Atomic Banter (semi-edit)

“My flippant replies are supposed to trick you into making a mistake, not trick you into beating me senseless.” –Atomic Robo, Italy, 2005

Well, another week’s gone by and what can I tell ya? Besides; I’m exhausted! The Boston ComiCon was yesterday and, as usual, it was a great show. The Back Bay Event Center is a fantastic venue, and it was a solid stream of people all day long. It was interesting to note the difference between MegaCon last week and Boston yesterday. Obviously MegaCon is a huge 3-day show, but that’s not what I mean. As Mike D. pointed out, Robo has sort of saturated the Boston-area market. So even though I had no comics to sell it was okay –since very few people came looking for them. Instead I was signing books already purchased at the dozen or so area stores cool enough to carry Atomic Robo.

The exception to that being the four people I met from Rhode Island. Apparently RI is a comic book wasteland. I told those folks that they should give HeavyInk a try.

Artist pals Lindsey and Alex showed up with a giant sack of cookies –which I had to send to work with Dorinda this morning to prevent myself from scarfing the lot and undoing the 4lbs I’ve managed to shed with Weight Watchers. L&A Associates also saved my bacon by hoofing it up to Newbury Comics to grab an Ugly Doll for the Widget when it turned out that there were none at the show itself.

And THEN they brings me a sweet CD full of Daft Punk goodness! I had planned to bring Lindsey a Robo shirt to show my appreciation. But like a dork I left it sitting at home on my desk Well now I’ll just have to send her and Alex one.

My man Benn from New England Comics also hooked me up with a sweet Robo pin-up. Rest your eyeballs on it for a few minutes.

This reminds me that I got several pieces of sweet, non-me, Robo art down in Orland. I need to unpack that stuff so I can scan it for you.

Diverting just a second for Weight Watchers –the last time I did WW I lost an average of 6lbs a week. And when I’d dropped below my goal weight and stopped starving myself I STILL lost about 2lbs a week. This time though –not so much. About 0.25lbs a week.

Of course, back then, I was chugging a gallon of water a day and hitting the gym 3 or 4 times a week. Now though, I’m lucky if I have time to brush my teeth each morning between the Widget, my father-in-law, and Robo. And getting up to pee every ten minutes because your flushing more liquids through your system than a small waste water treatment facility really screws up my work flow.

More than all that though –I’m just not miserable enough to care right now. Back then I would have happily murdered everyone I worked with and was getting about 3hrs of sleep each night because I was so fucked up in the head over the state of my life.

But thanks to a nice head-shrinker, some little blue pills, and just saying, “Y’know what? Screw it. I’m gonna draw comics like I always wanted to.” I’m just too damn happy to muster up the sort of crazy self-loathing it takes to be a hard-core dieter.

I’m all about being the “I think I’m pretty O.K.! and I’ll try to eat right, but if you offer my some cake I will probably say yes”, kind of dieter right now.

Anyway, Boston ComiCon; Dorinda came along with me and that was great! I’ve never had a booth babe before. This was her first time to a show with me -evar. And now she finally knows what I mean when I reply “Good but weird,” whenever she asks me how a con went. I think Dee finds it just as mind-bending as I do that her dip-shit husband has fans. Of any sort. But she assures me that it is her personal mission in life to not let it go to my head. Evar. So we’re all safe there.

It is so strange to me when people. I don’t know like what I do. Its certainly exciting and it makes me extremely happy to be a part of something that people really seem to be enjoying. But its still strange. While several people have mentioned that they would love to be “action scientist” in any upcoming issues of Robo (so would I), I did my first “Draw me as an Action Scientist” commission this weekend. That was a lot of fun.

It goes without saying that I am happy with the review that Geek of Doom handed us for Atomic Robo #6.

Edit: Somehow the busted Newsarama Blog is working again.

There is a ginormous interview with Brian and me over on Newseed Comics. I thought the questions were pretty good, though it turned out I was running a fever while answer several of them the other day. I knew I didn’t feel right, but I thought I was just a little sleepy. J Here’s the intro: “Of the come-from-nowhere surprise successes of the last six months, Atomic Robo may be our favorite. Its accessibility, humor and charm make the book enjoyable for a very wide breadth of readers. Robo is sci-fi enough for the geeky types, historically conscious enough to intrigue the intellectual crowd, funny enough to tickle the average joe, and cute enough to be suitable for kids. This type of broad appeal is rare in comics these days. When it does surface it usually is at the cost of quality — reaching out to all but getting a firm hold on none. Robo, however, manages to not only have something for everyone, but to also be incredibly fun and fulfilling at the same time.This is the type of title that fills voids you didn’t know were there. Shame on what you’re doing to yourself if you’ve not read this yet.”

Someone pointed me at the Occasional Superheroine blog a few weeks ago. She was having trouble finding Atomic Robo, but not anymore. I’m just really glad that the hype didn’t raise her expectations beyond what we were capable of delivering. Lol

You can also see us over at Weekly Crisis.

And for those of you who are more video-oriented Variant Edition gives us a nice review, and Kevin is wearing an Atomic Robo shirt during an unrelated part of the podcast.

RANDOM SPLENDOR

-I haven’t really loved a PIXAR movies since Incredibles. Brad Bird had a lot to do with that. But damn, Wall-E is looking fantastic.