Ain’t it Cool News has run a preview of “DAD!” which they are following up with a full review next week:

Finally we have an extra special preview from a comic book documentary called DAD! This book from Th3rd World Studios documents the relationship between the book’s writer Scott King and his father who has a terminal illness. This is one of those projects that continues to show the versatility of the comic book medium. It yanks on the heartstrings and will make even the most cold-hearted hold back a tear. This mix of photorealism and actual photographs is a true gem deserving of an audience and I’m proud to be able to showcase it here.

I just got an email letting me know that Sequart has posted the first review of “DAD!”

Despite the book’s problems, this is, intermittently, a compelling read. This feels like an overambitious first project by a young creator, but I admire both King’s ambition and the way he tackled such an intensely personal issue.

It’s a pretty decent review and even the few not-so nice things said about the book are backed-up to the point that I can see where they are comming from. The full review is posted after the break… (Read on …)

Crap! Just learned that the art corrections and coloring on “DAD!” have to be finished by Friday so it can go to the printers. Guess I know what I’m doing all week.

Forgot to mention, “DAD! A Documentary Graphic Novel” is now on Amazon, though for whatever odd reason they have the price wrong. We told them like three weeks ago it needed to be fixed and apparently that will happen any day now.

Since we have our first press coverage today, I thought I should finally make the formal announcement of “DAD! A Documentary Graphic Novel.” The book will be 152 pages and will premiere at SPX and will be officially released on November 8th. The summary of the book is:

“DAD!” is a documentary graphic novel about a family dealing with a father’s illness and adjusting their entire existence to it. At its heart, it is about the story of a bitter son feeling guilty about leaving home, while trying to make peace with his father before he does.

The non-fiction book was “filmed” over the course of two and a half weeks and is complied from 8,349 photos and over 16 hours of transcribed audio.

You can check out it’s page at Th3rd World (which includes a preview) or go ahead and click that big blazing button on the right and pre-order it.

Comics Worth Reading is the first site/publication to mention “DAD! A Documentary Graphic Novel.”

The most distinctive factor, though, is that they describe the creation as having been “filmed”, and a look at the preview shows that … well, I wouldn’t call it a graphic novel at all. It’s photos with word balloons put on. That limits what the author can do, and it doesn’t provide the level of removal I want to be able to approach the material as a story. I got caught up in trying to figure out how they arranged shots, whether they were recreating things as they happened, who took which photos when… all things that got in the way of my “reading” the pages.It feels as though someone’s trying to use the hot publishing tag “graphic novel” without going through the difficult step of drawing (or the as difficult step of finding an artist). I didn’t care for the approach.

What do you think? Am I too stuck on what graphic novels have been to see what they could be? Or is this just a storyboard on paper, not an appropriate use of the “graphic novel” tag?

All in all, her reaction is one we expected to come up at some point, but I was hoping it wouldn’t be brought up the first time the book was mentioned somewhere. She did base her post off the book’s 14 page preview, which is why I think her comments are directed more toward how “DAD!” fits in(or doesn’t) into the medium as opposed to the actual story or storytelling, but I could be wrong. Maybe she’ll be willing to check out an ARC copy of the book…

Spending the week making phone calls, editing, and finally mailing out the ARC copies of “DAD! A Documentary Graphic Novel.” So posting will be down to a minimum.

This is the most recent version of the cover for “DAD! A Documentary Graphic Novel.” It’s definitely not finalized yet, but just thought you guys would like to see an update.

The ARC (advance reading copies) for “DAD! A Documentary Graphic Novel” have finally arrived. The 40+ copies of the book will be sent to major publications across the country for advance reviews. Man this is so exciting.

Above is the wrap-around cover we are using for the Advance Reading Copies of “DAD!” (Click it to Enlarge). The right-side is the front cover and the left side is the back cover.

Look who is listed as exhibiting at SPX… Me!

Guess who will be attending SPX to premier their first graphic novel.

