Sign of the Times
I got my first look at ArchEnemies #1--all bound and pretty and finished--a few days before it came out. I was sent a set of copies to sign for a retailer incentive.

And the first thing that I realized--once I got over the initial excitement (i.e. collected my drool) and got to signing--was that these things are a REAL bugger to write on. I don't know what they make these covers out of, but...

I mean, I specifically went out and bought one of those metallic silver Sharpie-brand markers--I've always considered those "the Cadillac of markers that you can sign stuff with"--and I uncapped it, and I started scribbling and, well... and nothing.

All it made was a light silvery smudge across the cover.

I had 75 to return and one to keep, so I yanked out every marker I could find, and I kept on scribbling. On "my" copy.

I tried different colors. I tried different brands. While I was at it, I tried a couple different signature styles. Here's the end result:

(Click for a slightly larger version of same.)

It's kind of surreal. Or ironic. Or something.

I've spent years and years working to this moment--getting my first comic into print--and then as quick as I've got one in my hands, I'm spending the better part of an hour defacing it.

And it's a weird "survival of the fittest marker" moment for me when I realize that I need to sign 75 copies of my brand new comic with a purple Crayola marker...

...which, to my knowledge, is not the Cadillac of ANYTHING.

And I'm reminded of all this now because it's just a few short hours until my first big public signing. I'll be appearing with Yvel and Joe at Jim Hanley's Universe in Manhattan tonight from 5-7.

And all I've got is this stupid purple Crayola.

I'll probably go to Staples later and see if I can find something a little more "Bad Ass Comic Book Writer-ish." Maybe a hot pink hi-lighter to match my Hello Kitty trapper keeper.

Ugh.

Anyway, if you're in the NYC area and you have some spare time tonight, please come by! I will sign your copy of ArchEnemies with...

...something?
 

Word on the Street (and/or Internet)
So, the book's been out for a week now, and people are starting to talk about it. Not enough people, by my count, but then I'm biased.

One problem is that Dark Horse apparently doesn't send their comp copies out to reviewers, etc. until after all the reorders have been fulfilled. In this case, that'll supposedly take another week or so. The book'll be out for two weeks before a lot of the websites will have their crack at reviewing it. If they bother having their crack at all.

(You know what I mean.)

By that point, a lot of stores will already have sold out, which would be extremely frustrating if a lot of people, you know, recommended the book.

As it stands now, reaction to the comic has been mixed. Which probably goes without saying. I assume the reaction to every comic book this side of Civilian Justice is mixed.

I mean, I once read a message board post from a guy who spent three screens explaining why he didn't think Watchmen was a very good comic. (He obviously didn't understand the deep thematic content.)

Back to ArchEnemies:

I've heard from some people who've loved the story, but didn't like the art. (I have a hard time taking them seriously, but okay.) I've heard from other people who LOVED the art, but couldn't get into the story. (A proposition I find disappointing, but much more credible.)

And, thankfully, I've heard from a bunch of people who loved the whole thing top to bottom. Broken Frontier, for one, ran a very positive review.

I get that not everyone is going to like my comic. For one, I don't think my mother or her friends from church are too keen on it. But there is clearly a segment of the population that will eat this up.

I just need to find them.

I feel like my slogan for ArchEnemies should be "Some people don't like it. If you don't, that makes it statistically more likely that everyone else on Earth will."

(Because, in my experience, long confusing slogans about statistics always go over GANGBUSTERS with the comic bookerati.)
 

Quo Vadimus
So what next?

That thought's been bouncing around in my head ever since I finished up the script to issue four. (Which has just been solicited for July.)

I got a little bit closer to an answer this week.

There'll be more ArchEnemies, of course. At least, Dark Horse and I both hope there'll be. There's been talk of taking AE monthly, but obviously that'll depend on sales of the initial mini and of the inevitable TPB to follow.

To paraphrase the movie Scream (or is it Scream 2?): "These days, it's all about the trade, baby!"

That's how you know I'm going to be big. Quoting movies from the late nineties equals "Tapped into the National Zeitgeist." Look for bleeding edge references to Regis Philbin, Pikachu, and The Blair Witch Project in our next installment.

I've got a Word doc on my computer called "AE Next" that's filled with notes for the next arc. I hope to have it edited into something coherent by Monday or Tuesday.

The irony, I suppose, is that I need to edit this material down to a presentable form so that I can... present it to my editor? I try not to think about these things too much, because they hurt my brain.

Beyond that, I finally made some headway on this thing that'll hopefully be my next big project after ArchEnemies. Or concurrently with it, assuming ArchEnemies gets picked up.

This new thing is still in the very early stages, but it's a little more of a straight-up superhero comic, and I've got a pretty cool artist who's maybe, sort of interested.

I won't mention him by name at this point, but I will tell this quick, vague story about how I got in touch with him:

If you like, you can think of this as Part One of a new epic:

I concede that this title's not as catchy as the last one, but maybe it'll grow on us?

Anyway, here's the story:

A few weeks back, this writer that I know--who may or may not post on the Scryptic boards--posted a link... somewhere... to a comic he created. The cover to this comic was really moody and cool, and it was drawn by this artist whose name seemed REALLY familiar.

About a week later, I'm trying to remember this artist's name, and I give it a few shots in google before I get a hit.

And I suddenly remember why the artist's name sounded familiar. He's drawn a bunch of comics I've bought over the years, including some a few years back for DC. And he's got a great style that I think would be a perfect match for this new book I'm developing.

So I do some more googling, and I find a major message board that he posts to, and I send him an email through that board. I tell him that I saw this cover that he drew, and it made me think of all his earlier work, and that I've got this Dark Horse comic that's about to hit the stands, and that I'd really love to work with him on something new.

"This is gonna be great," I think.

About two hours later, I think back, and I start to second guess myself. More googling. And, of course, it turns out that he's NOT the artist of that original cover that I was looking at. No, his name just RHYMES with that other artist's name.

To quote myself: Crappity crap crap, crap-on-a-stick, crap.

I just sent this guy an email saying "Hey, I thought COVER X was great," when the only thing connecting him to that cover was the last syllable of his last name.

So I hastily threw together a second email to apologize and clarify: I thought that first cover was great, but it was all his other work (the work he actually did) that made me want to work with him.

It made me look sloppy and unprofessional, because it WAS sloppy and unprofessional. But whatever. I've still got my own Dark Horse comic.

Days went by, and I didn't hear back.

ArchEnemies came out. I bough a few copies of the first issue to send to editors and so forth. I sent another email to this artist through the board, offering to mail him a copy too.

Because, whether he works with me or not, I wanted to convince him that I'm an actual, honest-to-goodness comic book writer and not some random goof with an internet connection.

And I ended the email by saying something like "I don't want to hassle you, so this'll be my last email unless I hear back from you."

And I still didn't hear back from him.

And this is the point at which I would recommend that all of you stop. Leave well enough alone. But I'm an idiot and get vaguely obsessive about these sorts of things. I mean, by this point, I was already using this guy's art style as a reference to visualize the project in my head. I had made the decision--again, just in my head--that this WAS the guy.

"What if the email address registered to that message board is out of date?" I thought. "I should search around until I can find a direct email address for him."

Yeah. That's not at all weird or creepy or staker-ish.

So I got a hold of this other writer I know, who it turns out had done some work with him in the past, and I convinced this other writer to give me the artist's email address. And I emailed this poor artist AGAIN.

If you're wondering why I'm not in jail right now, it's because this artist apparently DIDN'T get any of those emails through the message board. Which may potentially mean, if he's reading this, that this is his first inkling of how huge of an idiot I am.

Loyal readers, of course, have known this for many months now.

So this artist appears to be up for doing some work on this new book, if Dark Horse picks it up. My editor has a preliminary version of the pitch now, and I'm waiting to hear back.

Wish me luck.

Drew Melbourne is a freelance writer living in NYC. The first issues of ArchEnemies, his debut series from Dark Horse comics, is in stores now. In the good stores, at least. For more on Drew, read DrewMelbourne.com. For more on ArchEnemies (including ordering information, previews, and convention details) check out the official website at ArchEnemiesOnline.com.