Author Archive: Eric San Juan

Citizen 13660 – forgotten gem of graphic literature

Every now and then you stumble across something and think, “Why isn’t this considered a landmark in its field?” Citizen 13660, published in 1946, is one of those things. It’s not quite a comic, but should be hailed among the important works of graphic literature. Somehow, though, despite being an avid comic/graphic novel reader, this has slipped under my radar and the radar of every other fan of the comic medium I know. That’s too bad. This deserves to be widely known in such circles.   In 1946, just after spending time in two internment camps, Japanese-American Miné Okubo published an illustrated memoir of her experience. It was called Citizen 13660, after the family number given to her in the camps. The novel/graphic novel hybrid…
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Okay, so I CAN wait to get it started

Waaaaaay back in February, I breathlessly posted about my desire to begin the second draft of a science fiction novel I’ve been kicking around. First draft was done. Readable. But needed work. First I planned to start the second draft early in the year and wrap it up by late spring. Then I pushed it back to March in order to slam out some other, shorter projects. Then Stuff Every Husband Should Know came up and took priority. Then I had to finish scripting Pitched! 2 so we could get it out in 2010. Then I took the rest of the summer off from writing because damn did I need a breather. So now, many endless months later, I finally start on Ye Olde Second…
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Pitched 2: So close, yet so far away

Pitched Vol 2

It’s the final few loose ends of a major project that are the most frustrating, not because they’re particularly difficult or troublesome, but because the finish line is right freakin’ there, just out of your reach, teasing you like the chicken nugget that slips from of your grasp and under the passenger side seat. I’m talking about Pitched! 2: Seven More Stories, which is the follow-up to my self-published comic anthology of 2009, Pitched!: Nine Stories. It is, I hope, an eclectic and entertaining batch of stories made 100 percent better by a talented bunch of artists and collaborators. The good news is, I’ll be sending the final pages to our printer in the super duper immediate future. The bad news is that it will…
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“Stuff Every Husband Should Know” is pretty much done

Stuff Every Husband Should Know

What the title of this post says is true and good and quite factual to the best of my knowledge — which admittedly isn’t particularly deep, but I think I can speak on this subject with at least some authority. Last week, two weeks ago, something like that — time is largely a blur to me — I took a gander at the edited-and-laid-out-and-made-pretty version of Stuff Every Husband Should Know (due out April 5, 2011 from the fine folks at Quirk Books). It looked pretty darn swell, if I may say so myself. (I may.) The illustrations are spiffy, the topics that made the final cut are wide-ranging and interesting (wrote more than we needed, so maybe ten chapters or so are sitting on…
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Stuff Every Husband Should Know is on sale…

Stuff Every Husband Should Know

…April 5, 2011. So, like, mark your calendars and stuff. (Stuff is my upcoming book, set for release in Quirk Books’ pocket books series. To give you a sense of what it will be like, check out Stuff Every Man Should Know.) (And hey, I just realized that an early listing of Husband is up at Amazon. Check it out. No real info there yet, but that’s to be expected; it’s still very early in the process. The final manuscript was only just approved a few weeks ago.