Chris In Real Life (or what passes for it)

Sorry I haven't posted much lately.

I've been struggling – as always – with my various writing assignments and my similarly varied health issues. I recently started a new diet (yeah, I know), and I've lost around 15 pounds. Not a lot, but a start. The hardest part is that I've had to cut out caffeine, and the past week of caffeine withdrawal was a singular sort of hell. I also went to the dentist for the first time in probably 25 years. Lucked out there, though: not a single cavity, just some minor bone damage from gingivitis, which I'm told should be easy to clear up with a couple of cleaning sessions and a little more diligence with my oral hygiene.

Currently reading the Donald Westlake novel, What's So Funny?, the latest – I think – Dortmunder book. So far, it's starting out promisingly. I'm also reading In The Courts of the Crimson Kings by S.M. Stirling, a modern take on the interplanetary romances of Edgar Rice Burroughs, et al. I'm hoping to pick up the new James Bond novel, Devil May Care soon, which I believe is supposed to be released this week.

The initial orders for Femme Noir were not as good as we'd hoped, but my optimistic and far-seeing publishers, Ape Entertainment, are still firmly behind the book, and not only will they be publishing the entire 4-issue miniseries as promised, but they've asked for an immediate, 48-page, one-shot follow-up. Joe Staton and I have already come up with a story idea, and we'll be starting on the new book – which I'm referring to as the Femme Noir Annual – just as soon as we've got the last issue of the miniseries off to the printer. The title will be Femme Noir: Supernatural Crime, and will guest star the skull-visaged vigilante known as Brother Grim. The idea is that our heroine and Grim will work the same macabre mystery separately from different angles, and then collide at the climax.

Should be fun, if I can pull it off.

By the way, I would still appreciate it if people kept plugging Femme Noir around the web and to their comics retailers. The third issue (which is probably the strongest issue in this miniseries) will be in the June edition of the Diamond PREVIEWS catalog, which comes out this week, and we can use all the help we can get. I'd be thrilled if we could buck the odds and actually increase the numbers for the later issues in the mini.

Here's the order info: Femme Noir: The Dark City Diaries #3 of 4, from Ape Entertainment, at the bottom of page 206. The Diamond Item codes are: JUN083647 for Cover "A" by Joe Staton and Alfredo Lopez and JUN083648 for Cover "B" by Phil Hester (Green Arrow, Nightwing, The Irredeemable Ant-Man).

Thanks for your continued interest & support, guys!