The Nice Guy - The Rant Shack

The Rant Shack

(Wherein We Rant)

Mike Says:

(02/01/04)

BIGGEST NICE GUY MONTH EVER!!!

We were pretty excited when we checked on our site traffic and found that we were growing each and every month since we went live. Our biggest month ever for visits and hits was December. We were pretty happy with that.

And then came January. Where were more than quadrupled our December numbers.

The Nice Guy has definitely arrived, with the help of you guys telling your friends and co-workers, with some creative marketing, and most especially with the help of our Nice Guy Pimp #1 Sarah Haslett, who's been piping in more and more ideas on where to spread the Nice Guy good word. Our plan all along has been to get people excited about the Nice Guy before the comic hits the stores so we have an audience ready to go. And it's working. Keep sending those links to people in your address books, folks! We love it! More the merrier.

And the Nice Guy, FYI, is now being read in over 22 countries, such as Austria, New Zealand, Singapore, Finland, Italy, Argentina, Japan, Iceland, the Philippines, Spain, Ireland (my peeps!), Sweden, France, Israel, Denmark, Australia...and of course our rockin' sister nation, Canada (who have apologized for Brian Adams on a number of occasions). They don't call it the worldwide web for nothin'. So let us just take this chance to welcome our international readers, and to say:

We love you, Belize! Good night!

Things are going to get bigger. Our big push toward publication starts this spring, and you'll be seeing even more frequent updates, some previews of the print comic, and even an upcoming interview with your dutiful Nice Guy creators. Keep it here for all the news.

"COMMON GROUNDS" AN UNCOMMONLY GREAT SUCCESS STORY

So I get an e-mail from our friend Ben a while back. We've got this little posse of writers and artists we've been a part of for years, just creative types that have become friends along the way. Sometimes you lose track of one or two. This was the case with our friend Troy Hickman. Now Troy, aside from being a really great guy, was always a really great writer. Back in the day (this was like a decade ago, when last we knew one another), Troy was grinding it out in the world of mini (or digest) comics. This was before the whole internet and the online comics revolution. Back then, if you wanted to create comics and you had no money and no publisher, you made mini comics. You wrote and/or drew them, and you copied them down at Kinko's, and you folded and stapled them and sold them for like a quarter. It wasn't about the money. It was about a love for making comics and wanting to share them with people.

Troy was big in the mini comics scene. I remember one in particular he sent me way back when (I think I was still living in Phoenix), just an 8-page, self-contained story. And I remember thinking, wow, this is REALLY good. It had emotional weight, great characters...all in just eight pages. We all sort of hoped Troy would break out and get noticed somewhere along the way. I'm sure Troy did, too, but he was happy just to keep making comics for people to enjoy.

Back to the e-mail. So Ben, who'd lost track of him, too, decided to try and find out where he was. He did a little Google search on him. And when he found out, he quickly e-mailed the rest of us in the circle. How in the world had we somehow missed this?

It seems that Troy is suddenly the new golden boy in comic writing, thanks to the series he writes, Common Grounds. The first issue of this book just hit stores this month. Check that link and read the article. Basically, this book is Troy's long-running mini comic called "Holey Crullers". The basic idea is there's this chain of donut shops that are sort of neutral ground, where super-heroes and super-villains hang and shoot the breeze, with no fighting allowed. These are stories that explore the human side of supers, great character tales that are sometimes funny, sometimes touching, usually thought-provoking.

Cover of "Common Grounds" issue #1

Jim Mclauchlin (editor at Top Cow Comics) picked up a copy of Crullers along the way and loved it. When he moved over to Top Cow, he tracked down Troy. Top Cow not only wanted the rights, but they wanted Troy to write it. With a name change to Common Grounds (they wanted a coffee shop chain instead of donut shops), there began Troy's amazing foray into professional comics.

I say amazing because of the talent he's working with. If you know nothing about comics beyond The Nice Guy, you probably won't be impressed, but if you do, your jaw will drop like ours did. His regular artist on the book every month is none other than veteran Dan Jurgens. There are two stories in each issue, and the backup is done by a different artist each time. Artists like, I don't know...George Perez. Michael Avon Oeming. Chris Bachalo. Scott Campbell. Sam Kieth. Carlos Pacheco. HUGE names in the business. If you're not into comics, imagine being a little indy film director who uses your camcorder to make films and share with a few people. Then suddenly Paramount calls up and says, "We love your stuff. We want you to direct films for us, and we've got some talent lined up for you. Like Brad Pitt. Tom Cruise. Gene Hackman. Al Pacino." It's that big.

And the reviews are in, and some huge people have found out what the rest of us knew years ago. Check out some of these reviews:

Stan Lee: "The toughest thing in comics, or in any form of writing, is to come
up with new approaches to old themes. It looks to me as if Troy Hickman has
done just that. In Common Grounds Troy has managed to depict superheroes in an
entertainingly unique way. I predict a bright writing future for the talented
Mr. Hickman."

Alex Ross: "surprisingly very clever stuff."

