Fiction Clemens

Fiction Clemens Wins "Best Storyline" 2008

2009-03-12T11:05:00.001-07:00

The Project Fanboy 2008 Comics Award results are in. I am giddy to announce that the Fic Crew has won TWO awards in the following categories:

Best Storyline
Best Indy Artist

Congrats to Joiton for winning Best Indy Artist, and boy does he deserve it. That man's pencils are a fine substitute for breakfast any day of the week.

That Fiction Clemens took Best Storyline blows my mind. "Weirdest Storyline", I would have believed...

Thanks to everyone who voted and to Project Fanboy for hosting the Awards.

Click here to see the full list of categories and winners.

Fiction Clemens NOW available in stores

2008-05-22T00:38:00.000-07:00

This post is a week late, and I blame Seattle/Portland.

Last Wednesday, Fic issue 1 hit the shelves. I got to see it there, sneaking into comic stores, sometimes anonymously, sometimes with my giddy shy pride, and wow... yeah. It feels great!

Anyway, the point is, if you want it, you can now get it. And you should want it... oh yes, yes you should.

Apparently some stores have sold out already (Gah!), and Diamond has already done a re-order from the publisher. Any comic store should be able to get a copy, but if you have problems, it's also available on-line.

You can order directly from the publisher HERE

Meanwhile, you can get a taste of the mighty flavor by checking out the on-line reader. I think you get to see the first 12 pages or so.

And that's that! Issue 3 is still available for pre-order, so be sure to demand that your local comic shop stock up and stock well.

Order Code: MAY083593

G'night everbuddy!

New York Comic Con

2008-04-25T18:19:00.001-07:00

Ahoy!

New York Comic Con has come and gone, zipped and zambled, and blown my tiny little mind.

And yes, not only was this my first trip to NYC, it was also the grand release of Fiction Clemens issue 1. I had a blast and a half doing all those little things I've been envious of for years: signing books, smiling hungrily at strangers, spilling silver ink on my fingers and then smearing it over my nose. Ah, the joys of THAT side of the table.

It was great. I can't complain. I met a lot of fine folks and reunited with a few of my old favorites.

I only have a couple pictures right now, but at some point I'll get around to doing a full-blown account of the adventure over at "Good Against Remotes".

Surprise! Ape made a big ole poster of issue 2. This picture was taken after I spent 10 minutes jumping around like an excited idiot. (Artwork by Freedom Drudge, Alejandro Marmontel, and Veronica Gandini).

Dear friend and brilliant writer, Aussie-born JAn, took this shot of Camilla and I enjoying New York's (and dare I say, the world's) finest Hot Dog.

Thanks to everyone who came by to support and get the book. For those who haven't, issue 1 hits the shelves in mid-May.

-Josh

24Seven Nabs Eisner Nomination

2008-04-14T22:36:00.000-07:00

24Seven, vol. 2, Ivan Brandon's anthology that housed my short story, "So This Robot Walks into a Bar" picked up an Eisner nomination for Best Anthology today. It really is a gorgeous book, and of course I'm hoping it wins.

Eisner Nominations

The fact that this news broke on the day I catch my train to New York for the release of "Fiction Clemens" issue 1, can only be taken as good tidings. This trip should prove to be life-altering for me, personally, and a damn lot of fun on top of that.

Expect a detailed account upon my return!!

lovins,
Fic

Newsarama Reviews Fic issue #1, and a Podcast Interview from Geekspeak

2008-03-30T12:41:00.000-07:00

Another review for Fiction Clemens issue 1 came out this week in Newsarama.

Click HERE and scroll down a bit to read the awesome. It’s the review right above "The Killing Joke Deluxe Edition". The Joker has been following Fiction around in unexpected ways like this, and I’m taking it as a good omen.

Check out the podcast interview I did with Geekspeak Radio. I was nervous as hell, but it turned out alright. Thank God for editing.

Geekspeak Radio Interviews Fiction Clemens

In other news, I'm finally back home in good ole Montucky. I made the trip from Vegas in one 17 hour shot, and was so excited to be home that I didn't even get tired. Yee-haw!!!

Reviews and Interviews

2008-03-16T21:53:00.000-07:00

Broken Frontier gave Fiction Clemens his first advanced review today. For those of you who don’t like to read about things you should be reading, the long and short of it is that Fiction Clemens is pretty damn great... which, I honestly did not know. So you learn something new every day.

