Yes, this is what happens when you’re raised in the south.

ANYWAY, Congratulations to Bart! We’ll see if I can get back on track with these giveaways sometime soon, ok? In the meantime, you can always buy the book on Amazon.

In order to help spread the good word, Abrams sent me a spare copy to give away. Want to get a chance to win it? From now until 11:59PM ET on Sunday, August 29, just leave a comment with your favorite episode that is not “City On The Edge Of Forever” or “The Trouble With Tribbles.” If you want, tell us why. I’ll use Random.org to pick a winner. Please note that you must use a valid email address when entering or I won’t be able to inform you of your winningness and because of the book’s weight, I won’t be shipping it outside of the United States.

Let’s give it up for Jordan Shiveley, who won last week’s contest!  Jordan picked the Coatimundi, which is, let’s face it, a pretty darn cute mammal.

This week, I’m giving away something slightly stupid and gorgeous!  Marc Guggenheim’s run on Blade with Howard Chaykin is big, over-the-top, and a close-to-perfect example of comics about a half-vampire that kills other vampires with swords and guns and whatever else he’s got handy.   I’ve got the two trades collecting the entirety of the Guggenheim/Chaykin run: Undead Again and Sins of the Father and you can win them by naming your favorite vampire that is not Dracula in the comments to this post!

Just leave said comment before 12:01 AM on Saturday, May 1, 2010 to qualify and the winner will be chosen using Random.org’s random number generator. Previous entrants do, in fact qualify, because I’m such a nice fellow like that. Comments that don’t qualify (such as the person from the Harley Quinn contest a few weeks ago who just babbled about how great the Dodsons are without actually answering the very basic question provided) will be deleted.

Terms And Conditions:? Please note that because of shipping costs, this contest is for residents of the United States of America and Canada. You must leave your email address with your comment to qualify, as I’m not going to spend any time hunting down someone who didn’t want to be contacted about their amazing prize. One comment per person and yes, I will know if you cheat and will probably mock you in public.

Of course we have three times as many entries for a blasted Avengers book than we do for the one where I give away my comic book babies to you people. Of course we do. I’m not bitter; I accept that more people are going to be interested in what’s up with Wonder Man than anything I might create with my own blood, sweat, and tears. Really.

All joking aside, last week’s winner was…Zak, who suggested that Captain America, Falcon, Black Panther, Songbird, Hawkeye and Scarlet Witch would make a good lineup for Earth’s Mightest Heroes.

This week, we’ve got a new-ish graphic novel published by Fantagraphics, The Squirrel Machine by Hans Reikheit. It’s one of those books I think works best if you know nothing about its contents, but I’d describe it as rural-horror-meets-Arthur-Miller through a distinctly European sensibility. It’s beautifully drawn, disturbing and sad and you can read more on the Fantagraphics site.

How do you win this? Leave a comment with, and I’m going to be exceedingly random here, your favorite mammal that’s not a primate or conventional pet. (In other words, it could be a squirrel or blue whale but not Chris Sims.)

ANYWAY. Leave said comment before 12:01 AM on Saturday, April 24, 2010 to qualify and the winner will be chosen using Random.org’s random number generator. Previous entrants do, in fact qualify, because I’m such a nice fellow like that. Comments that don’t qualify (such as the person from the Harley Quinn contest a few weeks ago who just babbled about how great the Dodsons are without actually answering the very basic question provided) will be deleted.

Terms And Conditions:
Please note that because of shipping costs, this contest is for residents of the United States of America and Canada. You must leave your email address with your comment to qualify, as I’m not going to spend any time hunting down someone who didn’t want to be contacted about their amazing prize. One comment per person and yes, I will know if you cheat and will probably mock you in public.

Hey, everyone, let’s give a polite round of applause for Hooper Triplett who either has the best name in the world or is just another guy on the internet trying to hide his identity so his boss doesn’t see that he really loves comic books! He won last week’s contest and will be getting scribbled-in Agreeable Comics pretty soon! If you were hedging your bets on getting freebies and lost out, visit Agreeablecomics.com/shop and give us money for goods.

After last week’s grab at attention, let’s give away another Marvel book, this time the very-much-enjoyed-by-die-hard-Avengers-fans Avengers Forever. It’s a big cross-dimensional, timeline-hopping paean to what makes the Avengers so special to people like writer Kurt Busiek. I think it’s a hoot, even if I can only take it in two-or-three issue doses and Carlos Pacheco’s work is just gorgeous.

How do you win this? Oh, let’s make it an Avengers-themed thing. Tell us what six people you’d have in “your” Avengers line up. Note that at least one of the original six – Iron Man, Hulk, Wasp, Ant-Man, Thor, and Captain America (yes I know he didn’t join until #4 shut up) – must be a part of your group. Winners are, as always, chosen by random selection.

