Come see me and my NU brother-in-arms Russell Lissau as we sign our respective issues of The Batman Strikes at two, count ‘em two, Comix Revolution locations in the Chicagoland area!

On Saturday, August 25, we’ll be signing at the Rev in Evanston from 1-3 pm. That’s 606 Davis St., just a few blocks off the Davis stop on the Purple Line.

Then on Saturday, September 1, we’ll be doing it all over again at their store in the Randhurst Mall in Mt. Prospect.

Hope to see you there!

So I’ve finally caught up with all the sleep I lost at Wizard World Chicago this past weekend. I’ve been a zombie the past few days, but it was well worth it. I got to finally meet Chris Jones, the artist of Batman Strikes, pitch some new stories to the editor of the aforementioned book, meet some old fans and create some new ones, and have an all-around great time hobnobbing amongst my people.

Can’t wait to do it all again next year.

spend some more time with two of my favorite comics people and (I hope) future collaborators Dean Trippe and Stuart Sayger, got to meet Geof Darrow and give him a copy of MON for his daughter, sell a few dozen copies of my books and hang out amongst my people for a little while.

A great time was had by all and I can’t wait to do it again next year.

I’m still coming down off the high from my trip to the San Diego Comicon. I met lots of Internet amigos for the first time, got the greenlight for a truly epic and top-secret DC project, got a bite on my next kid’s GN, and have all the pieces in place to take Mail Order Ninja on a quarterly publication schedule next year.

Oh, and Jackie Chan has read MON and is interested in playing the part of the ninja.

Like I said: Best. Weekend. EVER.

Today I had two great library events. Unfortunately, they were across town from one another. Which meant more than three hours on the CTA. Not a fun time.

But the kids made it all worth it. One group is making their own comics and they’re coming up with crazy ideas and actually learning how to properly execute them. It’s very exciting to watch and almost makes me wish I’d gone into teaching. It really is quite rewarding.

Another group were big fans of the book and had all sorts of book-related questions. Plus they had cookies! And Pad Thai! It was most excellent. I even met a local game designer who just might have some work to throw my way.

Not a bad day, all in all. And I leave you with an early preview image from Mail Order Ninja vol. 3 courtesy of the extremely talented James Peay:

So I got lost on my way to the Book Fair.  Luckily I had anticipated this and allotted an extra 30 minutes into my travel schedule.  I arrived with about 10 seconds to spare.

The book fair itself went extraordinarily well.  I sold 25 books and got to meet with a ton of kids who had read the first book and couldn’t wait to get started on vol. 2 (Some of them were so enthusiastic that they started reading it right there in the hallway.).  I had a great time and hopefully will get to do it all over again next year.

Now if I could just repeat this performance at every school in the city, I’d really be in business…

Today I pick up my brand new business cards which proudly proclaim that I, Josh Elder, have been “Certified Awesome by the American Awesomeness Association.” Seriously, they say that. I figure I can get away with it because I write humorous kids books, but I think they might come back to bite me when I start shopping around my psychological thriller.

Ah well, what can you do? Anyway, this afternoon I’m off to Evanston to pick up the latest Sunday paper bearing the Mail Order Ninja comic strip and then it’s back to the city for an appearance at the Abraham Lincoln Elementary School book fair. It should be a blast and hopefully I’ll sell quite a few books as well.