“DAD!” has been lettered and passed onto proof readers and editors. The game plan now is to get back corrections that need to be made to the art and lettering. Once that happens there will be several more rounds of proof reading before ARC (advance reading copies) will be printed for marketing purposes. So as of now, it looks like we are still on schedule for an October ’08 release!

Getting the rough (keyword is “rough”) lettering done this weekend on “DAD!” so unless there is a big news story, don’t expect updates. But hey, give me some credit, I at least did some posting today when I don’t normally post at all on Fridays.

It took almost a year but I’m done with everything that I can do with “DAD!” The pages are laid out (the equivalent of pencils are done) and the script was finalized today. I’m now sending it on so that the color-er and letter-er can do their part. Considering its 150 some pages… its going to be a while before they finish what they are doing. But it just feels NICE to know that I’m done with my part!

“Supernatural” is adding two female roles to the show who will be series regulars. A lot of fans are upset about this because they feel the girls will obviously be love interests for Sam and Dean. This has caused the shows executive producer to give one of the best quotes I’ve heard all summer:

“We are not turning into One Tree Hill with monsters – I swear. I’d rather put a gun in my mouth.”

Other than that AWSOME quote… the interview here is actually a decent interview. It talks about why they added the women and the general direction of next season. The two women being added to the show will be monster hunters and will be played by Katie Cassidy and Lauren Cohan. I’m not familuar with Cassidy but Cohan was the really hot chick from “Van Wilder 2: The Rise of Taj.”

Conversion to Schrutebucks: 1 stanley nickel = (1 schrutebuck * 1 leprechaun)/ 1 unicorn

Cash Value: ? ? ? 1 stanley nickel = $ (1 leprechaun/1000)/ 1 unicorn

I figured it was good to start the new year bye ending this two week unplanned hiatus of my blog. The internet connection at home was spotty and then between dad getting sick and getting sick myself things have been a mess. He?s still not doing great, but we?re out of the immediate fear-zone.

Right now I?m working on my application for a Xeric grant and doing a re-write of my novel (Classes start 3 weeks from today so I have plenty of time to get a lot of work done). Other than that it?s the same old same old. So without further adu? here is two weeks worth of posts:

- Third ?Resident Evil? film will be the last.

- Brian K. Vaughan has joined the “Lost” writing staff.

-?Stargate SG-1? ends this winter after being declared the longest running sci-fi/fantasy show ever. I?m not a huge fan of the show but I watch it because at the very least it has those episodes that are just fun and silly. Though I don?t know how I feel about Sci-Fi Channel doing a second spin-off of the series.

- ?Shrek The Third? trailer is online. The first is one of my favorite movies ever so I?m excited that the third one will redeem the sequel.

- ?Venture Bros.? the second season will hit dvd April 17^th and the third season will start sometime around then.

- In 1994, the animation industry voted on the 50 greatest cartoons. I of course feel there is a lot of good stuff missing from this list and recent stuff that?s not accounted for, but hey whatever, I was only 12 when the list was made.

- ?Fantastic Four? released a new trailer and a bunch of screenshots can be found here. It’s neat to see the Silver Surfer, but I really want to see Galactus.

- For those of you who celebrated Chrismika here is a Jewish version of myspace and here is the raunchy commercial for the site.

- FDA approves cloned animals for consumption.

-The anti-banana bruising device.

- I recently watched ?The Chipmunks Adventure? movie that came out in 1987. It was one of my favorite movies as a kid. I also discovered that a new Chipmunks movie is in production.

- IGN reports that there will be several Kingdom Hearts projects announced very soon.

- The Empire may have been defeated, but it didn?t stop Storm Troppers from marching at at the Rose Parade. It was at the Parade last Friday that George Lucas announced ?Indiana Jones 4.? The movie is about to go into production and come out the summer of ?08.

- Saddam Hussein, Gerald Ford, and James Brown all died.

- David Tennant, the current Dr. Who, is leaving the show. He is currently filming the show’s third season and will leave sometime durring the fourth season. Also, I watched the two-part season finale’ and I’m ashamed to admit that it made me cry! Seeing Rose heart broken and leaving the show was sooooooooo sad.

