1. That COVER. love how it works with four. our first two-parter, the end of volume one —  MY LIFE AS A WEAPON — and the introduction of RED. the next unifying color for our next volume.

2. i’m as amused by the recaps and sana & steve’s credits as you are each month. it’s always by them.

3. i wasn’t happy with four. couple reasons. first, everything i write is awful. hard to overcome that. second, i love javier. LOVE HIM. i read this one issue of CATWOMAN he and Ed did until the staples fell out. And I wanted to write for him so badly that… i wrote for him very badly. anyway i think i did better this time. there’s always a learning curve; the problem is, you gotta publish ‘em.

these two were written full script instead of plot style, or “plot style” as what i do isn’t really that. 

4. in the HAWKGUY 7 script to jesse and steve, i summed the writing of the book as “come up with a fairly simple story and then figure out the absolutely most complicated way to tell it.”  this is an example of that, and me kind of making fun of the thought i had, while writing it, that, gee, this one seems awfully straightforward.

5. THE TAPE. I wrote a comic about the Seal Team 6 mission that killed Osama bin Laden. Completely amazing story. And grist for the fiction mill. This story — Clint kills Osama (or an Osama stand-in) and the tape gets out — was my initial pitch for the book.

6. KERKFUFFLE! javier gives aja a run for his sfx money a couple times in this one.

7. “We have a problem here or WHAT?”  Javier Pulido, ladies and gents.

8. cigarettes: every ex-smoker i know has that moment. almost always suddenly, almost always random, almost always totally and inexorably serious: i’d give everything i have for a cigarette right now. 

9. kingpin. javier does a great kingpin.

10. THIS ISSUE: HE SHOOTS AN ARROW. STILL NO COSTUME THOUGH SORRY.

11. KGLASSSSS

12. — shoe — I’d written myself into a DIE HARD homage and didn’t even try. 

13. FOOTOOMP!

14. Should’ve cut to a POV shot of the hawkeyes coming back at us. ah well.

15. yes: kate was MM the whole time. it was kate that went rummaging down the front of clint’s pants for the SHIELD card. “there’s things i can’t UNFEEL ever, too, Clint.”

16. ugh out of pages just dump your surviving cast in a room and have them explain everything to each other jesus you hack

17. we should just have a helicarrier tethered to the rooftop from now on. like it’s where clint parks.

18. MANDY I MISSPELLED YOUR NAME TWITTER NAME IN THE COLUMN i’m sorry it was late and i had to type fast. sorry i missed it.

PIZZA DOG’S owner is @mandybu. not @mandubu. no idea who or what @mandubu is. @MANDYBU.

Also this was before the flood issue was greenlit so pizza dog gets moved to 11.

okay! see you in two weeks for the big holiday issue.