Just a little over four days left before the chalkoff is a done deal. There’s a free video iPod to whoever takes first place, so you’d be crazy not to enter. Prizes for the runner-ups, too. All contest info here.
The good news for people who haven’t entered yet is that so far there are only a very small number of entries, so statistically speaking your chances of winning something are high. The bad news is that the small few who have entered have turned in some really gorgeous work. Ask yourself, though: what’chu got to lose? Worst case scenario, you wind up blowing an hour or two in the sun, zoning out while you make some art. And what’s wrong with that?
Someone in a comments thread mentioned that they were sorry I’ve stopped updating the Recent & Recommended page; as recently as 2007, I used to update it every three months. Truth is, I don’t see the point in keeping up the R&R anymore. If I’m excited about a book or a movie or an album, I can always pimp it right here in the blog. Recent & Recommended is a ghost of the old site, haunting the new.
The part of working up the Recent & Recommended I miss the most was picking the Anticipated Pleasure… making note of an upcoming book or movie or comic that I was especially excited to get my hands on. With that in mind, here are five I’m looking forward to now:
Sorry to have to post on this subject again. Over the last year, a couple untrustworthy dealers have been selling copies of my stuff with really badly forged signatures on them. I have, in the past, declined to identify them by name, but really, enough is enough. Kick Butt Books - an outfit that operates an eBay store, as well as a private website, dealing in signed editions - recently sent around an e-mail announcing that they’ll have copies of the Locke & Key hardcover, signed and numbered by yours truly. This is a lie and a scam. They also claim a personal relationship with me (”We just spoke with Joe today…”): utter nonsense. I don’t have anything to do with them. Hysterically, Kick Butt Books has even been known to include “certificates of authenticity,” also forged, with their offerings.
Watch this website and my MySpace page for information about appearances. I’m always glad to sign books at such events - that’s why I’m there - and if you can’t make a reading, you can usually call in an order; the bookstore will usually be glad to ship you a signed book. If you want something fancier - say the obscenely handsome version of Locke & Key being produced by Subterranean Press - the smart thing to do is to go through them directly, or work with a bookseller that has an established relationship with Subterranean and PS and the other small presses. If you ever catch wind of an offer that feels even faintly fishy, head to the message board and leave a post about it. Shane or I will probably respond directly, but if you don’t hear from us, you can usually count on getting good info from one of the board regulars.
Yeah, you’re a winner! And I’m a winner too! We’re all winners… at the game of life!
But there can only be five winners in the Annual August chalkoff, and of them, only one gets the free iPod. You want a shot, you need to get your entry to us by the end of the month. Rules and game info here.
What if you recorded the best album of the year, and no one noticed?
You’d probably be Matthew Ryan, is what. Five or six years ago, Ryan dropped an album called Regret Over The Wires, a fiercely romantic and adventurous disc, an effortless blend of country and electronica and anthem rock. His sound was like no one else’s, yet as radio friendly as anything ever released by Bruce, Tom, or John. His stories were uniquely his own, too, stories of almost unbearable barroom longing, sin, and forgiveness. It was the album of the year, as dazzling, in its way, as Achtung Baby, and it sold, like, 9 copies. The critics who should’ve triumphed it (paging David Fricke and Dave Marsh) used it as a coaster for their beers. Radio didn’t play it.
A little earlier this year, Ryan did it again, released the best rock album of the current moment - Matthew Ryan vs the Silver State - an album as revelatory as Blood on the Tracks, and it sold even less copies than Regret… this in spite of featuring a pack of soaring, bare-knuckled rockers like “Drunk and Disappointed,” “American Dirt,” “It Could’ve Been Worse,” and the best track on the album, the seven minute “Dulce et Decorum Est.” “Meanwhile “I Kissed A Girl” is a license to print money. Glaaaugh. Doesn’t anyone give a fuck anymore?
