Tuesday, March 18, 2008

This Is One of Those Posts Where I Talk About Me

I hate missing a couple of blogging days, but I'm working on a bunch of projects right now that needed my attention. (Plus, I had what the doctors might call the pukey-sickness all day Sunday, and that wiped away a day and a half of my life right when I really could have used the time.)

Basically, this year is a transitional one for me, and depending how much work I get done on weekends and over the summer and how things play out with my full-time job, I might be able to make a run at this whole getting-paid-to-write-stuff thing. Here's what I've been up to lately:

  • I have a couple of projects cooking with a literary agent, but I can't say much more other than that they involve me and comic books, and one is geared more toward the educational market while the other would be a more mainstream memoir-type of book. Somehow I have to find time to produce more pages for that stuff, but one of the completed proposals is ready to go out, at least.
  • I just finished an article which will appear in Back Issue Magazine, the "Mutants" issue scheduled for this summer. Michael Eury was pleased with how it turned out, so you can look for more Back Issue appearances by me in the distant future (that magazine has a tremendous lead time, so my next shot to contribute probably won't appear on the stands until next year).
  • I'm still working with Todd Casey on a fantastic graphic novel project that is also kind of top secret. But it will not only be different from what you'd expect, it will be better than you'd expect, and I know you have really high standards. It's gonna be good, trust me.
  • I'm also helping to coordinate--and this is unrelated to my writing career, but it's pretty damn cool--a family-friendly comics exhibition in my home town focusing on the work of the legendary Joe Staton. It turns out that Lawrence Klein, founder of the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art, lives right down the street from me, and he asked me to help him organize the whole thing. Look for more details on that this summer.
  • Also, I've been invited to spread my comic book reviewery skills elsewhere--and I can't say where and I can't say when you'll start seeing them, but my reviews will become more ubiquitous in the coming weeks. As soon as I can announce the details, I will. Until then, stay excited. Actually, take the amount of excited you are and triple it, because that's how big the news could potentially be. You never know.
  • And finally, FINALLY, I've finished proofreading the Teenagers from the Future manuscript. This book of essays on the Legion of Super-Heroes has taken far more of my time than I ever thought possible. I proposed to the Sequart guys, last New York Comic-Con, "hey, how about if I coordinate and edit a book of critical essays about the Legion? I need kind of a break after the Morrison book, and I'm not up for writing a sequel right away." Well, little did I know what I was getting myself into, but after almost a year of diligent work, the book is finally ready to go to press, the list of contributors is impressive and the essays are excellent. It's going to be the must-buy book of the 2008 NYCC, not least because where else can you read Matt Fraction writing about the Legion of Super-Heroes?!? Yes, Matt Fraction was kind enough to provide the Foreword to our little (and, by little, I mean 350 page) book and that's probably as close as you'll come to seeing Fraction writing about a DC comic for a long, long time. (I don't know if you've heard, but he's scheduled to write every Marvel book by 2009.)
  • Plus, you still get me for free here almost daily and with Chad Nevett at Sequart.org every Friday. What a bargain.

So wait, how am I going to have time for all of this?

9 comments:

Chad Nevett said...

My plan for the year: see where riding your coat-tails will take me. WHOOOO!

(The alternate post idea I had was something about my mantra for the year being "Be the sucker fish, be the sucker fish," but it seemed a little obtuse without a bit more context. Ah well.)

But, in all seriousness, that all sounds great, man. Congrats. I look forward to reading all of these various things.

Timothy Callahan said...

And, with your Master's in Creative Writing, you too can become a high school English teacher. After that...the world!

Chad Nevett said...

While applying for grad school, teacher's college was something I looked into, but only one or two schools in Ontario had political science as a teachable--and I made the mistake of only taking English and poli-sci courses after first year in my undergrad (actually, including first year, the only non-English or poli-sci classes I took were film and a calculus/algebra class).

Marc Caputo said...

Tim, that's all very great news. Best of luck with all of it.

Don't forget the little people - although I think I'm taller and easily heavier.

But you get the point.

Molly said...

All of that is way awesome and exciting, but I do kind of have my fingers crossed that you keep teaching. Not because I want to dampen your spirits and crush your dreams, but because you are a truly great teacher (or at least you were five years ago, hey maybe you suck now).

Michael said...

So I guess it's too late to submit a Legion essay, huh?

Jamaal said...

I'm more than a little upset about this. My plan was: go to NYCC, get interviews, write reviews for my website, and spend no money. Now there's a collection of Legion essays. Damn you. Well, we all know what they say about "the best plans of mice and men".

Best of luck with all your projects.

Timothy Callahan said...

Yeah, Molly, since you graduated I totally started sucking as a teacher. Now, when I even bother to show up, it's nothing but racial slurs and comments like, "if you weren't so stupid, you'd know how dumb you really are!" Plus, I make them read "Ethan Frome."

Michael: While it may be too late to submit that essay, it's not too late to constantly plug the Legion book at your website. Over and over and over.

Jamaal: Not spend money at a convention? That's no fun. You can stay home and spend no money any day. (Unless you're me, and you just can't resist that lure of the One Click.)

Molly said...

Yeah, that's about what I figured. That and many bottles of alcohol in your desk.

Oh so are you going to that Word St. benefit in April? I volunteered to sell tickets and do general set-up stuff, even though I don't really know what "general set-up stuff" will entail.