Yikes!

I know... It's been way too long since I last made a post here...

In my defense, I have been swamped with work for Emerald City ComiCon, The Comic Stop, Micro Brew Comics, the newly formed Jet City Comic Show, and more. Still, excuses are excuses. So, let's catch us up, shall we?

Over at The Comic Stop, we are currently working towards our general growth as a company. We now have 3 successful locations, and we are considering opening a 4th shop in the next year or so. On top of this, we now have a "full staff". It is no longer just us owners/managers at the shops, but two full-time employees and two part-time employees.

The 8th Annual Emerald City ComiCon is nearly here, just a couple of months away. We've sold out of space again, our lineup of guests borders on the amazing, and we are well under way to have our best year ever. Expect this show to blow up, Big Time, in the near future.

Speaking of shows... Since I don't have enough work to do, I have created a companion show for ECCC called Jet City Comic Show. This new show is a local 1-day show coming up in the fall, a full 6 months after ECCC. This new show will focus on the creative local talents and publishers and organizations of the Pacific Northwest, and well as spotlighting several out of town Special Guests.

Following that, the comics biz has been busy. From Micro Brew Comics, I am looking to have Steve Lawlis: Zombieville #2 and Adventures of Doctor Zombie #3 ready for ECCC, as well as a couple of prints. From my old stomping grounds of Rorschach Entertainment and Modern Pulp Comics, I have the final issue of Sprecken: Kalabus Rex (issue #4) coming out, and it looks like we might even have Dallas McCoy #0 (a prologue issue) done, too. I'll have more on all of this in the next few weeks...

Over at the homestead, the only big event was the shared birthday (on December 11th) between Jack "Lucky" Meredith and myself. My little man is now 3 years old, and cleaned up with a fat pile of Ben 10 action figures and clothes, and a couple of Batman Brave and the Bold action figures. He's become quite the little super-geek.

Well, that's enough catching up... next time, I'll talk about beer...

-Brian M.

Doctor Zombie Update!

It's been almost a week since we debuted The Adventures of Doctor Zombie #1 at the Comic Stop and Bell-Con and we are just about sold out of copies!

The response to the book at the shop was amazing. We blew through 20 copies before my shift ended, so I brought more later that evening when Mac and I showed up for her Kung Fu class. As of yesterday afternoon, there are only 2 copies of the book left at the shop.

At the convention, Mackenzie showed the world that she was made for this business. Sitting with the Rorschach Entertainment tables, Mackenzie (along with the artist for the book, Erik Thompson) rocked the show by selling every copy of the book (the majority of what was left of the print run) that we brought for the show. She worked the crowd like a born salesmen, yet was completely upfront and honest about everything she said; no conning anyone. When the show slowed down, she actually grabbed copies of the book and went out onto the show floor and sold them to the other exhibitors, creators, and attendees. It was pretty amazing to see her at work.

Currently, this print run of the book is pretty much done. There are only a couple of copies at the shop and less than 10 copies that will be available online at Rorschach Entertainment later this week.

Mac, Erik and I would like to thank everyone at the shop and the con that took a chance on the book. We would really love to hear any feedback any of you may have, so please leave a comment or email us at microbrewstudios@gmail.com.

We are currently working on issue #2, which we hope to out before Christmas, and we are planning on at least 2 more issues after that. If they do well, we will be looking to re-release them in color on a national scale by submitting them to other publishers or through Diamond ourselves.

Doctor Zombie debuts!

The Adventures of Doctor Zombie #1 is finally back from the printers!

As some of you may already know (but let's recap for those that don't), this new book was written my daughter Mackenzie. After expressing interest in writing her own story, I encouraged her to put one together using one of her favorite characters, Doctor Zombie. Well, the story was a fun little romp filled with action, romance, and what I like to call "3rd grade Science".

I took her story and scripted it, handed it off to my artist Erik Thompson, and several months later, we have an all-ages comic about a dead scientist and his loyal assistant fighting demons and poor dating choices!

The Adventures of Doctor Zombie #1 will officially debut this weekend at Bell-Con, Bellingham's newest comic convention, but we will have copies at the Lynnwood Comic Stop this Wednesday for anyone that wants one. Anyone that wants to reserve a copy (many of you already have, thanks!) just needs to let me know, via email to the shop, a call, or even a comment.

