As for the anti-religion story, I found it dumb. Okay, not everything can be that good, but something like Preacher was a smartly done book looking at the downside of organized religion. Meanwhile Chuck Austin’s was an immature rant with one of the most absurd stawmen I’ve ever seen. Plus it was just an odd use of the X-men.

I just laugh that parents groups found this objectionable but Battle Royale’s enjoyed by everyone.

I mean that book had its moments that creeped me out.

That was a great story. The “anti-religion rhetoric” (and I am a Catholic) is a devise for building tension in a story. I give him marks for having the grapefruits to do it.

Anyone else remember another time he teamed with a manga-ka? Him and Kia Asamiya on X-men. The art was amazing. The story was simply awful. Not to mention the anti-religion rhetoric made Bill Maher seem like da freakin pope.

Also did Austin just say that his writing on this was like Naoki Urasawa’s work? Um.. excuse me?

*flabberghasted*

DCBS sent me my copy of Vol 1 when it was solicited long time ago.

Mind you the book was properly sealed for an book obviously meant for mature audiences so I’ll never understand what Tokyopop’s problem was.

Just ticked off I’ll never be able to read the rest. It was actually pretty good.

Anyway, good to hear foreign sales are good, but I don’t speak Hungarian or Russian. Must be frustrating to create work that is only available in a foreign language.

What if he just sold a little “Libretto/Baseball Program” booklet containing the English text?

You can always count on Austen to have those things in his work (no matter what he’s writing about) along with endearing moments, thoughtful story lines, humor, and imagination. Why there was such an upsurge of fanboys with their panties in a bunch, that ran him out of super-hero comics is waaay beyond me. Anyway, it seems that the curse of the blacklist (not to be confused with The Black Lipstick Curse) is still dogging him until this very day. I’m very sad about this, because he is one of my biggest joys in comic book reading. I hope BOS is collected. I spend way to much time working and chatting on the computer to do my comic book reading there, too.

In fairness, though, I recall that he’d done some fairly well received work along this sort of line before his unfortunate brush with superhero books. He’s probably right that this is a much better fit for his sensibilities.

Too bad about the title being sent to manga limbo. I enjoyed his adult stories, as they seemed to have actual plot and characterization, as well as fantastic art.