JanerBlog

Second Reception

Here're the pictures from E&A's second reception. Enjoy!

Book Porn

Okay, since I'm catching up on my life today, here's the Book Porn, as promised:

Sadly, some of the books I loved as a kid are gone: an early-1800's printing of "Swiss Family Robinson" with a crazy-high-english translation; it must've been one of the earliest versions. I remember Franz running around yelling "Father! Come and see what I have procured!"; a bunch of little chapbooks, some with Yeats poetry and plays, and a bunch of others in the same matched set; a very early single-volume copy of "Cosette," one of the five individual books that make up "Les Miserables". I'm sad those books weren't there... as you might imagine, I've lusted after these gorgeous books for my entire life, and now I'm sad that I didn't read nearly enough of them while I had the chance. Still, the ones I'm keeping are gonna get read, come hell or high water -- good books are for reading, not looking at.

Bulbous

Today's been a good day so far. It's also been my first Saturday home in something like five weeks. I'm out tomorrow and next weekend, too -- so I'm really soaking in it.

Stayed up late last night doing early sketches for the Seekrit Projekt, and slept in till a decadent 10am. Cleaned a bit, and did laundry, then went out into the soft midday to move hostas and plant daffodil bulbs.

I absolutely adore daffodils. They're such a welcome sight in the spring, and sometimes when it's still the dark of March and you're half-suicidal with cabin fever, you look out the window and you see the first pricks of the daffodils through the grey mud and it gives you the courage to keep going. I planted Las Vegas, Mount Hood, Fortissimo, Breck's Colossal, Gentle Giant,Tete-a-tete (which did *way* better than I thought they would last year) and these adorable little baby daffs, which should come up with the crocuses I planted last year.

I was gonna go out and buy a whole bunch of tulips again, but then I figured I'd wait to see if last year's come up again. No sense in spending money on what amounts to annual flowers -- and daffs have a much better chance of coming back year after year.

Yay, daffs. Can't wait to see 'em next spring.

Vault Pix!

Vault of Midnight release party pix, as promised!

There was a third one, and it was a really nice picture, but I had this smirk on my face that made me look like a snide jerk. So I'm not posting it.

Enjoy!

Photo one, courtesy of Steve at Vault:

Photo two, courtesy of Anne Murphy, is of me and Gwen and Jordan Marion (Jordan's the wee tiny one):

News Allsorts.

Sorry for the radio silence over the last couple days. I fully intended to have posted the pictures from Vault of Midnight by now, but things just got in my way... twelve boxes of books, and several pieces of heavy furniture, to be specific.

Long story short, I inherited my Great-Great-Grandfather's library, or what was left of it after the carrion crows picked it over. There's an extraordinary amount of good stuff in there, and I'm taking the time and bother not only to sort the books into keep, offer-to-family and give-to-special-people piles, but to catalogue each one in an Excel sheet so that I'll know what I had and where it went. I'm only keeping the books I'm actually liable to read, or those that're just too cool to let go -- the library's unity has already been sundered, so there's no sense in standing on principle and trying to keep the whole thing together just to say it's together. As awesome and ancient as these books are, I believe it's far better to have them in the hands of people who will want them, rather than in boxes in my attic: our house is configured in funny ways; it's all hallways and doorways and windows and arches, and what few solid walls we have are taken up with furniture -- in other words, there's not a lot of room for bookshelves. I'm already culling my paperbacks to make room for the new kids.

Yes, Alem. I'll post the book porn soon, I promise. ;)

So there's some other big news. It's going to disappoint some of you and make others of you very happy. Still, there's not much I can do about it; the muse has spoken, and this time, she's using a megaphone.

The next book I publish will not be a Vögelein book. You heard it here first. Instead, it will be this new project that hit me like a thunderclap last week. I've pitched it to several people whose tastes I trust, and every single one of them has responded with sentiments along the lines of "When can I buy this book?"

