Everyone loves handbooks!

Handbooks, while certainly not unique to the comic industry, have perhaps been embraced by comics more fervently than in any other field.  Teddy and the Yeti, you'll note, has handbook entries in the backs of every issue for no other reason than I like 'em (I have heard from at least one other person who enjoys them, too, to be fair).  When you think about them and realize that comic handbooks are simply statistical and historical reference guides for fictional characters and places, it's difficult to image why they're so prevalent in comics today, but they're here and I'd imagine that they're not going anywhere.

Dave Ryan, mastermind behind the War of the Independents series, is putting together a new handbook featuring characters from the series.  A big fan of handbooks myself, I of course made one for Teddy and the Yeti.  Much of the information is the same as what's listed in the issues of Teddy and the Yeti, but this time around I added a quote from Chet Raymo so it'd sound smart and meaningful.  How academic!

The Teddy and the Yeti War of the Independents handbook entry is posted above.  Below are some other pages that will, I'm told, be published both in print as well as electronically.  I'll try to keep up on it and let everyone know when it shows up in comic shops.

another Teddy and the Yeti handbook page

Teddy and the Yeti #4 makes its way to the printer in the next few days, and I find myself staying up late working on page after page to make sure it happens.  Recently crossed off the list is this issue's handbook entry, which is a beast to work on for sure.  On one hand, I like the idea of this extra content and of handbooks in general, but in practice, the handbook pages are so unbelievably tedious and they take up an incredible amount of time and energy to create.

Even so, I can't imagine that the handbook entries will be going anywhere any time soon.  If nothing else, they force me to come up with backstory for characters that are otherwise a bit shallow - case in point, this issue features an entry on the Aquaticons, seen in Teddy and the Yeti #0, a story that was reprinted in issue #3.

I also, with Joe Martino's permission, wrote up an entry on Maldestrak, the main villain of the War of the Independents series, which was fun to do.

I wonder if I should put all of these handbook entries up on the website as a reference for anyone who wants to learn more about the characters.  Perhaps I'll get on that after I (a hem) update the "previews" section of the main site and this blog.  We shall see.  This issue will be on sale at Comic-Con!