» Latest blog entry:

So…I utterly failed to update this here blog while the show was going on in Chicago this past weekend. There’s a good reason for this. The reason is that, whenever I wasn’t on the floor or on one panel or another or at a premiere, I was writing.

A lot.

And now the draft is done. The key words here are “draft” and “done.” There will be rewriting. There will be revising. There may even be some structural modification. And there will certainly be polishing.

But Kodiak #7 is, for the moment, completed. A very different novel than the previous ones. Far more linear in plot, and, stylistically, probably the sparest prose I’ve ever written. I think it serves the novel — both as a narrative, and with regard to its subject matter — well.

And now I am going on vacation for a week or so.

Then I will attend to all the various projects that have been clamoring for my attention while the novel has dominated my life.

Nice to be done.

Quiet satisfaction.

A rare feeling.

Actually, I think it’s Day IV, now, but I direct those of you with an interest in such things to this roundtable discussion between Scott Anderson, Joe Palmer, and (now Doctor!) Amy Reads on “The Question of Gender and Sexuality.” Clever title, that.

It’s terribly late here, and I’m not feeling fully articulate at the moment (just finished whacking away at the novel, y’see), so I don’t have anything to add to what’s said there. I do think, however, that the conversation is one worth having. Thus I bring it your attention, gentle reader, that you may peruse and ponder, and comment upon it should you choose to do so.

Funny that the costume — the suit, the fedora, the faceless mask — engender such debate. Funny because The Question’s look is still evolving. I’ve actually spent more time than I should’ve done arguing about not giving her a costume, in the sense that, to me, the mask is the key element, and everything else is secondary. It is, in point of fact, one of the things I loved about Denny and Denys’ run…Charlie wore what was appropriate; in winter, he was in a down jacket and heavy pants, with gloves; in summer, he wore a muscle shirt, blue jeans, and sneakers. This is something that, incidentally, hasn’t carried forward with Renee, and the ongoing search for her “look” still continues, even into FC:R.

Just a thought.

That was far more of an ordeal than it needed to be.

Capped-off by the fact that the Hyatt — despite TWO WEEKS NOTICE and the efforts of Warner Bros., Wizard, and myself — fucked-up on the room.

The guy seated next to me on the flight was a reader. Reading the new Fareed Zakaria book. Normally, this would elevate him in my estimation immeasurably.

Except he read OUT LOUD for the whole fucking flight.

Seriously. Headphones on. Reading out loud.

Couldn’t make it up if I tried.

Edited to add that, at the request of my bride — Happy Anniversary, baby — I am to blog while at the show. “So I’ll know how it’s going,” she said to me on her way out the door this morning.

Seriously, it is, at least according to Eric Newsom, keeper of all things Question at VicSage.Com. He’s posting all sorts of interesting stuff about the character, detailing her creation by Mitch Brian (to whom I shall forever be indebted) in Batman: The Animated Series and chronicling her evolution in comics. I’m posting this late Monday in my corner of the world, and he’s already put up the Tuesday content, including a script-to-page feature, showing my script for CB:FBOB #3 alongside Matthew Clark’s pencils. That’s just the tip of the iceberg — the amount of content he’s lined up is impressive as hell.

Definitely, definitely worth checking out, and I urge folks to take a look.

I’m slogging through the final phases of the first draft of Kodiak VII. End of the tunnel in sight; will be finished in the next couple of days, barring catastrophic incident. This means that I’ll be finishing while attending Wizard World Chicago this coming weekend. You see me Thursday or Friday, there’s a chance I’ll look like a haunted man; you catch me Saturday, odds are I’ll be chipper to the point of hysteria. Consider yourself warned.

The other thing this augers is that I’ll get back to this here blog a bit more frequently, something I’ve actually been quite eager to do. Not sure I’ll be making any more sense than I have, but there you go.

Let me know if any of y’all are going to be at the show this weekend!

This is going to sound stupid, I know, but…

Can you get duct tape (ie, the cloth-backed ultra adhesive, silver, use-for-anything tape) in Europe? Specifically, can you get it in the Netherlands? And if so, is it called duct tape, or does it go under another name?

Been running silent for the last couple weeks. Hoping to be back in the land of Not-Under-Perpetual-Deadline sometime near the end of the month.

This from Wired’s Underwire blog. Some nice images from the film, and I’m quoted in the piece.

Which, y’know, is neat.

“____ Montoya, DC Comics heroine known as the Question.”

Okay.

That’s cool.

Edited to add:

From the JimH Crossword Blog, 61 across.