Okay, the question this week is: What is more likely to make you purchase a comic for the first time, or continue reading a comic–the characters or the creators?

What is more important to you?

Answer here!

 -Robert Kirkman

The fine folks at the Comics Journal did a massive interview with me. You can find out more over at www.tcj.com.

Here’s an “Excerpt.”

The interview in print is over 50 pages long… enjoy!

-Robert

Okay, I goofed.  Every other year this thing is held at the Sheraton on Exit 115 off I-75.

 THIS YEAR, i.e. TODAY it is being held at the Ramada Inn on Exit 113 off I-75.

 Sorry to anyone making the drive.  I hope this reaches you.

 -Robert

I’m going to try and do this every week.  I’d like to get to know my fan base a little bit and I figure the best way to do it is just ask questions.  I’m starting with something pretty easy but I’ll eventually get into buying habits and personal interests and shoe size as we go on.

 So please… participate!  Even if you’ve never posted on my message board before, give it a shot, get involved.  This will be fun.  The first question is HOW OLD ARE YOU?  I want to know.  Am I appealing to people my age?  Younger?  Much older?  A mix?  Help me find out.

CLICK HERE!

Thanks in advance, and have a good weekend.  I recommend a trip to the lake!  Or swinging by that convention in Lexington on Saturday to say hi!  Tell me I sent you!

-Robert Kirkman

I gotta say–I’m pretty damn stoked about this:

Say what you will about this group–but nothing has energized the industry as much as them before or since… any time they get together in public it is historic.  Big ups to Mike Malve and Atomic Comics for putting this together.

I’ll be in Texas at CAPE 4 at the time, but hopefully Phoenix native, Cory Walker will send me photos… and another Savage Dragon baseball cap.

-Robert Kirkman

So, Saturday April 5th I’ll be attending a local comic show here in Lexington Kentucky.  It’s being held at the Ramada Inn (in the ballroom) at exit 115 on I-75… so it’s TOTALLY easy to get to.  So come out and see me.  I’ll be there from 12-3 for sure… and I’ll stay as long as people are there.  The actual show goes from 10am-4pm.

 Here’s a link for more info: http://www.comiccitytn.com/

 Like all conventions, I will be HAPPY to sign whatever you bring.  Bring 100 comics… I don’t even care.  It may take a while, but I’ll be happy to do it.  So bring whatever.  If you bought it, the least I can do is sign it.

-Robert Kirkman

I don’t know how regularly anyone here visits Cliff Rathburn’s blog (http://cliffrathburn.blogspot.com/) but he’s just posted the colors for the cover to The Walking Dead 52.  Now, that cover has been online for a couple weeks already but the cover we’d been showing was altered as not to reveal anything… the final cover is a bit different and has MAJOR spoilers.

 I’ve tried to contact Cliff to get him to take it down–but he’s not responding (Cliff–if you’re reading this, PLEASE take the cover down now!).  In the meantime, I just wanted to give everyone a heads up–if you don’t want to be spoiled–DO NOT go to Cliff’s blog.

 -Robert Kirkman

I have seen the future and it’s in my pocket!

 I’ve had an iphone since September, and I love it.  The internet is great, the features are great… I totally dig it.  (frankly, the camera SUCKS, but I can forgive that).  Anyway, I hadn’t updated mine for months so I’d never downloaded the new software that puts iTunes on your phone… until last night.

 Holy crap, it’s like having a music store in your pocket.  It’s so dang neat… I just can’t get over it.

 I was brousing around last night and I saw The Presidents of the United States of America (who are awesome) just put out a new album.  I had no idea they’d done a new one since “Love Everybody” or were even still together.  I then pushed a button… and like magic the album was now on my phone.

 I gotta say, I love the future. 

 —————————————-

I’ve decided this week that I’m going to try and post on this site regularly, even if it means meaningless posts like this one… and then I got on here to post something else and realized the function that lets me post pictures isn’t working… so that’s being fixed.

 Once that is fixed… the posts will be a little more meaningful.

 Until then… video games and technology!

 I did get The Walking Dead 48 in from the printer yesterday, so it might be in stores next week… but more on that later when the picture thing is fixed.

 -Robert Kirkman 

For those of you who visit the site, but have yet to sign up for KIRKSPAM! I wanted to show you what you’re missing.  Enjoy!

—————-

(Don’t worry, I actually talk about comics at the bottom.)

If I seem like I have an empty hole inside of me that can never be filled… it’s because I completed Mario Galaxy this weekend.  I’ve been playing in since January, and I’ve gotten 121 stars with Mario… and 121 stars with Luigi.  I’ve played that game inside and out.

I was having so much fun in the game with Mario I decided I was going to play every inch of it–I didn’t want to miss a thing.  So I vowed to get every star you can get–with Mario.  Then I learned once you got 120 stars… you could play the game all over again, with Luigi.

My initial thought, was “how lame is that?!  Why would anyone do that?”  But as I got my 120th star with Mario… I found I was not ready to quit.  Also, Luigi jumps higher and skids like he’s on ice at all times… so it’s a bit of a different experience… but the main thing was that convinced me to dive into Luigi play was that if you got all 120 stars with Luigi it opened up a new galaxy–one final level–THE GRAND FINALE GALAXY!

Man, I was stoked, and playing through again with Luigi was a blast and a half, I’d blown through a lot of Mario levels pretty quickly, and so I didn’t remember every detail.  It wasn’t very repetitive at all to play through as Luigi… and the best part, I would get a shining new level at the end of it all… a level that must be totally awesome, right?  I mean–it’s called “THE GRAND FINALE GALAXY” for Christ’s sake!

Well, on Saturday I did it… I finally got to the “Grand Finale Galaxy” and I wanted to puke.

This final level… this amazing thing I’d been working toward for over a month (I only play in short bursts of time due to work) was just the first level of the game… where you walk down the street of the mushroom kingdom and talk to people before the actual game starts… only this time you have to find 100 purple coins… that are in a straight line leading you down the path.

Oh, man… I feel cheated… oh so cheated.  Would it have really been that hard to make a better final level?  Oh, man… I could have thrown my Wii remote through my TV I was so frustrated.

So… it you’re playing Mario Galaxy… getting the 120 Mario stars, totally fun… and I had fun doing it again with Luigi… but don’t force yourself to do it for that last level… it totally sucks.

And to make matters worse, I bought MARIO SUNSHINE for gamecube (since the Wii plays those games too) and that game totally blows.  I’d heard it was terrible, but man, it’s way worse than I thought.  I don’t know if I’ll ever play it again.  I haven’t really gotten past the introduction level, I’ll probably try to muscle through to see if it gets better… but so far… that game is an embarrassment to the Mario legacy.

I think I’ll probably play though Mario 64 on the DS to make myself feel better.

———————————————————————-

Okay… I know that for most of you reading this, you probably don’t play Mario Galaxy and you’re reading this thinking “why am I reading this?  This is totally lame.  He’s not talking about comics at all!”  (I’m talking to YOU Eric Stephenson.)  So sorry, here’s a bit of an update.

Invincible 50 will be finished next week, so there will be a little bit of a delay between 49 and 50… but after that, we should hit smooth sailing.

The Walking Dead 48 is at the printer already… and will be out in two weeks at the most, I’d think.  So not this Wednesday but next.

The Walking Dead 49 is already done and will be going to the printer this week.

The Astounding Wolf-Man #6 is almost done and will be going to the printer next week, I believe.

Brit 6 will also be off to the printer next week, so that’s good.

Brit 7 is done and being colored right now.  This is Nate Bellegarde’s first issue on art, coming off the Invincible Presents: Atom Eve mini-series.  His first issue is quite stunning and has been done for some time.  He’s well into issue 8 at this point, so hopefully we’ll be able to get this book back on track very soon.  Brit fights Invincible in this issue… it’s got an awesome cover by Ryan Ottley… you should all be reading this book.

My final issue of Ultimate X-Men, issue 93, is almost complete.  It’s going to be weird not having that book in my life… I sometimes forget how long I’ve been working on it.  28 issues and an Annual makes it my longest run at Marvel to date.  I could have held on and done more issues, just to break Mark Millar’s run (33 issues) but I think after you read issue 93 you’ll see that I picked a good time to make my exit.  I’m very much looking forward to reading Aron Coleite’s issues after mine, it’ll be cool to see where he takes things.

My Killraven series at Marvel is still moving through the pipeline.  Rob Liefeld is turning in pages at a good clip.  I’m hoping to see that debut this year.

That other Marvel thing I mentioned should be announced this summer.  I should be turning in the first issue’s script today.  I’m quite thrilled with it so far… I think you’ll all dig it.

That should do it for now.

-Robert Kirkman

Sorry for the lack of updates… I’ve been turning books in like crazy and there was time for little else.

So, uh… podcast.

ALTER EGO COMICCAST

Enjoy.

-Robert