(1) David Harper

When I was little I'd comb through Wizard Magazine (a comic magazine) with the diligence of your finest Sunday Schoolers, but my innate belief system was not aimed at highly regarded deities of any sort. Rather than that, I would obsessively look through it thinking "Oh man! Giant Size X-Men had the first appearance of Nightcrawler, Storm AND Colossus?!" or some other fascinating revelation about the initial look at any of my favorite comic characters. I'd often imagine what it'd be like to see my own (1) David Harper some day, but given the fact that I'm an actual person and not a mutant or something of that sort, my day would likely never come.

Yet thanks to the wonderful Emi Lenox, that day actually did come. Today I made my first comic appearance, as Emi put me in her always adorable and frequently hilarious diary comic Emitown. Given that I'd been praising it ever since I started writing at Multiversity Comics, it was a thrill to make it into one of her comics. Thanks so much to Emi for that.

Of course, I do want to point out something about the situation in which I was spotlighted for. When Brandon and I first made it to Emerald City ComiCon, we staked out the Green Lantern line in hopes of coercing Geoff Johns (a rather prodigious comic writer) into doing an interview with us. While waiting I told Brandon I was going to "find Mike Allred" which actually means "introduce myself to Emi Lenox and Natalie Nourigat." I was very excited to meet the two of them because they're super friendly and awesome cartoonists (plus I had a rad "Ghost of DJ Roomba" sketch waiting for me from Nourigat), and in true David fashion, I managed to bumble my initial meeting by pointing out that Emi's (great) contribution to the ECCC charity art book Monsters & Dames didn't make the final version.

She was sad. I was ashamed. Then, stupidly enough, I actually made the decision to hide away for the next day and a half to not revive the bad feelings I brought Emi's way (even though I was totally going to do an all plaid interview with her on the second day for our podcast!). Which was a bummer because she was great AND I ended up getting none of her mini-comics (nor Natalie's). But hey, I guess it all worked out in the end because I ended up making my first appearance in a comic because of it. Yay!

Thanks to Emi for making five year old (and twenty six year old) David's dreams come true. You're a saint! Now everyone, go read Emitown. Especially you Erik, Katie and Sheri! You guys actually live in Portland...I feel like there should be a natural connection there.

Multiversity Comics Update: Version 2.0

Multiversity Comics, the comic blog I write for, just went through an extensive redesign. The redesign was performed by none other than Sergei Shiryayev, the guy who redesigned my blog, and has already been lauded by a site for its brilliance in design using the Blogger formula. Just a fantastic job by Sergei, thanks man!

Besides the redesign, we've recently launched a forum, new features, loaded up on tons of big time creator interviews, and are actually trying out a gaggle of new writers (who knew that people would actually want to write for us?). Response has been great, as big time comic sites like Comic Book Resources, The Comics Journal and others have steadily linked to us, and it's really exciting. We just keep growing!

The next big step is Emerald City ComiCon, which my co-writer Brandon and I will be attending (with press passes!). While there, we're going to set up interviews with a ton of writers and artists, and will likely set up an Emerald City ComiCon version of our Saturday Showdown podcast (premieres this Saturday!). I really can't wait for all of that, but definitely check us out if you have any interest in comics or genre fiction.