The Adventures of Doctor Zombie #1 costs only a measly $2.50 and there are two covers to choose from (Good Guy Cover and Bad Guy Cover). Oh, and if anyone would like to have their copy signed by Mackenzie, let me know. She has been practicing her signature for the last couple of days just for this.

Kyle and TJ @ Hotwire

Last night, Mackenzie and I headed over to the Hotwire Cafe to catch Kyle Stevens and his equally-talented buddy TJ Sherrill play a rare acoustic set. As always, they both rocked and brought in a lot of new people for this little (but very cool) cafe. TJ played a couple of my favorite songs from his latest album (buy it now!) and Kyle rocked it with his Geek out by playing a couple of his pop-culture songs, The Mario Cart Song and Tony Stark. He also pulled out his cover of Billie Jean, which I think he does better than the original artist.

Kyle and TJ finished off the night with a duet of a new song they both wrote last year called Mexican Jail. This song rocked all sorts of socks off. I must have a copy of that in the iPod. (That's a subtle hint, right there, Kyle... get to it.)

A pleasant surprise, my buddy Todd Downing (writer, director, musician) made the trek from West Seattle to catch Kyle play, as well. Kyle and Todd are in talks about the use of Kyle's music in an upcoming movie called Duo, in which one of the characters is based off of me. I didn't talk to him a whole lot. I was a bit tired and just needed to chill, but he was also with his new girl and daughter, so I didn't want to intrude on the family time.

Also at the show was Mike Miller, representing for the Comic Stop by sporting one of our brand new store t-shirts (INSERT SHAMELESS PLUG -- They are available at all of our locations! Boys and Girls versions for only $15 each! -- END SHAMELESS PLUG). Kudos to you, Mike, and shame on everyone else from the Comic Stop Social Club for not appearing. You will be punished.

Holy Hot Rod!

After almost 9 years of driving the same car (my beloved 2000 Dodge Neon), I have taken the plunge and bought a (nearly) brand new 2007 Chevrolet HHR.

With the arrival of my boy Jack "Lucky" Meredith over a year ago, my small but growing family placed a bit of a strain on our vehicle situation. My Neon and Amy's Hyundai Elantra were just not big enough. Oh, sure, we could get around town easily enough with all five of us packed in to either car, but we were packed in. Not exactly a lot of room left for the little things, like space or comfort.

On top of that, my work at the Comic Stop calls upon me to pick up shipments on a weekly basis, not to mention any trip out of town for family or business.

So, with all of that in mind, Amy and I kept an eye out for a new vehicle, preferably something not too expensive, decent gas mileage, and enough room for everyone and everything we would need it to do. Our list of requirements left us with a very short list of cars. One of these cars was the Chevy HHR.

After about a month or two of looking around, Amy found a sweet deal on a used HHR at a nearby dealership. This HRR had only 1,000 miles on it, and was a lot cheaper than other comparable HHRs we found.

After making an appointment to see and test-drive the car (which handled great), we found out the previous owner had just bought it a couple of months before. It turned that his mother suddenly turned ill and he needed a large mini-van to get her around (I believe he traded it in for a Dodge Grand Caravan). We thought about it overnight, and went back in the next day to see what kind of deal we could make. in the end, we got a new car for about $7-8,000 less than had we just bought it brand new.

Of course, the downside to this great deal is that I have car payments again...

Not With A Bang...

...nor with a whimper. The new year of 2008 appears with nary a noise, and a few false starts (anyone watching the ill-fated and poorly executed fireworks display in Seattle can attest to that). Granted, it's only been a day, so who knows what this new year will bring.

For me, nothing has really changed. I still have Blue Shift and Steve Lawlis and Sprecken and Dallas McCoy in the works, with other projects festering in the background. I still have the upcoming Emerald City ComiCon to work on, as well as The Comic Stop to run.

If all goes well, the next issue of Sprecken: Kalabus Rex and Steve Lawlis will be out for ECCC, if not sooner. The first issue of Blue Shift is also slated to debut at that show, but may not debut until later in the summer, such as at San Diego or Chicago.

I'm hoping to get the launch of the Dallas McCoy series out by the Fall, as well. And who knows, if all goes well, there may be a Gibson Dent miniseries starting, too. Beyond that, I think I'll keep my schedule open and see what happens...