Comments on: Cybils: In the Small, by Michael Hague

By: Dave Eick

Dave Eick — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 03:59:11 +0000

Well, I haven’t read it yet, but I am intrigued. Glad to see you are doing some writing, or at least working closely with your dad, Devon.

By: Sam

Sam — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 15:04:24 +0000

Devon:

Thank you so much for your comment! I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to reply, but I want you to know that I appreciated your gracious thoughts about my review. I look forward to seeing more of your father’s and your work, as he works through the graphic novel growing pains — I love ghost stories!

By: Sam

Sam — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 15:00:34 +0000

Paula:

Heh. I made a commitment to myself a while ago to review *everything* I read (which is starting to add up now that I’m going through a couple of Cybils nominees in a day, let me tell you!), and honestly, the negative reviews are sometimes more fun to write. (I’m a bad person, clearly.) But I do feel rather like a jerk when I see that an author has read my negative review, and even more so when he replies so graciously. Oh, well. I have to call ‘em like I see ‘em, I guess!

By: your neighborhood librarian

your neighborhood librarian — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 17:08:55 +0000

Oh damn – I was going to heap praise upon you for reviewing this book, and add other specific criticisms of the art and the pacing, but now I feel like a jerk, after reading the EXTREMELY gracious reply by Devon Hague.

I am always so humbled when I encounter a creator who responds to a bad review with equanimity. I have all but quit reviewing anything that I can’t praise, due to dicky authors who come poking around afterwards and leave condescending comments (rhymes with Dinkslaughter).

My hat’s off to you, Sam!
:paula

By: Devon Hague

Devon Hague — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 19:05:23 +0000

Hey-

This is Michael’s son, Devon that helped work on the book. Over the past few years I have been working as an assistant with him helping with painting and editing and such.

I just wanted to thank you for the review, as harsh as it was. It’s always good to hear feedback, so as to improve upon things in future books. This was one of the first books my father has worked primarily on the computer for, and not surprisingly you can see some of the growing pains here and there. There are some upcoming books that are done on the computer that I think you will be much happier with the inking and overall look of. One is a collection of ghost stories due out next year.

A small note on the website…from what I understand, it is currently being redesigned to be a much more user friendly experience, so any annoyances should hopefully be gone soon :).

Anyhoo, here’s hoping to you enjoying his upcoming books better than you did this one :). Hope you had a lovely Halloween!

Sincerely,
Devon Hague

By: Sam

Sam — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 05:37:35 +0000

M-C:

It’s a good question. I just checked the book, though, and I see no mention of an inker or anyone else. Other than that it was written “with Devon Hague” (his son), who I suppose could have done the inking, but it doesn’t say that.

By: Miriam

Miriam — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 18:38:41 +0000

Hee! My house is TOTALLY the promised land – I’ve got milk and honey and everything!

( It was all worth it for your extremely amusing irritation.)

By: Martini-Corona

Martini-Corona — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 16:00:22 +0000

Hm. Was Michael Hague inked and colored by someone else? He could be running into the Bad Inker problem, like Colleen Doran (whose own work is very clean) did when she penciled an issue of Sandman (in the "A Game of You" storyline). She was so unhappy with the experience that Gaiman apparently allowed her to re-ink the whole thing for later editions of the GN...

By: Sara

Sara — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 15:29:36 +0000

I love post-apoc as much as the next fellow, but that does seem like kind of a dumb apocalypse.

Also, big time illustrator =/= good cartoonist, and Michael Hague has hands-down the most annoying website I have ever encountered, ever.

EVAR.