INDIE ISLAND :: Debuts, Mini-Comics, Publisher, CCS!

I've referred often to the massive stack of announcements I'm trying to work my way through--I'd say more than half of them are for Indie Island! Every time I'm about to announce some new indie studs, someone like Frank Cho or Guy Davis will confirm and I have to rev up our mighty publicity engine. Not that Frank and Guy are more important than my indie guys--but maybe I feel like the indie guys are my guys, and I don't want to favor them too much? Who cares! The important thing is I have a ton of guys to add to the HeroesCon 09 Guest List still, including:

LAMAR ABRAMS, who's attending his very first HeroesCon this year. His new book REMAKE is coming out this summer, maybe even in time for HeroesCon, and looks like it's pretty awesome. I read the whole preview, and I never read those things.

CHUCK "MCBUCK" FORSMAN is the creator of the double-Ignatz winning Snake Oil, as well as one of the creators of the Sundays anthology, as well as one of the crop of recent Center for Cartoon Studies alums who seem poised to reinvent comics over the next few years. I love this guy.

JOE LAMBERT is not lucky enough to have a middle name with quotes, like Chuck. Maybe that's why everyone likes Chuck better--Joe didn't win any Ignatz's last year. But he DID do the endpapers to the 2008 Best American Comics, as well as his own Turtle Keep It Steady, numerous anthology stories, and also CCS alum-hood.

ALEC LONGSTRETH doesn't need any quotes to have everyone love him. He's the super-popular creator of the Phase 7 series, as well as having comics featured all over in books like Papercutter and the Awesome Anthology series. He also has a beard that would make Bin Laden blush.

Speaking of Papercutter, it ALSO won a bunch of Ignatz's last year (the Ignatz is kind of like the indie version of the Eisners). It's edited and published by last-but-not-least guest GREG MEANS, who runs Tugboat Press and occasionally makes his own minicomics.

Woo! Okay, I still have about 12-15 people to get to--if you're a confirmed guest and haven't shown up yet, I'm getting to you! See you next week!