Today I found out I'm nominated for a Harvey Award for best colorist. The Harveys are big, maybe the second biggest awards in American comics, behind the Eisners. Unlike the Eisners, though, voting on the Harveys is strictly limited to people who work on comics as part of the professional team that produces the comics. Editors, writers, artists, letterers, color artists and others can vote. It's not open to voting by fans or retailers like some other awards. So I guess it's sort of the Golden Globes of comics.

Anyway, it's a big honor. This is my 6th nomination for a Harvey Award, but I have never won this particular award. So wish me luck! And if you're a pro, vote for me if you're so inclined!

The Harvey Awards

I'll be away for a while. Early next week my lovely fiancee Nara and I will be heading to a small town called Tribunj on the Croatian Adriatic Coast for a nice, six week vacation.

It's here, if you're curious:


Tribunj on Google Maps


I will be doing some work while there, but not very much. It will be a chance for us to relax away from the city and enjoy the sea. We'll be swimming a lot. I'll be eating a ton of fish, though Nara tells me she won't be eating much at all. She's a girl, you know, and they say these things sometimes. Usually after the boy orders pizza late at night one too many times. Anyway, we'll be there. We'll relax. We'll read a lot. We'll get sweaty and salty. We'll pick figs off the tree and eat those for sure. We'll ride our bikes around. We'll visit the local islands and hang out with the natives. And their spears. Sharp, pointy spears.

I suspect that I may drink some beers too.

But one thing we won't be doing much of is replying to e-mail or surfing the internet. The blog will likely go quiet. As will MySpace and my e-mail account.

We checked on an internet card for the laptops, but it was a rip off. T Mobile and VIP can suck my ass. I'm not paying what they want. Which leaves us with an internet cafe in neighboring Vodice. But I'm not likely to go there very often. And when I do, it'll be mostly to check in with work. And really, this is actually okay. Because if I have internet there, I will have a harder time breaking from routine. This will force me to relax and go outside.

Anyway, the point is to give you all a heads up. I'm alive. But I will be inactive until sometime in the middle of August starting early next week. And this is being posted and sent out early so that I can reply to replies of replies before I leave.

I hope you all have a great summer and that the cannibals don't catch up with you.

Beer!

My hangover has faded a bit. If you live in Croatia, then I'm guessing you were out partying last night too.

I went to the center to meet some friends for a drink up. While I had not really planned it that way, it so happens that we were meeting up after a UEFA EURO 2008 game between Germany and Croatia. I've been rabid about watching all of these games and have really been enjoying it. I watched the game, which was a great game. Croatia beat Germany 2-1. And not only that, but they beat Germany solidly. Croatia played extremely well. It was an exciting game to watch too. Very lively and a lot of fun. And for those of us in Croatia, very satisfying. The coach, Slaven Bilić is very popular here. I like him. And it's nice to see the team, as lead by him, doing well in these games. To me, it's an indication that he should be sticking around as coach as we head into the World Cup qualifying season, for the 2010 World Cup. And it's also nice to see Croatia playing well considering that some English player broke the leg of one of the lead players, Eduardo Da Silva. Da Silva is a goal scorer, so when he was injured, it was a major concern for this tournament. It's nice to see the other players stepping up and doing so well.

Of course, Zagreb was crazy last night. Everyone was decked out in the Croatian red and white checkers. And it seemed like the entire town was out partying. We sat outside near Bulldog and groups were wandering around singing and happy. It was a nice environment.

Now let's hope they keep it up. If they win first place in their group, which is very possible, then whoever is second will have to face Portugal next. Let's hope that's not Croatia.

Hahaha!

Just saw the teaser poster for Oliver Stone's film about George W. Bush.

Click the image below for a larger version that you can hopefully read. All of those quotes are direct quotes from Dubya, without any distortion of any kind. How sad is that?

The "gypsy Ikea" is back! It's time once again for people in the local neighborhood to dump their larger garbage. Which, of course, means the Gypsies show up to grab it!

I laughed when I saw this today, though, as they set up almost their own little cafe while they guard the dump area. They usually watch it and claim it. I suppose they're competitive and are making sure nobody else tries to claim what's theirs. It seems like maybe the older folks stay and watch it and the younger ones come and go with trucks to take as much as they can carry. You can see here they set up an umbrella and what looks like a little cafe area. That's not normally there, it's just their area to hang out in while watching the goodies. It's raining today, so I guess it's there to stay dry. But it's funny. It looks like a full little cafe they have there. And those are their three trucks that will cart stuff off.

The first issue of Hellblazer Presents: Chas - The Knowledge is off to the printer today. It marks not only my return to Vertigo, with whom I worked for years (including on Preacher) but my return to the Hellblazer universe. I colored the monthly Hellblazer for a couple of years, working over lineart by Sean Phillips with writing by Jamie Delano, Eddie Campbell and Paul Jenkins. I think that was around 1994-1995 or something, certainly a long time ago.

This book is a five issue series written by Simon Oliver, drawn by Goran Sudžuka, lettered by Clem Robbins, edited by Jonathan Vankin and colored by myself. We're having some good fun with it. Hope you'll pick it up.