Guillermo del Toro (director, Hellboy): "Revisionist Comics gains a heart.
Endearing, moving and painfully human, Common Grounds is as uncommon as it
gets. Enjoy."

Fantastic Four writer Mark Waid: "Very clever, very sharp, and surprisingly
poignant. Common Grounds finds a new way to look at the familiar, and what
writer Troy Hickman sees through that lens is pretty astounding."

Troy's Mom: "So what is it you do with these comic books? You type the words into the bubbles above their heads?"

That gag at the end is Troy's. STAN LEE!!! ALEX ROSS!! That's Spielberg and Coppola talking, man! This is huge, huge stuff.

So finding this out, I managed to track Troy down, and we've been e-mailing back and forth again (about time), and let me just say his story is even more amazing than that. Troy's come a long way through a lot of rough waters, and he's more than earned every bit of his sudden success. Tim and I couldn't be happier for our old pal, and can't wait to see where this all takes him. But as fun as this'll be, it's just great finding an old friend you thought you'd lost track of forever. That doesn't happen enough in life.

So if you're into comics at all, you need to give Common Grounds a try. And if you've never even been to a comic store before, you're going to need to figure out where one is anyway to go ask them to order your first issue of The Nice Guy, right? Now's the perfect time. Pull out that phone book, head down, and ask them about Common Grounds. Tell them Michael O'Connell and Tim Watts sent you. Then they'll give you a puzzled looked and ask, "Who?"

THE OSCARS ARE COMING! THE OSCARS ARE COMING!

Ah, one of my favorite nights of the year. Doesn't come close to NBA All-Star Weekend, but it's up there too...

Very happy with the 11 nominations for Return of the King. Unhappy that none are for acting (Sean Astin should have gotten one), but that's to be understood. It's an ensemble film, and it's too hard to pick out one actor in the bunch. I'm just hoping for Best Picture and Best Director, and I'll be happy.

Sadly, it's another year where I haven't seen all the pictures in question. I used to be so good about this. Haven't seen Mystic River, Master and Commander, or Seabisquit, so I don't have much emotional attachment to their nods. But I am thrilled about the love given to Lost in Translation, one of my favorite character films in years, and one amazing Bill Murray performance. Hey, check out Alex Baldwin up for Best Supporting for The Cooler. Right on. Why no love for the film's star, the amazing William H. Macy, though? Oh, well. Way to go, Johnny Depp! Did someone actually get nominated for an Oscar just for doing a Keith Richards impersonation? Screw it, he was fantastic. Won't win, but I think deserving of the controversial nomination (should have gotten him one for Once Upon a Time in Mexico, too ("Did you order my puerco pibil?")). Oh my God! We FINALLY had a Best Original Song category with NO freaking Disney songs in it? Yeah!! Looking forward to seeing my girl Annie Lennox singing, and winning for, "Into the West". You know the first concert I ever went to was the Eurythmics. Let's pretend I didn't say that and I'm NOT really that old.

Any why was there no category this year for Best Meltdown by a Former Presidential Hopeful?

EVERYBODY MUST GET STONED

Okay, I should be in Seattle this weekend. I should be at the Kings/Sonics game with my roommate and his girlfriend, enjoying the Kings guys (hopefully) taking care of business. I should be taking the elevator up to the top of the Space Needle, and hanging out down at the waterfront markets and enjoying the putrid stink of fish.

But no... I have a kidney stone. And my doctor will not let me travel, because while the pain is still occasional and manageable right now, I'm a ticking time bomb of crippling pain. If it were to hit me on a plane, he tells me, they'd have to turn the plane around. Great. So there goes a trip I was planning, there goes a plane ticket, and I'm watching the game on TV. Man.

So I've had x-rays and ultrasounds done. Last night, after working 12 straight hours, I had to drop by the hospital and spend my Friday night getting blood tests done. I'm going in Monday for some thing where they're shooting me full of dye to properly find the stone so they can figure out what to do with it. If they pinpoint it exactly, apparently they can use this sonic thing to break it up. Non-surgical. Excellent. If not, they may have to go to the option to go in and laser the thing.

Sounds reasonable. Until I started asking myself, "Wait...where does the laser go in?"

This, by the way, is a cautionary tale for those people thinking of spending the first 25 or so years of their life chugging a sixer of Mountain Dew a day.

DISTURBING INTERNET IMAGE OF THE MONTH

God, crime is brutal. I'm moving to the suburbs.

RANDOM "TENACIOUS D" NICE GUY MOMENT

As long as there's a comic deal we'll always be friends!

OUT LIKE MEMBERS ONLY JACKETS

See you next time for the special Valentine's Day Nice Guy update. Enjoy the Super-Bowl, y'all. Go Chargers! Oh, wait...that was my IMAGINARY Super-Bowl. I get them confused...

Michael

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New strip added in the Comics! section: "Kneeeel Before Zod"

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New update in The Rant Shack...with the news on the A-1 Comics Van Fundraiser...and the shocking Tim Watts finger news...

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Update to the Photos page with A-1 Comics shots! Sorry, no shots of Tim's finger...

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