We had a wonderful time at the San Diego Comic-Con 2010.  In fact, we had such a great time that I decided we have to come back with the Flight booth for Comic-Con 2011.  The one week out of the year where we get to spend time with so many of our wonderful friends is just too special to pass up.  We already have a huge group of Flight artists planning to attend next year, so be sure to get badges as soon as you can (they sell out quick!) in order to meet all of us and help us celebrate the final installment of the Flight series.  Click here for more pictures from the event, taken by master photographer/emoter Eric Wu.

Here are the preview images for the Amulet 3 and Copper banners that we'll have at the Flight booth in San Diego (#2235)

The FLIGHT 7 preview is now online.  I think it's a very strong volume, with some of the most beautiful artwork we've ever had in the pages of Flight.  The book arrives in stores mid-July and we will be attending Comic-Con to sell and sign copies of all Flight volumes. We'll also have Copper, Amulet 1 & 2, Raina Telgemeier's Smile and Jake Parker's Missile Mouse.  Our booth is #2235, and we will be sharing the space with our friends at Gallery Nucleus once again.  This will likely be the last Comic-Con where we will have a large booth presence for Flight, so be sure to drop by and say hello.  Next year, I'll only be at the show for a day or two and probably take Juni to the San Diego Zoo and Sea World.

Here's the cover for Amulet 3: The Cloud Searchers, which will be on shelves in September 2010.  We think the book came together nicely, and I'm looking forward to sharing it with readers.  It's currently available for pre-order on Amazon, but you'll have to search for the subtitle "The Cloud Searchers".  Scholastic is currently working on getting the Amazon listing updated with the new cover and "Amulet Book 3" in the title.  In the meantime, I recommend acquainting yourself with the local comic reseller and place an order with them.  I actually buy all my comics at The Comics Factory in Pasadena.  Hanging out with shopkeeper George and his crew is one of the great things I look forward to when there's a new book I want to purchase.

On The Road Again...

I'll be heading back out on the road tomorrow, beginning with a stop in Kalamazoo, Michigan, where I will be speaking at the Michigan Library Association Spring Institute on Thursday, April 8th (my birthday). From there, I will be visiting East Woods Elementary School in Hudson, Ohio on Friday, April 9th.  Soon after that, I head out to see Steve Hamaker, Jeff Smith, Vijaya Ayer, and the rest of the Cartoon Books gang in Columbus, Ohio.  Of course, while I'm near Cleveland, I will drive through Chagrin Falls, the home of Bill Watterson, to have a coffee and to HUNT HIM DOWN.  Just kidding.  If I see him, though, I'll let you know.  If I disappear, you'll know where they're hiding me.

The Columbus leg of the trip is what I am most looking forward to.  I've been wanting to see Old Man's Cave and the Cartoon Research Library, but most of all, I've always been wanting to visit Cartoon Books.  Jeff Smith and Bone are a big part of why I do what I do for a living, both directly (because Amulet follows in the wake of Bone's success) and indirectly (because Bone was a huge inspiration for the creation of Amulet).  I may even have to work on Amulet 4 pages while I'm there.  So, I'll be traveling through Bill Watterson's hometown on my way to see Jeff Smith while promoting my own fantasy graphic novel series.  Now if I somehow run into Hayao Miyazaki during this trip, my brain will explode.  It's moments like these that, despite the difficulties of my day to day operations, reminds me that I am definitely living my dream.

On the last leg of my trip, I will be flying into San Antonio, Texas for the Texas Library Association Conference.  I will be on the Maverick Authors Get Graphic panel on the morning of Friday, April 16th.  I hear it's a good show, and the folks at Scholastic were pretty adamant that I attend this one, so I'm looking forward to it!

Okay, I have to get back to work!  Lots to do before I get on that plane.

Jason and I arrived in Istanbul last night.  We're here as guests of Amulet's Turkish publisher, Tudem. (Tilsim is the Turkish title for Amulet) We'll be teaching workshops and talking about comics all throughout the week.  Should be fun!  I'll post pictures when I have them.  In the meantime, you can follow my twitter account for more updates.

I will be speaking at Yale University, at an event called the Master's Tea, at 4:30 pm in the Jonathan Edwards building on February 24th, 2010.  If you're a student or faculty member at the school, please drop by and say hello!  Tuesday's talk at Disney Animation Studios was fun.  Thanks to Dawn Rivera-Ernster for setting that up.  I wish I left more time for the Q and A session, so I'll be cutting my future presentations shorter in favor of discussions with the audience.  That's my favorite part.

