Creator sighting!

Chris Batista thanked me on Facebook for Booster Gold V2 #39 being best book of the week.

Creator sighting!

Back in March, when the Autopsy Awards were published, I notified all positive award recipients of their winning; as directly as I could. A lot of them responded, and that was very neat. I sent the following to Stephen Wacker, editor of the Spider-Man books:

"Hello, for your work in Amazing Spider-Man, I'm honored to present you with Best Book Of The Year: Amazing Spider-Man V1 (Marvel), Best Book Of The Week twelve weeks in the year (being a weekly book), and a consistently good read, and Best Character Of The Year: Spider-Man, great characterization and art. (And awesome coordination by the editorial team.)

The Dissector"

And the other day, Steve finally replied the following:

"Thanks, Magnus von Tesla. I'm just seeing this now as I've been away from Facebook for a long while.

On behalf of the whole crew...IU'm absolutely terrified of your picture.

Best
SW"

Thank you Steve for your reply, and my picture has fulfilled one of its purposes!!!

Peter David Interview.

Peter David (writer of Hulk, Supergirl, Aquaman, Star Trek, X-Factor, Babylon 5, Ben 10, and a long etc) was in Uruguay recently, and I was lucky enough to interview him. Here's the full audio of the interview, expect a transcript soon.


Download here, or here.

Creator sighting!

Many creators thanked me and my readers for the (positive) Autopsy Awards they received:

Joe Caramagna (via Facebook): Do I get some sort of statuette with this? :-)

Me: Wish I had the budget for that. I can create a plaque in Photoshop, would that be good? :)
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Phil Jimenez (via Facebook): THANK YOU!

Me: You're welcome, Phil. Thanks for the hard work!
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Marc Guggenheim (via Facebook): "Thanks! Glad you enjoyed."

Me: Thanks for Spidey and for Flashforward!
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Dan Slott (via Facebook): Thank you, sir!

Me: Very much welcome, keep up the good work.
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Jean-Luc Sala (via Facebook): waaa ! Thank you !!! that's great !!!

Me: No, thank you. It's a pleasure on my part.
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Brian Lynch (via Facebook): Wow, very cool, thank you!

Me: No, thank you. That line made me laugh (and everyone else who voted for it).
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Christina Strain (via Facebook): HAHAHAHAHAHA that is SO AWESOME!!!

Me: CeeCee, glad you liked it. Thanks for taking it all in good humor.
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Jimmy Palmiotti (via Facebook): thats just plain awesome. everyone check out this link!

Me: Thanks Jimmy! Keep up the good work.
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Jean-Luc Sala (on his Facebook status): Cross fire / Spin Angels awarded "Breakout Book Of 2009" !! thank you Magnus !

Me: You're welcome, and keep the good BDs coming.

Creator sighting!

Doomwar writer Jonathan Maberry posted on Facebook about the first issue of the book being Book Of The Week: "Glad you enjoyed it, man. I've having a hell of a lot of devious fun writing it. And Scot Eaton is kicking ass with the artwork." Also on the topic of Doomwar #1, alternate cover artist Jelena Djurdjevic clicked on "like" when I told her her cover for the issue was Cover Of The Week.

Thanks, Jonathan and Jelena!

Creator sighting!

David Gallaher, writer for Hulk: Winter Guard, dropped by the comments section of column #143 and said "Fake Russian in Winter Guard? Hardly. All of the Russian phrases, spellings, and translations are correct. Would you like a translation key?".

My apologies, I took note of the word "ponchiki" because I didn't know it, and then, when writing the column, without the comic book in front of me, just my notes, I didn't notice that I had typed "pochiki". I couldn't find that word anywhere, even with alternate spellings (but alas, never the right one), so I marked it as a made up word. Honestly, when I was writing it, I thought "the rest of the Russian looks flawless, I should go back and check if I took note of the word correctly"... but I didn't.

You'll forgive me, I don't claim to be perfect, but I'm so jaded about writers and languages other than English (what they do to Spanish, for example, is heartwrenching), that I sometimes, unwillingly, slip up. I hope you can forgive me, and thank you for that comic, I have a soft spot for Soviet-inspired stuff.

Creator sighting!

After Flash: Rebirth got best book and cover of the week in last column, penciller Ethan Van Sciver posted on my Facebook "That's an honor, thanks!"

You're welcome, Ethan, just keep up the good work!

Creator sighting!

Okay, editor sighting, actually, but I need to keep a format here... James Lowder, editor for Mercy Sparx e-mailed me to let me know that "For what it's worth, issue #1 of Under New Management was given out as the Free Comic Book Day issue of Mercy this year. That came out long before this issue, #4 of the first series, saw print. UNM #1 may be re-released as a repackaged #1, but, technically, it's out there already. Hence the mention of UNM issue #2 as the next issue in the pipeline."

You make a good point, James, but I didn't remember Under New Management's FCBD issue; and some people are not even aware of it; and while it's not technically wrong, I can still consider it a dissection. It does, however, get a lower rating, from 5 to 3 Bazzars.

James also mentions that The Dissector is a "Very funny column, by the by.", and that this is the "First time I've seen the column. I will be reading along from now on, though.". Thanks James, I'd love to have you on board as a reader.

I told him that I think this is the first time I find an error on a DDP title; and he told me that he's glad for that, and that Mike O'Sullivan and Cody DeMatteis deserve the bulk of the credit for that. Thanks again for the kind words, James.

Creator sighting!

Rain Beredo, colorist for Dark Avengers, has dropped by and left a comment on column #122, about how he colors Norman Osborn's eyes brown by order of Tom Brevoort. Thanks Rain, for commenting, and for taking it in good humor.

Creator sighting! Double Creator Sighting!!!


