PS: I still owe you an email about some other stuff. It’s coming. I swear!

Keep doing what you’re doing. I’m reading/routing for you.

Unless my wife leaves me for trading in one no-money-in-it passion for another, you should be free from blame. If anything, it’s my friend Omar’s fault for reintroducing me to comics in the first place.

As for selling 8 copies, by putting me in it, you’ll double that number. It’s the “letters page” approach to comics. I’m going to make all of my friends buy a copy!

I just asked you into the book so you could give it good reviews, sheesh man, don’t you know anything?!

It’s such a fine line though, that review/creator one, ain’t it? I actually kinda went the other way, and did reviews after I had already been doing the creating thing. It was pointed out to me by a few comic cronies that bashing other peoples books (which I did, with no subtelty) was probably not the best thing in the world to be doing, since I was trying to get a few things published at the time. So now I think I will get other people to do it for me when I relaunch the site (whenever the hell I get the chance to actually finish that).

The reason I asked you on the book was because of your taste, and attention to detail though - from your reviews and our personal conversations. I really only hesitated as long as I did because you had voiced in the past that no interest in crossing over. Glad you did though.

Although in a few years when you’re broke and desolate and hate all things sequential, you can’t blame me, ok?

I dunno if there is anything per se wrong with doing comics and reviews, but the whole getting stuff thrown back in your face might be a good enough reason not to. Although I wouldn’t worry too terribly about that happening with this book, if we sell more than 8 copies I will be gleefully surprised.

I’ll most likely end up doing something similar to your blog, because I agree that “merely sharing your opinion with other comic fans is a valid goal.” The loftier notion was more a knock on Comic Book Galaxy’s hyperbolic tagline.

PS: On “Simultaneously critiquing and creating anything…,” potential stepping on toes aside, I think it’s actually an important part of developing one’s own voice and style. I learned way more about creating comics over the past nine months of critiquing them than I ever did in my many years of simply enjoying them as a fan.

Thanks for the feedback!

- Simultaneously critiquing and creating anything, esp comics, is a dicey proposition. I like to think that I have one or two comic book efforts that I’d like to publish before I die, and I often wonder if publicly bad-mouthing creators and publishers like I do is such a smart idea. However, I do find that one effort can positively influence the other: crtically viewing other people’s work keeps me honest about my own work, and doing stuff myself gives me a better appreciation for the level of professionalism and craftmanship that it takes to produce anything, much less anything good.

- Crises of consicence and commitment come and go (some might say they are… infinite crises! sorry). Sometimes I find it helps to take a week or a month or whatever off from the whole thing. Also, after comic-blogging for a little while, I realized that posting regularly or commenting about everything I read was way too much of a chore. if I don’t have anything to say about a comic, it’s OK to just let it go.

- Finally, I say who cares about pushing comics forward. Merely sharing your opinion with other comic fans is a valid goal.

Anyway I hope this pep talk helped, I’d hate to see you vanish forever. Good luck with your comic scripts!