Me Gusta Indeed

Well, here's our answer to yesterday's mystery:

Welcome to Panel Syndicate, where artist Marcos Martin and writer Brian K. Vaughan deliver original comics directly to readers around the world, who pay whatever the hell they want for each DRM-free issue. Our first new storyline is THE PRIVATE EYE, a forward-looking mystery we created with colorist Muntsa Vicente. Set in a future where privacy is considered a sacred right and everyone has a secret identity, The Private Eye is a serialized sci-fi detective story for mature readers. You can download our 32-page first issue right now, for any price you think is fair. 100% of your payments go directly into our greedy mitts and will help fund the rest of a story that we're both very proud of (we hope there will be around 10 issues total; an old-school "maxiseries!"), so thanks for reading...
                                                                                          BRIAN & MARCOS

Me gusta indeed. Its nice to see that I was about 75% right yesterday. More once I have some time to click through it, probably tonight or tomorrow. 

Me Gusta

Earlier today, David Aja tweeted links to three promo images for Brian K. Vaughn and Marcos Martin's mysterious new project. The first, courtesy of Zone Negativa, is below, and others were posted to Spanish outlets RTVE (also, at Comicsbeat in English) and Entrecomics (all of this via Comics Alliance).

With teasers like this, unlike, say, with the mostly meaningless monthly solicitations from big comics companies, it's sort of fun to play "guess what this is going to be." This one is particularly interesting-- is there some reason that two thirds of them are exclusively in Spanish, other than Marcos Martin is Spanish himself? Is the series set in Spain? And why the free font? Marcos is a helluva designer, so that choice is probably meaningful, somehow. And what's going on with the people in the subway car? There are a bunch of human-looking folk, including the only character facing us, (the main character?) but also what look to be two mummies, a medusa, on the left, and a Greedo looking dude on the right. Then there's the funny steampunk helmet being worn in the compartir image, and also the slightly sci-fi cityscape of the seguir one, all of which adds up to... a monster sci-fi steampunk story?

More helpful, perhaps, are the words themselves: "like" (literally "I like"), "share," and "follow," which all have ubiquitous social media implications. That being the case, it may be Martin screwing with us a little bit, "like" and then "share" the images on Facebook, "follow" them via whatever outlet you please. But its also possible that they're actual hints, that the plot of whatever monster sci-fi steampunk he and Vaughn have cooking is social media related in some way, and that could be very interesting indeed. Martin's work is always good, and Vaughn's work with Fiona Staples on Saga has been consistently great for a year now. Whatever it is they've got going together, and there's no telling what it is just yet, I'm very excited.

Process: Hawkguy

PAGE NINE - DAVID 

CLINT and CHERRY, lit by Kate’s TAILLIGHTS, stare at their wheelman leaving them out to dry. 

They look at each other. 

CLINT stomps across the street, CHERRY waiting in the shadows. A TRACKSUIT stands outside, not noticing. A couple other STRIPPERS, a few PATRONS mill about the front door of the club. We can all but hear the OONTZ OONTZ music from within. 

The TRACKSUIT is bro-ing at one of the strippers as CLINT stomps up, shouting HEY ADIDAS — 

— and PUNCHES THE SHIT out of him, knocking the big guy off his stool. 

The guy GETS UP in time for CLINT to HIT HIM BACK TOWARDS THE DOOR with that stool, hard —

(How to make HAWKGUY #8 Page 9 by David, Matt, Chris, and Matt)
(MF soundtrack: “Red Dress,” TV on the Radio)

Last week, Matt Fraction shared all of the work, from script to finished page, that went in to page nine of Hawkeye #8. See the rest here. 

The Great American Comic Book Shop: Boston

Comicopia, Boston, MA

Jeph Jacques's Simple Statement

Jeph Jacques's Questionable Content was the first webcomic I ever loved. At a time when I was eagerly approaching both comics and music, it was a welcome mixture of form and content, and it had a main character, Marten, who felt like the kind of person I wanted to be. Although my goals have changed slightly since then, I've been reading the comic, which celebrates its tenth birthday in August, steadily for almost eight years now.

Comics that run so long tend to go through phases of life, sort of like people, and Jacques's is no exception. Starting as an aloof and wistful sort of daily gag strip, QC become a soap opera and then transformed into something different entirely, much more complex, but retaining elements of both. For about a year now, long past that last transition, he's been busy expanding the cast to include a bunch of entry level interns at Marten's job in the Smif (yes, Smif) College library and letting his comic breathe. QC is as good now as its ever been, maybe even better.

Last week, Jacques's latest arc, the wedding of his Marten's father, Henry, climaxed with a simple but very important panel:

I think that Claire, one of those interns mentioned above, is probably referring to the length of the wedding (Jacques's commentary on the strip, "a quick wedding is a good wedding," back this up), but I think that it's more important than that: I think this is what the future looks like. Marten's father is married to a man he loves, no big publicity campaign from the comic's author, no bolded message to USA TODAY. Marten's father is married to the man he loves. And that's it.