Monthly Archives: January 2017

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First things first.
This is not really about “Brandon Rucker News”, it’s more about connecting with other interesting people and intellectual minds, sharing our thoughts, interests, passions, gripes and ideas with each other, and more. Sure, I’m taking the lead by asking you to join me and allow me to inform and entertain you for maybe five minutes at most, but I’m also hoping to inspire you to do the same so that you can in return inform and entertain me as well, perhaps with your own series of newsletters.
But why a newsletter? Why not keep rocking the blog?

Short answer: it seems like a cool thing to do. Long answer: I’m still rocking the blog, but its contents will now be less personal and hopefully broader in scope. Yet, while the overall reach of personal blogs/websites has decreased some in recent years due to social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, mass-mailed newsletters have made a comeback the last couple of years (primarily with the literary crowd, of course). There are a few I’m subscribed to by other writers and I’ve been inspired to finally join in activity. Could be a failed experiment, but I’m giving it a shot anyway.

I have blogged semi-regularly the past seven years, and I’ve exhausted the functionality of both Facebook and Twitter and am starting to pull back from both, and the blog some, in terms of personal content.  I’m ready to try this new experiment and fill it with personal content, sharing the kind of things I know you would appreciate receiving.

Scheduling?
I’ve no idea what frequency this will be, but bi-weekly seems to be ideal and not too much of a bother, though maybe just kind of whenever I have enough to share? Who knows what day of the week, I mean, I was born on a Wednesday, so maybe?
I Appreciate You

At any rate, I THANK YOU for lending me a few minutes of your time whenever you stop by this blog, and if you’re subscribing to the newsletter, I thank you for that as well. I always try my damnedest not to waste your time or take it for granted.

All the best,

– B.

CELEBRATE IMAGE DAY ON WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 2017

On February 1, 1992, seven comics superstars Erik Larsen, Jim Lee, Rob Liefeld, Todd McFarlane, Whilce Portacio, Marc Silvestri, and Jim Valentino came together to form their own company that would change the landscape of comics forever. Current partners McFarlane, Valentino, Kirkman, Larsen, and Silvestri collectively have brought creator-owned comics to the forefront of industry change and, after 25 years of amazing storytelling freedom, Image is pleased to celebrate the milestone anniversary with Image Day—Feb. 1, 2017.

Image Comics wouldn’t have succeeded without the tremendous creativity and passion of its creators, the unwavering support of retailers, bookstores, and libraries, or the unbridled and unrelenting enthusiasm of the fans who show up each and every Wednesday to purchase Image titles. On Image Comics Day we celebrate together, nationwide, the exciting legacy that Image’s creator-owned publishing model has cultivated as we prepare for the next 25 years of amazing creator-owned comics to come.

There will be Image Comics promotions, giveaways, creator signings, social media events, and more—don’t miss out on all the festivities and check back to the events pages on imagecomics.com for more information and announcements about Image Comics Day celebrations near you.

Join us for the single most anticipated day of the year, as we come together and celebrate the 25th anniversary of Image Comics—but more importantly, the 25 years of true creative freedom and history-making storytelling from the best writers and artists in the world. Find an Image Day event near you in the complete list below!
IMAGE COMICS DAY EVENTS IN THE UNITED STATES

ARIZONA
Phoenix
Samurai Comics | 3:00 PM-7:00 PM | 1051 E. Camelback Rd., Phoenix Az 85014
Jay Fotos, Meredith McClaren, Scott Godlewski

CALIFORNIA
Los Angeles
Meltdown | 6:00 PM | 7522 Sunset Bl., Los Angeles, CA 90046
Brian K. Vaughan, Steven Seagle, Joe Casey, Matt Hawkins
A Shop Called Quest | 4:00 PM-6:00 PM | 300 S Santa Fe Ave B, Los Angeles, CA 90013
Malachi Ward, Keenan Keller, Kyle Higgins, Tom Neely, Greg Hinkle, Megan Hutchinson, Chris Burnham
The Last Bookstore | 7:30 PM-9:00 PM | 453 S Spring St, Ground Floor, Los Angeles, CA 90013
Rus Wooton, Gabriel Hardman
Golden Apple | 1:00 PM-3:00 PM | 7018 Melrose Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90038
Matt Hawkins, Darick Robertson, Marc Silvestri
The Grove Barnes & Noble | 7:00 PM | 189 The Grove Dr, Los Angeles, CA 90036
Rick Remender, Ed Brubaker, Chris Burnham

