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Archive for August, 2008
3 items.
Watched the Hillary Clinton show this evening, and wow, I gotta tell you, she did a pretty good job.
Okay, better than pretty good.
I have not been her biggest fan, but man this was a speech almost designed to go “See? I can be President. Or at least a good vice president.” Crafty. Very, crafty.
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Kind of a crappy day at work. No real reason, just the Little Things Army getting up on me.
We bought a very sizeable comic collection and so I’ve spent the past few days running through the guide and evaluating, bargaining and then figuring out how to get the most out of what we’ve spent. It’s all about turning over that green paper, y’know?
Speaking of, a professional acquaintance from Antioch came by the shop to pick my brain about getting used books for non-stop Antioch. It was weird because I haven’t thought about used textbooks for so long that I couldn’t remember a lot, and the facts kind of kept spinning and changing. One of those instances where someone asks you a question, you answer, and then they tell you the situation and that changes what you would’ve told them int he first place because what you said initially didn’t really apply. Kind of funny, but it kind of ate up part of my day.
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I’m within spitting distance of finishing the last issue of “Gifted.” I don’t know what I’m going to afterward, as the second project (let’s call it “The Gateway,” because that’s what I call it) is still hanging out there waiting for the artist, so maybe it’s time to run with the new shit, the thing that’s been buzzing in my brain the last month or so.
Imagine: an underground cross country road race, Vegas to Chicago, participated in by luminaries of the occult and fantastic. Vampire royalty, redneck werewolf bikers, invisible men with invisible cars, snotty limey wizard teenagers, and others.
“Crystalball Run?” “Mephistopheles 6-5000?”
Yeah, I think that’s the next big thing.
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I’m the dude playing a dude who’s disgused as another dude
August 20th, 2008 | by Thacher ClevelandPosted In: General
One of the things that resonated the most listening to Warren Ellis speak in Chicago is how he consciously avoids meeting other people that he admires professionally because he’s known so many people that have been burned by meeting their idols and have been disappointed, so much so that the person’s art doesn’t hold anything for them anymore. That seems so horribly depressing.
I would imagine it would be like Zak Snyder, who’s adapting “Watchmen” and by all accounts bending over backwards to make sure that it’s true to the comic, hearing that Alan Moore called “300″ “stupid” and “racist.” Ouch.
What makes me think of this is mc chris, and how he hasn’t liked a single movie that I’ve liked this summer. Iron Man, Hulk, Dark Knight and now Tropic Thunder. I know that has nothing to do with me, but all summer I’ve read his reviews and just gone “Really? Really?”
Because Tropic Thunder is great. It’s hilariously deranged, and filled with things that I didn’t even think were possible or wouldn’t understand if someone tried to explain them to me. At one point, I leaned over to Kenzie and said “This is making me feel crazy.” In a good way.
So yeah, it’s in no way really the same thing, but I think this way and my “Hey I could meet him and we’d hang out and be best friends running through a field together in slow motion” fantasies dim a bit.
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I finally feel like I’m in a good place with writing again. Probably not doing it as much as I should, but still, it’s coming along. Almost done with the last issue of “Gifted.” Lee is back to drawing, and going to go back over the first ten pages and re-do some stuff he wasn’t so happy with now that we’re not under deadline. He’s also going to be redoing the inking, which he wasn’t that happy with either. The whole thing has been a big learning process from start to finish.
I’ve gotten some good comments, not so much in the way of specific feedback or criticism, which is nice I suppose, but that kind of thing sort of makes me nervous, like there’s something wrong with it that you just can’t put your finger on. Or that I’m crazy and I don’t know how to take nice comments about my work.
I’m still a little insecure about the end, but it’s putting itself together, which is kind of nice. The story is just sort of walking over there and I’m like “Oh, it’s over here. Okay, yeah, I can see that.”
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I may or may not go to Vegas for a trade show in the days before my birthday (sept 6 through the 9th). It’s all kinds of up in the air, which is really frustrating, but I should know one way or the other at the end of the week.
You’d think going to Vegas would be a time of celebration, not nervous hand-wringing, and yet…
I’ve been in a weird pseudo-funk lately.
There’s nothing wrong, I’m just…feh. Very feh.
Watching a lot of movies lately, like Death race 2000 (hilariously bad), The most recent two Bourne movies (fun, Matt Damn should play Captain America), the Deaths of Ian Stone (okay, forgettable), the Cottage (really well done and funny) among others. I think I’m ready fro shows to come back, although Project Runway is on and its always good for cheap thrills.
Lost, Battlestar, 24, Dexter, Heroes, I miss you. The time after the strike was too short and it didn’t feel like we got enough. I’m just a whore for episodic storytelling.
Writing has been a struggle lately. I feel like I’m trying to find a new schedule, because after Kenzie goes to bed isn’t working for me. It’s weird, because in some ways I don’t even really want to work on the computer anymore. Hand writing has been a real release, and now I kind of don’t want to go back. I think everyone is in a malaise.
Lee and I haven’t done much of anything with “Gifted” since we got back from Chicago. Granted, I’m halfway through the last issue, but he’s only drawn half a page since we got back. We’re both like “Wow, not having a deadline sucks.” It helps in someways because he wants to do things differently with the shading and the eventual inking (and in fact, re-inking the first pages that we used in the sample that we took too Chicago, because they didn’t turn out as good as we would’ve liked), so he has more time to experiment and try things out. I did layout fort eh rest of the issue, so that’s going to speed that end of things up a little bit for him too.
The second artist, Julia, on the second project is kind of awol. Which is fine, I don’t own her or anything like that, but it’s been more than a month since I sent her the script and descriptions and I’ve only had sporadic updates from her. She did say that she had to check into the hospital for a couple of days but it turned out she was fine. That kind of stuff is going to slow things down.
I had an idea for another project (I won’ even call it a third one, because its more like the 33rd one) that has been nipping on my frontal lobe, and I just broke down the first issue the other day. I think I may hop on this and try to bust out a first issue and then get an outline together. Then, maybe, hit the internet to try to find an artist and some disappointment.
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We have an employee at the store now, which is nice. Until he goes back to school, Tony and I both have two full days off. He’s a kid we worked with at Dark Star who left there and decided to come hang with us. It’s nice to have someone who we can rely on and have on staff officially, as opposed to Travis who is practically an employee but refuses payment. It’s cool, but he also has his own life and full time job that pays him more than we’ll probably ever be able to pay him.
Regardless, it feels like we’re moving up in the world, even if we’re not bringing home more money just yet.
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Did my triannual self-inflicted haircut again the other day. Always a good time. A really short, buzzed head good time.