The Illustrated Al is nominated for an Eisner and wins a 'Ringo! award!

As 2023 winds down, let's look back at my best comic memory of the year:

The Illustrated Al: The Songs of "Weird Al" Yankovic was nominated for an Eisner award! By default, I demand that everyone recognize that I was also nominated for an Eisner! I will not be taking any questions. Also in 2023, The Illustrated Al won a 'Ringo! Award! I am a 2023 'Ringo! Award winner! I WILL NOT BE TAKING QUESTIONS.

Okay, The Illustrated Al is an anthology. A lot of talented creators worked on the book. But I was one of those creators, and I'm counting this is as a win in my book.

In July, I attended the Eisner Awards at the San Diego Comic-Con for the first time. This is what I took away from it:

It is very fancy.

People dressed up. People gave speeches. They sat at fancy tables and took home trophies.

I sat closer to the back. The ceremony lasted close to three hours. The presenters pronounced the book "The Illustrated A.I." I took home a program!

The program got bent all to hell on my trip home, but I'll still keep it forever. It's listed in the program! The Nib ended up winning the award, but I still had a fun time and was excited to attend and to have some of my work nominated.

Later on in the year, the anthology was nominated again, this time for best humor comic, and this time...it won!

Z2 Comics, the book's publisher, held a special signing for the book at their booth at the New York Comic Con, where I got to not only feel very privileged, signing books for fans, but I also got to see the award in person. This was a big deal for me! Here I am with Josh Bernstein, the book's editor.

Some of the creators of the book took a group shot and I decided to kneel down for it even though Bill Plympton is, like, 6'6".

This was my best comic experience in 2023. I will not be taking any questions.

Trading links with MDMacro, crochet yetis galore, Comic-Con and more RAAANDOM NOTES!

It's time again for some random notes that YOU need to read!  Yes, all of this directly affects your life, so pay attention.  Case in point, the screenshot above.

- Back in 2010, I wrote a short post about musician MDMacro, who placed ads in Marvel and DC books for a while, emblazoned with the phrase "beats for reading comic books to".  Obsessively checking my stats recently revealed that I was getting a few click-throughs from the MDMacro homepage, which was interesting.  A quick trip to the page and I found the reason: the post is linked under the heading of a "press release":

I don't know that I'd call what I wrote a press release, but whatever.  It's curious that the post was linked at all.  I'm still not sure just what MDMacro is trying to accomplish with his music or his advertising, so I'd like to publicly offer to interview MDMacro for this blog.  MD, I'm sure that a lot of people would like to know more about you.  How about taking a few questions?  I'd love it if you took me up on it.

- I voted online for the Eisner Awards.  Hooray!  I'm fulfilling my duty to the comic book community!  The ceremony will take place at Comic-Con, which is officially one month away.  I found this picture online of the crowd lined up outside for a previous years show:

Oh, man.  I am doing my best to get ready for the show, and that has meant a lot of late nights recently. My wife is helping out as well.  Here's a bag full of crochet yetis:

Wow!  That's a lot of crochet yetis.  And there are lots more here at home, too.  We're gonna sell the heck out of them at Comic-Con.

Also, here's a box full of blank shirts.  What could I possibly have these many blank shirts for?  All will be revealed...shortly.

- New England Comics had an online sale in the last few weeks that I took full advantage of.  It was a great sale!  I got a bunch of books that I had been on the lookout for, and I got them super cheap.  Included in this lot is a first edition Tick #1 (wooo!), a logo-less Tick #8, and the first issue of Tales Too Terrible to Tell, which has a four-page Tick story in it.  If I'm remembering correctly, the story hasn't been reprinted anywhere at all.

Flipping thought the 20th Anniversary book (top left) had the added benefit of helping me identify one of the mystery artists in my Thing sketchbook.  I was a familiar signature, and I grabbed my sketchbook to compare...and as luck would have it, the signatures were one and the same.  I got the following sketch at the Pittsburgh Comicon in 2003, and I had since forgotten the name of the artist:

Thanks to the Tick, I was able to identify the artist as Mark Wheatley!  I'm pretty happy that I was able to find this out.  This is something that irked me for years.

- War of the Independents #3 came out this month, and I mentioned that Teddy and the Yeti had a small role in the book.  The above picture is from the issue in question.  You can see the Yeti getting zapped with the rest of the indy heroes - I almost missed this one as I flipped thought the book.

