It’s coming up to my favourite time in Japan: Obon/Bon Odori season.
While the weather (scorching humidity) isn’t something to sing about unless you’re a wee bit mad, the festivals are a lot of fun.
Also we’re closing in on the publication of my third novel Who is Killing the Great Capes of Heropa? (in September), my collection of noir/comics/articles (The Condimental Op) is now officially out there, and The Tobacco-Stained Sky anthology finally has a publication date: August 30th.
So, there’s quite a bit on the horizon. Obviously I’ve got my head down doing obligatory propaganda/promotion (yawn), but I’m also dabbling in a couple of comic book yarns on the side with artists Matt Kyme and Marcos Vergara and am putting together a new Roy & Susie story for the Books and Booze crew.
We scored great reviews for Who is Killing the Great Capes of Heropa? which you can check out online thanks to the wunderbar people at Fanboy Comics and Comic Bastards, and another website First Comics News gave the book a great plug as well as a sneak preview of some of the art.
I also was allowed to ramble prolific about names and how much I love tinkering with ’em for the Shadowhawk’s Shade site — think monikers in noir novels by Chandler and Hammett, comic books from the 1940s-60s, and my own fiction.
And if you dig free stuff (I know I do!), you can put your name down @ Goodreads for one of 5 giveaways of the paperback of The Condimental Op.
In the meantime I’m taking my time plodding through the rather superb Judge Dredd Complete Case Files 01, which brings together Dredd’s original run in the pages of British weekly 2000 AD back in the late ’70s — and which I hadn’t had a chance to read again since those heady days.
Yum.
Andrez Bergen / Little Nobody 