Thursday, November 24, 2011

FEEDING GROUND _ THANKFUL

(art by JANET LEE)

Given the holiday, I thought it would be fitting to share the acknowledgments from our book along with live links and a few other people that we could not fit due to space constraints.

As a group, we benefited greatly from the insight and experiences of Thomas Peyton and Luis Alberto Urrea, the counsel of Suzana Carlos, the encouragement and camaraderie of artist Juan Doe, and the fantastic owners and community of comic book creators surrounding Bergen Street Comics in Brooklyn, NY. Thanks to Germán Ventriglia for the use of his font CAN CAN DE BOIS. Great thanks to everyone at Archaia Entertainment not only for recognizing our vision and taking a chance on FEEDING GROUND but also for the guidance and support to help make it stronger.
(art by TOM FORGET)

MY THANKS

Thanks to cartoonists Rick Ritter, Mike Dawson, GB Tran and the guys of MAMMAL, their art and dedication convinced me to get back into making comics.

Paul Zdanowicz - horror guru and Lapinski-booster with a keen critical eye.

Klaus Janson - whose professional instruction came just at the right time to bring structure and rules to what I had been discovering on the page.

Brian Michael Bendis - for providing the Jinxworld message board and its posters for keeping me company in the solitude of my studio.

John Siuntres - whose Word Balloon Podcast interviews are like an audio course in comic career and craft.

To my family overall and specifically: my cousin Ali for her assistance as a Spanish reader, my cousin Jennifer for her buttons and friendship, and to my parents whose generous affection has always allowed me to thrive.

And, to Lindsay, thanks for adding sweetness to my life and for riding this wolf to Bayonne and beyond.

(art by JUAN DOE)

Here are thanks from the rest of the FEEDING GROUND creative team.

SWIFTY LANG
Swifty would like to thank: My folks, Drs. Arnold & Gale, sibs, David and Samantha, Neal Mitnick, Moshe Pinchevsky, B.B., my people in South Florida, NYC, and worldwide. This is dedicated to my girl, Spooky, for listening without judgement, even about werewolves.

CHRIS MANGUN
Chris would like to thank the following people: His father Rick, who taught him craftsmanship. His mother Kathie, who taught him how to listen to people. His sister Jenny, who opened his eyes to ideas and music at the right time. His brother Rob, the best reader he knows. His Uncle Tim, for evoking storytelling as an important part of sharing. And most of all, his best friend Mel, who believed in him through unbelievable weekends and continues to do so with kind support. Also, Pale Ale beer... that friendly spirit who sometimes helps grease the pleasant grind of so-called-life-events.

NATHALIA RUIZ MURRAY
Nathalia would like to thank Mike, Swifty and Chris for letting her be a part of this fascinating world of wolves. She is obliged to her husband Liam Murray for not complaining as she read the books aloud in Spanish (sometimes with telenovela emphasis). Mostly she’d like to thank her mother Ines Ruiz, for putting up with numerous questions on (hopefully not completely out of date) Mexicanisms and not yelling at her when she forgot an accent or two.

(art by FRED CHAO)

And, lastly

Mucho thanks to the artists who contributed their time and talents to realizing our story as the pin-up art included in the series and collected editions of FEEDING GROUND (as well as throughout this blog post).

You can find links to their work below:

Fred Chao fredchao.com
Juan Doe  juandoe.com
Alex Eckman-Lawn  alexeckmanlawn.com
Tom Forget  tomforget.com
Chandra Free  spookychan.com
Kate Glasheen katiecrimespree.com
Janet Lee  j-k-lee.com
Benjamin Marra  benjaminmarra.blogspot.com
GB Tran gbtran.com    

(gobble gobble by TIM HAMILTON)

Sunday, November 20, 2011

FEEDING GROUND _ Store Signing!



On Wednesday, November 30th I'll be doing an all-day FEEDING GROUND comic signing at RICK'S COMIC CITY in Nashville. Info below and here's a link to the Google Map.
2710 Old Lebanon Rd Suite 3
Nashville TN 37214
(615) 883 - 7890
It's a great shop with a deep selection of back issues and toys that also does a great job of displaying a group of the previous issues of most titles on the main wall.