I'm keeping the subject matter under wraps until I can get enough pages banged together to release a good-looking website for it. The subject matter's fertile enough, and I'm a slow enough artist, that someone might beat me to the punch. In this business, it's not about "stolen ideas" -- it's about synchronous creation, and who can race their concepts to the finish line ahead of the pack. So I'm tyin' on my running shoes this week and seeing how far I can get. (Which is another reason I'm not saying too much about it yet -- who knows, as good as the idea seems now, once I put it under the thumbscrews, it may fall apart as well. But right now, I'm feeling pretty sure about it. How sure? Enough that if it pans out it could be the focus of the next five years of my artistic life. Now there's a heady prospect.)

I'm pretty sure it'll be released in its entirety on the web.

I'm also pretty sure I'll be at work on the art before the end of the year.

I'm also also pretty sure it'll be in duotone.

Vogelein's at a good stopping point right now: two books out, favorable reviews, and she's off to a bright new future at the end of the second story. She can fly in a holding pattern for a while until I get her next story figured out. In fact, that's part of the rationale for persuing this new idea... I'm hoping that while my conscious is distracted with a meaty new idea, my subconscious will start nibbling away at the problems of the current Vogelein script or rather, the distinct lack thereof. I've banged my head against it for most of the summer to no avail. I've read literal dozens of books -- and the subject matter just isn't speaking to me yet. I've got to let it sit and percolate for a while. The characters aren't going away, or leaving, or being put to bed -- they're just going on hiatus.

And also -- I've been making Vogelein for ten years now. Ten years is a long damn time, and I'm ready for a change of pace. Of course, when you finally see the concept, you'll probably be like, "Silly Jane! That's just the same thing you were doing all along!" But -- it *is* different, in important ways. You'll see.

So there you have it. News Allsorts. Kind of like Liquorice Allsorts, only my news didn't have any coconut in it.

Apparrently Trickertreating starts early in Kalamazoo

So there I was this evening, taking a break from my week full of housework to read a book, when I hear a heavy thumping up the front stairs. "Funny," I think. "Paul's not supposed to be home for another two hours." I peek out through our frosted-glass inside door, and see some guy I don't recognize banging on our front door. After about three seconds I realize this guy is absolutely loaded to the gills. He's drooling profusely, his eyes are unfocused, and he's trying the lock to no avail.

I call the cops, non-emergency number.

I go back to the front door and start shouting at the guy. "Go away! You've got the wrong house! You don't live here!" Zoë barks furiously: for once in her life, she's actually being encouraged, and she's taking full advantage of the fact I'm not reeling her in. The guy responds by kicking the door, then falling forward and smooshing one side of his face against the glass.

I call the cops again, this time on 9-1-1. Two officers are already en route.

The guy is still kicking the door and I'm still shouting at him five minutes later when the cops show up. I also have a broom in my hands. For those of you who don't know me that well, this probably seems like an inefficient weapon; for those of you who have played Kanar with me, you will understand that this was my only logical choice of gremlin-whacker.

So the cops come up on the front porch and sit the guy down in one of our plastic porch-chairs. They ask him all the usual questions, and things seem to be proceeding well when Drunky McStonerson throws a punch at one of the officers. Unfortunately from my vantage point I could only see two pairs of legs rolling around on the porch. Drunky's pantlegs are soaked through on the dorsal side, presumably with his own urine. I was immediately glad I didn't try to interact with the guy.

They get him cuffed and rolled over, and from what I could hear, he was so far gone that he couldn't answer anything the cops told him, though I did gather from his disjointed responses that he lives one street over and staggered up to the wrong house in his stupor. The cops called for an ambulance, and they loaded Drunky in, fortunately with no problems.

I gave the officers my contact info, and they disappeared into the night. If I've got to put up with the BS that comes with living downtown, I am certainly thankful for the prompt response time of Kalamazoo's finest.

Needless to say, I was pretty shaken by the whole encounter, and things were not improved by the fact that I was finishing the entire paperback of Cormac McCarthy's post-apocalyptic paranoia-fest, The Road just as Drunky showed up.

