As the school year draws to a close, I’ve been digging into Book 2 and getting it prepped for a fall release. My editor sent me her edits and notes a couple of weeks ago, and I’ve been going through them and making changes and corrections as needed. In fact, I finished up just this week and have moved on to formatting.
Formatting has been a bit of a challenge. I found the font Royal James used, so there’ll be visual consistency in the books, and I’m doing all the little, fiddly things that have to be done to make it look like a real, professional book. Margins are set, title pages are created, and I’m messing about with the header text and page numbers now. There are some challenges with getting everything exactly the way I want it, but I’m confident it’ll all be ready in September.
Once the formatting is done, I’ll be in a holding pattern, waiting for my artist to create the cover. I know he has other jobs ahead of mine, so it’s going to be sometime this summer before he even begins, but once I have the cover in hand the book will basically be ready to go. Between now and then, there’ll be a short story called “Bad Press” (anyone who got the old Hazzard Pay collection from a few years ago will be familiar with this one, though I’ve added a few new bits).
So, all in all, things are moving along well. I feel I’ve got a much better handle on the stuff I have to do to self-publish this time around, and I think the results are going to be fantastic. My editor was tremendously positive about the manuscript, as were my beta readers, so I’m hopeful this one will be a hit.
I can’t remember the first comic I read by Gail Simone. It was probably a random issue of All-New Atom my friend Chad had sitting around in his apartment one evening. I had no idea what all was really going on, but I loved the story. It had adventure, humor, and her villains felt disturbing and evil and real. I was hooked. I needed to find more of her writing, and fast.
At the time, though, I still did not collect single issues. I trade-waited everything, because it was more economical. But DC put out trades slower than molasses in January back then. A hardcover collection would come out six months after a particular storyline was completed, and the softback trade maybe six months to a year after that. I couldn’t wait that long.
And I’ve continued to follow pretty much every single thing Gail’s written since then. She’s hands down my favorite comic writer. Her ability to mix action, emotion, and deep characterization draw me in. Her dialogue is natural and amazing. Many of my favorite comic runs are written by Gail: Secret Six, Birds of Prey, Wonder Woman Red Sonja. She puts her heart into the things she writes, and she works harder than pretty much any other writer I’ve seen to be inclusive and open and welcoming to anyone and everyone in comics.
Gail is also a world-class Twitter troll. She knows more about comics than about 90% of the comic book bros on Twitter, and she’ll purposely say outlandishly inaccurate things to set them all a-twitter (if you’ll pardon the expression). If you ever want to see a bunch of guys not get it and “um, actually” a professional comic book writer, check out her Twitter feed. It’s glorious.
Charlie Cottrell 