Hey folks! As usual, we have our regular “From the Editors” post  coming your way. Being the diligent worker we all know and love, Matt Idelson  managed to give us his entry early, as he made his escape to the distant land  of Barcelona. Enjoy...

Spring has reverted to summer here in New York, which would be a nice thing if I could have class outside. Alas, I have a job to do, and panic’s starting to set in. The offices close early today going into Memorial Day weekend, and of course we’re closed Monday. Which means aside from Tuesday, I’ll be out of the office for a week and a half, attending a convention in Barcelona.

Tops on the priority list is putting a wrap on ACTION #878, the first of a two-part story by Greg Rucka & guest artist Diego Olmos that introduces us to a new pair of Kryptonian sleeper agents. Once I’m done giving the lettering a final pass, it comes down to waiting for the trusty and reliable Rod Reis to keep feeding us pages of color to go over. I know already that assistant editor Wil Moss and I will be reviewing pages over the course of the weekend so Rod can have the final colors ready for us when we come in Tuesday morning.

Not far behind that is keeping things moving on the ACTION ANNUAL, which comes out the week after ACTION #878. Greg’s done a very different story for this one, and it’s coming together beautifully. Pere Pérez, who knocked it out of the park with the GUARDIAN SPECIAL last fall, is doing all 40 pages of this one, and it’s pretty awesome. Right now I have to start reviewing Mazi’s colors for the book—they’re gorgeous, but of course I have to go over them with a fine-tooth comb and make sure everything is as it should be. The guy can color, though, no question!

My focus is broken when Wil, associate editor Sean Ryan and editor Liz Gehrlein pop in for our daily session of updates, problem solving and movie reviews. Today I discover that neither Liz nor Sean had seen “Taxi Driver” before the past weekend. I am appalled. Some of our discussion centers around actual work, in this case some ideas Geoff Johns has had for his contribution to the upcoming SUPERMAN SECRET FILES. Geoff has an alteration in mind that opens up some interesting possibilities …

The gang leaves to do their thing, and I get back to ACTION – but  wait! An excellent colorist who goes by the name “Blond” has accepted our offer to color the upcoming SUPERGIRL ANNUAL since our regular SUPERGIRL colorist, Nei Ruffino, is way too busy. That’s the good news. The bad news is that this means I have to establish a pay rate for him—I’m guessing he won’t do this for free out of love for the medium.

Oh, look – it’s almost 1. Gah! Clearly I’m not getting out of here when the offices close. That’s cool—I have the best job in the world anyway. Leisure and cookouts can wait. Especially when I get an email from David Macho in Spain, with Santiago Arcas’ colors for the first installment of our Captain Atom co-feature, which will debut in ACTION #879. David says in the email that we’ll be stunned by what we see. He wasn’t kidding!!!!!! Man, I can’t wait for that issue to come out. The readers are definitely in for a treat!

The phone rings and Jim Fletcher of DC Direct fame is on the line with some Superman-related questions, mostly of the “will this character be around a year from now?” variety. They do really cool stuff down there, and I’m eagerly awaiting my Mike Carlin action figure.

Cue a discussion over Rocket Reds with SUPERMAN artist Renato Guedes, figuring out what the tomb of Zor-El is going to look like with Pete Woods, going over lettering corrections for SUPERGIRL #42 with Sterling Gates, a new idea from Geoff (him again?!?) about the end of SUPERMAN: SECRET ORIGIN #2, annnnnd the end of the day has finally arrived! Well, it’s 1 o’clock somewhere …