So then I called Becky Cooper and she talked to me till Paul got home. And then I got hugs, and then the world was all right again.

SPX Con Report

I'm finally recuperated enough to write my SPX con-report, so here 'tis.

SPX has always been my favorite show, and this year was no exception. Paul and I and Jim Ottaviani all flew down early Friday morning and arrived just in time to set up for the show. Sales were brisk and the floor was crowded. I rather like the new hotel, as we have the benefit of all being in one big ballroom, and there's also this really nice patio where I was able to sit and have lunch with Rich Watson on Saturday.

There're some great restaurants nearby -- we sampled two, the Vegetable Garden and a nearby Chinese Buffet. Both were outstanding, and the buffet was so good that we went back a second time.

Carla Speed McNeil quite kindly put us up at her house, ferried us back and forth, and fed us breakfast every morning while we played with her kids. It was a real treat to get to just hang out together for a while, without a table between us, or having to shout across a roomful of people. Thanks again, Carla. You rock.

Denise Sudell was also kind enough to run us to the airport at the end of the show, so we didn't have to Metro it back for an hour and a half. Yay! Thanks to you too, Denise -- and if you're reading this, I have some great pix of you and Henry to share, but your email bounced. So write me!

The rest of the show would take a really long time to write out, so I'll just let the pictures do the talkin'. Yay, SPX!

Why I love my buddy Scary

Excerpted from an email I received this afternoon:

So here's the belch I settled on for the oncall phone ringtone. It's short by normal standards, but it has decent resonance with a nice clean finish.

I put it on the phone & forgot about it. Last week I handed the oncall stuff off to my co-worker Nicole. Yesterday some stuff in New York broke. The scene played out thusly:

People we support: Oh no! [Company Name] users in White Plains, NY are being disconnected and we don't know why! This is terrible! We need someone technically proficient to look at this immediately! Page the [Other Company Name] oncall!!!!!!

*insert Batmanish musical stab*

People we support: (dialing)

Cut to Nicole and her boyfriend as they drive home from the store or something.

Nicole: ...so then they had run over to...
Phone: *BRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAP!!!!!!!"
Nicole: ...
Nicole's Boyfriend: ... What the fuck was that?
Nicole: Uh....
Phone: *BRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAP!!!!!!!"
Nicole's Boyfriend: Oh, Jesus!

It was a thing of beauty. Anyway, here's the ringtone. Share and enjoy!

Loves,

Scary

p.s. Please kiss Paul for me.

Online Store Updates!

More big news!

The Old Ghosts Hardcovers are now in the Online Store, as are the last few of the Clockwork Faerie hardcovers.

Also, the softcover trade paperback of Old Ghosts is available there as well. I had copies sooner, yes, but I didn't want to risk undercutting the local comics stores who've been so darn kind to me.

If I have any key necklaces left when I get back from SPX, I will put them online, too -- but I don't know how long it'll be between batches, so I don't want to sit on people's money for longer than I have to.

Woo!

Silver Bullet Comics interview

Hey you guys -- check out this really sweet interview that Tim O'Shea did with me over at Silver Bullet Comicbooks. Tim was one of the very first people to ever interview me, lo these many years ago. He's also one of the best people who've interviewed me -- his questions are really thorough and inventive, and show that he not only reads my books but likes 'em. What better could you ask from an interviewer?

Go. Read. It's good.

Big news!

So guess what?

Jeremy Schorr, of Titan Comics, one of my very earliest supporters (he emailed me after seeing the preview in Thieves and Kings and offered to order books before they were even printed.), is flying me down to Dallas for an in-store signing. On November 3rd, I'll be there for the whole day, signing books, hanging out, visiting with folks and enjoying Texas. There's also this really sweet-looking art performance thingy that same evening, called ArtLoveMagic, so if you come around 7pm, you'll get a twofer!

