In celebration of the release of PUNK ROCK JESUS, collecting the entire acclaimed miniseries for the first time, Sean Murphy will be appearing at Bergen Street Comics in Brooklyn, NY, this Friday at 8pm.

So if you’re in the neighborhood, stop by, mingle, pick up a copy of PUNK ROCK JESUS. . . and don’t forget to ask Sean to sign it!

The Young Adult Library Services Association announced their annual "Great Graphic Novels for Teens" list.

Several DC Entertainment titles have been selected:

Wonder Woman: Blood

Batman: The Court of Owls

Batman: Noel

Joe the Barbarian

Batgirl: The Darkest Reflection
A Flight of Angels
Xombi

Additionally, A Flight of Angels was also selected by the Great Graphic Novels for Teens Committee as one of the Top Ten  books.

The full list can be seen here.

The Top Ten list can be seen here.
 
Congratulations all!

I stopped praying in 2003.

I was living with a friend in Colorado who loved to surf. I loved road trips, so we threw two boards into my pickup and headed to California. It was good to get away--I'd hit a major writer's block with a script I'd been working on called PUNK ROCK JESUS. One of my main characters was (like me) a devoted Catholic. He was also in the IRA, so I ended up doing a lot of research into the history of The Cause. Much of the IRA dogma made no sense to me, and while I began questioning the motivation behind IRA convictions, I also began questioning my own Christianity. I didn't know what to think anymore, so I put both PRJ and my faith on hold.
 
My friend was an atheist, and soon I found myself very convinced by his beliefs--those based on science and not on dogma. But becoming an atheist overnight was too scary, so instead I decided to try it for a month and see how it fit me.
 
Indeed, I had a lot to think about while we made our way to California.
 
My test came once we arrived. I have a fear of the ocean, so naturally I was a terrible surfer. At one point I was knocked down really hard by a roaring wave--I wasn't even able to take a full breath before being sucked under the black currents. I waited for the wave to pass over before trying to head back to the surface, but once I did, I realized that I didn't know where the surface was. Then I felt another wave pass overhead--this one scraping my head against the surrounding coral. I didn't know which way was up and I was too scared to open my eyes. Panicking, I began doing the thing I'd spent twenty-three years doing whenever I was in trouble: I started praying.
 
But then I stopped. I promised myself that I wouldn't pray for a month, and it wouldn't be much of an effort if I broke that promise the very same week. So instead of panicking, I managed to use my head.
 
Just then I felt my leg tug. Luckily the leash to the board hadn't slipped off. Somewhere, floating on the surface, was a surfboard that had my name on it. I quickly followed the leash to the surface and got my head above water. Fresh air.
 
If I had allowed myself to pray in that instant before finding the leash, I would have been certain that a god had saved me. Instead, I'd found the leash on my own. I no longer believed in a god, rather that we're each the master of our own fate.
 
Back in Colorado, I found that fixing Punk Rock Jesus meant starting over, changing the Jesus clone from a Christian into an atheist. As my script began taking form, so did my atheistic convictions. And on July 11th, I'll finally be able to publish.

--Sean Murphy