As many of you know, the Flight series of comics anthologies has been an inspiration to me over the past few years. On his blog recently, editor Kazu Kibuishi announced that the series will wrap up in the next couple of years with Flight 8. He goes on to say that the purpose of the anthology was really to act as a launching pad for him and several of his friends fresh out of school, and that the group’s focus will now be to create their own graphic novels now that they’ve all made names for themselves. So, mission accomplished. The series has served its purpose, Flight will end, but it will be exciting for me to see what they all do next. I’m just sad I never got my chance to participate in one of the Flight anthologies. I always thought my work fit right in.

Kazu did tell me that he has plans to continue the Flight Explorer series, the all-ages variant of Flight, which will now be called simply “Explorer” and will forgo the  sometimes more mature and darker content of its parent anthology. My kids love Explorer, and I’m anxious to see what new stories find their way to that series. Some of my favorites have wound up there so far – Kazu’s Copper, and Jake Parker’s Missile Mouse. Both of these have books out, so I guess that’s sort of what Kazu was alluding to – Flight and Explorer have indeed been a career boost to the artists lucky enough to have been a part of them.

Meanwhile, for those of you who crave more excellent anthology sweetness, check out Birdsong/Songbird. Looks like a new generation of talented artists is making a name for themselves. As for WishTales – Tom and I had a secret dream for the past couple of years to put together an anthology that could take its place alongside Flight, and we were planning to develop it under the WishTales banner. But seeing some of these really fantastic anthologies, Birdsong and Out of Picture most notable among them, I am forced to admit that the space is getting crowded with some really flashy product. So flashy, in fact, that I think we’d better leave the flashy anthology creation up to those talented folks, while Tom and I focus on creating more stories for the WishTales products you already know and love.

But those anthologies sure are good news for readers; it’s like a graphic novel candy store!

Peter Robins in The Guardian today talks about the latest publishing trend – books without dustcovers… because what is their point anyway?

Nice article at the New York Times by Damian Kulash, Jr. (lead singer of OK Go) about how hard it is becoming for music videos to truly “go viral” because of the new fees and rules being instituted by music labels stuck in dinosaur business practices. Labels and publishers *want* their stuff to go viral, but they don’t want to relinquish control, and they understandably want to wring every cent from every scrap of content they can. But perversely, between the control issues and the mindless pursuit of short-term financial gain, they are hurting themselves as well as future artists.

While we enjoy watching the Big Machine deconstruct, I believe these concepts apply to the book business just as much as it does to the music biz. Read more HERE.

There’s an interesting piece in today’s Telegraph about Ghost Writers and a couple of films coming up which feature the profession quite prominently. I think most people would be surprised to learn that many of the books on the Best Seller lists are Ghost Written, or so heavily edited that they may as well have been. Yet, as Robert Harris, author of “The Ghost” points out, the profession does have its perks…

As people continue to predict the End of Publishing, nee, the End of Reading Itself, the Association of American Publishers have released numbers that indicate an overall rise in book sales of 10.9%. Not too shabby. Read more about it at Shelf Awareness.

See? People still read. People still buy books. Don’t give up yet.

As if you didn’t get your fill of Tom and Steve’s dulcet tones on the Tall Tale Radio podcast, check out Steve on the latest edition of the Steve Ogden Braincast, where he continues talking about his story process and how too much pre-production can be a delaying tactic.

Also, it’s Tom’s turn in the hotseat over at the Process Diary, in Paul Caggegi’s continuing series “Conversations With”, where Paul interviews working artists.

You’ve got a lot of listening to do – get started!

Publisher’s Weekly has the right idea. Authors need to see themselves as artists, publishers no longer offer the sorts of long-term relationships that used to make them attractive and useful, and when it comes to marketing, Every Man is For Himself. Also, get yourself camera ready, because it’s time to talk to your fans. Read more here.

There are so many reasons to find your own route rather than stick to the traditional and expected. Every day, I hear about a new book, movie or TV show coming down the pike that makes me scratch my head. Not that the idea is necessarily bad, or that it won’t sell, because as you know these things are not mutually exclusive. But more to the point of leaving me thinking, “They are making a book of that? Really? An entire book?”

Consider: you can buy “I Can Has Cheezburger?”, a book based on the outstandingly popular LOLCats website. Consider: there are currently feature films in development based on board games and toys such as Ouija, Monopoly, Candy Land, Battleship, Magic: The Gathering, and Stretch Armstrong. And this just in, there is a TV show in development based on a Twitter stream – Sh*t My Dad Says. Yup. Not based on a book. Not based on a screenplay or a script. Not based on a website. But based on a Twitter stream, golden nuggets of wisdom served up 140 characters at a time.

Now lest you call me an intellectual snob or some other accurate label, I am first and foremost a pragmatist. I don’t see these things as evidence of the Creatively Bankrupt Hollywood Machine, though I do believe Hollywood need some new, better ideas. Nor do I see these things as the death knell of Literature at the rough hands of the Evil Book Publishing Monolith, although I do wonder if the already limited shelf space occupied by novelty books wouldn’t be better spent on something a little less faddish.

But make no mistake, these decisions are being made by folks who are definitely following the money. Can you make a successful movie based on a toy? Didn’t they just make a boatload of cash with G.I. Joe? Sure they did. Was it a good movie? I’ll leave that to your taste to decide, but for my money, Toy Story – a movie based on a toy that didn’t exist when the movie was made in 1995 – was the better way to go. And that was John Lasseter, taking a chance, finding his own route. Zig, instead of zag. Of course, not every chance taken leads to a Toy Story, and not everyone is John Lasseter. But maybe there are degrees in-between.

The fact is, something like LOLCats has a huge audience. If even a tiny portion of that audience buys the book, it’ll be a success. Same with the other head-scratchingly questionable creative decisions out there, the decisions are always made with an eye toward the market, a calculation as to whether enough people will buy the thing to justify the production costs. It’s gambling. In the case of something with a huge, built-in audience, it gets easier to say YES. In the case of something or someone a little more obscure, or – leave us face it, virtually unknown – it gets easier to turn it down. No sense crying in your spilled Milk of Amnesia, it’s just the facts, baby. Books, movies, and TV shows will be made, development deals will be struck, that leave you wondering about the sanity of the Suits, when really they’re just making safe bets.

Luckily, if you’re independent, you don’t have to play it as safe. As much as it would be great to be part of a big machine, the great thing about NOT being part of one is that you are free to go where you please, and better yet, you are nimble enough to go there quickly. Big ships take a long time to turn. I would encourage anyone with an honest-to-God Idea to go ahead and develop it, and see what you can do with it. It’s your prerogative, it’s your right, and it’s your duty as an Artist. What are you waiting for? Choose your route and go there. Sure, you might crash on the way, but what an adventure!

Anyway, that’s my reaction to books based on websites, movies based on board games and TV shows based on Twitter feeds. It simply makes the argument that maybe it’s OK to stay independent.

Uh-oh… is that an iceberg up ahead!?