.”

Anyway – by the end of the day, I was really ready to just pack it in. Tell everyone to go fuck themselves and see what happens. And I was bitching to Robin as I normally would when she tells me, “Your day could have been a lot worse.”

And like that my perspective was back where it should be.

Sudden tragedies. I live in a city that a lot of people would love to blow up. My sister’s off to college and on her own next year. My family and friends live in the other city that a lot of people would love to blow up. I make stupid choices – my friends make even worse ones. My Aunt has a crazy lady in her apartment building that keeps threatening to kill her baby; the police finally took her away and she’s in an institution now. Robin was almost in a horrible head-on car accident recently. I was experiencing dizzy spells and light-headedness that I attributed to stress; after a week and a half they went away without me going to the doctor because I was too busy. Sudden tragedies. You’re not supposed to see them coming. Despite the signs and the risks and the fact that you practically invite them sometimes – they come up from behind and fuck up your whole world.

And that would be much worse than anything I had to deal with yesterday.

Story coming this week

Promise. Until then, enjoy scenes from a drunken DCC gathering.

New projects - looking for new people

Over the next couple of months I'm going to starting a couple of new projects and I'm looking to find some new creators whose work I may not be familiar with.

There's Postcards II, obviously. I think that'll be starting by the end of April. It'll be bigger than Postcards: True Stories That Never Happened, I'm thinking 20 stories, and I already have some great people signing up. In case you don't know - the first volume of Postcards is coming June 26 from Villard Books, a division of Random House. It features 16 stories inspired by used postcards, told by 30 creators including Harvey Pekar & Joyce Brabner, Phil Hester, and Tom Beland. A full list of creators can be found on the website (linked above). The second volume will focus solely on pre-1920 California-based postcards. We have a history editor on board, Christina Rice, who specializes in early California history (she works at the history department at LA County Library).

I'm going to be taking on the editing chores for a real fun sci-fi project. It's sort of Bladerunner meets Brave New World. Full-color, I want to start pitching it around this con season. I read the draft and realized that this piece needs to be out there.

I'm thinking of kicking up my baseball project again. I've been getting a little interest in it so maybe I should revisit it while I still have Postcards Juice.

I'm sort of taking a more active interest in James W. Powell's anthology he's putting together. James is my assistant editor on Postcards and he seems to be getting some good people interested in his book and the stories are looking pretty good. It's a mixture of cartoonists and essays with spot-illustrations entitled "Dear Santa, Let Me Explain..." I'm writing an essay for it, but I'm putting this out there in case anyone wants to talk to James.

I'm 95% ready to start the Sam Cooke book but I think we have that one stitched up.

So - I'm just looking to say "hi" to folks who are looking to say "hi" to me. So, hi.

The Postcard Push: Week 2

We're doing ok, but we could doing a lot better:

Posts that contain "Postcards: True Stories That Never Happened" per day for the last 30 days.

The Postcards Push has to keep on pushing, and in order to do that, I need all of you to keep on buzzing. Spread the word. Blog posts, message boards, MySpace, LiveJournal, Twitter, Flickr, Facebook, Friendster - make use of the Promote Page - talk up the contest.

Let's get people talking about this book!

The Gambler

I’ve often talked about my love for gambling but I never really talked about my experiences inside a casino. So, you know, why not? Some manly storytelling to follow-up last weeks talk of fuzzy animals.

My first experience gambling came when I was eleven. It was at my sister’s christening part at the Knights of Columbus in Red Hook. They used to have this slot machine in the back. Technically the kids weren’t allowed back there but this was a party, right? Our parents were giving us quarters and we were screaming out, “Come on, lucky 7!”

Well, I hit the three sevens. $250 bucks which, for an eleven year old, is a small fortune. I had to pay the bartender a 20% tip, according to my dad, so my prize money quickly dwindled to $175. But even after my first experience with greasing palms I still had enough to purchase the one thing I wanted to purchase: a new skateboard.

Early in life I learned that gambling = stuff I couldn’t afford. And I was hooked.

I bought a two-tailed Vallely. Decked it out with all new trucks and wheels – hooked it up nice. Couldn’t skate for shit but that didn’t matter – what mattered is how much I paid for this board. Absolutely nothing.

There were opportunities to risk my money after that, as well. I had a friend in junior high that would actually run a gambling operation in for some local guy. Football scores. I was twelve years old and betting a dollar a game, learning about spreads and over-under. I never bet more than I had (thankfully, I was a kid, but I still don’t bet more than I had) but I handed in my picks every week.

We started playing poker in junior high, too. In the lunch room – nickel, dime, quarter style. Poker became my game early on. I played through high school and as often as I could in college.

It was really the only gambling I did in college. No car, no money – my friends and I could sit around a table for hours, drink beer, and play poker. So, it shouldn’t be a surprise that, despite my love for gambling, I didn’t play at a casino until I was 22 and out of school.

I went to Atlantic City with Robin and two friends, Max and Brooks. We stayed at this dirty motel off the strip. Robin went straight for the slots. She loves the slots. That girl actually bought a book on winning slot strategies. Since I have a diploma in mathematics, this absolutely freaked me out. I was like an evangelist that just found a Marilyn Manson CD and a bag of pot in my daughter’s room. But, you know, whatever passes the time…

Max and Brooks went to play blackjack. Me? I went to play Let it Ride.

Do you play Let it Ride? Because if you do, you’re playing the game with the worst odds. The one that non-gamblers play. I know this now. I spent the entire night at that table, up-and-down, until I eventually lost close to $200. It was a fun night, not a huge loss, no complaints.

