Confessions of a Pop Fan

Wednesday, June 04, 2008

I DO LIKE TO BE B-SIDE THE A-SIDE

Love the Way You Love: Side B by myself and Marc Ellerby, and collecting the last three issues, is in the new Diamond Previews, putting it on a publishing track to get it out in August.

Preorder it now!

Diamond order code: JUN08 4144.
ISBN-10: 1932664955
ISBN-13: 978-1932664959

Don't worry. For those sticking with the serialization, the sixth volume should be out in the next two weeks.

***

Completely unrelated pet peeve thing here.

To the creative types out there, don't you do a search when you come up with a title? Sure, we all know the chorus of "You can't copyright a title," and literature has a long history of titles being allusions or straight lifts from other things ("Love the Way You Love" is a song by Suede), but aren't you concerned there is already something out there called what you want to call your book that might compete or confuse? If I get a title, even if I'm yanking it from a song ("Cut My Hair" by the Who) or a poem ("I Was Someone Dead" was a phrase in John Brown's Body by Stephen Vincent Benet), I usually check both Amazon and Internet Movie Database to be safe. Thus, You Have Killed Me is named after a Morrissey song instead of being called by its original title The Big Empty, because there was a movie called that a couple of years ago.

I don't know Paul Peart-Smith, and I wish him all the luck in the world, but there has already been a comic called One Plus One, and it's a book that may have a sequel someday, so why call your comic that? I saw the title listed on Comics Reporter and was shocked to see Neal and Daniel had gotten something together, only to click through and see they hadn't. Bummer.

I wonder if Peart-Smith also took his title from the Godard film about the Rolling Stones?

Wouldn't it be bizarre if comics were treated like bands. You know, how the Charlatans had to be the Charlatans UK in the States because there was already a Charlatans from San Francisco in the '60s. Or Suede and the London Suede (I actually see the lesbian folk singer Suede who caused the "London" prefix is playing in Portland this summer; I'm going to go and keep shouting, "Metal Mickey! Metal Mickey!"). This comic could be called "The Online One Plus One."

Again, best of luck to this endeavor. I'm not suggesting anything or wishing to besmirch anyone, I'm just making a point. Google is your friend.

Current Soundtrack: Morrissey, "All You Need Is Me" single & B-sides; Elle S'appelle, "Little Flame"

Current Mood: curious