Monday again? So Soon?

Crap. Where did you guys come from?

Lucky for me we had a tiny drop of drama this week. The printer screwed up and Volume 3’s release is delayed. We’re now aiming for April 22nd, but we can’t guarantee that date yet. I’ll update with more info as I get it. The whole thing is a major pain in the ass because we finished the issue ages ago, but unfortunately we do not have perfect psychic control over the printer to force them to do our bidding.

Yet.

The good news: remember this super bitchin’ poster?

Well, now you can buy it! So go goddamn buy it already! And while you’re at it, buy the t-shirt!

Happy Easter, Passover, Zombie Jebus Day, or whatever the hell it may be that you do or do not celebrate at this time of the year.

The Widget and I strapped on the feed bag at our friend’s annual Easter Brunch where we stuffed ourselves with ham and peeps. Dorinda did not attend due to the ill affects of a party we attended on Saturday. Things were going well at the party, aside from getting trapped in a conversation with a very drunk lady that we didn’t know. When I reached my threshold of pain I just interrupted her drunken shouting with a “Well, I need to find a couch to sit on!” and walked out of the kitchen. My plan was then to call through the window from the living room to the kitchen and ask my wife to bring me a beer. I did this, but the host, being a good host, didn’t want to interrupt her “conversation” and got me one himself. Which I promptly passed to the guy sitting next to me since I had to drive.

I found Dorinda about twenty minutes later with the hostess. There was an empty bottle of tequila and Dorinda and the hostess were talking about possibly making out together, but before I could find a cam-corder I was told that we had to go home. NOW.

I was very concerned about being pulled over on the drive home. The Widget was with us, but since it was nearly 11pm she was slumped against the car door, mouth agog, drooling on herself. Dorinda was slumped forward in her seat like a corpse in a prom dress, held up only by her seat belt (she has this thing about rescuing prom dresses from thrift shops, knowing that most of them were only worn once and are filled with bad memories she wants to give them a happy and meaningful second life, so she wears them to the grocery story, Girl Scout events, and comic book conventions -usually with a t-shirt thrown over it and a pair of ratty Chuck Taylors).

I knew I was in trouble when the car window opened because it was about 5 degrees outside. And then a small paper bag from Dunkin Donuts was produced. Let me tell you people something. Paper bags suck at containing liquid. Especially liquid with acid and tequila in it. Luckily I was on the verge of anaphylactic shock from my exposure to the dogs at out host and hostess’s house. So I couldn’t smell anything. And the Widget was passed out, so there was no awkward question and answer period. But the Scion xA is a small car. Very small. And I could feel the heat coming off this dripping sack of former meals and beverages.

When we got home I put the kid to bed, dropped Dorinda in the bathroom, and at around midnight, cleaned the living room, assembled an Easter basket, hid a dozen brightly colored eggs, remembered to MAKE A LIST OF WHERE I HID THE EGGS THIS YEAR, and went to bed.

So, we attend this Easter Brunch (remember that?) on a semi-regular basis. Every time we go to this particular gathering I can’t help but appreciate the humor in it. If I recall correctly the husband is an agnostic and the wife is a godless Communist from Czechoslovakia (Seriously. She’s great.) Adding to the irony, their daughter attends a private Catholic school because the public school system in NH is (to be kind) about ten years behind the schools in Darfur, and slightly better funded. Let me tell you, they looooove it when these people come to parent-teacher conference. The walls literally smoke and hiss.

The best part for me (about the brunch, not the Catholic school) was creating plausible yet unlikely excused for why Dorinda was not there with me. I started with the basics -”Because your mother’s a drunk, now go play,” and, “I’m sorry, but she’s so hung-over right now that she can’t remember her own name.” By the end of the day it was things like, “Oh she’s participating in a blind study on gonorrhea outbreaks in New England,” and for those people I didn’t know, ” I’m a widower.”

The chunk of crusty lime stuck to my driveway this morning reminded me that I could have been much, much more cruel. As a sort of testimony to what a bunch of drunks our friends really are, no one batted an eye when I told them she was sick. A few of them who we’d seen at the party looked a little shaggy around the gills, and the two that are pregnant were clearly wearing, “Why can’t I be so hung-over that I can’t remember my name?” expressions.

Because most of the time it is me who is falling-down drunk, I think that I acted with alarming restraint during this rare opportunity to act all superior. For the record (because I know she will read this) my wife is usually a responsible drinker. And in fact, people LOVE “Tequila Dorinda”. I don’t mean that with any irony, or sarcasm. She really is a fun person to have at a party. I actually felt really bad for her this morning -two days later- when she shuffled off to work, still feeling awful.

I hope she doesn’t trip on that lime in the driveway . . .

Speaking of Easter again . . .sort of . . . like Agnosticism. It’s like you want to be an atheist but you’re smart enough to hedge your bets. I seem to fall into this camp. I think religions and gods as we know them are a crock of shit, and on my most cynical days I wonder if turning the sands of the Middle East into a giant radioactive mirror, which the rest of us can use to collect solar energy, might not be a bad idea. On other days I wonder if New Jersey might not be the better place to put this plan into action. I have a lot of weird days. Usually I remember that there are a lot of normal people -Muslims, Jews, and Christians -who live in these places, who don’t hurt anybody, and are just trying to live their lives without some nut-job blowing them up or shooting their children through the face.

Anyway, it’s a big ol’ Universe. Not too big for us to ever understand how it all works, but certainly too big for anyone to say weather or not there is or is not a “God” out there. But if there isn’t I’m not losing any sleep over it. Like Carl said, we are the Universe made self-aware, gifted with the ability to marvel at the glory of ourselves. (Or something like that.)

Atomic Robo Vol.3 is trucking along. When I was working on the Torch I was getting nervous that dropping the inks for tight pencils might be a really bad idea. But as I see how Ronda colors those pencils, and how many ways I manage to fuck up with the inks, I can’t wait to try Vol.4 as a pencils-only work. Speaking of Atomic Robo, we’ve got a new fan. I love his review because he basically wrote our mission statement. Oh and heaped tons of praise on top of it. We like that.

KOD also continued to receive a steady stream of Nice. like over on Talkin’ about Comics:

“Killer of Demons #1 - Christopher Yost, Scott Wegener - This is another first issue of a three issue mini. I had wanted to see this, since I think Scott Wegener is pretty great (based on his extremely awesome work on Atomic Robo), and Christopher Yost, whose run on New X-Men I loved, and who is also responsible for the well received new X-Force series. How could this not be great?

The answer is… There is just no way this could be anything but great. Dave Sloan is a killer of demons. Demons are all over the place, convincing people to smoke and kill and lead lives of debauchery, and only Dave Sloan can see them. To the rest of the world they look like… the rest of the world. This is a great first issue. I hope I can pick up the rest.”

And that’s about all I’ve got.

Thank God for tequila and holiday brunches or I wouldn’t have had much to blog about this week!

RANDOM SPLENDOR

WTF 1953?! you and your goddamned monkeys.

Robot wins.

I knew Tropic Thunder was based on a comic book!

Seriously, fellow comic book makers. How can we expect the world to take us seriously when this is the sort of bullshit we produce on a weekly basis?