As we were leaving I had my last ten dollar chip. Not wanting to cash it in, I went to the roulette table and put it on 14, my sister’s birthday. 14 came out – I won $350 bucks. I never played Let it Ride again. Of course, I also played the middle with a color someone else was playing. The guy was nice enough to tell the dealer that it was, indeed, my win and the dealer lectured me on proper roulette etiquette. I took my $350, bought lunch for everyone, and went home.

I started teaching myself blackjack.

My boss at my old job loved blackjack. After talking with him one day, we decided that I should learn to count cards. I have that math knack, after all, and I can catalog in my head pretty easily. So, I learned to count cards. By the time I was good at it I was already out of the old job and I never really had an opportunity to hit up Atlantic City with my old boss (you need at least two people to run a successful counting operation).

So, instead of using my new talents to get super-rich, I just used my new talents to burn my money really slowly. Bet a little higher when the deck’s hot, nothing noticeable, and a little lower when it’s cold. If the deck is cold, I’ll bet my win streaks like this:

1 – Minimum
2 – Minimum x 2
3 – Minimum
4 – Minimum x 2
5 – Minimum x 3

Repeat until I lose. If I lose, go back to 1. If the deck’s hot, I bet like this:

1 – Minimum
2 – Minimum x 2
3 – Minimum x 3
4 – Minimum x 4

Back to 2. If I lose, I go back to 1. It’s enough to sustain me for the night. I usually walk away a little ahead.

I’d still play roulette, too. I learned the secret to roulette, for me, is to play carefully. I was a casino in Gulfport, Mississippi playing roulette once. I’d put dollar chips down on five inside numbers. If I hit, a 7.6% chance, I get $35. If I’m ahead early, I get the fuck out of there, because everyone loses in roulette eventually.

Anyway, this one time in Gulfport, I hit the number 7 out of my first 10 spins. $16 dollars in, $245 out. I bought my coworker steak that night. Spent the rest of the evening breaking even at blackjack.

Blackjack is my real love. It’s that rush. One time I was at a casino with Robin’s brother playing blackjack. We were both at least a hundred up, I decided to call it in. He has $250 and he decided to play down to $200 so he goes $50 in. Two kings against the dealer’s three, what do you do? He splits them up - $100 in – and doubles down ON EACH. $200 in. He wins on one and loses on the other – breaks even on his bet. He figures, fuck it, and puts his fifty back in.

GETS THE SAME HAND.

Ends up $200 in again and wins on both, this time. We drink a lot.

And that’s a goddamn rush, right there. I play blackjack 90% of the time at casinos now. When Robin and I went on our cruise, we’d party and drink all night and then after I cuddled her ass to sleep, I’d go to the casino and play blackjack for two hours. I’m just lucky I don’t live closer to a betting establishment.

Robin’s into poker now, too. She comes out with me to my poker matches whenever she’s invited. She even won a local tournament and was invited to participate in the regional tournament but she couldn’t make it. We’re just a gambling family, I guess.

When our genes mix, our kids are going to be fucked.

Friends, fellow creators, fans of all things comics...

Today starts the big Postcards Push. Postcards: True Stories That Never Happened is currently in Previews (Villard Books, Order # APR074039) and I was never one to ignore the direct market. So, I need to get people buzzing around this book, and this email will tell you how you can help.

First, Postcards is a collection of 16 stories inspired by used, antique postcards I've collected over the years. It features work by some of the top talents in comics today, including stories from Harvey Pekar, Joyce Brabner, and Matt Kindt, Phil Hester, Tom Beland, Stuart Moore and Michael Gaydos, and Rick Spears and Rob G. You can get a complete list of stories, creators, and bios at the official website. Just click on "Stories & Creators."

Ok, promotion...

I put a handy-dandy "Promote" page on the website. On that page you'll find wallpapers to spruce up your desktop, banners for your website, badges that make great avatars, and 8 different handouts (for significant others, mothers, comic shops, bookstores, librarians, teachers, congress(wo)men, and complete strangers) that you can print, clip, and distribute as you see fit.

Later tonight or tomorrow I will be sending out a press release that'll launch a very fun contest where the winner will receive an original page from Stuart Moore (Earthlight, Detective Comics, New Avengers/Transformers) and Michael Gaydos' (Snakewoman, Alias, The Pulse) story, "Tic-Tac-Bang-Bang." The details of the contest can be read here. Essentially, entrants are asked to read a 98-year-old used postcard and tell me the story they see behind it. The winner will be announced April 20th and the artwork will be professionally framed.

You can send someone an e-Postcard here. It's fun, it's easy, and there's a picture of a mule saying, "Hello Pal." What more could you want?

Starting April 2nd, there will be a series of five conversations posted on blog@newsarama. These came out really well; the creators involved with Postcards have given great insight into their process and motivations. Please check them out. If you like them, link to them. We will be posting conversations with five different creators at CBR either the following week or the week after.

If you have any local newspapers that may be interested in reviewing or featuring Postcards, or doing interviews with me or any of the creators, please let me know.

And, finally, Postcards is on MySpace. So friend us up, subscribe to the blog, leave some comments - whatever you like to do when you're on MySpace.

That's it for now. Any questions, comments, concerns, interview requests, or requests for review copies can be sent my way. Hate mail, death threats, or lawsuits can be addressed to James W. Powell, my right-hand man.

Thanks! Jason Rodriguez
http://www.postcardsanthology.com