For those of you that are new to FEEDING GROUND, here's a brief description and some links to bring you up to speed:
A new nightmare plagues the Mexico-Arizona border. A famine caused by Blackwell Industries drives Diego Busqueda, a noble coyote, to lead a band of Mexican border crossers across the unforgiving Devil’s Highway, a desert cursed with blistering days and deadly nights. Back home, Diego’s daughter, Flaca, discovers that something hungrier prowls the factory fields. Stalked and persecuted, can the Busqueda family maintain their dreams of immigration or will the unspeakable horrors of the desert tear them apart? On the Feeding Ground, there is no freedom without sacrifice...
- Previous Blog Posts
- Our Facebook Group Page
- The Archaia Website


And, here's the trailer we cut for the book.




Hope to see you there!

Monday, November 7, 2011

FEEDING GROUND _ Back to the Future

Saturday, November 5th was "Flux Capacitor Day," the unofficial (as of yet) annual holiday celebrating Dr. Emmett Brown's innovation of the device that would make time travel possible. Swifty, Chris, and I did a little time traveling of our own recently at New York Comic Con where we had the great fortune of seeing so many old and new friends from our past who came out to support us, sometimes with artistic creations of their own or grown kids we had not yet met.

With the FEEDING GROUND Hardcover out on stores (and on Amazon) and the holidays fast approaching this seemed like a good time to reflect and do a round-up of key links and recent events from our FEEDING GROUND timeline, in reverse. You can see all FG-related blog posts HERE and we'll be detailing a select group below:

OCTOBER 31, 2011
FEEDING GROUND HALLOWEEN PARTY, SALON HECHO, NYC

In many ways for me, this event, organized by Chris, was the bow on my FEEDING GROUND experience. I had recently moved to Nashville and, even more so than at NYCC, this was a gathering of my closest friends who came to party. I was floored to have the modern Mexi-Polka band Rana Santacruz perform (they also scored the FG Trailer) and it made for the perfect so-long-for-now to the book and city of New York. You can see more photos and videos at our FG Facebook Page HERE.








OCTOBER 30, 2011
HALLOWEEN REVIEWS


"Moody, tactical, arrogant and downright chilling—Sénor Blackwell is perhaps one of the greatest villains in recent comics history." - The Comic Book Snob

From the start, reviews let us know we existed and provided a constructive mirror to let us know how our craft and ideas were received. But, this pair of Halloween reviews (from Comic Book.com and The Comic Book Snob) also included us with distinguished company (SEVERED, THE WALKING DEAD, 30 DAYS OF NIGHT) that suggested that we've earned our space on the shelf alongside them.


OCTOBER 14-16, 2011
NEW YORK COMIC CON 2011



Did a fairly comprehensive Top 11 List of the Con HERE. Major highlights included signing all of the floppy issues of FEEDING GROUND for a fan (above) and participating on Archaia's HOW TO MAKE A GREAT GRAPHIC NOVEL PANEL. All five of my clips are up on my Youtube channel and you can watch the segment about Pitching, below:




SEPTEMBER 27, 2011
FEEDING GROUND HARDCOVER FOR SALE ON AMAZON.COM

No fanfare, it was just there one day after over a year of work, and soon so was our first reader review. Even more than a critic's review, this was interpretation of the story that signaled to me that the book was out of my hands and belonged to the world.
Feeding Ground uniquely captures the spirit of "The American Dream". Historically, the crossings to this land have been fraught with both fear and unfairness. The werewolves of Feeding Ground serve as metaphors, and political reminders, of the "unwelcome mat" that has greeted countless groups of immigrants, who sniffed freedom, only to be turned away from our shores. A must read for those who still believe in the Emma Lazarus inscription at the base of Lady Liberty.

SEPTEMBER 21, 2011
FOREWORD BY LUIS ALBERTO URREA

Luis literally wrote the book on THE DEVIL'S HIGHWAY and his epic non-fiction prose educated us on the desert border; mind, body, and soul. It was an honor that he agreed to write the foreword to our Hardcover and his comments will always be all the affirmation we'll ever need. Be sure to check out both his novels and non-fiction work and you can read the foreword in my original post HERE.

APRIL, 2011
"SOMEBODY NEEDS A HAPPY ENDING"

One person we wanted to give an extra shout out to is our editor Paul Morrissey. On top of the regular proofing and production work of getting the book out the door (along with Archaia house designer Scott Newman) he gave one particular note that changed the trajectory of the final chapter of our book. Basically, a happy ending for at least one of our family members. Even after all of the trials and traps that our family went through, with repercussions resonating across the landscape, Swifty was able a believable note of hope; that our survivors can still step with integrity into an uncertain future.