Before we started the show, I was discussing my work cutting down a pair of evil holly trees in my backyard. This led to the idea of making a bench out of the remaining two stumps. And of COURSE this led to the idea of the Ent’s assault on Isengard – after they wiped out the Orcs, did the Ents fashion benches out of the Orc bodies, do you suppose?

Poor Dominic. Little did he suppose that a bit of humorous zombie anus sketchwork he did would turn into his calling card on the interwebs. I attempted to repair the damage with this episode, but time will tell if Vivonication perpetuates throughout the blogosphere.

My phat lewts for the FUBAR 2 medal of honor-level sponsorship were just INSANE. You chumps may have delighted in your copy of FUBAR 1 & 2, or maybe your 11×17 zombie combat targets, or perhaps even your custom sketches. Me? I GOT IT ALL, BABY! I’m madly in love with my portrait – but everything in this reward pack is just incredible. The line art from Jeff and Jim McMunn is beyond cool – I really want to hang it in my office, but I’m afraid of it getting faded. Anyone have any suggestions?

The fact that FUBAR 2 is now a NY Times Best-seller really is crazy to think about. Not because of the quality – it’s a fantastic book, filled with some of the greatest talent out there. But as is the case with so many great indie talents, I expected it to be relegated to obscurity. Obviously, I greatly underestimated the drive and determination of the FUBAR High Command, because they proceeded to knock this one out of the ballpark. The book sells itself, don’t get me wrong – but to be a team of independent creators and to get the books out on such a large scale takes the brains and determination equivalent to launching a full-scale invasion. Getting the chance to talk with Jeff, Dom and Steve about this is another fascinating look into what it takes to be a success in the indie market.

At this point the Gary Friedrich vs Marvel case is old news. But the whole thing stinks – when I look at something like this, I just feel sad for the state of the comics industry as a whole. Everything has gotten to be so about the bottom line and copyright that there’s no joy left in the “Big Two” anymore. I can’t bring myself to buy any of their books, despite many of my favorite creators still being there. To me, indie books are where it is at now; they still appeal to the inner kid who loves comics (and outer adult who has money to spend on comics).

If you were like me and had no idea about The Gutters, I strongly recommend you check out Jeff’s work here and here. Hilarious!

Finally, there’s a couple of things you should check out if you haven’t already: Troll Hunter, Ready Player One, Generation Kill, and Red State.

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We needed to come back to the Walk – the National MS Society is important to us; they fight hard for beneficial legislation and government funding for new research, they provide programs to help us in our daily lives, they fund research into new medicines/treatments, they provide information for people with MS and for those caring for someone with MS – the list goes on and on. These aren’t just abstract programs that get discussed in a newsletter to make donors feel good; these are real programs that help real people – a group of volunteers from our local office came out three weeks ago to help us paint our house.

Through the years, we’ve always been counted on to be one of the “wacky” teams; we’ve dressed in cow costumes, as a pint of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream (Cure Concoction), as characters from Super Mario Kart (one of my favorites – complete with power-ups and turtle shells), even as (less-than-)super heroes. The Walk is an exhausting day because of all the effort we put into it, but it’s a huge amount of fun with our teammates, and always a great time.

This year, though, I feel like our butts have been kicked before we even began. I haven’t been networking with our friends to assemble the team, I have no idea what to do for our “theme” (or even if we want one this year), and I feel like everyone already has enough problems of their own that they don’t need to hear me begging for money/time/effort. And Becky’s health has continued to decline. She’s at the point now where she can barely do anything; she spends most of her day in bed because she can no longer transfer to her wheelchair on her own. She’s tried physical therapy and is working hard at losing weight now to help, but it hasn’t made much of an impact (she has lost over 20 pounds already, and that’s awesome – it’s just not helping to regain abilities the way we’d hoped).

I want to do so much – raise tons of money, organize fun events for our team, come up with a hilarious theme for the Walk, print fun t-shirts – but the reality is, I just don’t have time. Being a caregiver is more time-consuming than I ever would have expected. On top of that, I’m working hard on home renovations to try and refinance our mortgage, so I’m spending every free minute on one project or another around the house. And then begging friends to come over and repair all the damage that I did during my projects…

The irony is that with Becky worsening, we need the MS Society more than ever – and yet we’re able to help them less and less every year. And with it being more and more difficult to go out for Becky, we’re rapidly losing touch with many of our friends, so we can’t get the big team together to help us raise money. I don’t write for N3 these days, so none of my old gamer friends & readers even know I still exist, let alone have any interest in helping. My efforts at getting into writing comics hasn’t taken off (due to me not having the time to devote to writing – see previous whining), so I don’t have the contacts there to get a big campaign going.

Soooooo – if you’ve read this far, I hope you’ll come with us just a little further (to badly paraphrase Andy’s letter to Red). I know money is tight for everyone these days, but if you can find a few dollars to pledge, that would be great. If you can join our team and raise at least $25 in donations, that’s even better (while I love having people join us, a lot of times folks forget the reason we’re doing the Walk in the first place – to raise money to fight MS!). And if you can’t do either, perhaps you can help spread the word?

