STAGGER LEE

T. Runt! Review on Newsarama

See it here!  (Scroll down almost to the bottom.)  I like the part where he says Jimmie and I aren't the first people you'd think of to do a children's book.  Or words to that effect.  It's true, but there we are!

T. Runt!

* T. Runt!, the children's book I did with the inestimable Jimmie Robinson, hits stores this Wednesday, June 17!  You can see a big preview of it here.

* Update: This is a Souvenir:  the Songs of Spearmint & Shirley Lee, is indeed in stores!  Go get a copy and spot the typo in the story Jimmie and I did, "The Last Bus Home."

This is a Souvenir!

The anthology This is a Souvenir:  the Songs of Spearmint & Shirley Lee, doing for Britpop band Spearmint what Comic Book Tattoo did for Tori Amos, is supposedly in stores today, though I haven't had a chance to check myself.  Jimmie Robinson and I did a story for the book, adapting the song "The Last Bus Home."  Go check it out and tell us what you think!  Or, if you're like me and can't get to a store, check the preview here.

Still More Updates!

Another long-overdue accounting:

(Amazon links are provided for your convenience, but please - support your real-world comic and book shops!)

* This Saturday, May 2, is Free Comic Book Day.  I’ll be at Comic Relief in Berkeley, signing books and doing whatever it is one does at Free Comic Book day.  I’m scheduled to be there from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. My signing shift overlaps with those of Jimmie Robinson, my collaborator on T. Runt! and Greg Espinoza, my collaborator on Pug.  Come see us all!  More info here.

* Great big interview with me up at Newsamara.  Go see!

* PopGun 3, featuring “Cuffs,” a nasty little crime story by me and Peter Krause and about 500 pages of comics from all sorts of talented people, has been out since early April.

* The ship date of Image’s anthology, This is a Souvenir:  the Songs of Spearmint & Shirley Lee has been delayed, in case you hadn’t noticed.  I’ve heard from reliable sources at Image that the book will be shipping May 20.  As mentioned previously, it includes a story by me and Jimmie Robinson.

* T. Runt! is at the printer and on target for a ship date in mid-June. You can see a big preview of it here.

* Pug is running a little late in production, but should be out not too long after our intended June ship date.  We produced some really great-looking promotional cards for Pug, featuring the first three pages of the book.  If you’d like one of the cards, email me at badmanstaggerlee at Comcast period net.

More Updates than I Know What to Do With

I’ve been meaning to update for a long time, but I kept thinking I should wait until I had the all clear to make this or that announcement…and now I’ve gone so long that a bunch of other announcements have piled up.  In roughly chronological order, then:

(Amazon links are provided for your convenience, but please - support your real-world comic and book shops!)

In late January, Image will be releasing This is a Souvenir:  the Songs of Spearmint & Shirley Lee.  Like Comic Book Tattoo, TIAS is an anthology of stories based on songs, in this case the songs of the indie BritPop band Spearmint.  Never heard of Spearmint?  Well, that’s not surprising if you’re not in the UK…as Image publisher Eric Stephenson put it, Spearmint remains a well-kept secret in North America.  But like Comic Book Tattoo, an affinity with the source material is not necessary to enjoy the comic art inspired by it.  I don’t happen to have a complete list of the contributors, but I know they include my perennial San Diego Comic-Con neighbours, Phonogram’s Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie, as well as Chynna Clugston-Flores, Jamie S. Rich, Mike Holmes, Rich Johnston, Salgood Sam, Scott Mills, and – drum roll – me and my old friend Jimmie Robinson.  I’ve tried a bunch of times over the years to put together a project with Jimmie, and I couldn’t be happier to have finally managed the trick.  You can read more about TIAS here and even order from Amazon here.

Next up, shipping in late March, is PopGun #3.  As you know if you’ve seen its first two issues, PopGun is a regular catalogue of the best the contemporary comics world has to offer.  My contribution to the third issue is a nasty little crime story called “Cuffs,” brought thrillingly to life by the extraordinary Peter Krause.  You can see more of Pete’s work here and order PopGun #3 here (for reasons too mysterious to contemplate, Amazon is showing the cover to PopGun #2 on the PopGun #3 page).  Pete and I are talking about future collaborations, and I really look forward to working with him again as soon as we can make it happen.

