So who are you and why are you doing this?

I'm sure that I already have legions of fans — or is that legion of fan — clamoring for the answer to those questions. My name is Robert Sommers and I live in the Atlanta area. During the day I'm a mild-mannered web and print designer for a very, very large, international conspiracy, er publishing company. By night I'm a mild-mannered freelancer working for very small publishing companies. (My next big project will be to come up with a website for my freelance efforts.)

I've also done a bit of writing and have had some short stories, poems, and reviews publishing in teeny tiny markets that no one's ever heard of. I am currently under contract to write a four-issue story for the VLE Comics title Herc Brown.

I read comic books as a kid, of course, along with plenty o' sci-fi, but I was never a serious collector or anything. I liked most of the usual suspects. Other than Cerebus, I'd have to say that my favorite comic book is The Watchmen. Yeah, I really went out on a limb there.

Back when I was in college in the mid 80s, I was hanging out in the late, lamented Novel Ideas, a sci-fi & comic book store. Someone handed me a copy of issue #66. Yes, the one where Most Holy blesses the baby. I thought it was the funniest thing I’d seen in a comic book and I was hooked. (I doubt I would find that as funny today.)

I started reading it and kept reading for a long time. But, eventually, as real life just kept happening I drifted away from reading comic books. I always wanted to get back into it, but I never quite did. And then I read that he'd finally finished #300 and I really wanted to get back into it. But I didn't. Finally, I decided that I'm just going to commit to doing it. The idea for blogging about it came pretty soon after that. Because, you know, if you do something these days, you gotta blog about it.