Read the review HERE if you wanna!

In other news, I've had a few on-line interviews AND one incredibly nerve-wracking podcast review. Updates to follow once these silly things go life.

I'm gearing up to strike back north again at the end of this month. It's going to be good to get back home and see the old gang... Spanky, Alfalfa... I miss you so much.

Love,
Fic

Publication Announcement (For really reals!)

2008-01-07T15:50:00.000-08:00

It's been a wild two years for Fiction Clemens. As if it weren't enough of a hassle just trying to stay alive, he's floated from convention to convention, in and out of the hands of publishers, and endured dreaded schedule problems. But this is the real deal.

Fiction Clemens Issue 1 will be released in May, 2008 through the combined efforts of SpaceDog and Ape Entertainment, a stellar Independent Comic Book publisher, whose titles sometimes involve cowboys and other times involve aliens and conspiracies (and are soon to involve all three). It feels like Fic has found his perfect home.

The first issue will be showing up in Diamond Previews this March, so be sure to demand your local comic shop puts in their order. The second issue will come out in June, and the third in July. All three books will be on shelves in time for this year's San Diego Comic Convention.

I want to thank everyone who has stuck with me through this bumpy ride, especially those of you who bought characters and have had to endure setbacks waiting for Fic's release. A special thanks to Lauren Perry, Christian Beranek, and various members of the Silent Devil crew who opened the doors of Comicdom, and helped me learn the ropes.

More info will be forthcoming over the next few months as Fic moves forward (and a few other irons in the fire are coming to fruition as well).

So long fer now. Yup.

-Josh

Entertainment Weekly? WTF?

2007-10-10T22:20:00.001-07:00

So Entertainment Weekly reviewed 24Seven. The book got a B+ (props to Ivan!). And there was a giddy little surprise for yours truly. My story got a mention! Crazy, huh? Little Montucky writer like me accidentally typed into such a fancy-pants publication... Aw, shucks!

Third Review Down

Pilgrimage to San Diego... Or, "Katie Manifests a Giant Hamburger"

2007-08-31T11:36:00.001-07:00

If you're wondering why Fiction Clemens isn't on the shelves yet (I keep hearing, "It was supposed to come out in July, right?")... or if you just want to know the madness that is the great 2007 Montucky ComiCon adventure, this post is for you.

Since this post is insanely long, Let me get the first question out of the way. I haven't been able to announce it publicly until now, but Fiction Clemens has changed publishers. I signed the contract at ComiCon, and my dear little cowboy is now on his way to a February release through SpaceDog Entertainment. So I apologize to those of you who bought characters and expected to see a final product last month... but just hang on a little longer :)

Now, onto the journey. The entire trip lasted exactly three weeks and a full moon cycle, which began as a sliver, hit the full at the end of the convention, and then waned as we wandered home. Summing up a three week adventure is a difficult task for a lazy bastard such as myself. Some parts that I should probably explain in detail will be glossed over, while other parts will drone on and on for all you care. If I'm lucky there will be one thing I get just right.

So it all began with ladypajama (Katie), Creature, and myself packing up the truck and camper and heading west. I'd left Lucy behind with my dad and Katie was leaving her new boyfriend. The first part of our trip consisted of a subliminal argument over who had the most right to be more sad.

As we slipped sneakily into Washington (I'd say at least 92% of the population had no idea we were even there), the conversation somehow wandered to "the Secret". I'm sure you've heard of this. It was Oprah's book of the month, it was a movie, it's been blah blah blah'ing all over the place for months. Apparently Katie can't go anywhere without someone bringing up "the Secret". The last time it came up was right before she left LA. Somehow she segued from that conversation into an affirmation that would later prove to manifest her boyfriend. Despite the overwhelming evidence of Katie's story, I still think "the Secret" is mostly the Ridiculous, so I offered this challenge right there on day one: "Manifest a giant hamburger," I said. "I'm talking life-size."

Without batting an eye, Katie said, "Done. By the end of this trip we will see an enormous hamburger."

