It was just announced that issue #1 of The Family Guy will be available in comic book stores this April. I can't see why it wouldn't be an enormous hit. I know most reading this have never stepped foot in a comic book shop except for Fremodada and I, who worked in one together (cough, cough, how much will you give me for this complete run of Crisis?). If Josh's publishing of Voltron didn't push you into a comic book store for the first time, maybe this will. And he bought the rights a year ago, before the show was renewed, before it was proved to be so beloved and was just that cancelled show.
But let me take a step back.
Ten years ago my Step-Father came home from the hour-and-a-half drive to-and-from his commercial art job in Cincinnati and gave me a comic. "Hey, there's this kid I work with, he makes his own comics." And threw me a basement-printed and signed copy of Penguin Brothers by Josh Blaylock.
They're cute, but they will kick your ass. So five years later this "kid" had moved to Chicago, formed Devil's Due and acquired the rights to G.I. Joe. I was lucky enough to be able to hang out in Josh's suite at the Rosemont during Wizard Con that year and catch some glow from that moment. There was an interesting energy in the room, a sort of "holy shit, this is really happening" energy. G.I. Joe cartoons were playing on tv's around the room and Kurt Busiek was hanging out in the corner.
I tried to thank Mr. Busiek for Astro City, a comic which means a lot to me, but he already knew he was great, so I wasn't giving him anything he didn't already know, so that ended my conversation with Kurt. I overheard a lot of his conversation though. It is inconceivable to most Earthly citizens what two grown men with great great great enormous lifelong expertise and seriousness in comics sounds like. Kate you think Sandy and I sound nerdy...but these guys, well they don't sound nerdy, that's the weird thing. They sound structural engineers talking in great seriousness about their structural engineering, but they're talking about Power Man and Iron Fist. I can't really explain. Stop by Josh's suite this August, I'll try and get you in, actually let me see if I can get in first, Family Guy and all...
So, within seconds G.I. Joe was the hottest thing on the stands. Within two years Josh told Image to go screw and set up his own independent publishing house a well-thrown bricks distance from the Schadenfreude Office. Considering the amount of original, non-license content Josh put out it was obvious he felt he had something to prove. I'm a particular fan of Breakdown and Infantry, but then I'm an old school blow shit up and dress in black Punisher fan, and that stuff appeals to me. Ninjas, Vigilantes, cool shit. It appeals to Josh too, which is why Devil's Due pretty much rocks.
I have to say it's been really cool to watch Josh succeed. From that black & white comic passed around Velva-Sheen to the Family Guy. He really did all this on his own. Excuse me, almost on his own.
Behind every man who drinks there's an Ohio transplant named Susan who gives me lots and lots of free comics and hugs. Comics I'm sending, ironically, back to Ohio so my sister can read them. Hey Jessi I'm sending you my stack of DD comics, but you must promise to visibly read them amongst Josh's key demographic in your High School, cool? cool. Oh, and brag that your brother's cool because he knows indy comic biz punks, cool? cool. I'm not cool, but my friends are.
Actually I was just reminded of a very funny theme that runs through all DD comics. They're all set in Ohio. Dayton, Kettering, Mt. Healthy; the Ohio, and more specifically Cincinnati, references run all through Josh's comics. Even G.I. Joe begins at Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton. As a guy who's been to Bogarts in Cincinnati it definitely puts a smile on my face to see two Space Teens go into Bogarts in a nationally published pop comic.
0 Yorumlar