360-degree fandom

So hey... as you may or may not be privy, Aaron has been helping Eugene from War Rocket Ajax, aka Adam War Rock, with instrumentals for a few of his ballsout rap songs.

One is the live instrument remix for the War Rocket Ajax Podcast; another is the theme song for the Play, Trade or Bury Magic the Gathering Podcast. And look for a Treme-based jam to fly your way soon.

Aaron's band the Ampersands also performs the theme music and outro music on Awesomed By Comics. So really what I'm trying to say here is, if you like any of the above, please consider clicking here to become a fan of the Ampersands on Facebook. You can also listen to a bunch of songs on the MySpace page or even, if you're feeling frisky, buy the debut album on iTunes, Amazon, CD Baby (digital or physical), and many other online outlets.

Ok, that's it for the semi-yearly band pimp, thank you for your support, and look out for the next episode of Awesomed By Comics later tonight!

Eat it, Mr. Bill

So, this is super fun. As those of you who listen to the podcast know, Aaron does all the music for the show and is in a band called the Ampersands who have a new(ish) album. Anyway, since music these days is all about the Twitters and the YouTubes and the going viral and also Play-Dough, we worked with animator Maya Erdelyi to create a Claymation/puppetshow video for the single "Winterspring," and here it is. Please watch it and send to your friends, and also: PLEASE PLEASE, if you have a Facebook account, go to the Ampersands page and become a fan. Facebook has those slick new usernames for easy search and navigation, but you can only get one as a musician if you have 100 fans, and we have been slacktastic at promoting it. But this seems like as good a time as any to remedy that, and you can help! Ok, that's it, watch the video now.

Happy Awesomedversary to Us!

God, doesn't it seem like just yesterday that I was like OMG LUKE AND JESSICA!!1!11! in Awesomed By Comics' very first post? Well, it was just yesterday, if days were in fact years. The point is, this blog launched a year ago today, yay! Apparently, we share a birthday with Daily Cross Hatch, which is completely coincidental but totally cool.

I started this site not because the world needed another goddam comics blog, but because outside of the writing I do for my day job, I had been blogging aimlessly for five years and wanted to focus on an actual topic that excited me other than, like, "breakfast". In the past year, I've met a bunch of wonderful comics people both virtually and in person, launched the ridiculously fun and increasingly downloaded ABC Podcast with Aaron, started writing about comics for a variety of publications, and generally found a lot more to love (and sometimes hate, but that's what we do right!) about the medium. Oh and we got married, but that's unrelated (except that we took our guests to see Iron Man, on Free Comic Book Day, but that was sort of a coincidence).

So, many thanks to all of you for your visits, support, linking, recommendations, blahbitty blahbitty all that good stuff. I have to go do a thing right now, but hats off to you and the start of year two.

Hack

Like a lot of the rest of the world, I'm sick. In the virus way, not the homicidal way, not yet. I'm annoyed because I was going to go to the Comic Foundry issue release party tonight, but at least I got my comics yesterday--including the two Presidential Materials biographies from IDW, the writers of which (Jeff Mariotte and Andy Helfer) were conveniently signing the books at Forbidden Planet, which is equally conveniently two blocks from my office. So there you go, there's two comic-related recommendations for you so I don't feel like all I wrote was that I couldn't think of anything to write because I'm sick. Oh, and make sure you're registered to vote.

Buy this book, it's not a comic but it has lots of pictures

My friend Sarah Brown has edited a book based on her wildly popular Cringe reading series in Brooklyn where ostensible grown-ups read from their teenage diaries, poetry notebooks and other humiliating sources. I wrote about it last year in Paste magazine, if you want to check out some shining examples. Well, the book is out today, and you can buy it here or at your favorite retailer. Almost as exciting is that Aaron was a contributor, so now the whole world can enjoy his unfinished rap opera and tribute song to a high school crush, which includes lyrics such as "I wish you could see what is in my hand." If you're looking to get your holiday shopping out of the way, I can't think of a better start.

Update--click on the widget below for a preview: