I’m a guest on the latest episode of the War Rocket Ajax podcast. Click through to give it a listen as they cover Skullkickers, Street Fighter and a lot more. My interview starts at the 41:10 mark in the podcast.

Chris Sims, one of our Skullkickers #6 writers, is a guest on the latest Awesomed By Comics podcast.

The latest episode of Comics of Doom podcast has some great review material on Skullkickers #6. The issue is reviewed at 19:41.

MTV Geek calls Skullkickers #6 one of their Top Ten comics of the month.

“The collection is anchored by two longer tales, comics blogger Chris Sims’ brightly paced sexy zombie story; and Adam Warren’s naturally whip-smart story of guns versus swords.”

Comics Nexus also called Skullkickers #6 one of their notable issues of the month.

“While all four of the stories are just riffs on the basic Skullkickers premise, I hope to see more one-off issues like this one between story arcs. It’s a good way to draw in some new readers (especially if more highly-recognized creators come on board), and reward long-term ones with something fun.”

Danny Djeljosevic at Comics Bulletin took a while to try out Skullkickers but, now that he’s read issue 6, he’s a convert.

“…the talent here assembled is not only impressive, but they’ve created an incredibly fun quick-and-dirty kind of short story collection of clever variations on the comic’s premise without a weak link in the bunch. It’s essential comics, and a self-contained experience that gives readers a jumping-on point between story arcs.”

Stacy and I had been talking about holding a Mac & Cheese-themed house party for, literally, years. We kept putting it off and didn’t make the time. Other friends talked about hosting their own and finally Stacy put a date down on our calendar as a way to kick us into action on actually doing it. I’m so glad she did.

Well, I’m happy to say that our first Mac & Cheese party was a complete success. Great friends, great food and cheesy movies ruled Friday night:

click here for Mac & Cheese photos

Today on Unshelved, the Skullkickers review a fantasy classic.

Unshelved is a webcomic about libraries read by thousands of librarians and book buyers. In turn, I created a new welcome page on our website to make sure people who clicked over from their site could get up to date with information and previews of our series.

This book review strip is especially meaningful to me because Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser was one of the fantasy novel series that really sparked my imagination when I was younger and is such a big influence on Skullkickers. Trying to encapsulate what makes the series great in one pages was tough, but Edwin, Misty and Marshall did a great job with my script.

I know this livejournal has become a Skullkickers depository over the past six months. Thank you, all of you, for understanding that I have to keep pounding the drum as this rolls in order to keep momentum and make sure the book settles in to a solid sales spot. As always, I deeply thank you for your support.

I also know the way comics work nowadays. More people than ever are “trade waiting”, not buying individual issues because the collected trade paperback is more convenient and a nicer overall package. I know there’s a substantial number of you who haven’t read a single issue of Skullkickers yet and I do understand. I have been in the same boat with other series. It’s cool.

BUT –

On the second week of March I definitely need your support! The volume 1 trade paperback comes out March 9th and we’re looking for really strong sales to help send a clear sign to our publisher and the industry that this book has legs and is worthy.

To celebrate the book launch the ever-amazing crew at The Beguiling here in downtown Toronto are having a signing. Please RSVP the Facebook event if you haven’t already:

We’ve done everything we can to make this trade worthy of your purchase.

144 pages with high quality print and cover for the ridiculously low price of $9.99. It’s cheaper than most manga that are smaller and in black & white. It’s got art on par with any top tier superhero book. It’s a fun continuity-free adventure with sass and banter.

Also, it’s written by me. If you’re reading this blog or following me on Facebook hopefully that’s because you like me and/or my work. Assuming that’s the case, please give Skullkickers volume 1 a shot and let me know what you think. I hope to see you downtown on March 9th if you live in TO.

Thanks,
Zub

Review time!

• Brigid Alverson has a nice capsule review of Street Fighter Legends: Ibuki on Robot 6’s ‘What Are You Reading’ this week.

• Both The Daily Blam and Broken Frontier get a big kick out of Skullkickers #6, which will be in comic stores this Wednesday.

• The Examiner jumps on board Skullkickers as well and they give the first story arc a top score of ★★★★★.

I am incredibly excited about this year’s Emerald City Comicon, March 4-6 in Seattle, Washington. Jim Demonakos runs one of the best comic conventions of the season and this year will be no exception.

I’ll be at the Image Comics booth (BOOTH 706) celebrating the launch of Skullkickers Volume 1: 1000 Opas and a Dead Body, the first trade paperback of the comic series I talk about endlessly here on the blog (thank you for your patience with this constant drum-beating). Image will have a special limited edition exclusive hardcover edition of the trade selling for $25, limited to only 250 copies.

I’ll also be appearing at two panels over the weekend:

FRIDAY MARCH 4th at 3:00 PM
IMAGE COMICS INTRODUCES YOUR NEW FAVOURITES
ROOM 3AB
Come get to know Image’s rising stars and the best new creator-owned titles like Nonplayer, Intrepids and L’il Depressed Boy, as well as success stories like John Layman of Chew, Jim Zubkavich of Skullkickers, and Ron Marz, who will be announcing a new project!

SUNDAY MARCH 6th at 12:00 PM
CON HORROR STORIES
ROOM 3AB
Conventions are a surreal world, and this panel lets you in on stories straight from the mouths of creators, including Jim Zubkavich (Skullkickers), Travis Hanson (The Bean), Brandon Jerwa (The Mighty Crusaders), Eric Trautmann (Vampirella) and more. These stories are things they did or have seen that they might have regretted, made them laugh, cry, blush, be stunned and at times, simply have to call home about due to their sheer unbelievability.

Here are a selection of photos from the first leg of our trip. Click on the Skullsplitter beer pic to see snapshots from London, including the Victoria & Albert Museum and the Burroughs Market:

London 2011 Photos

On the front page of Image Comics official website they’ve got a spiffy promotional pic of the trade cover turned sideways. It’s a little thing but it made me smile. Only a few more weeks until the collected book is in stores!

Hopefully I’ll be able to post up photos and more from the UK soon!

Click for full size version

Here’s a quickly drawn demo character I created for the workshop I taught today at the Animex UK animation and game festival this year. The workshop covered Photoshop techniques, some digital drawing and character generation.

It was fun to throw some shapes together and see this hunchbacked gent appear by the end of it. I’d like to create a comic story with this Zork-ish style of art at some point when time allows. Not that I expect time will allow any time soon…

Just over a week ago I was interviewed on Fictional Frontiers by Sohaib Awan all about Skullkickers and making comics. Scroll ahead to the 31 minute mark of the podcast for the start of the coverage.

Click here to listen to the podcast.