Hi Jeff

Have you ever considered collecting some of your earlier works (Ashtray, Soft Instruments, Tales From The North, Fortress etc.)?

Thanks

Scott

Today marks a few personal milestones for me; endings and beginnings. I have a new series starting at Image Comics, FAMILY TREE, and I also finished my next graphic novel this morning!Whenever I finish drawing a book, it feels a bit like closing a chapter of your life. The truth is, writing and drawing a comic is very time consuming and intensive, and takes a lot more than just writing one does. Each book ends up feeling like a little marker of where you were at in your life when you were drawing it, and when I finish, it alway feels great.I did some math this morning, out of curiosity, and tried to figure out how many pages that I have drawn that have been published in my career so far. (This does not count the stuff I have written for other artists, just the stuff I have drawn myself)...I think it is close to 3300 pages since 2005...Lost Dogs - 96Essex County - 450The Nobody- 144Sweet Tooth - 850Underwater Welder -220Trillium - 220Jonah Hex issue -22Animal Man issue -15Roughneck - 220Secret Path (with Gord Downie) - 90AD After Death (with Scott Snyder) - 200Royal City- 350Frogcatchers - 100Batman and Superman shorts for DC - 20Strange Adventures Short for DC - 8Time Warp short for DC - 8New Book - 220Phew.Not 100% sure when this new book will be published, likely later next year. It clocked in at just under 220 pages, but I will likely go back and add and revise some stuff after I let it sit for a bit.Here is one of the last few pages...And FAMILY TREE! Love writing for Phil Hester. I fell in love with Phil's art when he was doing Swamp Thing in the 90's and have followed him ever since. This one is a real family horror story. I know I did that before with Animal Man at DC, but this was our chance to take that general feeling and create something all our own. Ryan Cody is coloring, Eric Gapstur is inking, as always Steve Wands is lettering and Will Dennis is editing.The first issue is out today, and it was a bit under-ordered, so I wouldn't be surprised if it sells out quickly. So make sure you grab one if you are near a comic book store! This one goes in some wild directions.There are some previews and interviews with Phil and I....Now, as promised last time...Some of your questions....Hey Scott! Thanks for the question. The truth is...a lot of that early stuff is not really worth reprinting. It was very crude formative work and not very good. I do understand there may be a curiosity factor, but I don't think that stuff will ever get reprinted. The exception may be the "Soft Malleable Underbelly" story from Ashtray #1...For those who don't know what ASHTRAY is, it was my first self-published zine that I did back in 2003. I did two issues, and printed 300 copies of the first one, and 100 copies of the second issue. They were printed up up at a Kinkos (remember when there were Kinkos?) and I silkscreened the covers myself and stapled them all together, with my wife's help, in our living room.The first issue featured a story called "Soft Melleable Underbelly", which featured a phototype of the Norton Sinclair character from Gideon Falls! A few pics below or that story...(apologies, I don't know why they came out sideways, but I don't have the patience to figure it out right now.)I may reprint this whole story in the eventual Gideon Falls deluxe hardcover. I also made a short film featuring this character when I was in film school. I will try and dig that up and put it online some day.Thanks for reading...I will answer more questions next week!PS...I am currently re-reading all of Garth Ennis' Hellblazers. These were my favourite comics when they came out and I am really enjoying revisiting them. They are great inspiration for the Madame Dragonfly series I am currently writing for Dean Ormston! (oops, was I supposed to say that?)