From the mind of Tom Beland

Creator of True Story Swear to God

Saturday, December 29, 2007

THE BIGGEST SIGNING EVENT OF MY LIFE. AWESOME.

(special thanks to Emilio Torres Garcia for taking these photos!)

Saturday afternoon, FANTASTIC FOUR: ISLE DE LA MUERTA hit the shelves here in Puerto Rico and I have to say, it was mind-blowing how many people showed up for the signing event. This was the line that awaited us before the doors even opened. There were people stretching out down the mall and it seemed to go on forever.



Meanwhile, upstairs, artist Juan Doe (left) and editor Alejandro Arbona (right) joined me for a quick cup of coffee before the store opened for business. We've waited a long time for this day and it has finally arrived.


As the doors opened, people began the journey into the store. I cannot tell you how patient these people were today. The lines were long and it's a small store. There wasn't a bad word from anyone in line the entire day. And this line never seemed to go down.


Univision sent a camera crew to cover the event. You can see the cameraman in this shot. It was incredible how the media jumped on this story. We didn't know until today that this is the first time in comics history that a bilingual book had been published and released on the same day. The fact that me, Juan and Alenjandro really love this little book made that historic moment all the more special.

We've had coverage from El Nuevo Dia, El Vocero, Metro Magazine, Hoy Magazine, Caras Magazine, USA Today, New York Times, New York Post, Orlando Sentinel, MSNBC, Associated Press and San Juan Star. We did a slew of interviews for internet sites such as Comic Book Resources, Newsarama and many, many more. Thanks to everyone who was interested in this project!


Me, Juan and Alejandro share a quick laugh during the mayhem. We sold a shitload of comics today. Every customer who came in bought six issues of each version each. We signed so many books that I couldn't tell you what time it was. The greatest thing was hearing folks say "thanks for making the island proud." We signed comics non-stop (we took a half-hour lunch break upstairs) from 10am until 7pm. The line never stopped and the register never stopped ringing.

It was such a great experience making this book. Really. It was a goofy idea, one I thought Marvel would never go for in a billion years. It was an artist who's never made a comic book in his life. And it was an editor who steered me clear of repeating myself and helping me add as much about Puerto Rico as possible, without hurting the story. And it snowballed into this fantastic experience. I feel so blessed to have worked with these two guys.

Thursday, December 20, 2007

FANTASTIC FOUR SIGNING IN PUERTO RICO DEC. 29TH!



On Saturday, December 29, for the entire day, Metro Comics at the San Patricia Plaza will be holding a huge signing party for the big FANTASTIC FOUR: ISLA DE LA MUERTA special!

You can meet me, artist Juan Doe and editor Alejandro Arbona and we'll be signing books throughout the day. I'll be bringing my sketch tools and I'll be doing some sketches! We'll talk about how the book came together and just share in the love of this very special book.

To say that Juan, Alejandro and I are proud of this book is quite possibly the greatest understatement of all time. We feel that we made a book that we'd personally buy ourselves. As a matter of fact, part of what I love the most about writing for Marvel is walking into the store and buying the book right there at the store.

I haven't seen the comic yet, the comps haven't arrived.... but I know some retailers that got advanced copies who love the issue. Really man.... I cannot say enough of what Juan brought to the page. Infuckingcredible.

Anyhoo... come on by Saturday and meet the crew and pick up a great book. And remember... there's an English version and a Puerto Rican Espanol version as well. This is the first time Marvel has released two languages of a book the same day.

Monday, December 17, 2007

HOLY... I GOT A BOOK OUT THIS WEEK!


Jeeze, I completely forgot that I have a Spidey story out this week!

SPIDER-MAN: FAMILY #6... has an incredibly adorable story by the uber-talented Chris Eliopoulos and there's a story I wrote featuring Spidey and Kazar's pet tiger ZABU!! David Hahn handled the art chores and it was a blast to write! Enjoy!

I.... AM... IRON CHEF!!!


I’m a cooking junkie.

I love cooking over a stove, over a range and over charcoal briquettes… I love cooking. I love the sound of meat hitting a hot surface, that wondrous hisssss is music to my ears.

I love slicing and dicing veggies on the cutting board. There’s an almost Zen-like trance I fall into as I take a group of carrots, peel them, slice them into sticks and then to a fine dice. The same with the celery and the onions.

The other night we had a huge party for our cousin Mario and his wife, Sila… who are moving to Tampa in a few days. Close to thirty people, all under one roof gathered to bid these two adieus. Mario is one of my closest friends I have, even though we don’t get together much. He’s a brilliant lawyer and he’s one of the smartest people I know.

He also has a huge comic book collection that I was going to pry away from him… until my wife cut me off at the pass and told Sila to ship the books out before I could wrangle them away from Mario.

Cousin Paul and I held court in the kitchen, getting the huge salad ready to be served with the various meat, chicken and vegetarian lasagnas. I had loaves of fabulous chabatta bread to be grilled and slathered in garlic butter and Parmesan cheese.

