Local comic author and Tucson Weekly Talking Comics contributor Eric Esquivel is in Phoenix this weekend with artist Jason Pedersen for the Phoenix Comicon and he's capturing some of the festival's moments for The Range.

• Eric Esquivel

Local comic author and Tucson Weekly Talking Comics contributor Eric Esquivel is in Phoenix this weekend with artist Jason Pedersen for the Phoenix Comicon and he's capturing some of the festival's moments for The Range.

Eric and Arnie discuss a new Captain America comic and also the super-smash-hit film The Avengers, including a moment when Eric uses the term "brotastic" and gets into his deep, mildly disconcerting love for fictional character Tony Stark. You probably shouldn't watch this video if you haven't seen the movie, but who are we kidding? Everyone's probably seen The Avengers twice by now.

As a Republican, I personally find the idea of being sympathetic to super-criminals offensive, but apparently sticking up for disorder and mayhem is no problem for Eric and Arnie. A real shame what's happening with the kids today.

• Eric Esquivel/Ander Sarabia
• A page from "Thor: Unkillable Thunder Christ"

Eric Esquivel, who you might know from the Talking Comics videos we post on The Range, is not just a guy who talks about comics, he also writes them. His latest work, Thor: Unkillable Thunder Christ features a delightful tagline that might end up sending me straight to Hell for even posting ("Real Gods don’t get nailed to crosses, they bludgeon their enemies to death with giant hammers"), was funded via a Kickstarter campaign and comes out in July, but Eric was kind enough to provide a glimpse of a few pages. With Avengers fever going around, people like Thor these days, right?

You can pre-order the book (only $2.99!) at your local comic book store now.

Two additional pages, below the cut.

Free Comic Book Day is tomorrow and one of the books up for grabs is an issue of web-series-turned-comic The Guild, with the cover illustrated by local artist/acclaimed children's book author Adam Rex. Rex will be at Heroes & Villains tomorrow (the press release is below the cut) signing the free book.

I talked to Adam about comic books, his cover, and what he's currently working on:

DG: Tell me about how this project came about.

AR: I taught at an illustration boot camp in Amherst, Massachusetts about a year ago, last summer and another faculty member happened to be Scott Allie, an editor at Dark Horse. He was already a fan of my kids books because he has a son and he was sort of excited about finding something to do with me. I was excited about that too because frankly, I'm kind of obsessed with all the Buffy the Vampire Slayer type stuff, that he publishes and writes for sometimes as well. So, I'm still angling for that. A little while back, he asked me if I'd be interested in doing the cover and he knows I don't have a lot of time, so something like a cover here and there is perfect.

DG: Have you done comic covers before?

AR: I don't think so...not really. I tried to get into that world years ago. I got my start in the 90's taking my work to the San Diego Comic Convention every year and that's how I got my earliest work for game companies like Dungeons & Dragons and Magic the Gathering. I never got into comics that much for work and I did some work in trading cards, but never a painted cover like this.

DG: Do you have a personal history with comic books?

AR: Sure, I've been reading them since I was a kid. A lot of characters in comics remain the same sort of characters that I would make time as an illustrator to do something like Spider-Man, that would be a sort of "drop everything" sort of job, so I could practically communicate directly with my own childhood doing something like that.

DG: Do you have a sense of the place of the comic book in today's pop culture/youth culture world?

AR: It's been a little surprising in the last ten years or so how much more legitimate the form has become to people outside of the industry. Before, you might have expected in the 90's that all children's librarians or parents turning their nose up at reading comics, now it's recognized as a form, not a genre. Now, the idea of a comic doesn't suggest low quality, in art or story, or of violence or misogyny or that sort of thing. People recognize that it's another way to tell a story, literally any kind of story you want. I talk to librarians all the time who are very excited about comics and the new comics for real young kids that are being published now. Plus, if you just look at pop culture as a whole, you could be forgiven for thinking that comics are pretty much driving everything.

DG: Tell me a little about your new book.

AR: I have a new novel out, largely for young readers, maybe eight and up, although I have a lot of adult readers, so I try not to set an upper limit on the intended audience. It's going to be a trilogy about a breakfast cereal company that is stealing the magic out of leprechauns, pixies, pookas and all these folk-tale characters that show up as cereal company mascots. They're stealing the magic and turning it into cereal, feeding it to unwitting children, hoping to create an army of sugar zombies and conquer the world. It has all this Arthurian influence and stuff about secret societies. I'm having a lot of fun writing it and the first volume, Cold Cereal, came out a few months ago.

Check out Adam's website for more information about his work. More information about Free Comic Book Day at Heroes & Villains is below the cut.

Eric's unbridled glee at the beginning of this segment is somewhat disconcerting for me. I'm not sure why.

Also, this Saturday is Free Comic Book Day at Heroes & Villains, so stop by and get something for free. Info from their event page on Facebook:

Heroes and Villains plans to give away thousands of comic books on Saturday, May 5th from 10am-7pm, as part of their annual Free Comic Book Day celebration.

Titles include: The Avengers, DC Comics: The New 52, Spider-Man, Star Wars, Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Transformers, Donald Duck, Sonic The Hedgehog, Yo Gabba Gabba, Peanuts and many more!

Popular fine artist/children’s book author Adam Rex will be in-store from 10am-3pm, signing (FREE!) copies of The Guild—The Dark Horse comic based on the popular web show of the same name, created by writer/actress Felicia Day (Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Doctor Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog)—which he painted the cover for.

The Girl Scouts of Southern Arizona will also be on-hand, giving away (FREE!) copies of their promotional comic book Girl Scouts In Space. They’ll be joined by the book’s creators, Eric M. Esquivel, Henry Barajas, and Ernest Romero.

Philanthropic costuming clubs The Justice League of Arizona, The Arizona Ghostbusters, The 501st Legion, and The Arizona Avengers will be on-hand to pose for photos and welcome kids to the world of comic books.

To date, Heroes and Villains has given away over 50,000 free comics as part of their annual Free Comic Book Day Initiative.

Eric and Arnie discuss Secret Service, a comic from some big names in the biz that unfortunately disappoints our correspondents. Unfortunately, the whole thing is about British people and not the extra-curricular antics of our own Secret Service. However, Eric drops a Robert McKee reference, so that's cool.

After a week off, Eric and Arnie return to discuss Bloodstrike, which is not (much to my dismay) an ink-and-paper sequel to the Jean-Claude Van Damme film Bloodsport. Still might be good though.

If your car is missing, you might want to check the lot in front of Heroes & Villains, since Eric seems really excited about the information in Thief of Thieves about how to steal a vehicle. A little too excited, if you catch my drift.