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As a grateful answer to the overwhelming responses I have gotten from my keynote address at the LTUE Symposium at Utah Valley University this past weekend, for the next twenty-four hours, I am offering the ebook trio – all formats in one zip file, pdf, epub, and mobi – of DRAWING OUT THE DRAGONS, the basis for my keynote address…

…for FREE. For the next twenty-four hours.

Simply fill in your name and email address, click the link below, and you’ll get the download link sent to you. That’s it. (And if you want to read more about the book itself, simply click on the link above.)

In return, all I ask is that you take on a challenge: I would like to give away ONE THOUSAND COPIES of this book in the next twenty-four hours. So please post links, email it to your friends and family; and if you were at the LTUE keynote, share your impressions of that event, and then tell them about the book.

It is, I feel, the most meaningful, most significant thing I have ever written. And I want to give it to as many people as possible.

Help me do something extraordinary today.

(Two things of note: the link will be sent right away, so if you don’t see it, check your spam folder! And also, the pdf – the pretty version, I think – reads best in Adobe Reader. There’s a glitch in Preview that drops the art off the cover. Still reads fine, though!)

EDITED TO ADD: we reached – and exceeded – the goal of 1000 books downloaded in 24 hours. I wrote about the reason I did it here – and now, we’re going to keep it going for seven more days. Please pass it on!

…The penultimate adventure of the Caretakers of the Imaginarium Geographica will be loosed upon the world…

I’d like to make a suggestion to undo a lot of that PR damage, and in the same move give you some positive PR that will be all but unassailable by your critics.

I’d like to suggest you create a new app – a seasonal one, that’s valid from the day after Thanksgiving until midnight on Christmas Eve. For the purposes of my suggestion, and because it’s the field I work in, the app would be limited to use in independent bookstores. With this app, which we could call “Santa’s Apprentice”, for any customer who scans a book in an independent bookstore – and then purchases that item at that store – Amazon would donate five bucks to a program that provides free books to kids at Christmas.

You still get the market data that all the experts seem to think you’re after – but the independent bookstore gets the sale, and some kid who may otherwise be getting nothing under the tree will have a chance to get a beautiful book of their very own. I’m already doing something similar as an individual, but charities like Kids Need To Read would be an excellent recipient for those donations, and are practically primed to start just such a program.

Making smart business choices has been the hallmark of your professional career, and it has certainly benefitted your company. Doing something like this is another arena altogether: it’s doing something that would not only help your competitors in a time of economic uncertainty, but would also help to give children some hope and happiness at a time in our world when both are sorely needed. And as PR, it’s as simple as Gimbel’s sending customers to Macy’s in Miracle on 34th St. It’s a move that generates both goodwill and profits.

Too often, I’ve seen kids – who will never get a Christmas present – out on street corners at this time of year with their parents, who are selling decorated pencils, or other little odds and ends just to try to make ends meet. Those are the kids I’m going to be giving presents to this year – as many as I am able. And I can’t for the life of me imagine approaching such a kid and telling them, “I have the ability to give you a book of your very own for Christmas – but I can’t, because my shareholders wouldn’t like it.” I bet you couldn’t, either.

Mr. Bezos, you have demonstrated beyond any doubt that Amazon is both successful and powerful. I hope you’re willing to demonstrate, to your own benefit, that Amazon can be good, too.

With all best wishes,

James A. Owen – Author, Independent Bookstore Owner, and Senior Apprentice to Kris Kringle

I popped over to the local shop (Moose Cave, in Show Low, Arizona) to grab the lead title, JUSTICE LEAGUE, because 1) it was Wednesday; and 2) I’m a huge Superman and Justice League (of America) fan, and I really wanted to read it.

I also really want to read a handful of the other upcoming titles, like ACTION (because they made some changes to Superman) and GREEN LANTERN (because they’re changing very little). But the one book I’m MOST looking forward to reading this month? The original NEW TEEN TITANS graphic novel “Games”, by creators Marv Wolfman and George Perez. It isn’t part of the reboot, but a twenty-years-in-the-making completely retro book set in the creators’ (and, to me, the characters’) heyday.

It will have NOTHING to do with the new continuity, at all. But having only read about it, and seen a few pages of art, I already know I’m going to love it – because it pushes all of MY particular buttons – and it fits the continuity that means the MOST to ME: one set a quarter-century ago, in terms of the publishing timeline.