Elvis was the first king of rock n’roll. I don’t know who was second. I guess John Lennon put the crown on for a few years in the early seventies, immediately after the Beatles broke up, but it wasn’t a comfortable fit. Joan Jett was the rowdy black leather Queen. Bruce Springsteen put it on around the time Born to Run came out and he didn’t take it off until Tunnel of Love. It was Neil Young’s to wear the year he released Freedom.
The crown has been collecting dust for a few years now, in part because rock has finally mostly drifted off FM radio. But someone has to be King, and I figure right now it’s Matthew Ryan, whether anyone knows it or not. You think I’m wrong? Okay, your turn. That’s what the comments thread is for. Who do you think is the current King of Rock n’ Roll? Please don’t waste everyone’s time with someone who did their best work twenty years ago. If they didn’t drop an A-bomb sized load of rock in the last 12 months, they aren’t eligible.
The prize for this contest is we all learn something about what visitors to this site are listening to these days. Oh, and you can hear some of Matt Ryan’s newer stuff right here.
All the information about the Annual August chalkoff is here. Read, draw, and get in the game before it’s too late. Have I mentioned this is probably the easiest-to-win free iPod on the web?
August will be over before you know it. Don’t end your summer with regrets. Time to get your chalk on.
The final issue of Locke & Key got a smashingly great review over on the Cin City site, and another from the guys at Pulp Secret, which you can check out right here:
I’m glad to hear both Pulp Secret and CinCity hone in on what Gabe has been doing that’s so special. He’s brought these characters to life with great nuance and emotional realism, and if the story manages to be suspenseful, that’s largely because of Gabe’s careful attention to choreography, and his use of space within each panel. I know I can’t wait to get this thing going again in Locke & Key: Head Games, in large part because of what a blast it is to be Gabe’s collaborator. (I should mention as well that Jay Fotos’s colors have complimented Gabe’s art perfectly, and also dramatically help shape the mood of every page… colorers do so much, and rarely get anything in the way of credit…)
Also, I had an e-mail this morning that HEART-SHAPED BOX was nominated for a British Fantasy Award in the Best Novel category, and “Thumbprint” earned a nod for short story. My thanks to everyone with the BFA who threw some love my way. I ‘preciate it, and I sure am sorry I won’t be at Fantasycon this year to get shitfaced with Stephen Jones and Pete Crowther and other reprobates attend the ceremony.
And speaking of Pete Crowther, Pete was in America for NeCon a couple weeks back, and I had a great dinner with him and Nicky Crowther and Chris Golden and Chris’s wife Connie. If Vincent Chong and Nick Gevers had been there, it would’ve been a full meeting of 20th Century Ghosts, Inc. And here’s a picture of us, ’cause it’s always a good time for a picture. From left: Christopher Golden, Nicky Crowther, Me, Connie Golden, and CEO of PS Publishing, Peter Crowther.
Funny to Google LOCKE & KEY and discover all 6 issues available as a torrent file. I didn’t think my series rated that much interest.
While I find many of the common defenses of peer-to-peer sharing, ah, a bit ethically challenged, as a practical reality there’s no stopping it, and I always hope if someone downloads some of my stuff free, they’ll like what they read, and eventually want to buy a handsome print copy for the bookshelf. ‘Course what would really solve the problem is a free digital comix reader - one that makes its format available to all publishers, big and small - and a digital bookstore where you could buy comics for what you paid for them in 1979: a quarter an issue. I actually have a 2,000 word manifesto about how such a reader should work, but haven’t ever posted it, feeling other people have already discussed the idea in a more interesting way than I could manage. I am glad to be working with IDW, who with their recent Go Comics alliance are well on their way to offering something right along these lines.
No one has it just right yet, though. For all it’s promise, Go Comics doesn’t yet allow you to download issues (as far as I can tell - someone correct me if I’m wrong). You have to load each page individually off the web, a slow process… too slow to really make reading much fun. I have Clickwheel on my mobile phone, but I’ve never once successfully downloaded a comic to it (every attempt ends in failure, even though I’ve paid for issues of 2000AD). The perfect app isn’t ready yet, and the first efforts indicate there’s still a lot of work to be done.