Sometime after that, Displaced Persons will ship.  I’ve made various announcements about the release date of Displaced Persons, all based on projections of the artwork’s completion.  Since that hasn’t worked out too well, I’m officially giving up on predicting a ship date until I have the last finished page of art in hand.  When that happens, you’ll be the first to know.  Well, obviously not the first.  But among the first few dozen, probably.

In June, my third Image graphic novel, Pug, will come out.  Pug is an attempt on the part of me and artist Greg Espinoza to channel the hard-boiled boxing movies of the 40s and 50s.  Greg’s recently completed the pencils on the book and is well into the inks, perfectly on target for our release date.  The coolest thing for us is that the book will be lettered by Mr. Tom Orzechowski, a titan among letterers and the man who put the words in the mouths of all my favourite characters when I first learned to love comics.  Pug is now available for preorder on Amazon here (without, alas, a cover image).

And as if that isn’t enough, Jimmie Robinson and I have a second project in the offing.  July will mark the release of T. Runt! from Silverline.  I’m particularly excited about this one – it’s my first storybook for children.  I’d set a goal for myself to have such a book in print while my daughter was still a preschooler, and it looks like we’re going to make it just under the wire.  This is also available for preorder on Amazon here (again, without a cover image).

But no, I’m still not done.  February 6-8 is the New York Comic Con and I’ll be there.  If you live in the New York area or plan to be there for the convention, please come see me.  My biggest comics-related announcement of the year – the one I kept waiting to be able to make – will be made at the convention.  If you’re there you’ll be able to hear it firsthand instead of waiting for me to remember to send out another update.

Displaced Persons Update, CBT, PopGun, Mystery Train &c

* As mentioned in the last update, Displaced Persons IS coming out but is very late.  The cause for the delay is artist Rantz Hoseley's unanticipatedly huge workload putting together Comic Book Tattoo, the anthology of comics stories based on songs by Tori Amos.  CBT is done and out now, and Rantz is back at work drawing Displaced Persons.  His last report is that the art is about 2/3 complete.  We're aiming now to debut the book at the New York Comicon in February 2009.  Further updates as events warrant.

* Yes, Comic Book Tattoo is out. It's a huge hit...the #2 bestseller on Buy.com, the #15 GN bestseller on Amazon, and the #35 bestseller on Bookscan.  Big big numbers.  From my own personal experience a few weeks ago at Comicon in San Diego, I can attest that the entire Comicon allotment sold out in roughly 24 hours.  Get yourself a copy now.  In addition to the story I did with Colleen Doran, it has work from something like 80 writers and artists, as thorough a cross-section as you could hope for of the best and brightest of today's comics industry.

* Also debuting at Comicon was PopGun #2, featuring the story Nixon's the One! by my ownself and my boyhood pal Ron Turner.  This book is another huge slab of comic art and you should grab yourself a copy posthaste.

* Comicon was swell, by the way.  I stayed with my good friend and future collaborator Jimmie Robinson in a hotel in the distant enclave of Coronado.  I was bummed when I couldn't get a hotel any closer to the convention centre, but it turned out to be the home of the world's best bacon, so it ended up being kind of a tradeoff.  I hung out mostly at the CBT table during the convention, and managed to make it to both the Tori/CBT panel and a subsequent meet and greet event for Tori and the CBT creators to say hi to each other.  By the time I was introduced to Tori she was getting ready to take off for an MTV interview and I was getting ready to take off to catch my plane home, so there wasn't time for much more than a hello...but I did take the opportunity to ask her to tell Rantz that it was time for him to work on my book, and she dutifully turned around and repeated the message to him.

* Lastly, the news that is, to my mind, the biggest of all.  The fifth revised edition of Mystery Train, Greil Marcus' classic book on music and pop culture, has been released.  If you get yourself a copy and flip to page 288, you'll find a reference to "Derek McCulloch and Shepherd Hendrix's irresistible graphic novel Stagger Lee."  So there, it's official.  I have made a contribution to the fabric of American pop culture and I can prove it because I'm in the index of the main textbook.

Displaced Persons IS Coming

If you've pre-ordered Displaced Persons from Amazon and have been getting messages along the lines of "this item is temporarily out of stock," DON'T PANIC.  The book is just taking a bit longer to complete than we'd counted on.  We're taking steps to get a revised ship date into Amazon's records, but in the meantime be assured that you'll get your copy from Amazon just as soon as the book is done and shipped.  At the moment it's looking like that will happen in late September or early October.  I'll continue to update this space as I have more information.