Continuity has long been an embedded part of the comics reading and buying experience; commercially speaking, it feeds the ‘habitual entertainment’ that Larry Marder observed our hobby had become. New comics day (which always existed, but merely shifted from the convenience store to the specialty shop) is the day you popped in for the newest issue of whatever you were reading. And the continuity – the larger arcs as well as the smaller details – kept you hooked.

Every once in a while though, the publishers would drop a cherry bomb into the continuity of things, and shake everything up. And in recent years, that’s meant interweaving tighter and tighter threads of continuity into EVERY title, so that missing ONE ISSUE might throw you off with your understanding of everything else going on in the line. (Or worse, realizing that missing one issue or five makes no difference at all.)

Which brings me back to ‘Games’. One reason I’m expecting to enjoy it is that it’s going to be a COMPLETE story. A ‘Done In One’, as Maggie Thompson says. And that’s a great, rare thing these days. It’s also where I have to wonder if DC, in their pursuit of the reboot goal, might have missed an even cooler (and possibly more lucrative) one.

In recent weeks DC released a number of ‘Retro’ books: single issues with the tone (and relevant creative teams) of books from the 70′s, 80′s, and 90′s. I’ve only seen the house ads – but obviously SOMEONE at DC recognized that there was value in, say, reuniting Giffen, DeMatteis, and Maguire on a JUSTICE LEAGUE book. Even if only for a single issue.

My question is, why aren’t they doing this ALL THE TIME?

Elsewhere on the net, my friend Mario Boon commented, “Imagine if they did the entire relaunch of the nuDC as 52 done in one issues? Imagine that? An entire story in 20-30 pages? With a beginning, middle and end? A real “pilot”?”

That would have been PERFECT. But imagine this: what if the Retro Books/Done in One idea were part of the ongoing publishing plan? What if continuity were more of a storytelling convenience than an apparently necessary foundation?

It isn’t important for me to reconcile the TEEN TITANS of my kids’ generation with the TEEN TITANS of mine. I enjoy them both, even though they are COMPLETELY different. The look, stories, everything – but I love them both. What if this were not the exception, but the new norm, to have different creators doing THEIR versions of the characters?

A few years back, during one of the mega-event-crossovers, a writer pal suggested that I could draw one of the segments (knowing I love DC stuff, but have never done much with the company professionally, outside of writing ONE introduction). He said he could get me in the door – but I’d have to match the current ‘house style’, and mimic the eleven OTHER artists working on the books. I declined, in part because that wasn’t a career goal of mine – I wanted my OWN identity, and I wanted any work I did to be recognizably MINE.

Friends who have worked for DC maintained a similar creative integrity, and to great results: Paul Pope did a glorious turn on BATMAN YEAR 100, and it looked like few Batman stories published before or since. Jeff Smith did a great turn on Captain Marvel. And Wednesday Comics was, in many ways, a near-perfect creative experiment – partly because they selected some great creators and then mostly let them Do Their Thing.

There are lots of great reasons for DC’s line-wide reboot. I hope it brings – and keeps – lots of readers. But after missing a few months’ worth of comics (due to working on deadlines and, until recently, no local place to shop) I find myself caring a LOT less about reading BATMAN INCORPORATED #8, in which I have no clue what’s happened since Bruce Wayne died, was replaced, came back, was replaced, died again, etc… even though I love the writer and thought the art was nice. It was still part 56 of a 70 part story (I’m being facetious – but only just barely).

TEEN TITANS: “Games” will be one book, by two of my favorite creators, set in my favorite continuity. And I’m excited just at the thought of it – as I’d be for a LEGION OF SUPER HEROES book by Levitz and Giffen…or WONDER WOMAN by Perez… or BATMAN by Bill Sienkiewicz or Garcia-Lopez… or SUPERMAN by Barreto… or…You get the picture.

Continuity is great (see: last few decades); new approaches are great (see: animated TEEN TITANS); but Done in One stories can be created for both NEW readers as well as the longtime fans. And to me, that would really be the best of all: not to have a thousand-part Batman story, but to instead have a thousand brilliant Batman stories – whether or not they all fit into the continuity.

There are still several great rewards to be claimed, and pledges coming in. We’re now looking to hit $10,000, which means a better print run, so give us a hand in making this last dash to the finish a spectacular run!

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1401678214/james-a-owen-the-drawing-out-the-dragons-project