A Look At What's To Come...

A page from THE BEST OF YOU, THE BEST OF ME



Written by Len N. Wallace
Art by Aaron Bir

Coming in 2010.

The Age When Rock Stars Die...

Another year older, another year closer to being old enough to shout down timid senators at Town Hall meetings. Today, I turn 27. The year where it becomes more apparent that you've past the point of no return towards 30. I joke a lot about feeling like an old man, but that's mainly just because of what a curmudgeon I've been from a way younger age than most, as well as the fact that in the words of Abe Simpson, "I used to be 'with it', but then they changed what 'it' was, and now what's 'it' seems weird and scary to me."

The excitement of birthdays kinda fade with age and after so many years and so much distance from being a kid, the thing just kinda becomes another day. I literally didn't realize my birthday was coming up until maybe a week ago. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining. Every year that notches up is another year I was never expected to live past my own life expectancy. Kinda puts it into an interesting perspective when you're born to having doctors tell your parents that there's a strong possibility you probably won't live past your first week alive, and then later that you won't see past eight years old. My life and my perception of mortality have been pretty skewed after growing up most of my life knowing that to this day, there's a small piece of earth in a cemetery somewhere in Georgia, between my grandmother and grandfather that's been meant for me for almost as long as I've lived, but thanks to fate (and probably more than a few advances in medical science) I'm still alive and healthier than anyone ever expected I'd be.

I know if you're reading this, you're probably taking this entire tirade as something extremely morbid, and y'know? Maybe it is, but the feeling in me right now is anything but. I have my moments of ill feelings about life in general, but lately, I'm finding less and less to complain about... Okay, that's a lie. The news has been pissing me off, the Republicans have been whining on and on like an increasingly disturbing bunch of racist babies, and summer television has been terrible as usual, and the comic industry has been going nuts, but I digress. It's 2 in the morning at present, and while my birthday is technically past, I can't help but feeling that while life ain't quite the grandest, it's heading towards something that I can finally be truly proud of. Love Buzz is finished and on schedule for a release very soon, I've got a couple of other projects quickly progressing, and I'm feeling like a real writer again for the first time in forever, after an embarrassingly long creative lull period.

But now I'm back. I'm feeling better and more invigorated about this asinine career choice of mine, and luckily the world is giving my poisoned pen more than enough ammunition to keep me fighting another day. Ever maintaining my own special blend of optimistic pessimism. I'm living to spite the rules of death another day, and I'll still be here when there's nothing left but the roaches and crickets out of my own sheer stubbornness.

People Say I Live In The Past...

Not true, but I do tend to dwell from time to time. Just came to a realization yesterday.



She'd have turned 25 two days ago. It's mind blowing how fucking fast the time creeps up.

One More Time, With Feeling

Are you there, Blogoverse? It's me, Leonard.

I know it's been a while since we last spoke, and while I promise I have a reason, (although most of them aren't very good) I've been saving a slew of new news for you until it was a little more ready to come out. As you may or may not have noticed, the month of June has come and gone, and if you've been looking for it, you will have noticed that Love Buzz has been nowhere to be found on shelves. Sadly, these things happen with comics. Michelle had some issues with her family as she was closing out the art on the last couple chapters of the book, and we had to pull it for a while until her dad got better and she could rock it strong.

And rock it she certainly has. Just got the last pages a couple weeks ago, and they're gorgeous. The visuals in this book are like she reached into my brain and pulled out every image and put them on the paper. This girl is on her way to becoming a master of this craft and I owe her huge.

Just got word a couple days ago. Love Buzz is now completely in the can and other than a little bit of lettering left over, is good to go. Oni has posted a release date of 11/11, (make a wish!) and Michelle, Dave, Tom, and myself couldn't be more excited to finally be done with it and have it out there for everyone to see and love. Here's a look at the full page solicit from the latest edition of the Previews catalog.



Additionally, that big image in there IS our final cover, although we are still tinkering with the logo. Please, bask in it's glory.

Additionally, a brief segment of me promoting the book, way back on our first round of solicitation on Fanboy Radio's Indie Show. There are a few other creators on there, but you can find yours truly at the 37:35 mark.

Fanboy Radio #507 - March Indie Show Open Lines

Listen to the whole show, if you will. They plug a lot of great indie creators, including Mike Dawson, whose graphic novel ode to Freddie Mercury, Freddie & Me was one of my favorite reads last year.

Naturally, this is exciting news for all of us, and while I don't have a lot else to plug on this, or any other projects, I should have a little more to announce very soon.

Stay tuned. I promise to update a little more frequently.