WonderCon Signing Time

I have a whole bunch of little announcements that I keep not making because I wanted to save them until I was ready to announce my new web site.  I'm still tinkering on the web site, though, so the announcements keep sliding.

There is one thing I'd better hurry up and mention, though, because it's happening tomorrow:  WonderCon begins at Moscone Center in San Francisco, and I'll be doing a signing with Rantz Hoseley, the artist on my upcoming GN, Displaced Persons.  Rantz and I will be signing at the Image booth from 5-6 p.m. Friday February 22.

Shep won't be at that particular signing, but he'll be at WonderCon too, I think through the whole show.  Look for him at his table in artist's alley, which he'll be sharing with our old compadre Greg Espinoza.

PopGun on Wednesday

If you're getting tired of waiting for Shep and/or me to come out with another book - I know I am - this Wednesday a little tide-me-over arrives.  The gigantic new Image anthology PopGun contains a short piece we did entitled "Jenny Greenteeth," plus about a million pages of comics by other people whose identities I don't actually happen to know.  They've got to be good, though - they're in the same book with us.  Ha.

 

Anyway, pester your local comics shop for your copy of PopGun on Wednesday November 28.  PopGun 2 is already scheduled for next June, and we'd like to see it be a regular thing.

Stagger Lee in Edmonton - Friday, October 5 (and PopGun)

I'm doing two shows in Edmonton this Friday - a signing at Happy Harbor Comics, and a lecture at the library.  The press release for the event is at the end of this post - hope to see everybody there.

 

In other news - Shep and I have a story in the upcoming Image anthology, PopGun.  It's a 500+ page collection by dozens of different writers and artists.  Our story is called "Jenny Greenteeth."  You can read a bit about the collection here:   and its Amazon page is here. 

 

And now, the press release...

 

* * *

STAGGER LEE COMES TO EDMONTON
Author Derek McCulloch makes latest stop in "STAGGER LEE 101" Tour

Award-winning graphic novel writer and former Edmonton resident Derek McCulloch will return to his old stomping grounds this October to pass on a little of what he's learned about the blues in his time in America. On Friday, October 5th, McCulloch will appear first at Happy Harbor comics, where he will sign copies of his graphic novel, Stagger Lee. Later that evening, he will appear at the Edmonton Public Library, where he will give a slide show and lecture on the history and myth of Stagger Lee.

On Christmas Night, 1895 "Stag" Lee Shelton shot Billy Lyons dead in a St. Louis barroom during an argument over a Stetson Hat. More than 100 years and a thousand songs, McCulloch and artist Shepherd Hendrix created a compelling and bold look at the true story of the crime and its transformation into a legend of the blues.

"From the moment I first read the history that inspired the legend, I knew it was a uniquely powerful story just waiting to be told to a new generation," says McCulloch. Chances are you've heard about Stagger Lee in one of the many recordings available. McCulloch and Hendrix listened to more than thirty versions for inspiration while creating their book, by artists like Ma Rainey, Mississippi John Hurt, Lloyd Price, Bob Dylan, The Clash, Ike and Tina Turner, and Nick Cave. It is this mythical translation in song handed down over the years that McCulloch and Hendrix explore in their book. Stagger Lee weaves together an intricate narrative using available historical record, a twist or two when facts are missing, and a rare social perspective on culture, language, politics and race.

Stagger Lee was acclaimed as one of the best graphic novels of 2006, garnering nominations in the Eisner and Eagle Awards and winning four Glyph Awards, including Best Writer and Story of the Year. It received dozens of rave reviews from such publications as Entertainment Weekly, Publishers Weekly, the Washington Post, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Miami Herald, and the St. Louis-Dispatch. It was singled out for praise from renowned comics creators such as Warren Ellis, Ed Brubaker, and Matt Wagner, as well as legendary rock critic and historian, Greil Marcus.

Appearing with Derek is local comic historian and professional reviewer Tim Lasiuta who will be signing copies of his book "Brush Strokes With Greatness - Life & Times of Joe Sinnott" and will be available to talk to fans about other great comic legends. You can listen to Tim's weekly, live comic webcast on World News Radio's COMIC ZONE every Wednesday at 2 pm Pacific!