ANYWAY. Leave said comment before 12:01 AM on Saturday, April 17, 2010 to qualify and the winner will be chosen using Random.org’s random number generator. Previous entrants do, in fact qualify, because I’m such a nice fellow like that. Comments that don’t qualify (such as the person from the Harley Quinn contest a couple of weeks ago who just babbled about how great the Dodsons are) will be deleted.

Terms And Conditions:
Please note that because of shipping costs, this contest is for residents of the United States of America and Canada. You must leave your email address with your comment to qualify, as I’m not going to spend any time hunting down someone who didn’t want to be contacted about their amazing prize. One comment per person and yes, I will know if you cheat and will probably mock you in public.

OK, yeah, I’m blatantly self-promoting, but seriously, I work with some amazing artists and I’m debuting some new books at the Boston Comic-Con this weekend and c’mon, how much longer am I supposed to gut my closet without expecting a little something-something back from you guys, huh?

(By the way, last week’s winner was…wow, Random.org spat out #1, Tim Callahan! Tim blogs and reviews just about everywhere, but I’m pretty sure that link there will show you around pretty well.)

OK, back to the something-something. You guys are going to have to work this time around. As you can see by the fairly-large graphic above, I’m giving away the first three Agreeable Comics print productions and, if I can find a copy of Agreeable Comics #0 around here somewhere, I’ll throw that in, too. I’ll scribble my name in the books and as both Ming Doyle and TJ Kirsch are planning to share the Agreeable Comics table with me at the aforementioned con, I’ll get them to do the same. (Sadly, Benjamin Birdie has “commitments” and will be missing the show, but I’ll write something especially hateful towards you in his absence.)

How do you get them? I’m going to need links from you people. You need to link to your favorite Agreeable Comic on your blog, in your Facebook profile , on Twitter, or even, god forbid, your MySpace page. Please note that blogroll links do not qualify.  Nobody pays attention to them except for drunks and the mentally addled. Leave a comment with the URL for your link to qualify and that’s it. (As an aside: look, people. I know it’s not me giving away some old Marvel comics with junk you liked when you were nine, but these are really snazzy-looking books and I want to make sure everyone sees how great my collaborators are.)

ANYWAY. Leave said comment before 12:01 AM on Saturday, April 10, 2010 to qualify and the winner will be chosen using Random.org’s random number generator. Previous entrants do, in fact qualify, because I’m such a nice fellow like that. Comments that don’t qualify (such as the person from the Harley Quinn contest a couple of weeks ago who just babbled about how great the Dodsons are) will be deleted.

Terms And Conditions:
Please note that because of shipping costs, this contest is for residents of the United States of America and Canada. You must leave your email address with your comment to qualify, as I’m not going to spend any time hunting down someone who didn’t want to be contacted about their amazing prize. One comment per person and yes, I will know if you cheat and will probably mock you in public.

OK, we’re back on track with another giveaway, but let’s get the usual thing out of the way first and offer our congratulations to “hardtravelinghero,” who should really talk to his parents about their naming convention. They could have named him Oliver or Hal and not forced him to spend an hour arguing every time he showed his ID, and– oh, that’s a pseudonym. People still do that on the internet? Wow. I thought To Catch A Predator convinced everyone it was a bad idea.

Anyway, this week’s a three-fer to make up for last week’s lack of a giveaway. You can get your hands on two vintage reprints and a more modern collection of older stories, all from the house than Stan, Jack, and Steve built! Hercules: Prince Of Power collects the two Bob Layton miniseries; Fantastic Four Versus The X-Men does what it says on the tin with typical Claremontian dialogue covering up Jon Bogdanove’s pencils and The Dragon Seed Saga is an ambitiously named, if pretty pedestrian Iron-Man-Goes-To-Stereotypical-China story written by John Byrne with art by Paul Ryan and M.D. Bright.

How do you win these three paperbacks? Just leave a a comment with your favorite Marvel comics from the 80s or 90s that aren’t collected yet. For me, it’d be the Roger Stern/John Buscema Avengers run whose highlight was put into trade as Under Siege but the rest has been sadly left out of the reprint game (excluding the first part of the return of Jean Grey.)

Just leave said comment before 12:01 AM on Saturday, April 3, 2010 to qualify and the winner will be chosen using Random.org’s random number generator. Previous entrants do, in fact qualify, because I’m such a nice fellow like that. Comments that don’t qualify (such as the person from the Harley Quinn contest who just babbled about how great the Dodsons are) will be deleted.

Terms And Conditions:?
Please note that because of shipping costs, this contest is for residents of the United States of America and Canada. You must leave your email address with your comment to qualify, as I’m not going to spend any time hunting down someone who didn’t want to be contacted about their amazing prize. One comment per person and yes, I will know if you cheat and will probably mock you in public.