Check it out: BLACK CAT is #9 on ICv2′s Top 10 manga properties of 2006 list. Go team us!

Via blog@Newsarama.

Also!  Publisher’s Weekly has a list of February’s Comics Bestsellers and Black Cat vol. 6 is number 5.  (The list says volume 16, but it’s a typo.)  February 7th and the bestsellers list is already out.  Weird, huh?  I imagine this is another reminder that in comics the reader isn’t the consumer; the consumer is the retail establishment.  It’s been explained to me a dozen times, but it still strikes me as odd.

I did a quick and dirty update of the amazon store this morning. There are now category pages for my work, books and music produced by my friends and family and a catchall page for miscellaneous goodies I hold dear, media I’m currently consuming, products I’ve mentioned on this blog and/or whatever shiny baubles I happen to fancy.

I still need to go through and make notes on, well, most of the titles, but as usual I’m on a deadline crunch and I can’t squeeze it in right now.

Aldous Huxley, novelist (1894-1963):

I met, not long ago, a young man who aspired to become a novelist. Knowing that I was in the profession, he asked me to tell him how he should set to work to realize his ambition. I did my best to explain. ‘The first thing,’ I said, ‘is to buy quite a lot of paper, a bottle of ink, and a pen. After that you merely have to write.’

From today’s AWAD.

I’b thick. By nothe ib all clobbed up an I cand breabe.

You get the idea. I’ve got a bajillion things to do today and a throbbing headache that urges me to curl up with NyQuil. Send pity.

Quick Miscellany:

• Currently working on Black Cat v.10 and the 30 Days project with Niles and Randall. Ivan, I haven’t forgotten you.
• Got a lovely inquiry/blast from the past off the PW interview. Cross your fingers for me; this could be cool if I can find a few extra hours in the day. (Who needs clean laundry?)
• There’s a preview of Fraction and Brubaker’s Iron Fist up on Newsarama. Go check it out.
• Speaking of clean laundry, the newly-established girl farts book club is reading and discussing House Works this holiday season. If you could use a little help around the house, pick up a copy and join our thread on the girl farts vox page. If this works out well, maybe it’ll be an ongoing thing.
• Hillary wrote to ask me where the uberlist central page was. It’s right here.
• Theron Neel sent me this link from You Tube-esque metacafe: Thousand-Hand Bodhisattva Masterpiece. Gorgeous. Thanks, Theron.
• I’m off to make myself some soup.

Edited to Add:

• Nikol added some of her bonus patterns to the Naughty Needles site.  Don’t forget the book is available for pre-order and comes out December 19th.  (And I’m in it twice!)

As for the future of “30 Days of Night” in comics, Steve, what’s the story there?

SN: There are all sorts of plans. The plans are, well, I guess this will be a premature sneak of sorts, but Kelly Sue DeConnick and I are doing a six-issue series simply called “Eben and Stella.” It will start one page after “Dark Days” and end at the beginning of “Return to Barrow.” It’s a story that documents what happened to them from the end of Dark Days on. I’m really excited about that.

Mwoo ha ha etc.

___
Currently playing in iTunes: Back In Black by AC/DC Tribute Band

In no particular order: