Shopping for Superman
Let's help make a movie about comic book shops!
Hello friends,
I want to lead with a very cool Kickstarter project I’m hella excited about, then give you a quick end-of-summer update on my comics thing and beyond.
You know I make comics, slowly but surely. Meanwhile my sister, Dana Engell, has a side gig in TV and film production. It so happens that she’s linked up with a filmmaker, Wes Eastin, making a documentary film, Shopping for Superman, about the history, future and importance of America’s local comics shops. A pretty big coincidence, my sister working on a movie about comic books. The film is already shot and rough cut and is on the home stretch to completion. Through Kickstarter Wes is raising funds for post-production, with the goal to get it out the door for the next film festival circuit. I want help make that happen! If only I had hundreds of friends who like comic books and are facile with Kickstarter…
I’ve only backed one movie before on Kickstarter, Someone Else, a feature film by my friend Nelson Kim. When it funded and got made and I actually got to watch it I felt a sense of pride and accomplishment that I probably didn’t deserve but truly enjoyed. (Plus it’s a great movie.) It’s a really big deal to make a feature length film, and having a chance to be a part of the team is pretty cool.
I really want to see this movie, so I’d love for you to back it with me. You can get the whole feature film digitally or on Blu-ray, with all sorts of other cool rewards, from posters and producer credits! Since I am, like it or not, kind of experienced with Kickstarter, I’ve done some advising on their campaign and it is going great, but they’re down to the last week and will need a push to get it over the line. This is where we come in! If you dig comics, and I think you do, then please check out Shopping for Superman!
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/shop4supedoc/shopping-for-superman
Special bonus, I’m told a certain obscure indie apocalypse comic makes an appearance on screen, in an old-school spinner rack no less! That was so much easier than getting Diamond distribution.
Elsewhere in the world
I had a good productive stretch of summer on the comics, completing rough drafts of By the Time I Get to Dallas #5 and Trinity Project #5 and establishing beachheads on the sixth and final(!) books of each series. My foot is off the gas right now as I switch my focus to music for a bit, my band has our busy season ramping up with a bunch of gigs in the next couple months. But I’ll keep the comic moving, don’t you worry. Follow my pain/progress here:
And if you’re keeping track of our Vermont treehouse progress over the last two years, here’s where things stand at the end of summer: built a ladder which really is steps, you can now walk up and down hands free; finished the missing bits of floor, began framing for a roof, added a railing (now you can lean and drink a beer), and a wonky storage bin I’m not happy with. We also helped our cousin Ed build some picnic tables. Meanwhile Ethel ordered and had installed a ready made shed for some shelter and storage by the pond, and while that’s not nearly as much fun as building one from scratch it is much much faster and can be done independently of your loser husband. We lost the main house to a fire in the winter (chronicled in an earlier post, I think) but the hill remains a magical place, and we will keep making it better, with power tools. Hope to get a bit more framing done this fall if I can get up there.
If you want to keep up to date with the comics, music, treehouse and whatever other nonsense I find myself doing, the best place to find me is Substack. If you’re not already getting my Substack newsletter, please check it out!
Back to school
As we head into fall I’ve brought our daughter Virginia to her second year of college, while Ezra just finished driver’s ed and starts 10th grade. None of this means I’m aging, it just means our children are gaining powerful new abilities. I hope you are too.
Colin