The ‘End of Year Comic Awards‘ over at NFAMOUS.NET have given ‘Best Miniseries’ to Star Wars: Blood Ties, which was also nominated for ‘Best Limited Series or One Shot’ over at COMICBOOKED.COM “…this piece is truly perfect. Perfect in art, perfect in literature, and perfect in Star Wars. Also, Boba Fett takes down a rancor.” – COMICBOOKED.COM

‘The best Damn Comics of 2010′ over at the ‘The Daily Cross Hatch’ also saw The Example get some love.

A huge year of writing comics has come to an end and I decided to do a bit of a review… then I changed my mind and just made a collage – a visual representation of how much sleep I missed last year.

Yep, all of these books came out in 2010 – that’s two for every month.

A huge thanks to all of the people I was lucky enough to work with in 2010

Thanks to all of the artists – Colin Wilson, Chris Scalf, Al Barrionuevo, Mike S Miller, Skye Ogden, Daxiong, Brian Koschak, James Brouwer, Wes Dzioba, Mike Heisler and Em Smith.

To my wonderful editors – Randy Stradley, Jim Chadwick, Wolfgang Bylsma, Freddye Lins, Kristy Quinn, Gary Edwards, Shannon Eric Denton and Ben Abernathy.

To the ridiculous wealth of cover artists – Jo Chen, Dave Gibbons, Kevin Nowlan, Philip Tan, Pete Woods,  Howard Porter, Chris Sprouse, Tim Seeley, Sean McNally and Jeremy Raapack.

And of course, an enormous thank you to every single person who read my books in 2010.  THANK YOU!

This year is already looking enormous, with a pile of work due for publication and some hints of more big gigs in the pipeline – 2011 preview post coming soon…

As readers may know, this book is set on Dagobah during Empire Strikes Back but surely the movie covered everything… right?  Nope.  A big question has been constantly asked about the movie and the answer could lie in the pages of this book.  As a teaser to the release, I’ve sent a cryptic message to theforce.net about Yoda and R2 D2 which you can read right here – “Yoda and R2 D2 speak on Dagobah! Tom Taylor makes an announcement…”

If that’s not enough to get you excited, Daxiong’s art is incredible and this book is still about Yoda training Luke Skywalker!  Release your inner fanboy/fangirl – pick this up!

Despite spending 30+ hours in the air and my being lactose intolerant in a country where even the cheese comes with a side of cheese, all of our Australian contingent had a really successful con, with guaranteed work, job offers and piles of possibilities for all.

Wolfgang Bylsma and Australia’s own Gestalt Publishing  hit the con (via Tokyo) hard, where they announced a number of projects including Rombies (a Roman zombies book written by me and illustrated by Skye Ogden) and set up all sorts of distribution deals, licensed properties and other projects.  This is Gestalt’s year, people.  They’ve arrived.

The hinted at ‘WarGame’, to be illustrated by the awesome Wayne Nichols, had interest from no less than five publishers, so that’s looking like it may be in development soon.

A new Star Wars project looks like it’s on the cards for me, with another one appearing on the Dark Horse website later this week.  There are also a number of projects that I can’t even hint at that look like they will almost definitely happen.

Randy Stradley and I finally got to meet – Randy is a damn fine editor who I owe a lot and I will work for forever if he lets me.  Let me, Randy!

Some random highlights:-

- The enormous Invasion image that could be seen from miles away in the convention center.

- Meeting Gerard Way and Joss Whedon – Fellow Dark Horse writers (I think they do some other stuff too).

- Dinner with Randy Stradley and Colin – Wine, beer, steak and Star Wars;  what a combo.

- The tour of the DC Wildstorm offices in La Jolla – Big thanks to Ben Abernathy for lunch and all of the free books!

- Catching up with Todd McFarlane again and his praise of ‘The Example’ – Still blows my mind that that guy has so much time for everyone.  I’d love to write something for him soon.

- Meeting other creators like Mike Mignola, Jeff Darrow, Dave Dorman, Steven T Seagle, Mick Harrison, Daxiong, Brian Wood, The Fabulous Fillbach Brothers, Gabriel Ba, Adam Hughes, Bryan Talbot, Dave Gibbons, Robert Kirkman and Joe Kelly.

- The surprise of reading Joe Kelly’s ‘I Kill Giants’ on the plane ride home – The single best thing I’ve read this year.

- The Mustang we hired to get around in.

- The bar directly across the road from our house.

- And, lastly, the all-Australian dinner where Nicola Scott and I had a quick meeting before asking about twenty people to get up from the table and move to a cheaper restaurant… class.

We then set up in a house not far away from the convention centre with, head of Gestalt Publishing, Wolfgang Bylsma.  Then we crash out for hours before breakfast with Nicola Scott and Craig Court, dinner with Randy Stradley and piles of other catch ups that I’m really looking forward to.

Exciting stuff.

If you’re attending SDCC, Colin and I will be signing at the Dark Horse Booth on Friday the 24th from 3 til 4 and on Sunday the 26th from 11 til 12.  We will also be hanging around for the most part, so feel free to hand us a copy of whatever (preferably our work) to be signed.  Colin will also be available for commissions – get in early though, he’s a popular guy and he only has one life… that I know of.

I’ve also just found out that a little something else I’ve been working on will be seen for the first time at SDCC.  I look forward to posting an image when I can.

They’re coming.

Leaving behind only destruction, misery… and death.

Star Wars: Invasion is here!  Congratulations and thanks to Colin Wilson, Randy Stradley, Kym Bagley, Megan Mooney Taylor, Wes Dzioba, Jo Chen, Sue Rostoni, Leland Chee, Michael Heisler and Freddye Lins.

MTV (MTV covers comics?) has our book as one of their three ‘best bets’ this week, with the return of Captain America only warranting an ‘honourable mention’.

I hope you like it, world.  If you do like it, it gets a lot better.  If you don’t like it… it gets a lot better.

It looks like another short play of mine is also being optioned – more when it’s official.

Speaking of unofficial, I’ve just handed in a script for another Star Wars project and it looks like Randy Stradley (fast becoming my favourite guy) may have something else he wants me to write.

Meanwhile, a guy called Corax (i’m going to assume that’s his real name) contacted me to let me know that there are some preview pics up at the Dark Horse Website for Star Wars: Invasion #1.  Go.  Look.

The second Invasion prequel story will be appearing at starwars.com Friday if you live in the US or Saturday for Australians… if you live in a timezone other than those two, I imagine it will still be appearing around then.

Lastly, I was mentioned in two separate articles in The Age today.

‘The Teatowel Was My Jedi Robe‘ – written by my becoming-hideously-famous friend Lawrence Leung.  If you haven’t seen Lawrence’s brilliant TV show ‘Lawrence Leung’s Choose Your Own Adventure’, track it down, it’s great.

The other article was ‘The Fan Force‘ by Jake Wilson.  I even got a pic in the paper for that one.

Check them out Star Wars Fans.