Bolt Town

10 things that make me happy

2007-10-20T10:05:16Z

My sweetheart just tagged me with this meme, so here goes...

1. Amy. I'm just about as happy as I can be when I'm around her or when I have her on my mind. She's the biggest reason I will have smile wrinkles at a young age.
2. My brothers Taka and Tim, the best brothers anyone could ask for.
3. My 3 moms: June, Sunni, and Judy.
4. My grandparents, whose lifelong happiness is inspiring.
5. My sisters Julie and Emi, my cousins Mark and Cathy, my aunt, uncle, and dad. I suppose I should clump all of my family into one entry. I love them all and they make me happy.
6. All of my friends. I have the greatest group of friends anyone could ask for.
7. Watching movies, good and bad. My favorite form of entertainment.
8. Our studio space for work and play. We have such a cool office, and I get to work on such cool projects. Plus, Dusty (Ben's dog) hangs out there sometimes.
10. Good people.

Hmm, I guess I like the people around me so much that I ran out of room for other stuff. Well, other things that make me happy include a good night's rest, finishing a comic (large or small), finishing a sweet illustration, organizing my work and living spaces, buying cool toys (like video games and such). As for something quirky - I like it when I slip my legs under the covers of a nicely made bed and it feels nice and cool.

Happy Birthday, dude!!

2007-02-03T21:26:52Z

We made you a Mii! :)

Flight 3 in stores

2006-06-27T10:17:49Z

Flight 3 is trickling into various retail outlets right now. For those that haven’t seen any of its contents, here’s a preview page. We recently discovered that the books won’t be shipping to comic stores this week. I’m not sure why that is (it shouldn’t be the case), so I’m going to check in on that.

Flight 3 books have arrived!

2006-06-07T05:57:25Z

I have seen Flight 3 and it is beautiful. Sitting in my living room with the warm afternoon glow, I had a nice time reading through the book in its paper form for the very first time. I had read all of the stories many, many times already in their digital form, but I was surprised at how different they all felt reading them like this. It was great. I had so much fun.

I'm so proud of everyone involved in this project, and I have to thank the fine folks at Ballantine Books for their dedication to the book, and for really opening my eyes to the level of professionalism afforded by the big trade book publishers. We already have ten times as many pre-orders for Flight 3 than we did for either 1 or 2, and the quality of the production is impeccable.

The first thing Amy and I noticed was that the satin finish of the cover felt really, REALLY good. It's the kind of finish that you feel on really nice trade books. The second thing we noticed was that despite being 80 pages shorter, Flight 3 was actually THICKER than Flight 2, because of the nicer paper stock. In any case, the book is a very nice package, and its contents continues the high quality set by the first two volumes.

Reading through this volume, even I'm pretty amazed by the development of this project- from its scrappy beginnings as a potential photocopied Kinko's production for the Alternative Press Expo, to seeing the "Ballantine Books - New York" logo on the front page of a book that is about to be in thousands of bookstores across America. It's been several hours now, and I've just been holding this book like a new baby.

Copper - "Steps"

2006-04-25T11:41:13Z

The new Copper is up. It's a bit of a tribute to an early Little Nemo cartoon, a strip that I saw in an animation book while at school one day, and revamped my interest in drawing comics.

Tokyopop Artists Signing @ Nucleus

2006-04-15T00:54:52Z

Just a reminder that Amy and Becky, along with other Tokyopop artists, will be signing books tomorrow, Saturday April 14th, at Nucleus from 7 to 11pm. They'll also have original artwork and prints on the walls of the gallery. Rad Sechrist and I will be hanging out during the signing as well.

I've been going over the first half of the color proofs for Flight 3 and the book looks and reads beautifully. Seeing the stories together, I feel relieved. It really is awesome.

Flight 3 in Kotori Magazine, plus wraparound cover image

2006-04-03T09:36:57Z

I just realized I can copy-paste my blog entries from my site to the livejournal interface. Sweet! So, from today's post:

Flight 3 is currently featured in Kotori Magazine (formerly WAV magazine) with preview images from the book. Interior pages here and here.

I realized after visiting my friend Steve's blog that I hadn't posted the full cover for Flight 3 yet, so here's the complete wraparound cover. Flight 3 posters should be ready this week, in time for APE. (I'm crossing my fingers because I gave the printer the go-ahead with no color proof) I'll be there for the event and will be holding a panel discussion with several other Flight artists on Sunday from 1:45 to 2:40 pm. Right now, I'm debating on whether or not we should take the PCH up the coast. The little that Amy and I saw of it when we headed down last time was absolutely gorgeous.

Flight 3 in Previews

2006-03-28T03:14:59Z

FLIGHT 3 is now soliciting in this month's issue of PREVIEWS magazine. For those that aren't familiar with the publication, this is the monthly catalog put out by Diamond Comic Distributors that is used by all comic shops across America. In order to get copies of the book you want in stock, it's important for you to head to your local comic store and ask them to pre-order copies, otherwise they won't know to stock them (in the case of lesser-known works). FLIGHT 3 is currently soliciting from Ballantine Books on page 245 of the catalog, with a full-page ad on page 268, and is a Featured Item on page 206. Make sure to let your local store know to have some in stock! My friend Michel, whose work appears in Flight 3, also has his book, Zed, solicited on page 293. Highly recommended. Also, the cover of Previews was done by future Flight artist Gabriel Ba.

Diamond order codes (you can give these to the comic retailers for easy ordering):

Flight 3 - APR063014
Flight 2 - JAN051598
Flight 1 - MAY041415

Copper - "Metropolitan"

2006-03-06T20:36:34Z

The new Copper is up. This one was difficult to complete, but I think it's because I'm trying to get back into work mode after the Tahoe trip... On that note, it's time to get back to work on Amulet...

