It’s been about ten years since the comics landscape was forever altered by the emergence of graphic novels and book length compilations (i.e., comic books with spines), so I figure the time is right for Neil Jam to jump into the fray. That’s right, later on this summer I plan to release the first ever Neil Jam collection!

Titled simply Neil Jam or Neil Jam “Something” (as in Neil Jam Invasion, Neil Jam Romance, etc), this book will be a collection of Neil Jam shorts, with strips ranging anywhere from about one to ten pages. The material featured will be strips taken directly from recent Neil Jam minicomics, some redrawn and/or reformatted strips from recent and prior minicomics, as well as a selection of all new strips. It will be a modest and concise package, clocking in somewhere over 100 pages.

Though I’ve obviously self published a heap load of minicomics, I do not fancy myself a publisher. I do not feel equipped to embark on this project on an offical scale, so I have decided to go about it in an unofficial capacity. The plan is to use a print-on-demand service and then see where it goes from there. If it turns out well perhaps I would take it in a different direction with the printing, or perhaps someone else would offer to take it in a different direction with the publishing (yes please).

I’ll have my hands full over the next month or so finishing this puppy up. In the meantime, let me know if you have any suggestions. Word.

Production on the Neil Jam book is moving along. It is pretty crazy how much longer these big pages take to finish than the lil’ daily sized strips. I’m hoping to have it all ready in August… And then it’s party time!

He must’ve done something to cross me, though I can’t say what it was or when it happened. All I know is that while combing through the pages for the upcoming Neil Jam collection, Buck is conspicuously absent. The book is roughly 100 pages, and Buck appears in *four* of them. Poor guy. It seems up until the launch of the new edition of strips on neiljam.com, he’d been largely ignored for quite a long while. At any rate, I’m glad he’s back playing a larger role in these newer strips, and I’ll be sleeping with one eye open until further notice.

*The Buck bust in the pic above was crafted many moons ago out of Sculpey*

Production on the Neil Jam book is complete (wiping sweat from brow)! Yay! It was a lot of work, but I think we’ll all be pleased with the results. It’ll still be a little bit until they’ll be ready and available. I’m hoping to have some copies in time for the Chicago Comic-Con (formerly Wizard World Chicago), which takes place August 6-9. I’ll be posting all sorts of info and specifics about it in the next couple of weeks. But for now I’ll just leave you with a look at how the cover came to be (as seen above).

Say hello to the Neil Jam book! Titled simply Neil Jam, this compilation has been a long time coming and should prove to be worth the wait. At 104 pages, this book compiles the perfect selection of shorts to indoctrinate anybody knee deep in the wonderful world that is Neil Jam.

This is no mere slapdash collection of comics. Only the best strips from the recent minicomics made the cut. Some strips went straight into the book “as is,” while others were completely redrawn or reformatted to give the book that extra something special. But it doesn’t end there, as this compilation is rounded out with some appropriately placed all new material which helps make the whole of the book much greater than the sum of its parts.

Does that whet your appetite? I hope so. Copies of Neil Jam will be made available on the website in early August, at which point there will be a storefront set up with plenty of previews and pics and even more info. Word up!

I got the first shipment of Neil Jam books. You wouldn’t believe how nervous I was while opening up the boxes– fearful of anything and everything that could’ve gone wrong with them. But it was all for naught! The books appear to be in tip top shape! Not too shabby, y’all!

The Neil Jam Book is now officially for sale. Hooray! It’s available for purchase in a completely reconfigured storefront along with the rest of the Neil Jam catalog. As an added bonus I will be happy to personally draw something special in each and every copy. So what’re you waitin’ for? Get to shoppin’!

I’ve made this nifty little video preview of the Neil Jam book (now available in the Neil Jam Store) to give y’all a better idea of what you can expect to find inside all of its glory. I’ve seen other cartoonists and publishers make videos like this and thought it was time for me to join those ranks. I for one know that oftentimes, flipping through a book beforehand can make all the difference. The quality of the video was the best I could do with the video function on my regular camera. Considering the limitations, and the fact that I’ve never shot any video before, I think it turned out pretty good. It gets the job done, at any rate.

Convention season is coming up, and one project I plan to complete beforehand is a one volume edition of the story that was serialized in issues 14, 15, and 16 of the Neil Jam minicomic series.

This story is approximately 50 pages and features quite the array of characters from the Neil Jam universe– several of which have yet to appear in the web strips that are currently running on neiljam.com. At any rate, the real kicker is that I did not properly save the pages on disk, and since my then-computer died a tragic computer death, I now have the fun task ahead of re-scanning each and every page. Yay!

Though the story was titled Neil Jam Planet, I think I would like to change that– Probably something along the lines of Neil Jam “Something or other,” so let me know if y’all have any ideas in that regard. Maybe I’ll award you with a no-prize or something cool like that!