Comics artist Jeffrey Veregge has suffered acute renal and respiratory failure. His family has launched a GoFundMe to help with travel to the hospital and living expenses — Jeffrey is the family’s sole provider. Please do consider donating if you have the means.
Jeffrey and I collaborated a few years ago on a short story about the Poston incarceration camp for the New Frontiers: The Man Worlds of George Takei comics anthology book. He’s a tremendous, singular talent and a warm and wonderful person. If you pray, please pray for him and his family.
My friend, the brilliant artist Mimi Jung, is running a virtual summer art program for teens impacted by foster care. The program’s called With Art and it looks serious and amazing and a tremendous opportunity. It runs from July 6 to August 6, 2021.
My friend MariNaomi has posted a fantastic new essay in comics form at Prism.com about caring for butterflies and dealing with a conflict with neighbors. It’s a deceptively simple little story that gets at a quiet truth that hit me pretty hard, in a good way. Just lovely.
Comics colorist Pete Pantazis has a hard deadline in about a week to raise enough money to save his home. Please do check out his GoFundMe and contribute if you can. As an added bonus, if you donate $25 or more, I’ll send you a signed copy of ACTION COMICS #23.2, which Pete colored and I wrote! Just send proof of your contribution and your US mailing address to helpinghands at gregpak dot com (apologies — I can’t ship overseas).
I have about 20 copies of the book to give away. This is the second printing, featuring the cool lenticular 3D cover.
My good buddy Johnny C has launched a new Kickstarter for SOME GUYS, an album of gorgeous covers of ’70s soft rock classics. It’s ridiculous and awesome and as a guy who knows a guy, I’ve been listening to the actual album almost non-stop for the past 48 hours. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
I’m thrilled to report that I’ll be talking with the great Nicole Chung about ALL YOU CAN EVER KNOW, her searing memoir about her experiences as an adoptee, this Wednesday at the Asian American Writers’ Workshop in NYC!
My friends Jen Bartel and Sam Humphries have cooked up an amazing new Image Comics series called BLACKBIRD that I was lucky enough to be able to preview.
Jen Bartel’s luxe interiors are full of surreal spectacle and irresistible character detail and Sam Humphries’ scripts teem with gleeful worldbuilding and genuinely surprising twists. Pre-order with your local comic shop by September 9!
My friend Natalie Kim made a hilarious 30 second short film with animator Tyler Landis that made me laugh and laugh. It’s part of a series and I can’t wait for the next one. Check it out.
UPDATE: Jonathan has just made “Baby Got Back (In the Style of Glee)” available for purchase on iTunes! BUY IT NOW. Proceeds to charity. Read all about it here.
Laura Hudson has a great overview of the “Glee”/Jonathan Coulton situation over at Wired. If you’re agitated by the whole thing, may I humbly suggest channeling your emotions productively by buying some of Jonathan’s (awesome) music. Here’s the order page.
A few personal recommendations (comic book fans in particular may enjoy the super-villain/sci fi elements of a number of these songs):
“Code Monkey”
“Chiron Beta Prime”
“Better”
“Curl”
“Re: Your Brains”
“Creepy Doll”
“Skullcrusher Mountain”
Also fantastic is the live album “BEST. SHOW. EVER.” Which lives up to its name.
Enjoy!
FULL DISCLOSURE: Jonathan appears in the video extras of the iPad app of my “Vision Machine” graphic novel, which you can download for free right here.
Our friends at the San Diego Asian Film Foundation want YOU to join their REEL IN THE VOTE campaign, to increase voting among Asian Pacific Islanders (APIs). All you have to do is come up with a creative, 30-second video that helps encourage APIs to go to the polls in November. This contest is NON-PARTISAN and offers $2,000+ in prizes for the top three entries, plus Travel and Lodging expenses to 11th San Diego Asian Film Festival in October.
For more info on Reel in the Vote at www.sdaff.org or feel free to contact us at 858.565.1264 | Info@sdaff.org
Writer of over 500 comic books, including PLANET HULK, MECH CADET YU, FIREFLY, and DARTH VADER
