· things made of awesome

Cover Of The Week – 7/24/13

August 4, 2013 in art, artists, comics, dark horse comics, marvel comics | Permalink

Um…super NOT on time! Man guys, I’m sorry, I’ve got a ton on my plate right now and my horrible allergies are making all of it feel Herculean.

Rules: one cover from the “mainstream” (i.e. DC/Marvel) and one cover from the “indies” (i.e. anything NOT DC/Marvel).

In the mainstream corner we have Jamie McKelvie’s Young Avengers #8, doing it again – two issues in a row – and twice in a month – nice! What I love most about this cover is that though it’s visually striking and very pretty on just face value, it’s in the details where your realize how incredibly smart and cool it is. Love it.

In the independent corner we have Matt Kindt’s gorgeous Mind Mgmt #13, which is both gorgeously illustrated (watercolor? got to be) but more importantly content wise, it’s just so surprising and awesome. Perfectly executed to feel all sweet and 1950’s and then “oh, yeah, she’s got a semi-automatic.” AWESOME.

Tags: comic covers, comics!, Cover Of The Week, things made of awesome

Cover of the Week – 7/17/13

July 17, 2013 in art, artists, batman!, catwoman, comics, DC Comics, image comics | 1 comment

Yes! Super on time!

Rules: one cover from the “mainstream” (i.e. DC/Marvel) and one cover from the “indies” (i.e. anything NOT DC/Marvel).

In the mainstream corner we have one of the best covers I’ve seen from DC since the reboot in 2011 – Batman & Catwoman #22 by Patrick Gleason (Mick Gray on inks and John Kalisz on colors). I still wish they’d be a little more innovative (and less fussy) with their title design/placement/what-have-you, but this is a GORGEOUS illustration. Fantastic color choices, positive and negative space, movement, composition graphic shapes, it’s got it all. Oh, and a gorgeously rendered Catwoman. Yes!

In the independent corner we have a fantastic Skottie Young cover for Revival #12. On the surface you wouldn’t think those two things would go together so well, but Skottie Young is a genius, so he makes it work – it’s both adorable and creepy – and somehow captures the essence of Revival without ever “not being a Skottie Young cover”. Impressive. I’m a big fan of tons of white on a cover when used well and this is a great example. Again, bonus points to Young and Image for being bold with title integration, credits, numbering, etc. Two great picks for SDCC week!

Tags: comic covers, comics!, Cover Of The Week, things made of awesome

More THE GIRL WHO WOULD BE KING Goodness!

July 17, 2013 in art, stephanie hans, superheroes, The Girl Who Would Be King, the novel, writing | 1 comment

Some lovely new reviews, mentions, and such for THE GIRL WHO WOULD BE KING about the web!

The Refined Word gave me perhaps the most fantastic compliment I have ever received as a writer – I think I full on blushed.

Stephanie’s gorgeous cover art got picked for Infinite Curio’s “Cover of the Day” as well as About Happy Books “Cover Favorites” for 6/15/13!

Never Yet Melted calls TGWWBK the next Hunger Games here. (yes!)

The lovely Kimberly over at Love YA Books put yours truly on her list of Top 10 Authors That Deserve More Recognition and put TGWWBK on her list of Top 10 Beach Reads! Thank you Kimberly!

Claudia Lefeve (great name!) mentioned TGWWBK in her 5/31/13 GOOD READS post.

A good review by Henry Fung at Fraggin’ Civie.

We’re also up to an insane 119 Reviews on Amazon and still maintaining a fantastic 4.5/5.0 star rating and we’re up to 315 ratings and 85 reviews on GoodReads.

Thanks to all of you have that have taken the time to write reviews! And as always, if you write about the book on your blog or tumblr or some such, please shoot me a link…the web is a vast place, it’s hard to find everything!

Tags: The Girl Who Would Be King, things made of awesome

Sometimes Things Go Awesome…

July 17, 2013 in announcements, awesomeness, badassery, comics, writing | 2 comments

I’ve been super stressed out lately (I can’t say why, it will all come out soon enough…probably) so some awesome little surprises yesterday made it all seem worth it.

First, fellow blogger Keith Silva named me in Comics Bulletin’s “10 Of Our Favorite Comics Critics”

Pretty shocking to be in such great company – and thank you Keith so much!

And then, more bizarrely, and possibly not what I think it is, but I’m running with it anyway, Google Alerts gave me a heads up to this review of Red Sonja #1 on Newsarama.

In the review the writer refers to “she has no head” syndrome – check it out:

So…yeah, I’m sure you guys get how huge that is. The idea that you’ve made enough of an impact that others are picking up on it and using it as a definition…well, it warmed the cockles of my cold dead heart, it did.

Tags: comics!, things made of awesome

She Has No Head! – Comics Time Capsule!

July 15, 2013 in comic reviews, comics, comics news, comics should be good, CSBG, lit reactor, she has no head!, writing | Permalink

I’m trying to get better about cross posting content again. In that vein…here is a cross post to today’s hopefully super fun SHE HAS NO HEAD! which is all about creating a comics time capsule!

Other posts I’ve done recently that you might have missed?

This bit about how the new Brian Wood and Olivier Coipel X-MEN is ALL I’VE EVER WANTED!

And I did some pieces on LIT REACTOR:

This one about the resurgence of “choose your own adventure” stories (in comics and elsewhere)

This one about why people should stop hassling me to read Game of Thrones and just let me enjoy the television show (for now).

Of course if you’ve been hiding out and neglected to notice that I borderline broke people’s brains with the fact that I hated Man of Steel (read that here), here is a rather unorthodox Superman “Book vs Film” comparison on Lit Reactor.

I also did this one about the awesomeness that is Dustin Nguyen and Derek Fridolf’s Batman: Lil’ Gotham.

CBR REVIEWS:

I also had the pleasure of recently giving 4 or more stars to all of the following comics:

Hawkeye #12

Quantum & Woody #1

Adventure Time: Candy Capers #1

Daredevil: Dark Nights #2

Suicide Risk #3

The Wake #2

and

Demeter

Whew. Okay. That’s it for now!!!

Thanks everyone, I hope you find something enjoyable to read!

Tags: comics!, iit reactor, she has no head!, things made of awesome

Cover Of The Week – 6/26/13

June 26, 2013 in art, artists, comics | 3 comments

Two weeks in a row! Imagine that!

Rules: one cover from the “mainstream” (i.e. DC/Marvel) and one cover from the “indies” (i.e. anything NOT DC/Marvel).

From the Mainstream:

This should have been an easy pick this week, but with excellent covers by Frasier Irving (Uncanny X-Men #7), Kris Anka (Uncanny X-Froce #7) David Aja (Hawkeye #11) and Marvel made it tough on Olivier Coipel, still, his “X-Men” #2 takes it, for a bunch of gorgeous reasons, observe!

From the Indies, Michael Lark’s cover for “Lazarus” #1:

Tags: comic covers, comics!, Cover Of The Week, things made of awesome

Cover of the Week – 6/19/13

June 21, 2013 in art, artists, comics | Permalink

Thought dead, now resurrected, the ever popular “COVER OF THE WEEK” makes its triumphant return to 1979 Semi-Finalist!

Rumors of its demise were much exaggerated!

So yeah, from here forward going to try doing this again, and going to stick to one cover from the “mainstream” (i.e. DC/Marvel) and one cover from the “indies” (i.e. anything NOT DC/Marvel).

This week’s picks are awesome for being such similar ideas, executed completely differently and with really emotionally riveting results.

From the Mainstream:

Julian Totino Tedesco’s THUNDERBOLTS #11

From the Indies:

Becky Cloonan’s DEMETER

And if you haven’t found Demeter yet, you can buy print versions via Becky Cloonan’s store, or you can find it (and the other three awesome books in the unofficial trilogy) on Comixology.

Tags: comic covers, comics!, Cover Of The Week, things made of awesome

More THE GIRL WHO WOULD BE KING Fanart!

June 16, 2013 in art, artists, awesomeness, bonne braverman, fan art, The Girl Who Would Be King, the novel | Permalink

Google alert is sometimes good to me, so is twitter! It brought me this past week, two lovely pieces of THE GIRL WHO WOULD BE KING fan art, both for the Bravermans.

This Bonnie by Briana Mora (she did a gorgeous Lola LeFever for the fan art contest too) is gorgeous – looooove the eels as a framing/portrait device:

Bonnie Braverman by Briana Mora

The other, from the lovely Rachael Stephen, is of Bonnie’s mother, Scarlett Braverman, who nobody has drawn yet, not even Stephanie, Ross, or Meredith, so that is awesome!

Scarlett Braverman by Rachael Stephen

Tags: Bonnie Braverman, The Girl Who Would Be King, things made of awesome

Meredith McClaren is an utter badass – support her Kickstarter!

May 12, 2013 in art, artists, badassery | 3 comments

Reposting from There’s The Door Spaceman, for those of you that don’t follow. Also, for some reason, the images I posted there (no matter how many things I tried) came out a bit pixelated, so see them here in all their gorgeous glory!

STUNNING! These practical superheroine redesigns by Meredith McClaren are just to die for. I love how fashionable they are, how much they take into consideration the real world, there’s a practicality and function that is nevertheless completely badass. They’re also so far away from “basic catsuit” type stuff that it all feels so damn new and fresh!I mean…Look at that freaking Zatanna! I’ve never seen anything like that!

AND, you’ll be able to buy the original line art for some of these as she releases rewards this week for her AWESOME KICKSTARTER…although you guys are going to have to fight me for that Catwoman.

Tags: Batgirl, carrie kelly, Catwoman, kickstarter, poison ivy, things made of awesome, Wonder Woman, zatanna

THE GIRL WHO WOULD BE KING REVIEW-APALOOZA!

May 9, 2013 in reviews, The Girl Who Would Be King, the novel | Permalink

I’ve been slowly tracking down and compiling all the awesome THE GIRL WHO WOULD BE KING reviews that have been popping up and so here we are! I’ve included a few of the negative reviews I’ve found, but not all of them.

If you know of a review (or wrote one) that you think I’ve missed, please feel free to leave it in the comments or shoot me an email and I’ll update it. These are in no particular order, though some of the more high profile ones are at the top. Thanks to all of you that have taken the time to write reviews – and to those of you on Amazon and Goodreads (all 142 reviewers combined thus far) – you guys rock!

io9 -“…the best superhero/villain pair in ages.”

USA Today – Pop Candy

Tim Hanley/Straitened Circumstances

Cait Spivey (The Preeminent Litterateur)

On The Nightstand

You Read What? (A.A. Omer)