Long Beach  
Pulp Fiction Comics
Dustin Nguyen

Paradise Valley 
Collector’s Paradise | 5:00 PM-7:00 PM | 319 S. Arroyo Prkwy Unit 4, Pasadena, CA 91105
Sina Grace

Pasadena
Collector’s Paradise | 5:00 PM-7:00 PM | 7131 Winnetka Ave, Canoga Park, CA 91306
Garry Brown

Petaluma  
Brian’s Comics | 3:00 PM-6:00 PM | 1 Fourth Street Suite B, Petaluma, CA 94952
Nick Dragotta, Justin Greenwood

San Diego  
Yesteryear Comics
Brandon Thomas

San Francisco    
Mission Comics
Brian Schirmer, Ken Garing, Jeremy Saliba

Comix Experience | | 12:00 PM-2:00 PM | 305 Divisadero St., San Francisco, California 94117
Ken Garing

GEORGIA
Atlanta  
My Parents’ Basement | 6:00 PM-8:00 PM | 22 North Avondale Road, Avondale Estates, GA 30002
Rich Tommaso

ILLINOIS
Chicago 
Graham Cracker Comics | 11:00 AM-2:00 PM | 77 E. Madison, Chicago IL 60602
Tim Seeley

MARYLAND
Annapolis 
Third Eye | 11:00 AM | 2027-A West St, Annapolis, MD 21401
Jonathan Luna, Justin Jordan

MINNESOTA
St. Paul 
The Source Comics and Games
Otis Frampton

MISSOURI
Joplin 
Hurley’s Heroes
Jeremy Haun

Kansas City    
Elite Comics | 11:00 AM | 11842 Quivira Rd, Overland Park, KS 66210
Megan Levens, Steven Sanders

St. Louis    
Star Clipper | 11:00 AM-5:00 PM | 1319 Washington Ave, St. Louis, MO 63103
Kyle Starks

NEW YORK
New York 
Forbidden Planet | 8:00 AM | 832 Broadway, New York, NY 10003
Cliff Chiang, Joe Harris, Brenden Fletcher, W. Maxwell Prince, Alex de Campi, Brandon Montclare, Cameron Stewart, Jason Katzenstein, Amy Reeder, Ivan Brandon, Karen Berger

OREGON
Portland 
Floating World | 6:00 PM-8:00 PM | 400 NW Couch St., Portland, OR
Joe Keatinge, Sloane Leong, Leila del Duca, Emi Lenox, Eric Stephenson, Brandon Graham, Farel Dalrymple

Excalibur
Kurt Busiek

Bridge City | 5:00 PM-7:00 PM | 3725 N Mississippi Ave, Portland, Oregon 97227
Joseph Bergin III

Books with Pictures | 6:00 PM-8:00 PM | 1100 SE Division Street, Portland, Oregon 97202
Kelly Sue DeConnick, Matt Fraction

Cosmic Monkey | 11:00 AM | 5335 NE Sandy Blvd, Portland, Oregon 97213
Steve Lieber, Tony Parker

PENNSYLVANIA
Philadelphia  
Fat Jack’s Comicrypt 
Bryan J.L. Glass

TEXAS
Austin  
Austin Books | 8:00 AM-9:00 PM | 5002 N Lamar Blvd, Austin, Texas 78751
Donny Cates, Nick Pitarra

Dallas
Zeus Comics
Michael Lark, Jordan Boyd

WASHINGTON
Lacey  
Olympic Cards and Comics | 10:00 AM-11:59 PM | 4230 Pacific Ave SE, Lacey, WA 98503
Greg Rucka

Vancouver 
I Like Comics | 1715 Broadway St., Vancouver, WA 98663
Michael Oeming

INTERNATIONAL IMAGE COMICS DAY EVENTS:

AUSTRALIA
Melbourne
All Star Comics *will take place on February 4* | 11:00 AM-5:00 PM | 53 Queen St., Melbourne, Victoria, 3000
Fil Barlow, Helen Maier

Sydney
Kings Comics | 5:00 PM-7:00 PM | 310 Pitt St., Sydney, Australia 2000
Nicola Scott

