We got ourselves a Tumblr

Know what’s really hard to do, apparently? Update this site.

Know what’s really easy to do? Run a Tumblr.

So Kill All Monsters now has a Tumblr page. This site isn’t going away and I’ll try to do better about updating when something important happens, but the KAM Tumblr is going to be a lot of fun and you should totally follow it. It’s part love letter to kaiju and giant robots, part news aggregate for developments in the genre, and part source for everything you need to know about Kill All Monsters. Check it out!

New Kill All Monsters story available today!

Dark Horse Presents #12 goes on sale TODAY, featuring Jason’s Kill All Monsters cover for the first of three parts of an all-new Kill All Monsters story… in COLOR. The story will be collected in the Kill All Monsters Omnibus next year, but it’ll be reformatted for widescreen and will be in black-and-white. DHP will be the only place to get it with Bill Crabtree’s glorious colors.

The Dark Horse website has a preview, not only of the KAM story, but also each of the other tales in the issue, including the second chapter of Rich Woodall and Craig Rousseau’s Kyrra: Alien Jungle Girl story. That makes us really happy since Kyrra was part of the Artist Alley Comics digital comics project that Kill All Monsters participated in back in the day. Feels good being neighbors to Rich and Craig again.

Kill All Monsters is coming to Dark Horse Comics!

Dark Horse Presents #12

Dark Horse’s solicitations for July are out, including the announcement of a Kill All Monsters story in Dark Horse Presents #12. As the first year of the relaunched DHP comes to a close, Jason and I are ecstatic to be part of the legendary anthology series. Having Kill All Monsters published by Dark Horse is seriously a dream come true. I can’t even tell you how much without totally embarrassing myself.

This will be a brand new story, serialized over three issues and – for the first time ever – in FULL COLOR thanks to the breathtaking Bill Crabtree. Extraordinary Ed Brisson is still on the KAM team too, lettering the story.

The blurb for the issue also mentions that it’s “a tie-in to the Kill All Monsters hardcover,” which is certainly true. That the hardcover is “on sale now” isn’t accurate though. We’re working on that and it’s going to be amazing, but it’ll be a while longer yet. We’ll keep you updated. For now, Dark Horse Presents is puh-lenty to be excited about.

One last thing. There are plans to collect the DHP story at some point, but not in color. If you want to read it that way (and you totally do, because I’ve seen the finished version and wow), the Dark Horse Presents issues are the way to do it.

This Weekend: Kill All Monsters at SpringCon

I’ll be at SpringCon this weekend with lots of Kill All Monsters books and prints. If you live near enough to plan to travel there, you probably already know about SpringCon, but just in case you don’t, it’s a fantastic, two-day show that’s all about the comics. Guests this year include Jeff Parker, Adam Hughes, Bill Willingham, and a ton of other great creators. My wife, Diane will be back too, making everyone’s faces more superheroey or Pokemony or whatever else people want to put on their kissers.

One of the things I’m most excited about is that I’ll be on a panel with my pal Otis Frampton and a couple of guys I haven’t met in person yet, but am looking forward to getting to know: Erik Burnham and Anthony Hary. Here are the details:

Sunday, 1PM to 2PM: LOCAL BOYZ MADE GOOD!
Meet a crew of hot local creators on their way up and discussing how they got that way. Featuring Otis Frampton (Oddly Normal from Image), Erik Burnham (Ghostbusters), Anthony Hary (Fifteen Minutes), and Michael “Kill All Monsters!” May!

So if you’re in the area, come by and say hi. And if you’re there on Sunday, please come to the panel and ask hard questions like, “Who would win in a fight: Skullbot or Mechagodzilla?” Then I’ll ask you which Mechagodzilla and we can have a whole conversation and totally take over the panel. It’ll be fun!

Kill All Monsters at Barnes and Noble

The good folks at Barnes & Noble would like for you to know that Kill All Monsters: Ruins of Paris and other Alterna comics are now available at their stores and website. They weren’t for a while, but that’s changed and if they don’t have it on their shelf, they’ll gladly order it for you. Always good to have another place to buy, so thanks, Barnes & Noble!

More Kill All Monsters art and reviews

Three things as I continue catching up with some old news, starting with this awesome pin-up by my good friend Gavin Spence. I love how he even worked in the zipatone effect. Thanks, Gav!

Then there’s this picture that Robot God Akamatsu‘s writer James Biggie posted with evidence of his son’s very discerning taste in literature.

