Popgun 4 and the Harvey Award.

This past weekend was Baltimore Comic Con. It’s my fave con of the year, but that has nothing to do with what happened (and I’ll do a proper Baltimore wrap-up tomorrow). You see, the Harvey awards happen at Baltimore. Popgun 4 won for Best Anthology.

D.J. Kirkbride showed, too, and that always makes things more fun. We had a table. We wore fezzes. Here we are on Saturday, in fact, contemplating:

Man. Working on Popgun has just been life changing. I can’t thank Mark Andrew Smith and Joe Keatinge enough for starting the book and letting me be a part of it and being there with and for us, with their work and their advice and their skill. Thomas Mauer and Jeff Powell did so much work on production it’s sick and the book shows every inch of their hard work, they were, and are, amazing folk to work with. Anthony Wu and D.J. Kirkbride, of course, rocked it out and the three of us spent months and months putting the book together with everyone and editing and talking and trying our hardest to make Popgun 4 worthy of both the people who contributed and the readers we hoped to reach.

There were time I thought working on Popgun might kill me. There might have been a night or two I hoped it did. But 99.99% of the time, honestly, this was an amazing project to get to be a part of. I got to work with these amazing creators, without whom there would be no Popgun 4 and certainly no Harvey award. These are the folks that contributed to the book, and you should seek out each and watch their careers because they all make some great comics:

Alison Acton, Attila Adorjany, Amanda Becker, Michael Birkhofer, John Bivens, Elliot Blake, David Brenion, Shana Brenion, Jeffrey Brown, Lars Brown, Antonio Campo, Dominique Carrier, Jim Charalampidis, David Collinson, Bill Crabtree, Dave Curd, Michelle Davies, Vito Delsante, Todd Dezago, Michael Dialynas, Jeik Dion, Becky Dreistadt, Alex Eckman-Lawn, Nick Edwards, Paolo Ferrante, Jess Fink, Joe Flood, Fonografiks, Elizabeth Genco, Frank Gibson, Vassilis Gogtzilas, Nils Hamm, Mike Houlihan, Alice Hunt, Meg Hunt, Jason Ibarra, Fernanda Jaber, Jock, Andrea Kalfas, Joe Keatinge, Janet Kim, D.J. Kirkbride, Adam P. Knave, Nikos Koutsis, Erik Larsen, Erwin Ledford, Stuart Livingston, Maximo V. Lorenzo, Robert Love, Adam Lucas, Manoel Magalhães, John Malloy, Fell Martins, Thomas Mauer, Derek McCulloch, Michael Meier, MJ, Chris Moreno, Wayne Nichols, Ralph Niese, JM Ken Niimura, Kieran Oats, Anthony Peruzzo, Jeff Powell, Elton Pruitt, Stephanie Ramirez, Darren Rawlings, Stephen Reedy, Andy Ristaino, Salgood Sam, Eric Sandhop, Matteo Scalera, Thomas Scioli, Brandon Seifert, Jonathan Silvestre, Mark Andrew Smith, Frank Stockton, Nick Tapalansky, Ben Templesmith, Jeremy Tinder, Mike Toris, Osmarco Valladão, David Walker, Angie Wang, Matthew Weldon, Anna Wieszczyk, Brian Winkeler, Michael Woods, Anthony Wu, K.I. Zachopoulos, and Alexis Ziritt (I am sure not everyone is on this list but I tried, if I managed to not put your name here, let me know and forgive me for my oversight)

Here we are Sunday, tired, confused, and elated, with the award that was made possible by all those amazing folk:

I’ve always wanted to work in comics. Popgun made that a reality. Everything I do in comics for my entire life is due to the doors that being part of Popgun opened for me. I am so proud of everyone who worked on the book and of the book itself. 512 pages of full color comics between two covers that showcases some of the best talent the industry has to offer. Being a part of that, in any aspect, is mind blowing. Having the industry itself look at the work and deem it worthy of this level of recognition is truly humbling. I’m having trouble writing this entry, honestly. There’s so much I want to say, so much I could say but (and this is sad speaking as a writer and editor) the words won’t come out right.

I’ve met so many people I consider good friends because of Popgun. I’ve been incredibly lucky, blessed, whatever you want to call it, to be a part of it.

Thanks you. Each of you. From the bottom of my heart.