The Return of the Last Mechanical Monster

COMING THIS FALL: 192 pages of full-color Eisner-Award-nominated action and adventure! Plus a robot paper doll you can cut out and glue together yourself! It's THE LAST MECHANICAL MONSTER, in hardcover, from Abrams ComicArts!

I began working on LMM about 10 years ago, after Whatever Happened to the World of Tomorrow? was published. After Mom's Cancer and World of Tomorrow I wanted to do something fun and fictional. This is the project on which I spent about a year writing and penciling more than 100 pages before realizing it wasn't the story I really wanted to tell. I turned all those sheets of paper over and began drawing a new version on their backs. I never regretted that "wasted" time because I figured I had to go through that to find the right story I DID want to tell.

At the time, publishers weren't interested. That's fine! I serialized it as a black-and-white webcomic, and it was nominated for Eisner Awards in 2014 and 2015. GoComics.com later picked it up, and after Editor Charlie and I did A Fire Story it came full-circle back to Abrams ComicArts, where it has found a very happy home.

This is the cover, which was just finalized a few days ago. Charlie and I are doing final edits now (Oxford commas, bah!). We'll put it to bed in a couple of weeks, then it's off to the printer and into your heroic local independent bookstores in September.

My fourth book. I really love this story and hope you will, too.