Vigilance Press Nominated for Ennie Award

For a couple of years now I have been publishing game material through the fine folks at Vigilance Press, who have this week been nominated for "Fan Favorite Publisher".

Vote Here

I first wrote to Charles Rice, the captain of this ship, when I was looking for a publisher to help with Arthur Lives! I chose Chuck because of all the books he had done over the years; he has a great love of the hobby, and he's prolific as hell. I knew I didn't want to deal with the business end of game publishing and I knew I could trust him. He took a chance and gave AL a home; we have put out three books for that game and I remain very proud of all of them. I would love to do more, as Arthur and modern magic are personal faves of mine. But, more importantly, Charles' reputation has been validated time and again since that first book. He's super supportive, knows what works, and is as honest as the day is long.

Vote Here!

I was tinkering on the next book in the AL saga when Chuck asked me if I had anything I wanted to write for ICONS. It took me 24 hours to realize that I could finally bring to print a book I had wanted to do for something like ten years, the Field Guide to Superheroes. We've done three of the four volumes and, once again, Chuck, together with Dan House and Mike Lafferty and Jessica, have allowed me to complete a long time project. It looks phenomenal and reception has been pretty positive. My biggest challenge is that the characters Dan has made up all look cooler than the ones I have made up; if that's my biggest problem I will take that any day.

Vote Here!

In between all of this, Mike has graciously invited me in to participate in various podcasts, in which we talk to authors and artists. I can talk about gaming and comics all day long, but in addition to plugging Vigilance books we've also gotten to talk to people like writers Ron Marz and Dan Abnett, or up and coming artist Ulises Farinas. It's wonderful to be part of a group that has such a positive reputation and which is embraced by fans. I am wise enough to know that my few books have nothing to do with this fact. Mike, Chuck, Steve Perrin and the rest far overshadow me through their creation of a complete World at War filled with super-Nazis and their lantern-jawed foes. But it is righteous company, and I am fortunate to be counted among them.

Stay Vigilant, everyone!

Interview with Ron Marz

Last week I got together with Mike Lafferty of Vigilance Press to do an interview with Ron Marz. Ron is a distinguished writer and editor whose comics cred includes many, many books including the last 70+ issues of Witchblade, some of my favorite CrossGen titles (Mystic and Sojourn), a long run on Green Lantern (in which he helped create the character of Kyle Rayner), and on and on.

Ron very graciously allowed us to ask not only about his recent work at Top Cow, but also his experiences at CrossGen and the fact that he wrote the scene which Gail Simone's infamous "Women in Refrigerators" tagline is named after. I learned a lot about writing and the creative process, and found Ron's thoughts on DC's relaunch to be quite interesting. He's writing their new Voodoo book, by the way.

You can listen to the interview here.