And finally, my friend JK Parkin very nicely talked about Kill All Monsters in Robot 6′s Report Card column after the graphic novel hit stores last year. I’ve known JK a long time and we have really similar tastes in comics, so it makes me especially happy that he digs KAM.

He writes, “May and Copland have engaged in some pretty cool world-building, taking the basic idea and running with it until they have something special that goes way beyond what you might expect from ‘another giant monster title.’” Thanks so much, JK!

Kill All Monsters art and other updates

Got a fragrant potpourri of Kill All Monsters updates for you this morning, starting with a look at some of the cards Jason made last year for the Kickstarter levels that include sketches. Rather than just sketch in the books, Jason went all out and had special cards printed so that he could do something a little nicer.

Speaking of Kickstarter, we’ve talked about doing another Kill All Monsters comic a little sooner than expected. Before we release Volume 2, we’d like to put together a one-shot single issue (around 30+ story pages) that expands on the world a little while also tying into the story we’re telling in the graphic novels. We thought about doing it as a Kickstarter project, but we’re not sure that’s the best way to get a single-issue comic printed. It’s all written though and we want to do it, so it’s just a matter of figuring out the best way to go about it.

I don’t want to give too much away about it except that it’s inspired by this:

That’s a piece that Jason drew for the Monstrosity anthology and it’s not the only giant robot pinup he’s done lately. He also did this one for last year’s Baltimore Comic-Con yearbook, which had a Usagi Yojimbo theme. Mike Spicer did the colors and it looks great.

Finally, Jeff Bouchard from Comic Spectrum wrote a very nice review of Kill All Monsters giving it 4 out of 5 stars. He said that he got a Kamandi feel from it (very cool) and wrote that it “provides a visceral experience from the over-the-top battles between monster and mech at the same time weaving deeper plot points that leave you thinking and wondering where the story will go.” Thanks, Jeff!

Kill All Monsters was at C2E2 and FCBD

Jason sets up for C2E2

Convention season is in full swing and I apologize for not doing a better job of updating where Jason and I will be attending with Kill All Monsters. I’m going to get better about that.

We were both at C2E2 a week ago and that was a great success. Jason and I talk all the time, but it’s rare that we actually get to see each other and hang out, so that was lots of fun. And of course there were a bunch of other friends to see, both old and new, whom I don’t want to list because I’ll forget someone important. We sold a bunch a books and talked to a lot of kaiju fans, all of whom never fail to humble me with their vastly superior knowledge of giant monsters and robots. All in all, a great weekend.

Free Comic Book Day at The Source Comics and Games

And then this past weekend was Free Comic Book Day. It was a family affair for me with my son and I selling Kill All Monsters comics while my wife did all kinds of nerdy facepainting from superhero logos and Pokemon characters to full-blown Spider-Man masks and zombie makeup. That’s her setting up behind me in the photo above.

We were at The Source Comics and Games, which has completely figured out how to win at Free Comic Book Day. They turn their store into a mini comics convention, not only giving away free comics, but also having a huge sale and inviting local cosplayers and creators to come and be part of the festivities. It’s grown bigger every year and this time the line at opening was unbelievable.

What you don’t see in that picture is that the line continues to wrap around two more corners to the opposite side of the store. There were tons of people and Kill All Monsters sold really well. In fact, from a sales per hour standpoint, it did even better at FCBD than at C2E2.

So thanks again to The Source for hosting a great event, and thanks to all the customers who came by and chatted and/or bought a copy of KAM. It was great meeting you all.

Next up will be SpringCon and I couldn’t be more excited! More on that later though…

Review All Monsters! Please!

Special thanks to reader Andrew Schmidt who posted this awesome photo of his copy of Kill All Monsters to Facebook. We love it!

And another very special thanks to the folks who’ve reviewed Kill All Monsters on Amazon so far. There are currently seven reviews – all of them 5-stars – and Jason and I are so very grateful. Whatever the star ratings, it would be awesome to have some more reviews there. If you’ve had a chance to read it and wouldn’t mind leaving some feedback on the Amazon page, that helps a lot to let new people find the book.

Thanks again!

Review | Atop the Fourth Wall’s Longbox of the Damned

I wanted to share this before Halloween, but the fearsome festivities got away from me. I couldn’t stop laughing and clapping my hands at this Longbox of the Damned review of Kill All Monsters, and not just because it’s positive. The Longbox of the Damned series has Atop the Fourth Wall’s Lewis Lovhaug dressing as a late-night, local-access horror movie host to review monster comics and it is awesome.

Thanks so much, Lewis, and we’re glad you liked the book!