Haven’t posted for a while because I’ve been up to my neck in work. I’m glad to say I made all of my goals for the month, both professional and otherwise – January was good to me. If every month was like January, I’d probably be a much more prolific author.

(I haven’t been blogging, but I didn’t entirely abandon the internet, either; I usually manage to spill a few lines of inane chatter over on Twitter every day. To be honest, posting there is stupidly addictive. Tweets are the internet version of haiku. If you sign-up and want to follow me, you’ll find me as joe_hill… not joehill).

A whole bunch of things I’ve been meaning to mention have stacked up in the last couple weeks, so expect a flurry of posts in the next few days, and then another return to something like radio silence, while I cross items off the February To Do list. Piss on February for only having 28 days. I’ve never liked February. At the end of every February, you’re one month closer to being dead, even though you got screwed out of three days. Think about that. Pretty sketchy, ain’t it?

And here’s one of those things I’ve been meaning to mention. I’ve been keeping a reading diary for 19 years now, and at the end of every year, I do the obligatory top ten list. All of my year-end lists are archived over on LibraryThing… including this year’s. Check it out if you’re curious about some (not all) of my favorites from 2008. It might or might not be useful to know that the 2008 list is actually two top 5 lists, welded together: my 5 favorite works of prose, and my 5 favorite graphic novels.

At the end of this year, I’ll actually have two lists to post. The first will be my favorite books of 2009, and I’ll probably put it up in the middle of December. The second will be my favorite books of the ’00′s and will cover everything from 2000 to 2009, a full decade of reading. What’s going to be on it? Hint: comic books, British writers, and comic books written by British writers.

Couple reviews of Locke & Key: Head Games #1 went up: here’s one from Comics Bulletin, and here’s another from IGN. Nice things are said (Spoiler nuts might want to skip the Comics Bulletin review until after they’ve had a look at the issue in question).

I was asked on Twitter if the soldier who appears on P. 17 is me. Obviously not. I wear glasses.

I thought those who partook of the Words + Pictures book club would want to know that Slate magazine hired Curtis Sittenfeld to write a novella about the upcoming inauguration and she did and now the first part of it is up. Her title: Yes, We Did.

It’ll probably be a while before I get to it, but I know as a big fan of American Wife that I’ll be reading it eventually.

And what are your plans for inauguration day. Anything special?

Locke & Key: Head Games #1 is out today – hope everyone enjoys it.

Locke & Key: Head Games #1, out tomorrow. Come on in… door’s open.

(Ghost Key design and hand model: the one and only Gabriel Rodriguez. Freakishly talented Ghost Key sculptor: Israel Skelton. Yes, his real name)

Mine is “Gimpel the Fool” by Isaac Bashevis Singer. Just something I was thinking about this morning. Yours?

Locke & Key made a couple year-end Best of lists… here’s a link to Justin, Pete, and Alex of Comic Book Club/Pulp Secret fame talking about the 10 best issues of the year, and here’s another to Blair Butler’s Best Graphic Novels of 2008. Both video clips are worth checking out, not so much to hear about L&K as to discover some titles you haven’t heard of, but which are very much worth reading.

This being that time of the year, thought I’d share 5 of my resolutions for 2009. I made some work-related resolutions as well, but you won’t find them on this list, as I superstitiously prefer to remain vague about what I’m writing, how it’s going, and what’s next. Here, though, are 5 non-work resolutions. You are formally invited to use the comments thread to post your five. If you don’t have 5, come up with 5. Resolutions are not corny, or trite, but an essential part of being an American and it is your patriotic duty to have some even if you don’t keep them. Reinvention is the soul of the nation. Yes, you sucked all last year long, but this year will be different.

1. Read 365 comics. So far I’m on pace. Message Board ninja and website secret agent Shane Leonard is on board for this one as well, and we keep each other in line by reporting each day what we read.

2. Read 30+ books.

3. The classic: return to the gym. Workouts twice a week. ‘Cause it’s sad that carrying boxes upstairs makes me out of breath.

4. Get back in tennis instruction. I like tennis to play, and really like it to watch. As a kid, growing up, I was obsessed with boxing, and could tell you The Ring magazine’s top 25 heavyweights by memory (I admit it: I was a huge Mike Tyson fan. Hell, I listened to Warrant too. Go ahead, laugh). Waching Nadal and Federer go at it at Wimbledon last year, I was struck by a startling realization: tennis, that ultimate of all country club sports, is, in fact, a metaphorical form of boxing. Both sports feature lobs, power-shots, aces. The court is the ring. The game is more about footwork than power and psychology than athleticism. Exhaustion is a key factor. Etc. Etc. But I digress: I need to get back to tennis instruction ’cause my wife can kick my ass all over the court without breaking a sweat, and I think she should at least have to break a sweat.

5. Get a thousand miles in on the motorcycle (my wife’s motorcycle, to be more accurate – she insists I make a note of that). Which is actually stage-one of a larger goal having to do with riding. I finally got my license late, late last summer, and put in a couple hundred miles, but the season was almost over by the time I was road legal. This year I’m getting out there as soon as the snow melts.

Your turn.

Locke & Key has been nominated for a Wizard Fan Award, while IDW won a nod for best publisher; I also scored a nomination for Best Breakout Talent (writer), which is very cool. I’m honored. Lean close to your computer, shut your eyes and listen. That sound you hear is not the fan cooling your motherboard. That’s my ego, purring gently.

Now comes the vote. Voting is an exclusive affair, strictly limited to anyone with an internet connection and 3 minutes of free time on their hands. In other words, open to everyone.

Do awards like this matter? Does my self-image really need to be slathered in more approval butter and drenched in a gallon of love syrup? Nah.

However, I do think awards like this matter on a different level, and maybe especially for a comic like Locke & Key. In the crowded funny book marketplace, its fairly difficult for an indie comic with no capes in it and queer pacing to grab a toehold. Locke & Key has already been lucky in the sense that IDW has brought out their big publicity artillery to support it, and it’s managed to find a supportive audience (that would be you guys – and thanks; I don’t take it for granted). But every little bit helps.

I cleared out my mailbox this morning and discovered one of the awesomest Christmas presents of all time… a print of “The Day The Saucers Came,” a very funny and clever Neil Gaiman poem, set alongside a series of colorful and iconic illustrations from the pen of Jouni Koponen. I should add that this lifelong fan of apocalyptic scifi and fantasy also found “Saucers” touching in an enigmatic sort of way as well; don’t ask me to explain why, because I can’t. Just that it really flew for me.

If YOU didn’t get the Christmas gift you were hoping for, you can run right over to neverwear.net (get it, neverwear? NeverWEAR? ****** Oh nevermind) where there are still some available, and make it a present to yourself. Did I mention your money is also going to a good cause? 20% of the sticker price is passed on to the CBLDF, who do important work defending my first-amendment rights to make comics full of dirty words and your first amendment right to read them, or make dirty-word filled comics of your own.

It just so happens I’m picking up a second one of these myself. I know someone this is perfect for.

This is what it looks like: