Unfortunately I ran out of time last month to talk about some of the very good books in the Previews catalogue, available for pre-order, and coming our way in March.
One of those was the very first volume of my good friend Jim Zubkavich’s SKULLKICKERS trade paperback, entitled 1,000 Opas and a Dead Body, being published by the fine folks at Image Comics. It collects the first 5 issues and some short stories that ran in Image’s Popgun Anthology, and it’s quite a bit of fun.
Just today I’d noticed that Jim had posted up the cover of the printed book to his Facebook page, complete with little spot-varnish skulls, and I thought that was a very cool deal.
It reminded me of how excited I’d gotten, seeing my first work in print, and then finally (eventually) holding the first trade paperback to feature my work in hand. For me it was seeing that first issue of Jimmie Robinson’s Evil & Malice, which I coloured from start to stop– that was the book that really made me well-up with pride (although kudos to J. Torres for getting me my first job on Siren). My first piece of published comics writing was Put The Book Back On The Shelf, an anthology of comics adapting the music of Belle & Sebastian, a band I adore. That was a book-book, a graphic novel, and it was my writing and not my colouring seeing print and that was a different kind of pride. Funnily enough, all of those works were from Image Comics too.
I mostly work in other disciplines now, organizational creativity rather than strictly creative, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t miss it a little. Colouring, design, writing. I do use all of those skills in service to The Beguiling and TCAF and even occasionally the blog here. But yeah, seeing Jim talk about how happy he was to know there was a printed trade paperback of his work, a work he put a lot of effort into writing, designing, promoting, developing, even colouring and drawing a tiny a little of it, it reminded me of the thrill of seeing a new comic that I’d work on show up in the store. Kudos Jim, hope you’re enjoying it.
Skullkickers Volume 1: 1000 Opas and a Dead Body by Jim Zubkavich, Edwin Huang, and Misty Coats is 144 pages of over the top fantasy adventure retailing for the bargain-basement price of just $9.99. It will be on sale March 9th in better comic book stores everywhere.
– Christopher