CANADA
British Columbia
Kelowna  
Okanagan Sports Cards & Comics | 1795 Harvey Ave, Kelowna, British Columbia
Ed Brisson

Vancouver  
Golden Age Comics | 852 Granville Street, Vancouver, British Columbia V6Z 1K3
Kaare Kyle Andrews, Steve Skroce, Nathan Fairbairn, Colin Lorimer

Ontario
Toronto 
The Beguiling | 6:00 PM-8:00 PM | 319 College Street, Toronto, Ontario M5T1S2
Chip Zdarsky, J. Bone

Silver Snail | 4:00 PM-6:00 PM | 329 YONGE ST., TORONTO ONT. M5B1R7
Raffaele Ienco

REPUBLIC OF IRELAND
Dublin  
Big Bang | 6:30 PM | Unit 2.3, Sandyford Road, Dundrum Town Centre, Dublin 16, Ireland
Declan Shalvey, Jordie Bellaire, Simon Spurrier

UNITED KINGDOM
Leeds  
Travelling Man 
Antony Johnston

London  
Forbidden Planet | 6:00 PM-7:00 PM | 179 Shaftesbury Avenue, London WC2h 8JR
Sara Kenney, Tradd Moore

Orbital | 5:00 PM-7:00 PM | 8 Great Newport Street, London, WC2H 7JA
Kieron Gillen, Alison Sampson

Gosh!
Dan Watters, Caspar Wijngaard
ABOUT IMAGE COMICS
Image Comics is a comic book and graphic novel publisher founded in 1992 by a collective of best-selling artists. Image has since gone on to become one of the largest comics publishers in the United States. Image currently has five partners: Robert Kirkman, Erik Larsen, Todd McFarlane, Marc Silvestri and Jim Valentino. It consists of five major houses: Todd McFarlane Productions, Top Cow Productions, Shadowline, Skybound and Image Central. Image publishes comics and graphic novels in nearly every genre, sub-genre, and style imaginable. It offers science fiction, fantasy, romance, horror, crime fiction, historical fiction, humor and more by the finest artists and writers working in the medium today. For more information, visit www.imagecomics.com.

Advice from Warren Ellis, Internet Jesus

In this week’s edition of his newsletter, Orbital Operations, writer of all trades and legendary Internet Jesus Warren Ellis offered the following bits of sage advice for us all to perform our own lifehack in these unprecedented times. Take heed, if you want to survive.

“If you’re on social media, make your account private, and use it to be social. Use it with your friends. 

If you rely on social media for news, do this. 1) Don’t use Facebook for news. I mean, just don’t. Facebook’s values are not your own, and they have their own rules for what you get to see. So just don’t. 2) Twitter has a function called Lists. So go to a Twitter account, press the little cog icon on the right, and select Add Or Remove From Lists. Create a list, and you can add people to it without actually following them.

The term “attention economy” seems to be making a comeback in 2017. Your attention is valuable. Also, the confusing and scattering of your attention is valuable. Overwhelming you into making bad or unfocused choices is valuable. Take back your attention.

And for god’s sake, stick a passcode on your phone this week. Six is okay, I’m told eleven is better. And turn off Touch ID before you go through an airport – that’s a thing I keep hearing.

(Addition to last week’s notes: favcleaner will wipe out your entire Twitter likes history, slowly. It will post to your account once – just delete the tweet.)

Find your news. I read The Guardian, BBC News and Foreign Policy every morning, as well as Politico and Axios daily newsletters, and I recently bought access to The Washington Post and put Reuters on my home screen.

Find your people. Do it offline. If you’re worried, turn your phone off before you leave the house to go to a meeting, and don’t turn it back on until you’re well away from the meeting place. Or leave it at home entirely, and carry a burner with a removeable battery.

Change your goddamn passwords and don’t buy any of that IoT shit.

Also, this.

“Trump administration officials are discussing the possibility of asking foreign visitors to disclose all websites and social media sites they visit, and to share the contacts in their cell phones. If the foreign visitor declines to share such information, he or she could be denied entry”

This isn’t unexpected, and the ground has already been laid for it, in the updated ESTA and in the questioning of journalists at customs in the US over their LinkedIn accounts last year.

Sorry to be such a huge downer, but these are times for protection.

Come and sit by me. I have whisky, and I like fires.”