We’re joined this episode by the Supreme Allied Commander of FUBAR, Jeff McComsey; General of Vodka, Dom Vivona; and Secretary General of the Self-Prescribed Meds, Jason Steve Becker. This is actually one of the most-informed, fascinating shows we’ve done since Jason Becker called in. The guys were incredibly open and upfront with us, discussing numbers, Diamond, self-publishing, and many, many facets of putting an anthology book together. If you can get past our drunken side-tracking, there’s really some great information to glean here. If you want to skip to the meat of the conversation, it starts after the first hour (yes, this IS a long one!), but you’ll be missing out on some other great discussions:

Many, many, MANY moons ago (January of 2008, we had the awesome Sean McManus on our show. Unfortunately, like any great moment in our show, it was completely ruined by my stupidity. Our live listeners of the day got to hear his incredible interview. He’s such a great guy, and I his book is fantastic (and possibly still available for ordering!). If you’re a fan of writers like Jason Becker (and you goddamned better be or he’ll show up hiding behind a curtain in your house with a table leg and beat the SHIT outta you!), you owe it to yourself to check out these excellent comics.

And when you order, add a note that we’re very, very, VERY sorry, and still want him to come back. Please?

I don’t know if they have Drink & Draws in your neck of the woods, but around here, they’re damn near legendary events that give birth to epic sketches and outlandish drunken antics. I would tell you what goes on in them, but I don’t draw, and they don’t allow pinch drinkers.

Comic book conventions for us have never actually been about comic books so much as about comic book people. People of all sorts (and shapes, holy mackeral, the SHAPES!) come together to share a hard-core love of comics, and some of the coolest people actually create even cooler books. It’s an incredible thrill to be able to meet and spend time with all of those creative people, and it really energizes the creative juices.

And destroys the liver.

Tori is a glutten for punishment. I’m not sure what possessed her to come BACK to the show, because we’ve only been getting worse. Especially knowing that she appreciates a good boob-shot with the best of us, things tend to get very NSFW rapidly when she’s around. What can I say – she brings out the best in us!

Atomic Robo is not only one of the greatest goddamned books out there, it’s soon to be one of the greatest goddamned digital shorts out there. The Fictory is a group of creative geniuses who can melt your face with their talents. Luckily for all of humanity, they’ve turned their powers to good and focus on crafting incredible games and comics.

And now, animation.

Admittedly, this has been in the hopper for a long time. They’ve been a bit waylaid with all of the work the individual creators have been off doing on their own, but trust me when I tell you that the animated Atomic Robo short is going to be an absolute nut-shot of non-stop entertainment. I don’t want to get your expectations up, but let me just say one word: Oscar-worthy. Or is that two words? Whatever, it’s going to tweak your nips.

We talk a great game about the 2012 Boston Comic Con, but HappyJack is probably the only one among us that is seriously dedicated to going. Don’t get me wrong: I’m sure Sexy wants to go, and I sure as hell do, too – but HappyJack is likely the only one that’s going to be ready for this con.

At the Pittsburgh Con (I think it was?), things got a “little out of control” with HappyJack’s sketch cards. The blame is discussed in the show, and one of the results was this episode’s featured image above, but trust me when I tell you these artisté types are dangerous men.

Johnny Allen taught us many things over our numerous encounters with him at comic cons. The first and most important was to always wear good shoes. But he’s such a nice guy and a real marketing genius, getting to be neighbors with him at a con is like an advanced marketing course. For FREE. Also, Stykman rules.

Speaking of comic cons – some day we all want to make the trek to HeroesCon. But it’s so damn expensive! I figure when the FUBAR crew starts raking in millions and can afford to hire professional booth babes, I’m TOTALLY in. Until that day, I’ll keep pining away and living vicariously through the adorable Kelly Sue‘s accounts. Seriously – how cute?

Tommy Castillo is a character of some disagreement ’round these parts. No one will question his artist abilities, but HappyJack is frequently frustrated by the man. Specifically, his habit of blocking entire swathes of artist alley booths with his displays. I like the guy, and I think Dr. Sexy is somewhere in the middle. But one thing we all agree on: not wearing shoes into a public restroom is goddamned disgusting.

By some miracle, Jim McMunn began working with HappyJack a few years ago. Apparently he didn’t realize his amazing talent, and it took our building an altar to him to recognize it. Only, by “altar” I mean “a lot of Jamesons,” and by “recognize it” I mean, “accept he was pretty good if it meant I would stop trying to kiss his shoes.”

If you’re at all interested in having a table at a comic book convention, this should make an interesting listen for you. Provided you can get past the drunken antics, of course. But hey, if you’ve read this far, what’s another two hours of listening?

Oh, and go buy some FUBAR already.

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