My work schedule has been so crazy, when there is a bit of time to socialize, we try and make the most of it…

My friend Andrew is from the UK and had never experienced the North American “Saturday Morning cartoons and cereal” tradition, so we threw a theme party over the weekend.

PJ’s cereal, cartoons and a bit of booze. It was amazing.

This week I finally had a chance to pop down and visit Little Island Comics, a kids-only comic shop that recently opened in Toronto on Bathurst Street, just south of Bloor.

In an economy where you hear about stores closing and markets shrinking, it’s amazing and encouraging to see such a wonderful shop that’s focused on building a new generation of comic readers.

From the outside you can see the appealing logo and colourful array of books they have on hand.

Easy to reach shelves have a wide array of picture books, comics and manga, including classics like Asterix and Tin Tin.

Feature titles on display include offerings by local talent, like Ray Fawkes and Kean Soo.

Some wonderful ‘board books’, including new board comics for Yo Gabba Gabba published by Oni Press.

Their manga selections are well vetted and include quite a few UDON titles, especially the Manga For Kids line.

Nice feature display of the Little Endless book by Jill Thompson.

Certain shelves are also themed in fun ways, like this mouse-centric section.

They even have a classic spinner rack lined up with kids comics.

All in all, Little Island is a great boutique shop catering to kids, parents and librarians. Their future plans for signings and workshops mixed with a solid push forward helping librarians and teachers use comics in schools is the exact kind of thinking the comic market needs in this day and age. There are tons of readers out there who would love comics, there just needs to be clear outlets where they can sample and enjoy.

I’m hopeful that Little Island opens a lot of peoples’ eyes to the potential for comics in the mainstream and shows that innovative quality retailing can build a loyal customer base.

When my next kid-centric comic title is released I know where I want to throw the launch party. 🙂

Fan Expo Canada has come and gone in a flash. This year, with UDON set up at both Fan Expo and PAX simultaneously alongside my own Skullkickers promotion stuff at the Image booth, it seemed even more insane than usual. My deepest thanks to Stacy, Chris, the rest of the UDON crew and the Image Comics folks for helping to make the weekend so amazing.

Edwin came up for the show as well. It was his first time to Canada and I felt a bit bad that we didn’t have more time to explore the city. He seemed to have a great time so I don’t think it will be his last Canadian expedition. We chatted about the future of Skullkickers and I’m more excited than ever about working with him on the third story arc and, hopefully, even more beyond that.

Charles Soule (27, Strongman), Kurtis Wiebe (Green Wake, the Intrepids) and I ran a panel on Saturday focused on writing and pitching creator-owned comics and it went over really well. The room was packed and I met a lot of folks afterwords who came by the Image booth to let us know how informative and entertaining they found the presentation. With a bit of luck I’m hoping the three of us can do a similar panel for New York Comicon in October.

Otherwise, business was good and the social/networking aspect of the show was top notch. The kinds of conversations and breakthroughs I was hoping to get at San Diego Comicon seemed to materialize in Toronto instead, which was a great way to cap off the summer convention season. I’m excited and hopeful about the rest of 2011 and potential for the new year.

Stacy’s upstairs clacking away on work stuff and I just finished a proposal for a new project I have my fingers crossed for. It was a busy weekend, but there’s no time to rest as we push onwards this week to the goals ahead.

Volume 2 arrives in November! Please pre-order and support our hard work!

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SKULLKICKERS VOL. 2: FIVE FUNERALS AND A BUCKET OF BLOOD TP

story JIM ZUB
art EDWIN HUANG & MISTY COATS
cover EDWIN HUANG & ESPEN GRUNDETJERN
NOVEMBER 16
144 PAGES / FC
$16.99

ISBN-10: 1607064421
ISBN-13: 978-1607064428
Diamond Order Code: SEP110431

The second SKULLKICKERS adventure is a wondrous tornado of action-adventure: a den of thieves, a city of danger, nobility, stupidity, plant monsters, dinner parties and bloodthirsty faerie folk. Jump on board to see why Ain’t It Cool News says “Everyone who loves comics should buy SKULLKICKERS.”