Hoping for ground beef glories ahead, Katie and I pressed on. We reached Portland late in the evening, and the next day had a wonderful time with the Portlanders, whose ranks continue to grow. Um... I know we did something culturally interesting and devilishly unique there. Oh yeah, we drank lots of beer. Portland is just a Missoula for cool kids. Katie and I decided we are definitely not cool enough for Portland. But our friends are, and that's good enough for us. Also Portland has seventy-five thousand bridges. Last year I hated that. This year I love it.

Next morning we caught up with the Seattle crew. Joel, Craig, Freedom, and Oisin pulled up in Sven and dragged us to breakfast. From there we headed south to Crater Lake, which turned out to be a sunken mountain. As Katie said, "Screw you guys, I'm going to be a lake." The campground was absurd. Tightly packed little sites. People swarming about. A grocery store. Camping, my eye. Apparently there were bears in the campground and each site had a little locker to store food in. Oisin fell in love with our camper and demanded to sleep in the snail shell. Her dad relented, hanging off the edge of a table/bed/thing way too small for him. What that boy won't sacrifice for his kid...

After Crater Lake I have a vague memory of getting lost and how somehow this made us awesome. We hit California and made our way to the Coastal Highway. The plan was to take Highway 1 all the way to San Diego. Other than a few cheats here and there, we came pretty close to doing just that. Next stop: Redwoods. Please refer to last years post if you don't know the otherworldly glory that is Humbolt National Forest.

The next day Katie and Joel traded places. This turned out to be a disaster that I do not have sufficient journalistic integrity to report. But the drive with Joel was nice. We geeked out on audio-courses (Mostly lectures on Herodotus), and took several long stops by the ocean. We also stopped in Santa Cruz where I found a hundred dollar bill in a gas station. Being the unscrupulous sort, I snatched it up, but being the paranoid sort I gave it to Joel. Who wants that kind of cosmic responsibility? Besides, Joel deserved it. However, the universe decided to take the money back as if it had never been... such a display of quantum schenanigans, I have never seen. The above-mentioned disaster resulted in having to get an $88 dollar hotel. Joel handed over the hundred and did not get his change. Clearly the hotel clerk knew what was up, was in on the cosmic joke, and has by now slipped away into some other dimension.

Katie demanded to be returned to my vehicle for the final driving day. So after a wonderful breakfast at the hotel across the street, we were back on the road. Despite her penchant for car sickness, Katie was awesome enough to let us take the Coastal Highway through Big Sur. They say Big Sur is beautiful, but that's something of a misnomer. The first beautiful place we hit into Big Sur was not Big Sur at all... it was the Coast of Ireland. Somehow they'd transported a bit of the Irish coast over to California. Katie and I hopped a fence and headed across a field of yellow flowers to a gorgeous zigzag of cliffs overlooking several jutting pirate-cave rocks, sexified by the slow in-rolling fog. We spoke in Irish accents, picked flowers, and acquired several ticks (discovered later, dammit!!)

After Ireland we got into a big discussion about Jack Kerouac, the Beat Writers, and their impact on our lives. Those of you who know what I'm talking about should reminisc over this for a moment. The rest of you probably wouldn't care anyway.

Any geographer can tell you that if you drive down from the Irish coast a few miles you will come across the Spanish coast. It's only logical. The Spanish coast consisted of several highlights including Bird Poop Rock, the first tick discovery, several starfish, my near-death in the vicious ocean, the conquering of Pirate Cave Rock, the death of my favorite boots, and way too much exercise.

Okay, let's see... Big Sur, yada yada... we drove through LA and listened to Katie's favorite radio station, arrived in Oceanside and went to bed. The next day we strolled the final 40 miles into San Diego, where the first order of business was to pick up Joiton (design and pencils for Fiction Clemens) at the airport.

Now, the actual San Diego part of the trip is kind of a blur. Thanks to the organizational wizardry that is Joel, we were able to afford a luxurious 2 bedroom suite with full kitchen by packing 10 people into the place. Overall the stay was excellent and we managed to avoid any homicides. We also met Vero Gandini, the colorist for Issue 2, and her boyfriend Leo. As soon as they arrived the room was flooded with Spanish as they and Joiton tried to dizzy our brains with their crazy moon language. We hit the zoo, as well, which was touristy bliss.