It's my first time visiting anywhere further south than St. Louis, so I'm eager to see everything Dallas-Fort Worth has to offer. Continuing the string of awesomeness, I will be ferried around and put up by two very kind fans, who have also been on board since the very beginning of the series. You guys know who you are, and you totally, completely rock. ;)

So here's the poster -- feel free to print and distribute, or just yoink it for your own website or blog -- and if you're anywhere near the DFW area, come on down!

Hey, I know Texas is a huge place, but if you're in the mood for a roadtrip, I'd sure love to see you!

Green Brain Pix!

Hooray for Green Brain! Check out these great pictures of the signing last Saturday, sent to me by store co-owner Dan Merritt:

Happy Fish

Thanks to Alix Merritt, who donated some old fish stuff, our fishpond comets now have a lovely new home. The gravel and plants (and a cracked-but-beautiful pot of my mom's) really really helped calm down the orange fish, who would go into a full-fledged freakout every time someone walked past the tank. He's much, much happier now, and Katie's backyard doesn't have a heap of dumped gravel in it. Everybody wins!

The books are here!

Both Vögelein books should be in comics stores today! Go! Buy! Hooray!

(Yes, it's a shameless plug. I'm allowed. Shut up.)

If you're not the comic-store type, it can also be ordered from:
Powell's, Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

Since I'm already tootin' my own horn, it's safe to say it's gotten some nice reviews already:

"The warm, comforting story, which feels like a folktale, spins out at a leisurely pace, allowing readers time to experience the lush softness of the black-and-white art and really appreciate the characters, the place, and the mood of the telling." -- Tina Coleman, Booklist

"... a beautiful, bittersweet, life-affirming story ... readers new to Vögelein will discover a fantastic treat. "
-- Kat Kan, graphic novel consultant, Brodart and HW Wilson and Voice Of Youth Advocates columnist

"Irwin's black-and-white painted artwork has a naturalistic feel and some beautiful designs, and her handling of emotions is nuanced and affecting. Recommended for all collections, for teens and adults."
-- Stephen Raiteri, The Library Journal

Sculpey Sculpey

How many of you guys would be interested in buying a little bas-relief sculpey version of Vogelein's key? I know the silver ones are expensive -- I'd have trouble prying loose $40, myself -- and I thought that might be a nice compromise. They'd be $5, and come with a little jump-ring so you could wear it as a necklace or a keychain or whatever. I'll have a few in time for SPX, but if a bunch of people say they'd like them, I'll make more and offer them on the website.

Kzoo Release Parties

I'm back from my fourth release party! It was a whirlwind tour, and I had an absolutely great time. It was so wonderful to see so many friends and fans turn out. Books were signed, sketches were drawn, cupcakes were eaten, and a good time was had by all.

Here are photos from the first two parties -- I was a total bonehead and didn't get photos from the second two, so I'll have to wait and post a proper review after I get some pictures from other people. (If you took pictures of me at either Vault or Green Brain, could you forward them to me? That'd be super awesome.)

Fanfare
My first release party on Wednesday was at Fanfare Comics in Kalamazoo. As a special added bonus surprise, I got visited by Chicago's own Dirk Tiede! He drove three hours in the middle of the day just to come and hang out with me! How blessed I am to have such good friends.

Rocket Star
As soon as Dirk and Paul and I tore down from Fanfare, we were setting back up at Rocket Star, across town. Loads of Kzoo locals showed up, and I had a great time seeing neighbors and friends and fellow comics people. Members of Whiskey showed up, and when there came a lull in the signings, I was able to sit in on a couple of sets, which was really fun.

Paul's Mom and Dad dropped in, and to celebrate the release, and Paul's and my third Wedding Anniversary, they brought us the dozen gorgeous pink roses you see me holding below. How cool is that?

I wish there were more photos, but I was mostly too busy handing out cupcakes and free comics and drawing little sketches of Vogelein to snap more. Still, I had a really wonderful time, and I hope everyone else did, too. Yay!