Final Flight

The next couple of years will mark the end of the Flight series.  We will be wrapping it all up with Flight Volume Eight.  We had a pretty good run, but it is now time for us to focus on producing full graphic novels.  When I started the project, many of us on the book were kids coming out of college with little experience as professional working artists.  Years later, the majority of the artists on the project have gone on to create graphic novels of their own, or are now working at major animation, film, and game studios.  The original book was created to serve a need.  That need was to get our core group published, to have our work be seen, and to get enough practice under our belts to be able to do books of our own.  After 7 years, I feel the original needs were met, and the artists are more than ready to go the distance on their own.

I will, however, continue to produce Flight Explorer, which will be retitled Explorer.  Its purpose, to introduce kids to comics and reading through bite-sized stories, remains unfulfilled, and a book like this is truly essential, especially now that there are so few places kids can find new comics.  With the demise of Disney Adventures and now Nickelodeon Magazine, parents and kids are going to have a difficult time finding premium comics content that is entirely age-appropriate.  We hope we can fill that need.

Flight Volume Seven, however, is shaping up very nicely.  I think we're going to go out on a couple of high notes with Volumes Seven and Eight.  I'm really excited to share the new books with everyone.

On Thursday night, Jason and I wrapped up the final pages for Amulet 3.  Next week, I'll be making minor adjustments, and I still have to put together the title and acknowledgements pages.  The real work for the book, 198 pages of awesome color comics, however, is done.

Jason Caffoe has done a fantastic job as the lead production assistant on the book, and the hard work and dedication shows on every page he worked on (which is a lot!).  Jason helped me out with story editing duties on top of having to match my own coloring output, and for that, he gets the Bolt City MVP Award for his work on Amulet 3.  We also got some great help on flatting from Denver Jackson, Michael Regina, Stuart Livingston, Kean Soo, and Ryan Hoffman.  In addition to helping out with the flatting, Anthony Wu, Denver, and Michael provided assistance on the coloring.  In fact, I feel that some of the pages Anthony worked on are among the best in the series.  Thanks a ton, you guys!

Amy helped out again, (of course!) but in addition to that, she managed to finish the final manuscript for her new chapter book, all while taking care of Juni (I handle some of the duties, but it's a full-time job for the nursing mom).  She's amazing.  And speaking of Juni, he's doing great.  He's grown a LOT over the first two months, and he's becoming more alert, aware and super adorable every day.  I surely have the best wife and son anyone could possibly ask for.

This weekend, I intend to relax just a bit, before getting to work on the Amulet 4 synopsis and the Amulet 3 front and back matter details.  I also have to spend some time organizing all of the company's finances and cleaning the house (still haven't taken down the Christmas tree).

Looking back over the past year, I realize I have reinvested pretty much everything I've earned from the Amulet books into the production of the new books, and this investment will hopefully be evident in everything we produce going forward.  Some days the "all or nothing" attitude can be a bit stressful, but having so much faith in the work we're doing makes me feel rather calm about it, and is making hard decisions and sacrifices a lot easier to make.  I'm very optimistic about how we're moving forward at Bolt City Productions in 2010, and I can't wait for the readers to see the results.  Thanks to all our readers for supporting us all this way.  We're going to continue to do our best to produce the highest quality reading material for years to come, and have a great time doing it!

I managed to pull away from the final stretch of Amulet 3 production to do a piece for Lift Off: The Art of Airships at Gallery Nucleus, and it was pretty relaxing.  I'll have to remind myself to take breaks to do pieces like this more often. Like I mentioned in the previous post, this show features some really talented concept artists, and I'm pretty excited to see the other pieces.  Small and large prints of the image above will be available at the event.  The show will open tomorrow (Saturday) at 7pm.  Join us for the evening to hang out with talented folks, enjoy the refreshments, and you'll be entered into a contest to win a hot air balloon ride just for attending the show!  See you there!

Here are some quick news bits, for those of you not following my very informative and entertaining twitter updates.  First up, I did an interview about the new Copper book over at Newsarama.  Thanks to Zack Smith for putting that together.  The image above is a picture from the interior of the hardcover.  I highly recommend getting the hardcover version.  It holds the big square pages together better and it really came out nicely.  The paperback is beautiful, and it has embossed(!) characters on the cover, but the hardcover production is just gorgeous.

Amulet News:  Amulet 3 is nearly complete, with a small handful of pages left to color and about a third of the book left to tweak and adjust.  Should be finished early next week after some crazy long nights of work.  Also, Amulet 2 has been nominated for a Cybil Award.

Gallery News:  I will have work featured in Lift Off: The Art of Airships, a gallery show at Nucleus that will also feature work by my studiomate Khang Le (who's currently working on the new Bryan Singer and Spielberg films), and concept artists Daniel Dociu, Stephan Martiniere, and Jake Parker.  I'm hoping to find a window of time to produce new work for the show, and I'll post the image once (or if!) I get it done. The show opens this Saturday at 7pm.  Hope to see some of you there!