My nephew Jeanpi (short for Jean Paul) was with us, hoping for the chance to cook with the big boys. We regulated the poor boy to such mundane duties as peeling the skins off the onions and trash monitoring. He did his duty, with a sad little smile on his face.

As the Patriots were date-raping the Pittsburgh Steelers, I was slicing celery on the cutting board with great speed. I’m not going to deny the fact that I’m very good with a knife. I got Martin Yan speed-skills, motherfucker, and I’m very confident. As my machine-gun dicing reduced the stalks to even slices, I could hear some of the women talking about how good my abilities were with a knife. One of them owns an Italian restaurant and this woman loves to watch me work a blade.

I took Jeanpi out to the patio where my grill is. I opened the lid, cranked-up the burners and slammed it shut with one of those Bobby Flay “grill… you are my bitch” moves. I then took young Jeanpi back to the kitchen and handed.

I sliced the loaves in half and then… to his surprise, handed the loaves to Jeanpi.

“You’re the bread man tonight.” I told him. He got his wish this evening. He was now a member of the kitchen brigade. A sly smile came over the young lad’s face. This was the big leagues… this was a crucial part of the menu and I warned him.

“You fuck this up… you’re on your own.”

He followed me out to the grill and we slammed the loaves facedown onto the grates. I took the first two, he took rest. I then slammed the lid down and told they boy that if he left this spot, for any reason, this grill will destroy his bread. And if he destroyed the bread, he would have to face the wrath of demons from the seventh level of Hades, formerly known as the family.

Don’t ever fuck up the bread. Nothing is more unforgivable than burning the bread and seeing empty bread baskets, never to see a crumb. You don’t want to be the cause of that nightmare. I’ll be the first to kill you.

I get back to the kitchen and begin smashing the garlic and ginger for the dressing, when I look to my side and see Jeanpi standing there, watching me work. Apparently, he didn’t understand the importance of his post.

“GET BACK THERE AND WATCH THE FUCKING BREAD!!”

Then he came back to the kitchen and told us that everyone thinks the bread is burning because they can smell it. What they smelled, I told him, was the bread being charred, which gives it that crunch. I told him he was in charge and to not pussy out to the Gangs of New York eaters, waiting to chow-down.

We went back to the grill, popped it open and flipped over the first loaf.

Beautiful, baby. Absolutely beautiful.

Golden brown with the slightest char sprinkled across the surface. The other three were just as gorgeous. Now we just turn down the heat and roast the backsides to add to the crunch. I then gave Jeanpi a brush and a huge jug of garlic butter and told him to slather them down like a Kentucky Derby racehorse in the winner’s circle.

It was a magical feeling passing the bread duties to Jeanpi. The boy-who-would-be-Bourdain was one of us now. Holiday cooks, bitching about all the people walking through the kitchen, kids letting us know that they’re not going to touch the cherry tomatoes and hungry partiers begging us to serve our culinary concoctions.

The kitchen is where the action is, where ingredients are flying from cutting board to mixing bowl at a furious pace. It’s me yelling to my wife to get that buffet table ready, because I’m serving it when it’s ready and I’m not going to be waiting for someone to find the fucking table draping. It’s high-stress and it’s a frantic energy and it’s the greatest place in the house to be during the holidays.

Paul and I rarely eat at the table. Not when we’ve been tasting everything and slamming down wine and Smirnoff lemon-thingamabobs while we were preparing the feast. We always serve the food, retreat back to the kitchen, pour two full glasses of wine and listen to the sounds of everyone diggin’ our food. It’s a great feeling. It’s quite a shit-eating grin when you cause that type of reaction.

And now… there’s a new musketeer. Jean Paul has officially joined the ranks of the Kitchen Brigade. The Warriors Three, covered in water, oil and vinegar, our shirts dotted with carrots, celery, onion, garlic, ginger and lettuce. We wear every scrap with pride.

And we don’t do the dishes.

Ahhhhh… it's good to be the cook.

Monday, December 10, 2007

TUESDAY NIGHT, I'LL BE SEEING...


THE POLICE!!!!

Lily got us ticets about two months ago and this is my Christmas gift. Cannot WAIT to see this show. I've never seen them live and they've been on my concert wish list forever.

Envy me. Now.

Monday, December 3, 2007

FANTASTIC FOUR SKETCHES FROM JUAN DOE!


Marvel Comics is running a fun, four-day event on their website celebrating FANTASTIC FOUR: ISLA DE LA MUERTE, shipping Christmas week. Go to their website and check out our takes on the characters in the book. Today's feature was Ben Grimm, the ever lovin' blue-eyed THING!

MARVEL.COM

I've gotta say... I'm a bit bummed that all the work is over on this. It was such a fun project to work on and Juan really did an incredible job on the art. Alejandro was one of the nicest people I've worked with in comics and I hope to do more work with him in the future.

Somewhere in my office are MY sketch pages I used while I was writing the script. I'm going to find them and post them and you can see how close Juan's vision was with mine.