Nerd Profiling

Jill, my editor at Oni just made a Buffy reference in regards to paralleling something in my script for Love Buzz. I've not watched Buffy beyond a couple episodes into the first season, because I found it to be one of the silliest things I've ever seen. I'm not begrudging anything on people who are into Buffy, or anything. I even like some of Whedon's stuff, (Firefly, his X-Men run) but it just struck me as funny, because says it to me like it's this thing I'm absolutely supposed to know. She mentions the names Xander and Faith, and I'm like, "Okay, I've heard those names before when people are talking about Buffy, but beyond that, I got nothin'."

I get it a lot too in regards to Heroes, which is even worse, because it's such a goddamn awful show. Any time my love of comics, or the nugget slips out that I write comic books, more times than I can count, people are asking me what I thought of last week's Heroes, or saying I must be a huge fan of the show, when in truth, it makes me want to vomit up my gizzards.

Anyway, I am amused. This stuff ever happen to anyone else?

Weak Days

Pulling myself out of another work-induced anti-social streak to get back to work on a few things, and getting Love Buzz closer and closer to "in the can" as things progress. On that front, we have some unfortunate news. The book is being held back for resolicit by a couple of months, due to some problems that came up that are no fault of anyone in particular. In the long run, it'll hopefully be a good thing that will lead to me being able to better and more properly promote the book in various ways. Michelle and Dave have kicked copious amounts of ass on it in the last few months. This book is going to be above and beyond my original expectations, and I can't wait for you all to FINALLY see it.

In other news, I've been watching and keeping mostly quiet about a pair of projects I'm working on with an artist from Brazil by the name of Jorge Trinidade. He's just turned in the last pencils of the first half of issue one of one of the projects this past weekend, and his line work is very good and precise. This book is going to be filthy and hilarious.


The Day I Tried To Live #1 - Illustrated by Jorge Trinidade

Like I said, Jorge and I are in talks to produce this five issue project, and a smaller scale, more age-friendly three issue superhero title that he'll hopefully start on after the last half of this issue is in the can. I hope to start pitching them soon. Jorge has been a joy to work with, despite some of the funny limitations our language barriers have brought up. (I might tell you guys the 'dildo story' sometime when I'm less tired.)

On another front, now that I've got less of Love Buzz to worry about, I'm getting back on task with my slowly progressive romance anthology idea, Less Than Three. Haven't had a chance to touch it in months, but I've put my game face back on and have been emailing writers and artists about the current status, as well as receiving some really great story pitches and art to fill out the last few slots on the book.


Less Than Three - A short story from the Less Than Three anthology, illustrated by Chris Moreno.

*yawn*

Man, I thought I had more to say in me, but I guess we'll just have to settle for a mini-update and art bomb.

Enjoy, folks.

Bring Back That Lovin' Feelin'!

Been a pretty major week on the Love Buzz production front. We had a bit of a crisis Tuesday night, in the form of a frantic phone call from Michelle, telling me that her father had fallen 15 feet off a scaffolding and broken a some ribs. She was on her way to the hospital and apologizing profusely for being late with the night's worth of pages, something she never should have felt the need to do, and I told her as much. There was a bit of drama after that in waiting to hear back from her on whether her dad was okay, but gladly I got a hold of her the next day and he's recovered pretty good. Four broken ribs and on bed rest, but I'm pretty sure he left the hospital the next day. Beyond that bit of drama, I've never heard Michelle to be in higher spirits about the project in all the time we've been working on it. It kind of relieves me to know that too, because it means she cares about it as more than just a job to her, and it's gone a bit further in cementing the bond we've come to grow between each other in this odd little partnership.

In other news, as the book keeps inching towards the finish line of coming together, I got an email with another fun little piece of Love Buzz related eye-candy in the form of another pin-up that will be going to print in the back of the book.


Art by Miss Brenda López

Brenda's a pretty cool character I met through knowing Michelle and I guess them being mutual fans of one another's work. She and I have also recently collaborated on a five page short story for the Less Than Three romance anthology I'm still in the slow process of putting together called The Valentine's Day Massacre. I pride this particular story to be probably one of my top three favorite shorts I've written so far, and I'm happy to report Brenda knocked every panel of it out of the park artistically. I'm hoping to work with her on something a bit more substantial in the future, but she's a teacher, so it might take a little time, but I'll keep bugging her until I either wear her down or she just starts stonewalling me. (A side note to any aspiring comic writers out there. They say patience is a virtue, and it's true. Letting a good artist have the time to take their time is always mutually benificial.)

I'm told Brenda's worked up a color version of the Maggie piece and will send it to me soon, but since the book itself is black and white, this is the version that everyone will be seeing within the book itself. When I get the color version though, I'll be posting it, as well as the other two pin-ups I'm waiting to get turned in soon.

Stay tuned!