Zombie vs. Shark vs. Anthony Ha

As you may have heard, I wrote my very first comic script a few months ago (I finished the first draft at WisCon over Memorial Day Weekend). Well, that script was turned into a real, honest-to-God comic by Anthony Wu, and is now featured in Electric Ant Zine #2, published by good friend/horror manga guru Ryan Sands.

I finally read the issue this week, and it's a blast -- I spend so much time hanging out with Ryan and the other artists in the self-proclaimed Bang Gang that I'd forgotten what a weird, personal project EAZ can be. Issue 2, for example, includes Ryan's article on Takarazuka (the word "heteronormative" comes up several times), recreations of formative scary images, and best of all the insane jam comic, "Planet X Rises (Part 1)." Some of the artists involved in the project are better than others, but there's real energy and unpredictability on almost every page, and Calvin Wong's contribution, in particular, is a little masterpiece of invention and timing.

As for my comic, "Empire," well ... since the bulk of the writing is already months behind me, I can definitely see lots of things that I'd change for improved clarity and rhythm. But hey, it's my first comic, and the only seven-page-comic-biography-of-a-robber-baron-in-space that I know of.

Oh, and apparently there's nothing I can write that Wu can't make 10 times better when he draws it. So there's that, too.