Ghost Bus

2006-02-08T09:37:52Z

If anyone on here lives near LA, Nucleus is having another gallery show reception this Saturday at 7pm. It's being organized by a guest curator and it's called Chubby Bunny. Here's my piece for the show:

Happy Birthday Kean!

2006-02-03T10:00:11Z

For the Keaner...

Woohoo!

2006-01-26T12:00:15Z

Daisy Kutter - The Last Train is officially one of the "Best Books for Young Adults" for the year 2006, according to the Young Adult Library Services Association and the ALA. Sweet! It made the final list. More info here. Thanks to Kean for the heads up...

Making of Copper

2006-01-24T10:37:45Z

This took me a while to put together, so I am posting it all over the place. Time to shleeeep...

Copper - "Slowrider"

2006-01-22T01:26:06Z

Updated Copper... finally...

Uh oh

2006-01-21T10:31:12Z

I have yet to participate in this meme stuff, but it looks like Jeff has passed one to me. Hmm. 5 guilty pleasures...

1) Burnout 3. I bought a GameCube with the intention to play only "artsy" games like Legend of Zelda Wind Waker, but when I bought a copy of Burnout for cheap, I got hooked on crashing cars and blowing stuff up. Sigh. Aside from Shadow of the Colossus, this is pretty much the only game I play on my PS2.

2) Checking box office gross tallies. I have no idea why it should concern me, but I was checking to see how King Kong was doing as often as I checked my email.

3) Starship Troopers. My love for this movie is not a secret. My friends even bought me a poster of it for my birthday, and I nearly cried tears of joy. Where else can you watch googly-eyed space cadets get slaughtered mercilessly by giant bugs while still managing to pull off some pretty effective WW2 propaganda satire? Friggin' sweet.

4) Buying cool toys for work (wacom tablets, etc.), just so I can write them off on my taxes. Books too.

5) Checking my site stats. For a long while I stopped caring, but I can't stop looking at them nowadays.

popcorn...

merofi
music_slut
jodycody
bannman
bahboh

Yet Another Stumptown Report

2005-10-06T08:29:23Z

Here's my late entry in the Stumptown Report Frenzy. I was actually a little too busy looking at places to live to take an adequate amount of pictures, but here are a few I did have, coupled with some of Amy's...

Breaking Out

2005-08-10T07:22:23Z

Not sure if anyone still reads this livejournal, but the publisher of my new book Amulet just sent out a press release regarding the project:

SCHOLASTIC ACQUIRES AMULET
BY BREAKOUT GRAPHIC NOVELIST KAZU KIBUISHI

Two Volumes To Be Published Under Scholastic’s
Groundbreaking Graphix Imprint

NEW YORK, NY (August 9th, 2005) – Scholastic, the world’s largest publisher and distributor of children’s books, announced that it has acquired Amulet, a two-book deal won at auction. Written by 27-year-old graphic novelist Kazu Kibuishi, the first title will be released in spring 2007 under Scholastic’s Graphix imprint. Kazu Kibuishi is represented by Judith Hansen of Hansen Literary Agency.

“We are very proud to be the publisher of Kazu Kibuishi’s Amulet,” said Jean Feiwel, publisher and senior vice president, Scholastic Children’s Book Publishing. “Kazu’s amazing ability to combine action-packed storytelling, engaging characters and stunning artwork will appeal to children and adults alike. We look forward to building this new Graphix talent and bringing these innovative books to Scholastic’s distribution channels.”

In Amulet, main characters Em and Navin’s mother has recently died, and their father has just moved them to a strange, hilltop house. After their father disappears suddenly, the kids find a door that leads into a stunning labyrinth filled with strange creatures and hints of a vast, new world at the end of it. As they search for their father in the maze, they join forces with a small rabbit, Miskit, who is also searching for a lost loved one.

Kazu Kibuishi’s debut graphic novel, Daisy Kutter: The Last Train, was nominated as an American Library Association Best Book for Young Adults – the only graphic novel on the list in 2005. He is the editor and art director of the critically-acclaimed Flight, an anthology of young comic book artists. Flight Volume II was published in April 2005 to rave reviews. Kibuishi was born in Tokyo, Japan and moved to the United States in 1982 with his mother and brother. He currently lives in southern California.

In early 2005, Scholastic established itself as a leading publisher of graphic novels for kids with the full-color publication of Bone, the award-winning epic tale by Jeff Smith. Scholastic launched Bone as the flagship title for Graphix, a new graphic novel imprint that focuses on creator-driven books that bring exceptional art, rich content, and strong storytelling to a range of genres including fiction, fantasy, sci-fi, nonfiction, and more. The mission of Graphix is to bring visual literacy and aesthetic sense of graphic novels to children.

Scholastic Corporation (NASDAQ: SCHL) is the world's largest publisher and distributor of children's books and a leader in educational technology. Scholastic creates quality educational and entertaining materials and products for use in school and at home, including children's books, magazines, technology-based products, teacher materials, television programming, film, videos and toys. The Company distributes its products and services through a variety of channels, including proprietary school-based book clubs, school-based book fairs, and school-based and direct-to-home continuity programs; retail stores, schools, libraries, and television networks; and the Company's Internet Site, www.scholastic.com <http://www.scholastic.com>.

Yep.

2005-02-20T14:44:07Z

Done!

I am here!

2005-02-17T02:50:10Z

Well, I decided that having one blog detailing my life and career just wasn't enough. Actually, I signed up on this thing so I can view my friends' ultra-personal journal updates and to remind me of their birthdays. I'll also try to see if there's anything I can come up with that might amuse the passersby... later!

Testing testing....

2005-02-16T06:08:25Z

Testing!