- Issue #5 of the Magic Bullet is set to come out in September, and I should have another one-page story between the covers.  The folks involved in publishing the title have a Kickstarter fundraiser going on for the next 10 days or so, and there are a lot of great rewards to anyone who is inclined to donate.  Check it out here: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2104849681/magic-bullet-5?ref=live

- Colorist and good friend Mike Adams has been working on his creation Kung Fu Bean for a while now, and he was just involved with the release of the Kung Fu Bean mobile game!  I downloaded it to my iPhone and I will say this about it...it's hard.  As a player, you've got to avoid being hit by your enemies by jumping over or ducking under them, and what sounds like a simple task ends up being very challenging.  I hope that the game designers put out some updates soon as I think this could be a really cool download.  Regardless, it's an awesome thing to have and I wish Mike the best of luck with it!

Mike also recently came to the rescue and colored some Teddy and the Yeti pages for me at the last minute.  Thanks for the assist, Mike!

- That's it for now.  Back to the grind.  Oh, heck, here's a picture of Franks and Beans!  Yeah!

2012 Eisner Awards

The nominees for this year's Eisner Awards have been announced, and - surprise! - I got a ballot in the mail recently.  This is pretty cool.  On one hand, I wonder if this is an indication that I have maybe "arrived" and am involved in the comic book industry in earnest.  On the other, I wonder if these things just get sent out to anyone who ever published a comic or had a booth at Comic-Con.  Perhaps I'll just let ignorance be bliss in this case.

The nominees can easily be found online, but here are a few observations on my part:

- Daredevil got nominated a whole heck of a lot, and I'd say the book and those involved deserve the praise.  It's a great, fun book that I look forward to every month.

- Princeless got nominated twice, including for "Best Publication for Kids (ages 8-12)".  The folks from Action Lab press, the studio behind Princeless, were booth neighbors at the Pittsburgh Comicon, so it's cool to have a face to put to one of the nominees that many probably haven't heard of.  I hope they bring home a trophy.

- Sergio Aragones' Funnies wasn't nominated for a "Best Humor Publication" award?!  This title from Bongo Comics is a fantastic book that, while it certainly doesn't push any boundaries, is funny from cover to cover.  I'm a big fan of the title.

- FUBAR didn't land in the "Best Anthology" category, but there is a place to write in your own choice.  I wonder if it's petty to vote for a book you worked on?  It probably is.  To verify "voting eligibility", I'll need to write in some of my credentials, which naturally include FUBAR.  Conflict of interest?  Or just a very strong opinion?

Here's an interesting line from the ballot regarding the ceremony, held on the Friday of Comic-Con International: "As a professional, you will get preferred seating at the event."  Ooo!  Look at that!  My own seat, right up front.  This is something I'll need to consider attending, if only because it'd be fun to do once.  I'll certainly vote...maybe I'll even show up!  Whether or not I steal an award will remain a mystery until then.

FUBAR wins IGN award; on New York Times best sellers list!

The news for FUBAR: Empire of the Rising Dead just keeps getting better.  Voting ended a week or so ago for IGN's "People's Choice Award" and FUBAR won for "best anthology of 2011".  This is great news and it means that, against stiff competition, FUBAR had a lot of fans out there who were willing to click the "vote" button to show their support.  If you were one of those button pushers, then I thank you.

IGN's award page can be found here: http://www.ign.com/wikis/best-of-2011/Best_Anthology

The IGN news is nice and I'm thrilled to have that notch on my belt.  The above picture may be a bit bigger in scale, though - FUBAR volume 2 landed on the New York Times Graphic Books Best Sellers list at #6 on its first month of eligibility.  Here's a screenshot from the NYT website at http://www.nytimes.com/best-sellers-books/paperback-graphic-books/list.html:

This is real.  I did not make this up.  This is also fantastic, and much of the thanks goes to Jeff McComsey, Steve Becker and Dominic Vivona who put such hard work in to promote this book.  The artists who worked on my writing contributions (McComsey, Mario Wytch and Leonardo Pietro) also deserve a heaping of praise and I'm happy to be associated with them and this book.  What a thrill.  Perhaps I'll introduce myself from now on as "IGN award winning and New York Times best selling author Jeff McClelland".  But perhaps not.

I'm not sure anything could really top this news, but here's something that might come close:

This is FUBAR's submission for Eisner Award consideration.  This submission, obviously, doesn't guarantee that we'll even be in the running for an Eisner, which is the most prestigious award in comics.  But wouldn't that be something?  I believe that Eisner award winners are announced at Comic-Con International.  As I'll be there in 2012, I'd be happy to accept the award.  And, you know, any monetary prize that might come along with it.