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a kid with some sort of name-tag job, a button that says "Ask me about comic books," and yet is sporting an incongruous spray of blood across his chest. Already, I want to read this book, so the cover’s done its job. The first couple of pages sports a bunch of kids in the present-day robbing the grave of a Civil War soldier (named "Jack Straw" hee hee) while quot ing Star Wars dialogue and running from the cops. I’m not sure if this thing’s been solicited from Diamond, and, if it has, if it’s readily available, but if you send Rick an email, I’m sure he’ll make arrangements to put one in your hands. Teenagers From Mars #1 is a 32 page black and white comic book that retails for $2.99. Think Felicity and Dawson’s Creek by way of EC Comics and with a right-turn at Akira . Here’s an auspicious debut book by a couple of guys who didn’t listen to the naysayers telling them that no one would care about their little comic book confection. They just went ahead and did it. I love that. Man, I liked this comic. And so will you.

They didn’t submit.

Minicomic Casserole December 14, 2001

I don’t know what it is, but people are always emailing me questions about how to do comics.

If you’ll recall my plea to those folks last week, to just go ahead and do the comics you want to do, this week’s missive into the ether may surprise you.

I try, every once in a while, to light a fire under the asses of the people who want to do a comic, but who, for some reason, just won’t take that leap. This past week, I issued a challenge to all of those cats: on February 9th and 10th, two short months from now, San Francisco will be hosting the Alternative Press Expo. I always have a good time at this show, first, because it’s less than two miles from the AiT/Planet Lar World Headquarters, and, as such, allows me to attend a comic book convention and yet still sleep in my own bed; and, secondly, because every single per son attending the show is really into comics. Unlike bigger cons, where you might get people going to see the costume ball, or the Playboy playmates, or Gary Burghoff, or whatever, APE is the show where everyone coming in just loves the funny books. What’s not to like about that?

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