The haul, 2010

Merry...a couple days after Christmas!  Last year, I bragged about mentioned some of the cool comic related swag I got.  This year, I figured, what the heck.  If it's cool, I'll take a picture.  And here we are.  Check out those comics!  I finally completed the Understanding Comics set and got the complete Xenozoic Tales collection I've been waiting to have made!  The Ballad of Halo Jones was a last-minute addition - and flipping through it, it's astounding how similar Ian Gibson's art is to Duane Redhead's on Teddy and the Yeti.  No, I'm not comparing myself to Alan Moore in any fashion.

I first found out about the Venture Bros. action figures at the New York Comic Con.  I now have three of the six initial releases: the mighty Monarch and the San Diego Comic-Con exclusive Henchmen figures!

Please ignore the boxes in the background of this picture.  There's bound to be something of a mess at Christmas.  Marvel instead at the full size, authentic Steelers helmet!  Perhaps I will get it signed, or perhaps I will wear it every day and run in to people full force, oblivious to social conventions of politeness or even laws that dictate what does and does not constitute physical assault.

The item on top of the helmet box is a bit of a cop out, as I bought it for someone else instead of having it bought for me.  But I'm proud of myself with this one, so please indulge me.  My wife and I are big fans of the short-lived show Wonderfalls, and the purposely deformed wax lion replica is a promotional piece from that show.

I got other great stuff - Weird Al trading cards, the newest volume of Futurama on DVD, Sea Monkeys - Sea Monkeys!! - and, despite my materialistic showing, spent some good time with family and friends, which is more important in any case.  But man!  I got some awesome stuff.

"Eye of the Beholder" webcomic with Ruben Cordero, page 4

This story's second "act" begins with page four - we're all caught up to date and now we're working in the present.  The dog cages look more like jail cells, but hey, that's artistic license for you.

Now that I think about it, it's because of this story's publication in Strip Search that I came up with a way to sign my name on comics...that is, a different way than I sign, I don't know, a check or something like that.  The first time I saw a copy of Strip Search was at my local comic shop, Impossible Dreams Comics in Bridgeville, Pa.  The owner of the store ordered a copy for himself (probably because it's all I had talked about for a month) and asked me to sign it.  I wrote my whole 14-letter name, stopped to look at it, and said "I've gotta come up with something better".  What I came up with over the next few days is basically my initials and the date, so whether or not it's "better" is debatable, but at least I have a comic book signature to go with now.

Oh, and by the way, the best comic book signature I've ever seen has to belong to Mark Schultz (of Xenozoic Tales fame).  I'm told he worked on it for quite a while.

"Eye of the Beholder" webcomic with Ruben Cordero, page 3

The moment  I found out that "Eye of the Beholder" had won Dark Horse's monthly contest and would soon be printed in its Strip Search collection, I ran to the phone and called artist Ruben Cordero on the phone at his office at work.  As soon as he picked up on the other end, I yelled "Congratulations, you magnificent bastard!", thinking he had probably been to the website and therefore had heard the good news.  Instead, he didn't even know it was me.  "I'm sorry," he replied, somewhat tersely, "who is this?" I meekly explained the situation and once we were on the same page things went more smoothly.

The prize package from Dark Horse was actually quite nice, even though we had to split it in two.  For my half of the haul, I managed to snag a number of cool things, including a copy of Comics Between the Panels, signed by co-author and Dark Horse editor-in-chief Mike Richardson, the second volume of the beautiful Xenozoic Tales collection and some "Shag Tiki" stationary by Amanda Visell.

Ruben and I also split a $150 gift certificate to the online comic shop Things from Another World, with which I bought one of my first Thing statues - a Bowen full body design that's still one of my favorites (Bowen does great work, let me tell you).

All in all, just another reason I was spoiled by this, my first comic publication.  I hope you enjoy page three - I'll post the next page on Saturday...and probably write stuff in between now and then.  So keep checking back!