- I hate high schoolers who write novels and then sell them.

- Masi Oka, Hiro from ?Heroes,? will be on Jay Leno and share a sneak peak of new episodes, which return on Jan 22. Also, Wizard did a ?Heroes? Q&A but there really isn?t anything there that I didn?t already post about.

- “Wild Fire” the third season premiers tonight and then ?Beauty & The Geek? does so on Wednesday. On the 19^th both ?Monk? and ?Psych? will be back and then ?24?s? two-night premier starts on the 14^th.

I was a little taken back when the headline on CNN read ?Jack The Riper Returns,? which was later re-written as ?Prostitutes told: Stay off streets.? I just found it as an odd editorial correction.

Bush is having a 3 day consultation about what to do in Iraq. Let me make it simple for him: GET THE F* OUT!

Something is wrong in the world when major news corporations report on Britney Spears crotch shots.

Thursday is the last day of my photography class so I’ve spent today and the past weekend getting my final 12 photos done. For the final we had to put together a series of 8 to 12 photos and if you want to see what I did you can go here (note: the above photo is from my second assignment, also I’ll be on campus all day for the next two days).

Life & Style is reporting that Adam Brody and Rachel Bilson have called it quits. I’ve also confirmed with several of my spoiler/scoop sights. So after almost three years the “OC” couple is parting ways.

This of course is great news for me. When I last talked to Rachel she said she didn’t want to date because she was in a commited relationship, but since that’s over I finally have a chance! ((shut up and just humor me)

One thing OC fans don’t have to worry about is the break-up affecting Seth and Summer. With only 16 episodes the storylines are locked for this year. In fact ((warning spoilers)) expect to see Seth asking Mr. Roberts for his daughter’s hand in marriage in the semi-near future.

The big national news is that a memo from former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld to Bush said that the war strategy was not working. It suggested withdraws and was dated two days before Rumsfeld resigned.

I?m sorry, but when I first read an article about it on CNN I couldn?t help but think ?Is this real or just a really bad SNL skit??

I?m all about America. I?m very American, from my TV viewing, my loud outspokenness, weird sense of humor and so on? I mean I?m the type of person that proves the American stereotypes when visiting other countries. I also support our troops. I would never be willing to put my life on the line, but because of that I have a lot of respect for our soldiers.

HOWEVER, enough is enough. We?ve had the highest death counts in Iraq since the current war started and things are bad. It?s time to just cut our losses and spar the lives of soldiers.

So it?s sad to think that the Secretary of Defense wrote the President a letter basically saying ?Dude we are F*ed. We need to get out now!? and then just two days later he?s resigned.

Major leaders in the African-American community asked the entertainment industry to stop using the ?n? word. Reverend Jesse Jackson (and others) met with film studios, record labels, tv networks, and the media asking everyone to ban the ?n? word.

“We want to give our ancestors a present,” Jackson said at the press conference. “Dignity over degradation.”

?now I?m sorry, but I wonder if Jackson is aware that the ?n? word is most commonly used by BET, rappers, and black comedians. The major networks don?t use the word on their TV shows nor do you find it in country music. I mean come on! He’s preaching to the wrong audience.

Of course all of this is steaming from Michael Richards (Kramer) using the word last week. Richards hired a publicist and has been doing the media circuit making apologies. He even appeared on Jackson?s radio show, though this didn?t stop Jackson from telling everyone to not buy the ?Seinfeld? season 7 which goes on sale tomorrow. However, I think someone forgot to tell him that only white nerdy guys buy the ?Seinfeld? DVDs and most don?t even know who Jackson is.

I dunno the whole thing seems silly. You can?t ban the ?n? word from rap songs because of free speech. You also can?t get rid of it because? DUH ? it?s rap. It?s sad but I almost feel Jackson and the rest are just using the media coverage of the Richard?s incident for their own self serving purpose.

Don?t get me wrong. It would be nice if no racial slurs were ever used, but its unrealistic to think you can just get rid of one of them because you told the media not to use it. If they really want to make a difference they should target the rappers, actors, and educate children.