Awright Listen Up!

Thank you, Timothy "Dum Dum" Dugan!

A few pressing matters:

• First and most important, since it keeps coming up: As far as I'm concerned, in my current IRON MAN storyline, Dugan (see above) is not a Skrull spy. He's the real thing. In the online prologue to SECRET INVASION, it's revealed that Dugan was killed and replaced with a Skrull just a few weeks before the Invasion began. My story takes place before that time.

So you can look at "With Iron Hands" as Dugan's last hurrah. And he gets some fun stuff to do in issue #31, next month.

All this is void where prohibited, or if Tom Brevoort decides I'm wrong.

If none of that made any sense to you, you probably have a life. Go back to it and stop making the rest of us feel bad.

• I've received word from Tokyopop that EARTHLIGHT volume 3, like most of their Original English Language manga, will not be published as a printed book, but will instead appear, free of charge, on their website at some point. Tokyopop is going through a change of business plan and, as has been widely reported, the OEL books haven't sold very well (with some definite exceptions). I'm sorry I won't be able to put volume three on the shelf next to the others -- but both Chris Schons and I have been paid in full, and this actually means more people will probably see the work. So no giant complaints.

• I don't know much about what's going on at DC right now; my interactions with them lately have been limited to some minor licensing work, and a recent, helpful interchange when the state of California decided retroactively that I and a few other freelancers owed them back taxes for work done for DC in 2005. (Spoiler: We don't.) I do wish John Nee the best. I can't say I know him well, but he's always done right by me and he inexplicably kept recommending me for jobs a few years ago. Also best wishes to Chuck Dixon, who's handled his own DC situation this past week with clarity and class.

More soon, including updates on THE 99 and new Marvel and Virgin projects.