Do yourself a favor and subscribe to the Orbital Operations newsletter here.

Warren Ellis is the award-winning writer of graphic novels like TRANSMETROPOLITAN, FELL, MINISTRY OF SPACE and PLANETARY, and the author of the NYT-bestselling GUN MACHINE and the “underground classic” novel CROOKED LITTLE VEIN, as well as the digital short-story single DEAD PIG COLLECTOR.  His newest book is the novella NORMAL, from FSG Originals.

The movie RED is based on his graphic novel of the same name, its sequel having been released in summer 2013.  IRON MAN 3 is based on his Marvel Comics graphic novel IRON MAN: EXTREMIS.   He is currently developing his graphic novel sequence with Jason Howard, TREES, for television, in concert with HardySonBaker and NBCU, and continues to work as a screenwriter and producer in film and television, represented by Angela Cheng Caplan and Cheng Caplan Company.

He’s written extensively for VICE, WIRED UK and Reuters on technological and cultural matters, and given keynote speeches and lectures at events like dConstruct, ThingsCon, Improving Reality, SxSW, How The Light Gets In and Cognitive Cities.

Warren Ellis is currently working on a non-fiction book about the future of the city for FSG Originals, serialising new graphic novel works like TREES and INJECTION at Image Comics, and developing and curating the revival of the Wildstorm creative library for DC Entertainment.

A documentary about his work, CAPTURED GHOSTS, was released in 2012.

Recognitions include the NUIG Literary and Debating Society’s President’s Medal for service to freedom of speech, the EAGLE AWARDS Roll Of Honour for lifetime achievement in the field of comics & graphic novels, the Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire 2010, the Sidewise Award for Alternate History and the International Horror Guild Award for illustrated narrative.  He is a Patron of the British Humanist Association, an Associate of the Institute of Atemporal Studies, and the literary editor of EDICT magazine.

Warren Ellis lives outside London, on the south-east coast of England, in case he needs to make a quick getaway.

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via Warrenellis.com

“Sultan’s Curse” – New Music from Mastodon | Earworm of the Week

In high anticipation of their next new studio album Emperor of Sand (out March 31st), my favorite modern metal band Mastodon offered up this pre-release single last week that has wormed and embedded itself deep within my subconscious. As the title alludes, the forthcoming concept album is thematically based on time and death, inspired by cancer, the silent killer that has touched the band the past year and a half in two different instances.

Key lyric in this one: Memories of loved ones are passing me by.

Enjoy.

 

Comic Book Fetish Fave of the Week #4

January 2017 | New Comics Week 4 — Saga #42 (Image Comics)

I cannot honestly remember the last time a comic book made me tearful. The all-black back pages, easily six of them, really helped deliver the gut punch and the kick to the heart. I literally gasped “Really, Brian and Fiona!?!?” BKV may be the best in the biz with his issue-to-issue cliffhangers and even bigger story arc cliffhangers. But he also does not do cheap stunts/deaths/fakeouts. He always delivers on your emotional investment. Knowing that makes this issue burn intensely.

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Story: Brian K. Vaughan
Art / Cover: Fiona Staples
Published: January 25, 2017
Diamond ID: NOV160640

END OF STORY ARC

“THE WAR FOR PHANG,” The Epic Conclusion! Hell is war, as Hazel and her family learn the hardest way.

– See more at: https://imagecomics.com/comics/releases/saga-42#sthash.ftWPxjeU.dpuf

 

On the Importance of Strong Female Characters | Devon L. Miller

Trust Me; I'm a Writer

sfc-heading-pic From the Women’s March; Seattle, WA; January 21, 2017

I was fortunate enough to attend the Women’s March on Seattle, a sister to the Women’s March on Washington DC. Before I lose you, I have no intention of talking politics in this post. What I am going to talk about is something I can’t believe is still controversial: the importance of strong female characters in fiction.

As I marched with 175,000 other humans (the estimate at the time of this writing), I noticed countless signs referencing some of my favorite female badasses from fiction. I took in multiple nods to space rebels, vampire slayers, and warrior princesses and knew—without a doubt—that every last person who argues that female heroes aren’t interesting or “won’t sell” is absolutely full of shit. I saw little girls in Wonder Woman costumes and Princess/General Leia t-shirts (I was wearing a General Leia shirt myself), and knew—without…

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