Schmoozing and wheeling and dealing all went well at the Con. I signed my contract with SpaceDog and got comp copies of 24Seven, vol. 2, an Image anthology I was lucky enough to get a story into. I met lots of great creators and people in the biz. Freedom, Joiton, and I ended up hanging out with a former gameshow host from "The Weakest Link" for a while and had some sparkling conversation.

I found myself emotionally invested in the convention this year. It was more than business, and it broke my heart to leave. The people in Comics are amazing, wonderful, enthusiastic humans, and I can't wait to see you all again in New York!!!

The journey home was relaxed, but all were anxious to get back. A few highlights from the return trip: visiting my godfather and his family, my great uncle the magician in Burbank, photos with the Warner Watertower, dinner and touristing with Higham in San Francisco, Jenna in Oakland cooked us a delicious masterpiece, my old Publisher Jeremy took us to a crazy restaurant in SF called AsiaSF where Asian he/shes danced on the bar (the curious are encouraged to google a bit on that), good cozy talks with the Khans and my mom in Santa Cruz, a dead battery, the people's park in Berekely, and an AMAZING walkabout at a place called "the Albany Bulb". We also hit Portland again to see Theo's gallery, then Seattle briefly to carouse with a thousand freaks.

And now for the moment you've been waiting for. On our way to Pier 39 in San Francisco, Katie and I stumbled upon... you guessed it... a larger-than-life, enormously huge hamburger. Amen.

steampunkin'head

2007-06-06T10:49:00.000-07:00

So I have recently discovered that Fiction Clemens has a niche. That this came as a surprise to me should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with my propensity for locking myself in bubbles and clouds, and dreaming thinking wishing (ridiculously) to be absolutely unique.

Anyway, it's called "steampunk" if you haven't heard of it, and a bit of research assures me that I am proud to be a part of such a killer sub-genre. I found the list of titles belonging to the niche familiar and adored, and clearly influential on what I do. I hadn't thought about my influences as part of a unified whole before, and it was fun to see them grouped together. The idea of "steampunk" is that of advanced technology in a Victorian-era world. I have often described the world of Fiction Clemens as "what people in the late 1800's thought the Future might look like". Twelve Monkeys, Howl's Moving Castle, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, etc... are some of my favorite stories fitting this niche. Catch-words like "clockwork", "steam-power", "pneumatic tubes" describe the style of this flavor of science-fiction, although it doesn't seem that the western element has been too-often capitalized (other than in that wretched film, "Wild Wild West"). This, of course, is Fic's particular stamp. It has always amazed me how the "Western" genre continually ignores the fascinating "non-Western" realities going on simultaneously in the late 1800's. True the "old-West" is marked by a certain isolationism, but that does not mean certain things, styles, news, rumors would not seep through and have an influence. Think of it. Cowboys hanging at high noon, pistols at dawn, train robberies, injuns, all of this going down when? Around the same time as the second industrial revolution, the British occupation of India, Nietzsche, Dostoevsky, Marx, the Michelson-Morley experiment, even skyscrapers! And it was in these days that the very genre of Science-Fiction invented itself in the wildest dreams of industrialists, physicists, and Jules Verne.

Fiction Clemens was not written with any of this "theoretical" framework in mind. I just blasted out a fun story. But it's always something to look back and see what the subconscious was chewing on at the time. I'll leave off here, though. A writer over-analyzing his own work is a nasty habit not fit for the public, and, like masturbation, is preferred behind closed doors.

Now here's a little steampunk for you, junior.

Clemens Party Downtown Seattle

2007-02-27T08:11:00.000-08:00

The dear and brilliant Glitterus Rex is graceously throwing this vicious party March 31st, the first night of the Emerald City Comic Convention in Seattle. The party will be hosted in Belltown at the Rendezvous Grotto and Lounge. Great music, fine whiskey, and free toothpicks for all !!

For more info, including maps, click HERE

Hope to see you there!!

-Fic

Toothpick of the Stars

2007-02-23T13:12:00.000-08:00

Howdy folks,

Welcome to the semi-non-unofficial Fiction Clemens blog where you'll find all sorts of Fiction Clemens related news. Who the hell is Fiction Clemens, you ask? He's the feller bein' muscled up on by the fierce red-bearded bloke below:

We'll start posting news here as it occurs. Meanwhile, here's some fabuloustastic TOOTHPICK MAGIC to keep you enchanted for virtually hours at a time!