This cup of coffee and I are currently recovering from a long but successful weekend in Seattle for the Emerald City Comicon.  Thank you to everybody who came by and said hello!  It was a much-needed morale boost for me, here at the tail-end of this Winter of Ultimate Suck.

Thank you especially to everybody who asked me (often aggressively!) when the first Family Man book will be coming out.  The answer: as soon as possible.  I’ve got several requests out for quotes, and as soon as I receive one that sounds good, I’ll kick into pre-press mode. It’s going to be a lot of work to get it into shape (Dylan of 2006 didn’t quite know what she was setting herself up for…) and I’ll be taking preorders/Kickstarter to help cover the costs.

On to other business:

My lovely friend, sometime-collaborator, and all-around champion YA author and youth librarian Sara Ryan is tackling an excellent project.

She’s in the process of writing a graphic novel to be illustrated by Carla Speed McNeil, and, being a good person, decided to ask all the artists at Periscope Studio about their pet peeves when it comes to comics writing.

I chimed in.  I write for myself, I’ve written for others, and I’ve drawn scripts from other people as well, so I am just full of annoying advice!

My first item:

1)  Don’t say “Have fun with this!” Unless the writer actually knows what I find fun.  “In this panel, we see an elegantly-dressed 18th century intellectual riding a dragon” would, for me, be fun.  For somebody else, eye-stabby.

Read the rest of the post over at Sara’s blog!