So, within one day, I get two creators to rebuke dissections, good! First, the lovely and talented Christina Strain, colorist for Runaways among other things, drops by the comments for column #81 and says: "Victor's eyes have always been green. People just seem to assume they're brown. And I'm positive about this because I picked the original color for them back when he was introduced into the series."

CeeCee (can I call you that?), thanks for stopping by; I'll bow to you on this (hell, you're such a good colorist, and such a beautiful woman, that I'd bow to you anyway!). I should have checked a comic boo

Publish Post

k first; but the only sources I had on hand were wikis, both Marvel Universe and Marvel Database, and they both had him with brown eyes... also, Jo Chen colors Victor's eyes brown on covers. My bad, I've edited those wiki pages following your authoritative information. Digging up my Marvel Handbook to see what it says there... yup, "hazel", but I'll still be retracting in my next column.

Once more, thanks for stopping by, and keep up the good work, I'm a fan of your stuff, you bring life to these characters with your colorings, and Runaways is one of my favorite comics of the last few years.

Then, the comments section for column #81 is graced by Dwayne McDuffie, writer of the current Justice League of America and classics like Damage Control, saying: "Iron Man sported repellor rays first (check your Marvel Essentials), introducing repulsors shortly after unveiling his red and gold armor. Originally, the terms were used interchangeably. Eventually, repulsors referred to his primary offensive weapon, while the increasingly-rarely used repellors became just that, magnetic, metal repelling rays, reverse tractor beams, if you will. I don't remember the story, but I'm guessing Iron Man used the repellors to push some metal away, right?"

He signs "The Culprit", so I'm guessing he took it in good humor (same as CeeCee, I think, I can't stress enough how much respect I have for comic book creators). Thanks for leaving that comment Dwayne; I've never seen that referenced anywhere, but I'll take your word for it. I've been reading Avengers Classics (plus old Marvel comics for the past 20+ years), but I don't remember "repellors", nor can I find a reference anywhere in the intarwebz.

Again, I'll take your word for it, and retract. Hey, did you know you'd won (all in good humor, of course) one of the Autopsy Awards for last year? And that you accepted it wearing a Green Lantern costume?

Thanks for stopping by, and let me say that I've loved your Damage Control books, and I'm having fun reading your JLA run.

Creator sighting!

Rob Schwager, colorist for Young X-Men (among others) stopped by and left a comment on column #78. He simply said "Oooff... The Dissector strikes again!", so I assume he took my dissecting in good humor... well, he didn't color Superman's hair blond or something like that, and it's only the first time he appears in the column.

Thanks for dropping by Rob; and everyone, go check his blog for some really cool art, including great rockabilly/hot rod themed stuff. Betcha didn't know colorists did other things than paint the funnybooks you read,huh? Thanks again Rob!

Creator sighting!

I know, I know. I'm sorely behind... but this creator sighting is important, because the creator IS ME! Take a look at this:


WOOT! I wish they'd sent me an autographed copy.... or a no-prize.

Creator sighting!

While you wait for the column on the latest comics (tis the season for delays), and the reveal of who won the Autopsy Awards, here's another creator sighting:

Joe Caramagna (of Virtual Caligraphy fame), letterer of many books, has sent me the following e-mail: "Hi! I read your blog here and there and I love it (even though I'm a culprit once in a while)! But I do have to defend myself just a little bit (Ha ha). In your latest blog, you name Greg Pak and myself as a culprit for World War Hulk Aftersmash: Warbound #1 in which Dum Dum Dugan says "Your" instead of "You're".

While Greg and myself can both share the blame for an error like that, you can't overlook the team of Marvel proofreaders and editor Nate Cosby (not to throw my buddy Nate under the bus). Greg did spell the word wrong at first, but all of us (or at least ONE of us) should have caught it!

Keep up the great work, the blog is hilarious!"

Thanks for the kind words Joe, I'm glad you enjoy the column. I always blame editors, and by extension, the proofreaders, so much, that I can't be bothered to mention them in every single dissection. Say, Joe, speaking about the proofreading department over at Marvel... think you can get in a good word for me? You know I have a good eye for these things....

Thank you very much for reading Joe, and for taking your time to write.

Creator sighting!

Scott Wegener, talented artist for Atomic Robo admits to certain Mignola similarities, all in good humor, in the comments section of the last column.

Plus, and probably Scott's doing, Red 5 Comics published a listing of good reviews for their books, and they loved that I picked it as best book of the week, even linking back to us. Thank you! Och, I just realized I have a sentence that doesn't make sense there: "(...) but also touching moments that show that in a very effective way make you care (...)"; that "that show" shouldn't be there...

Creator sighting!

Patrick Gleason, talented artist for the nerdgasming Green Lantern Corps, admits to his guilt in the comments section of last column.

Creator sighting!

Ryan Dunlavey, artist for the magnificent Action Philosophers stopped by to explain himself in the comments section of the latest column.

Wow, three postings in less than 24 hours! Gotta be some sort of record for me...

EDIT: I forgot to say that Jeff Parker, writer for X-Men: First Class left some comments here a few weeks ago. He takes my criticism like a gentleman, and for that, and for his talent, he deserves an overdue applause.

Creator sighting!

Check out the comments on The Nitpicker #35, the lovely Gail Simone drops by to hit me with a rolled up newspaper! (and I let her, sorta)

Creator sighting!

Scott Tipton, writer for Star Trek: Klingons: Blood Will Tell miniseries caught me taking the nitpicking machine to his book, and left a comment on the Shotgun Reviews side of column #26.

Check it out, and congratulate the man for taking all of my acid in good stride. Catch you next week with the new column, I've already started taking note of the nits I've found so far this week.