I'm out in the Arizona desert.  Part of my next book, RASL, takes place here and I want to look around; get some reference photos. But that's really an excuse. After the World Tour and a series of side projects, I wanted to escape from the jangle & clutter of everyday life and just think – -get some writing done. I'm not exactly sure what I'm looking for.

it's hotter than blazes out here. It's over a hundred and the air feels like a hot weight on my face. 

Cactus are everywhere, and even when you step clear over them, stickers mangage to hook a ride. But it's worth it.  

Dead quiet. An elemental landscape full of rough, jutting shapes. 

The saguaro cactus. It's one of those symbols of the old west that goes deep. I like it.

The shadow of a huge bird passes over me. 

He loops over me a couple of times and then veers off, leaving me alone in the dead quiet.

Saguaro bones bleached in the sun. 

This little cactus with its yellow, almost fur-like prickers is the worst offender of all.  Eight to twelve slivers get into your skin at a time. I quickly learned to stay away; and yet, right in the middle of those nightmare stickers is a bird's nest! 

I'm standing on a boulder that must be fifteen feet in the air, but this ancient saguaro towers over me. You can feel the timelessness of the place.

Harsh and beautiful.

There's so much life, but somehow it feels so empty. 

I start to write. 

Shazam! The Monster Society of Evil Deluxe Hard Cover ships in just a couple of weeks -  Oct. 17. Here is a link to colorist Steve Hamaker's blog, where you can see the front and back of the cover as well as the second installment of Coloring the Steve Hamaker Way. I plan to do my own blog on the unfoldable giant-sized dust jacket when I get back to the studio sometime next week (I'm in Arizona at the moment working on RASL). 

This is a link to a website called Every Day is like Wednesday (a reference to the fact that new comics ship on Wed). The article is about the house ad DC is running for the Shazam Deluxe HC and the blurbs they put on it. Seems like every word of the blurbs are parsed – humorously – and the website's sub-title and mission statement won me over immediately:

The next couple of links all belong to the Queen of Indie comics, Colleen Doran. (and my old cohort from the early days of the self-publishing movement).  Colleen has worked in comics since she was a teenager doing every kind of job in the field. She's best known for her own ongoing indie sci-fi/fantasy epic A Distant Soil, but she has also done plenty of high profile comics work like drawing Sandman and Orbiter.

Colleen has recently expanded her web presence with some shop sites: The hobbits feet above can be had on a beer stein (as well as other fantasy pieces)at Colleen's Cafepress.  

The lovely lady above, Bast from A Distant Soil, can be had on a magnet if you go to Colleen's Art Shop, a page that features her comics work. I'll take 300 of those magnets – - I figure that's how many it'll take to cover my car with them!

Ah, young love! This is a picture of Vijaya and me from our trip to Japan ten years ago. I was invited along with four other cartoonists and their partners to Tokyo by Tezuka Productions. One of the other cartoonists was Colleen, and she's doing a retro travel blog here!

This next link is to a site called The Comic Snob, that talks about The Arrival, a wordless graphic novel by Shaun Tan that just came out. 

And last, but not least, a link to the official website of The Small Press Expo, the indie comics show that takes place on  Oct. 12 & 13 in Bethesda, MD.

Steve Hamaker and I will be traveling out to the show,so I hope to see you there. For a complete schedule of events, you can link to Heidi's The Beat.