Dear Readers,

I profusely apologize for the lack of updates! I’ve been crazy busy and haven’t had a moment to come up for air much less cough up another Chapter of DON’T FORGET TO VALIDATE YOUR PARKING. But I will soon. I promise. I have to, for the sake of my own sanity, I will have another episode up soon! So what the hell have I been up to that has kept me away from my beloved webcomic?

Well, as some of you know, I have a comic book called MAYHEM! coming out through Image Comics. I co-created it with Tyrese Gibson, Will Wilson, and Tone Rodriguez. And I co-wrote it with Will Wilson. I thought creating a comic book would be a simple process. Like I would write it, they would publish it, and I just sit back and hope we sling a few copies here and there.

It’s been nothing but simple! In fact, the MAYHEM! saga has been all-consuming! Once Image put out the MAYHEM! press release, media outlets picked it up quickly:

http://splashpage.mtv.com/2009/04/23/transformer-2-star-tyrese-gibson-announces-mayhem-comic-book

http://www.newsarama.com/comics/050915-Gibson-Mayhem.html

http://my.spill.com/profiles/blogs/tyrese-shoots-his-way-into

http://scifiwire.com/2009/05/tyrese-touts-mayhem-his-n.php

http://humormillmag.blogspot.com/2009/04/tyrese-gibson-holds-secret-meeting-with.html

Then we drove to Torrance to visit the warehouse of Diamond Distribution. Diamond is North America’s biggest comic book distributor, and we thought it would build a lot of good will if we surprised the people who pack and ship our comic books. Needless to say, they were more than surprised when Tyrese showed up and gave them all MAYHEM! t-shirts.

Things got really crazy when we went live with the pre-orders for MAYHEM! on the Meltdown website. As soon as Tyrese tweeted about it to his followers, this is what happened.

Our book doesn’t come out until August 5th, yet we’re doing unheard of numbers already in pre-sales just at ONE STORE. We’ve sold thousands of copies at Meltdown alone – and we still have two more months to go before it hits shelves. Many of Tyrese’s female fans are trying to out-do each other by buying the comic book in bulk! Talk about showing some love! By the way, for those who don’t already know, Meltdown is the best comic book store in the world. I can hang out at this store for hours and just chat it up with the other regular customers. The owner, Gaston Dominguez, is the greatest geek-maestro around and makes everyone feel welcomed! If you’re in Los Angeles, make this a mandatory stop!

Team Mayhem is regularly at Meltdown Comics where we strategize the MAYHEM! rollout campaign. Here’s me with Will Wilson and Percy Carey huddled in a corner figuring out how to get on the cover of GEEK MAGAZINE.

While we’re off masterminding our next move, Tyrese decides to tweet his followers and tell them that he’s at the store now and if they buy over 20 copies, he will get on the phone with them to personally thank them. Phones lines were flooded and sales spiked.

Here’s Tyrese telling random Meltdown customers about MAYHEM! and got them to pre-order copies on the spot! Can you believe this guy is doing this in between recording music and a hectic TRANSFORMERS 2 press run?

The next day, Tyrese sings the National Anthem before a Lakers game at the Staples Center, and he’s WEARING A MAYHEM! T-SHIRT!!!

You can get your very own MAYHEM! t-shirt here.

We continued our adventure through geek heaven by attending the Botcon 2009 Party at Paramount. That’s Tyrese hugging Peter Cullen, the voice of Optimus Prime.

Then Team Mayhem decided to come out and support one of our favorite directors, Guillermo Del Toro, the filmmaker of PANS LABYRINTH and HELLBOY. At Meltdown, Guillermo was doing a midnight signing of his new novel, THE STRAIN. Eisner-Award nominated writer Percy Carey blogs about the evening here.

Other media outlets were there too.

The next night Tyrese hosted a Twitter bash at a hot Hollywood club called My House. He invited all of his followers to join him at the party as a way of thanking them for their endless support. The event got so crazy that the fire marshal showed up and turned away more than 1,000 people waiting to get in. In the video below, if you don’t blink, you can see me walking into the club with Tyrese and Tila Tequila at around 1:15.

After a long night of partying, we dragged our feet the next day to the big E3 event. For those who don’t know, E3 is North America’s biggest video game 3-day convention where all the game publishers and distributors rollout their latest and greatest. Of course we stopped by to check out the upcoming TRANSFORMERS 2 video game by Activision. Tyrese was intercepted by Pixelated Geek and they got this interview out of him. Once again, I am literally the man behind the man as I am behind Tyrese. I am behind him talking to Dmitri Johnson (bald guys with glasses) of Union Entertainment. You can catch a glimpse of me at the very end of the video when Tyrese moves out of frame.

The next day we revealed the cover to issue #2 of MAYHEM!

So now we’re getting ready for the big Comic-Con in July. Team Mayhem will be featured on the Image panel with many of the other creators, and we’re doing a huge red-carpet MAYHEM! launch party at the Con that weekend. So if any of my readers are going to be there, please come up and say hello! I would love meet you guys! So as you can see, I’ve been busy. Prepping for Con, promoting the book, attending events, running a production company, working on my scripts, and gearing up for the TRANSFORMERS 2 premiere on the 22nd leaves little room for much else! Ah yes, living the dream...

-Mike Le