Collects SKULLKICKERS #6-11

Click here to order from B&N:

Click here to order from Amazon:

Edwin and I are exhibiting at this year’s Fan Expo Canada in Toronto, Canada’s largest comics and pop culture convention running from August 25-28!

Image Comics is setting up at the show for the first time and we’ll be there at the Image booth (Booth #130) all weekend selling and signing Skullkickers books.

I’ll also be on two Image convention panels over the weekend:

IMAGE: PITCHING YOUR CREATOR-OWNED COMICS – WRITERS UNITE!
Creator-owned comics have grabbed the imagination of the comic-reading community all over again and publishers are looking for fresh ideas from a new generation of talent. Listen closely as Image Comics creators Charles Soule (27, Strongman), Kurtis Wiebe (Green Wake, The Intrepids) and Jim Zub (Skullkickers) discuss pitching their hit comic series and offer advice on how to climb to the top of the treacherous submission mountain. (How-To, Q&A)
Saturday, 11 AM – Room #717

IMAGE COMICS PRESENTS YOUR NEW FAVOURITES
Join Image Comics for announcements about upcoming projects, updates about ongoing projects, and a Q&A session with some of the best creators working in comics. Don’t miss your chance to find out about what we’re up to before anyone else does, and ask questions of your favorite creators! Panelists include Charles Soule (27), Kurtis Wiebe (Intrepids, Green Wake, Peter Panzerfaust), Viktor Kalvachev (Pherone, Blue Estate), Dennis Hopeless (Lovestruck), Jim Zub (Skullkickers), and Jonathan Hickman (The Red Wing, Feel Better Now).
Saturday, 1 PM – Room #713

Thank you so much to everyone who came out to Gen Con Indy 2011 and stopped by the booth to say “hi” or pick up a copy of Skullkickers. The reaction I received from fans and new readers was unbelievably warm and the show was a complete thrill.

At the Tayler Corp/XD/Skullkickers booth with
(from left) Laura Hickman, Zub, Howard Tayler, Tracy Hickman

Howard, Laura, Tracy and the entire booth crew (lovingly dubbed “the Kokomo Irregulars”) were fantastic booth mates for the weekend who helped get me up to speed and make sure the whole thing ran smoothly. Their hard work made it easier for me to focus on showing new readers what Skullkickers was all about. I owe them, big time.

On the last day there was a lot of discussion about what we’d do ‘next year’ to make things even better. The fact that everyone was so quick to make me a part of their 2012 plans warmed my heart. I’m pretty sure Skullkickers will be at Gen Con 2012 to keep the momentum we generated this year rolling forward. Thanks for your support!

I did some commission sketches while I was at Gen Con last weekend. The variety of requests was pretty out there. It was fun drawing so many critters.

Someone had a sketchbook with ‘knitting’ as their theme, so I did a sketch of the dwarf attempting to knit.

Running around like crazy today post-Gen Con trying to get caught up. I hope to have a full rundown of the show up later this week. In the meantime, here’s a fun little tidbit:

I ate Chinese food twice over the weekend… here’s what popped up:

Sounds good to me!

Jim

MTV Geek has a brand new article listing their Top 25 Comic Series of 2011 and Skullkickers shows up at #9!

“Few titles celebrate the pure joy of reading comic books like Skullkickers does. Mixing fantasy conventions with anachronistic humor and bloody, bloody violence, Jim Zub’s ongoing story of a big bald guy and an angry dwarf should be on every comic fans pull list; if not for the story, then at least for the laugh out loud sound effects. Also for the story, though.”

Booth prep for Gen Con went smoothly and the day flew by. Driving almost entirely overnight left me in a weird sleepy head space, but all in all it was a good day.

The comic shop signing at Downtown Comics in Indianapolis started off a bit slow but picked up steam and was very successful by the end. In the midst of it one of our biggest fans arrived with some special stuff to show and get signed.

Original page art bought from Edwin and Steven of Kusia, our elvish assassin. It was so wonderful seeing the original art in person. Because the book is done by transferring line art digitally I’ve never actually seen this stuff in the flesh. Both artists have incredible ink work.

And that same fan bought two head sketches from me on the spot. Very cool.

Thanks to everyone who stopped by Downtown Comics. Can’t wait to see how Gen Con day 1 goes!