Shocking Mystery Bookstore Robbery Footage!!

New Interview up at KGB

This just posted.

Writing Quotation of the Week

Writers kid themselves—about themselves and other people. Take the talk about writing methods. Writing is just work—there’s no secret. If you dictate or use a pen or type with your toes—it is just work.
--Sinclair Lewis

Breaking in to Comics

I often get asked about how one breaks into comics, but I don't have a good answer in general. Because I transitioned from novels and screenplays, I already had writing samples, and I lucked into an editor - Axel Alonso at Marvel - who was familiar with my work. But there's a great article by Steven Grant on CBR that lays out nicely how an aspiring writer might attempt to find work.

Trust No One

Coming June 23! For more info and for tour info (the tour will include Boston, NY, LA, San Diego, and the Bay Area), go to the newly redesigned www.gregghurwitz.net.

E.B. White Quotation of the Week

"Be obscure clearly."

Three words, and yet some of the best writing advice I've come across...

Frank Miller's Charlie Brown

This link, as forwarded to me by Richard Brewer, is well worth a look. Brilliant.

William Maxwell and Jesse Kellerman

I'd been meaning to write for some time about So Long, See You Tomorrow, an off beat novel centered around a small-town murder by William Maxwell (onetime fiction editor for the New Yorker).

Some lovely, sparse language and wonderful touches - "...I understood not only how generous they were, but that generosity might be the greatest pleasure there is."

"He died in agony, of a gall-bladder attack, when he was in his early fifties, and the oval photograph, adapting itself to circumstances, is now clearly the photograph of a dead man."

"New York City is a place where one can weep on the sidewalk in perfect privacy."

And so on. Great, pithy, insightful language, and some lovely characterization.

Then I read Jesse Kellerman's latest - The Genius (or, in the UK, The Brutal Art). Many of you know that I love JK's writing. His last, Trouble, was one of my favorite books of 2007. Well this is an even more compelling read - at times staggering. His characterization and facility with language is pretty goddamned remarkable. It occurs to me that were I to excerpt my favorite touches and lines, my blog post would go on indefinitely. So just go buy it already.

Quotation of the Week

"You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed"
~ Antoine de Saint Exupery

Some Vocabulary Words in Honor of Friday the 13th

And yes, I've seen all 97 movies, including Jason Takes Manhattan and Jason versus Freddie.

Quatorzieme: a professional 14th guest that superstitious hosts can hire for their dinner parties. Popular in Paris.

Paraskavedekatriaphobia or friggatriskaidekaphobia: fear of Friday the 13th

Triskaidekaphobia: fear of the number 13.

Punisher Event

Here I am at my Punisher: Girls in White Dresses signing with the inimitable Richard Brewer and Robert Crais (who wrote the intro). A great event at Earth2Comics....

Girls in White Dresses: The Trade

This Wednesday, Punisher: Girls in White Dresses comes out at amazon.com, and at comic shops and book stores everywhere. It collects all five of my Punisher comics, and features an introduction by Robert Crais.

My sole signing will be Feb 7, 1 pm at:

Earth2Comics
15017 Ventura Blvd
Sherman Oaks, CA 91403
818.386.9590

Quotation of the Day

"The only man who never makes a mistake is the man who never does anything."
Theodore Roosevelt ~

Happy Inauguration Day!

And to celebrate, the single best version of our national anthem, recorded by perhaps the only individual cooler than our new President.

Hugh Jackman on Creative Courage

"I've always felt that if you back down from a fear, the ghost of that fear never goes away. It diminishes people. So I've always said 'yes' to the thing I'm most scared about. The fear of letting myself down -- of saying 'no' to something that I was afraid of and then sitting in my room later going, 'I wish I'd had the guts to say this or that' -- that galvanizes me more than anything."
--Hugh Jackman

I've often wondered if this kind of fear fuels creative drive.....

Me and Christopher Rice on TV interview

Here's me and the inestimable Mr. Rice doing an interview on the Patti Gribow show, where we discuss research, writing gay characters (as a straight vs. gay author), choosing plots, and generally make fun of each other.

Wit and Wisdom

Josh Billings, considered by many to be our country's second greatest humorist (behind Mark Twain) is overlooked by many.

I thought I'd ring in the new year with a few favorite quotations:

-- -- --

I have never known a person to live to be one hundred and be remarkable for anything else.

As a general thing, when a woman wears the pants in a family, she has a good right to them.

Learning sleeps and snores in libraries, but wisdom is everywhere, wide awake, on tiptoe.

Life is short, but it's long enough to ruin any man who wants to be ruined.

Love looks through a telescope; envy, through a microscope.

Most people when they come to you for advice, come to have their own opinions strengthened, not corrected.

Reason often makes mistakes, but conscience never does.

Silence is one of the hardest arguments to refute.

The best way to convince a fool that he is wrong is to let him have his own way.

The road to ruin is always in good repair, and the travellers pay the expense of it.

There are people who are always anticipating trouble, and in this way they manage to enjoy many sorrows that never really happen to them.

There are two kinds of fools: those who can't change their opinions and those who won't.

There's a great power in words, if you don't hitch too many of them together.

Words are often seen hunting for an idea, but ideas are never seen hunting for words.

The End of The Punisher Arc

The final book of my Punisher arc, JIGSAW, came out yesterday. I had more fun writing this story than anything I've yet done in comics. It will be collected in a trade shortly, I'd assume.

Look next for a short comedic Wolverine piece I did in SWITCHBACK, coming out Jan 7.

Happy Holidays, Bub

Ring in the new year with some mutant violence.

Swallowed the Spider (alternate title: Flies to a Web) now available at fine comic book establishments everywhere. Art by Jerome Opena, cover by the infamous Tim Bradstreet.

The Shield Finale

Now any of you who know me know that I love this show. The final episode was the best ending to any TV series I've seen, and the party proved pretty jaw-dropping as well, particularly when the head of FX read off the list of accolades that the show gathered over its 88-episode run.

My favorite character was Lem, and when Lem was killed off, I was so angry with Shawn Ryan (the show's creator and a buddy of mine) that I refused to speak to him for days. I mean - how could you kill Lem? Even years later, the injustice still smolders. So I began a running joke with Shawn -- "Hey, I have an idea. You should have an episode where Lem comes back from the dead and solves crime!"

"Ever think about giving Lem his own spin-off?"

"Do you think Lem will go with me to prom?"

Et cetera.

So at the finale, where the last episode was presented on the big screen at the Hollywood Arclight, I took my seat, and then left to grab some more popcorn. When I came back, someone was hiding under my coat. I thought it was someone fooling around, so I gave him a good smack and when the guy lowered the jacket from over his head, it was.....Kenny Johnson, the actor who plays Lem! Despite years of harassment from me, Shawn had brought him over to meet me -- an indication of Shawn's graciousness, and proof that no bad deed (harassment) goes unrewarded.

It was also great to see other cast member buddies - Jay Karnes and David Rees Snell in particular - enjoy this time looking back at what they had created. I met Walton Goggins, who was exceptional throughout the show, and I had a good talk with Michael Chiklis about Shakespeare (or as he likes to think of him, Edward de Vere). Thanks to Jason Ryan for the photo.

All in all, it was a remarkable night capping one of the most remarkable shows in the history of television. Congrats to all the cast and crew for what they accomplished here.