Don't miss an opportunity to meet these authors at the "STAGGER LEE 101" Tour stops in Edmonton:

Friday, October 5th, 4 p.m - 6 p.m. - Signing at Happy Harbor Comics, 10112 - 124 Street, (780) 452-8211
Friday, October 5th, 7 p.m. - Slide show, reading, Q&A, and signing at Edmonton Public Library, Centre Core, Centre for Reading and the Arts, Stanley A Milner Library, 7 Sir Winston Churchill Square, (780) 496-7000.

iFanboy Historical Comics Roundup

iFanboy has a new episode up dealing with historical comics.  Guess what's the first one discussed?

Displaced Persons Available for Pre-Order

Amazon has a Displaced Persons pre-order page - see the link in the sidebar.  The book won't be shipping until next May, but you can make sure you're among the first to receive a copy by ordering now.  Or, like, in a week or two even.

I guess I should get started on that Displaced Persons blog.

Photos from Comic Relief Eisner Winners/Nominees Party, 26 August 2007

And now, the pictures....

Derek displays heretofore unrecognised sommelier skills as CR owner Rory Root braces for disaster

Eisner winner Steve Leialoha with a couple of also-rans

L-R: Unidentified attendee*, Jimmie! Robinson, and Derek share a libation *Oh, okay, it's Greg Espinoza

Eisner winner Gene Yang, underexposed

Derek makes an embarrassingly doofy face while 2006 Eisner nominee Anina Bennett tries to direct attention instead to his bottle of 12-year-old Macallan

Shep's a busy man with no time to waste on the likes of you

The winners (and nominees) with their books: Derek, Shep, Gene, Steve (missing on account of early departure: Lark Pien)

For a few more photos, see my Flickr set here.

iFanboy and Comic Relief Event

If you've always wondered what I look like after three days of late night drinking and early waking, with the added bonus of spending the entire day in a convention center jam-packed with the world's most bewildering cross-section of cardboard-shield-toting humanity, now's your chance!  Go to iFanboy and see the interview I did Saturday afternoon at Comic-con.  I'm about the fourth or fifth interview in, somewhere in the middle of the video.

And if you're in the Bay Area a couple of weeks from now, come see me and Shep in person.  On Sunday August 26th from 5-7pm, Comic Relief: THE Comic Bookstore in the heart of downtown Berkeley (2026 Shattuck Avenue) will be hosting a celebration for Eisner Nominees and Winners from the Bay Area.  In attendance, along with Shep and I, will be Eisner winners Gene Yang (American Born Chinese) and Steve Leialoha (Fables) and nominee Lark Pien (American Born Chinese).  Owner Rory Root promises "a family-friendly event with cake and cookies, punch and such," and more great graphic novels than you ever knew existed.

Please consider yourself most cordially invited!

Stagger Lee iMix

Honestly, I don't have a clue about this iStuff, but Joe Keatinge of Image talked me into doing a Stagger Lee iMix.  I put together a list of 45 versions of Stagger Lee (it would have been fifty, but five of them turned out to be unavailable for iMixology - again, I don't understand how this stuff works).  I tried to cut a wide swath - everything from John Hurt and Ma Rainey to The Clash to Nick Cave.  The Tom Jones version frightens me, but you may be made of sterner stuff.

Check out the iMix here.  And pass it on to someone who needs to see it.

And before I forget...

...if you're going to be at Comic-Con in San Diego, come see us!  We'll be there Wed. July 25 - Sun. July 29.  We'll be at the Image booth.  "We" being me, Shep, and Rantz Hoseley (artist on Displaced Persons).  One or the other of us should be at the booth at all times.  Shep and I will have copies of Stagger Lee for sale and Rantz and I will have copies of a 24-page preview of Displaced Persons to give away.  Yes, FREE!  Shep and Rantz can probably be induced to do sketches.  And no, you still can't touch my hat.

A Long Overdue Update

It's been an unconscionably long time since I've posted.  My defense is that I've been extraordinarily busy.  A small sample of updates I haven't had time to make should give you an idea...

In late April, I took a family trip to Santa Barbara, and while we were there I did the Stagger Lee show solo at UCSB's College of Creative Studies.  It was my first time doing the show without Shep, but I had my family with me to make me feel at home.  Unfortunately, one member of the family felt perhaps a little too much at home.  As I was being introduced, my not-yet-three-year-old-daughter Pearl, who was passing the time quietly "reading" aloud from The Poky Little Puppy, decided to increase her volume to compete with the amplified voice of our host, John Wilson.  When my wife Tara told Pearl it was time to be quiet, a tantrum ensued.  "What did I do?" John asked, bemused.  Mortified, Tara hustled Pearl out of the room.  When I took the podium, I felt I had to acknowledge the disruption.  "That was my daughter Pearl," I told the audience.  "On the day she was born, she was the loudest baby in the hospital, and apparently that hasn't changed."  Just the other day, John sent us a DVD of my talk, complete with Pearl's outburst overwhelming the microphone.  This will be a treasured family heirloom and a sure source of embarrassment for Pearl in her teenaged years.

In October, I'll again be doing the show solo, this time at the Edmonton Public Library.  I'll also be doing a signing at Happy Harbor Comics.  Stay tuned here for more details, and I promise we'll better acquaint Pearl with the concept of public performance beforehand.

In April and May, the Glyph Awards approached.  Rich Watson did a nice series of profiles of the nominees in the various categories.  You can still find the ones touching on Stagger Lee here, here, here, here, here, and here.  When the big day arrived, we did very well, winning in four out of our six categories.  The story was widely covered in the comics press.  Shep and I couldn't be in Philadelphia for the awards ceremony, but we had arranged in advance with the almost supernaturally affable Professor Bill Foster that if we won, he'd call us on his cell and let us accept via speaker phone.  As the time difference would have it, I was still at work when the awards were scheduled to happen.  The expected end time of the awards show had long since passed when I was getting ready to go, so I thought we'd been shut out.  I was just packing up to leave when my cell rang, and it was Bill telling me that we'd won Best Cover and Best Male Character, and that I had just won Best Writer.  Bill put me on speaker.  I said "Can you all hear me?"  There was an odd little pause, and then a roar of applause so loud I had to hold the phone away from my ear.  It was very surreal accepting by telephone, and a silly comparison came to mind.  I said, "Wow, it's like I'm Charlie and you're all the angels."  There was a silence just long enough for me to think "Wow, that really died," and then again there was a huge roar of laughter.  There seemed to be a cell phone lag of about two seconds, which made the proceedings all the stranger.

At the end of May, we were thrilled to find our names dropped by legendary San Francisco Chronicle columnist Jon Carroll.  We were particularly thrilled because this was a plug we'd done nothing to achieve; Carroll had become familiar with our book the old-fashioned way - by reading it.  Ironically, this was one of the few days of the year when I hadn't looked at his column in the morning.  My wife called me up in great excitement, having heard about it from a co-worker.  We both initially assumed it was a mistake of some sort on the part of said co-worker.  Go figure.

Shep and I are doing a short piece for an upcoming Image anthology called PopGun.  Our piece is called "Jenny Greenteeth." I saw the art for the first time two weeks ago, and it looks gorgeous.  We're also in the midst of a short piece for another anthology.  I finished a draft of a script last Friday and am in the process of rewriting now.

About two weeks ago, artist Rantz Hoseley and I, along with the stalwart crew of letterers and designers at Comicraft (principally Rich Starkings and John Roshell), put the finishing touches on a preview book for our upcoming graphic novel, Displaced Persons.  The preview book features fifteen pages of story from the book, and will be available for free at the Image table at the San Diego Comics Convention slightly more than two weeks hence.  As you might know, this blog was started when Stagger Lee was at about the same stage that Displaced Persons is at now.  Our release date is May '08, and it occurs to me that I should probably take this as my cue to shift over to doing a publication blog for it.  I'm not sure if it makes more sense to just keep doing updates on this blog or to start up a new one, but whichever way I decide, there'll be an announcement here before too long.

Eisner Nominations

We're on a roll....  The nominations were announced today for the Eisner Awards, the Oscars of comics, and we managed to eke out our own little blip on that list.  We're nominated in the category of "Best Reality-Based Work."

Stagger Lee Nominated in the Eagle Awards

Did I forget to mention?  Eagle Awards nominees, that's us.  Thanks to all whose votes helped us secure a nomination for best original graphic novel in the British comics awards.  The final ballot is up here.  You have until April 22 to vote.

Photos From the East Coast Mini-Tour

A few photos from our recent excursions...Shep's behind the camera in all of the pictures, so you'll have to take our word for it he was there.

Chatting on the air with Bill Wax, XM Radio

With owner Joel Pollock at Big Planet Comics in Bethesda

With Professor Bill Foster and students, Naugatuck Valley Community College, Waterbury, CT