The Demonweasel Speaks

Yes, that’s the cover to Gifted. Well, as close to a cover as you get when you’re planning on “going digital.” There’s a lot of talk about that nowadays, and we did some of that on the third episode of the Super-Fly Comics podcast and today it kind of exploded with the announcement that the latest Iron Man annual will be available on Marvel iPad/iPhone digital apps the same day that it’s available in comic shops.. It’s all great talk to have about the future, and I again find myself in the position of someone who feels one way as a shoopkeep (I’m worried it will hurt my business) and a creator (I’m excited at the possibilities in reaching a global audience on the cheap).

In any case, expect me to keep mucking about with site layout as I try to get a handle on the new theme. The other night I reconfigured a bit of the Gifted script as I get closer to the idea of digital publication. What it means is that I had envisioned the series as 6 22 to 24 page issues, and those types of issues have to be told in a certain format. However, if this is going to be published more long form with bigger “chapter breaks” then that means that some of the story has to be tweaked a bit, especially if we’re going to be publishing in a one page at a time pace. Right now that translates into 65 pages of script, 22 of which have been penciled and lettered, three more just penciled. I’ve got probably another 66 pages of which that will now need to be reconfigured for digital publication (basically, three more issues of story). I’ll now endeavour to convert a page to art-ready script a night, so we’ll see how that goes.

All hands, brace for impact…

Long, hot week.

Lots of stress about stuff, and that coupled with the fact that it seems like the AC at the shop is on the fritz has undoubtedly made me unpleasant to be around once the the temperature started hanging out north of 80 degrees. I’d say I’m sorry, but I’m not. Apologizing is just so goddamn tedious, and when you’re putting your head down and just trying to work on everything at once it just feels like a waste of time.

This is probably why I don’t have a lot of friends.

I’ve focused so much on working on so much that I wonder if I’ll ever master any one of the things I’m trying to get done. Marriage, store, writing, parenthood…and not even in that order. Just trying to get everything together and perfect just means I’m running from pile to pile, trying to keep everything going. I wish I had more of a capacity to laser in on one single thing and make it sheer perfection, but I honestly don’t know how. If I can’t do that then I’d settle for being able completing some of the things on my mountain of “Things I want to Accomplish.” Or maybe not being wracked with stress. I wish I could be a better writer, a better boss, a better husband, a better father and a better friend.

Maybe it’d just be nice to not stuck in the “perfection or abject failure” dichotomy.

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In non-emo news, I’d like to do a redesign on this site, and perhaps get it ready for publishing Gifted on a…well, whatever we can handle schedule.

Podcasting is going relatively well. To the complete surprise of no one, I seem to have a lot to say. Occasionally, I let other people talk too.

I’m getting fatter. I know a lot of that worry is in my head, but not by much. I wish I could carve out more time to exercise or go to the gym. It’d be nice if the Antioch Gym was up and running again. That’d be perfect. Or boxing. Punching people in the face, or even getting punched in the face, seems so goddamn liberating at times. Like letting go and seeing how strong (or weak) you actually are. Kind of liberating, even if I am romanticizing the idea of OH GOD OH GOD I JUST GOT HIT IN THE FACE! Either way, it’d be nice to put everything aside, get out of my own head and just fight for my bloody life.

No matter the outcome.

Wild and weird couple of days. It’s all kind of mashed together with the gray rainy mess that it’s been outside here for the past week. I’d like to be in a place where I don’t feel lie the weather does such a doozy, but maybe it does? Maybe it doesn’t? Who knows, but I do know that a lot of time time I’ve kind of felt like crap.

In any case, we recorded the first store podcast on Monday, and that was a lot of fun. It’s mostly about the store and comics, so if you don’t care about those things…don’t click here. I like the idea of being able to put stuff out there and talk and maybe be funny and/or do the faux arrogance thing that I seem to have stumbled upon in the past year or so. It suits me, I guess, but damn. Sometimes it’s exhausting and I just want to be exhausted.

See? I’m blaming that on the weather.

But in good news, MC Chris came to the store and played video games with us. I used twitter and the internet effectively and made some time to come out because he wanted to play Red Dead Redemption and we happened to have that. I’m not going to lie, it made me feel real good. It made me go “This is why I work 40-60 hours a week for not a lot of money: Because if you work hard consistently you can build something that’s worthwhile and then people will start taking notice and you can do something to make them happy.” And that’s why I do it. But yeah, more money would be nice.

Then today YT Cracker came by the store as well. He had both heard about Chris being there and was brought by someone who knows us, and that was cool too.

I’ve been in kind of a creative void, but maybe that’s okay. I’m kind of lost as to what to devote my energy too. My comic guys are drawing and I’m kind of just twiddling my thumbs while being ahead on scripts and trying not to cry out “I really want to get published, dammit! I’m going to be 34 this year! Most guys ‘breaking in’ right now are younger than me! I can’t wait anymore!” I don’t want to hold them accountable for the fact that I feel like I creatively wasted my 20s, that’s my issue not theirs, and we all have personal stuff that we have to do (like jobs, since I can’t afford to anything but share credit and money on the backend) but I just want to get stuff out there and see if I’ve been deluding myself about what I have to offer.

We’ll see. Maybe I should refocus on prose, but I’m scared of my prose writing lately. I see stories I’ve written and throw up in my mouth a little. I know that’s natural and I should just grow a pair, but damn…I feel like I’ve completely readjusted to comic scripts, which kind of makes me ill. Not because one is better than the other, but there are stories that I want to tell that I feel are “prose stories” and I feel like if I give up on prose they will just go away. Plus with prose I rise and fall on my own productivity.

It’s all such a bother. I feel like I’m just screaming in the wilderness like a creative Omega Man, but who knows? All the greats have been there, right? I just need to keep working, right?

Well, there was never any doubt of that, right?

It’s 4:45 in the morning and I just spent the past hour laying in bed, wide awake. I’ve got to be at the shop tomorrow morning by 9am to receive the new comic shipment, so this isn’t exactly what you would call a good thing.

I’ve found that I’ve been running on less and less sleep as I’ve gotten older, which makes me wonder if I’m doing some kind of weird Benjamin Button type thing with my sleep cycle.

Wow, Benjamin Button? That reference was dated even back the last time I updated this thing. That was also the not-subtle nod to the fact that I’m aware that I haven’t written here since last November. Those references to how long it’s been since I last blogged are one of the main things that keep me from writing in here after a certain amount of time passes. I feel like I can’t help but acknowledge it, but I hate how lame it sounds.

You’d think I’d be used to it, since I’ve been blogging for over a decade now. I suppose I could actually go back and check, but there’s no need for that. Those records from the dark late 90s/earlyNaughties have been digitally sealed for all time. Best forgotten, most of it.

Now I’m writing this on my iPhone, which I love but also kind o hate in some ways. I was so keen to get one, but at the last minute I almost bought a netbook. I just wanted something that could do Internet very well, play music as I walked to work and maybe have cool toys. Internet? Check. Play music? Check, something the net book wouldn’t have been able to do easily for my five minute walks to work and th grocery store. Cool toys? Well, I am writing my first post in months in the middle of the night on it, so that’s got to count for something, right? If this goes well perhaps we’ll see a return to more regular updates. But what did happen with my iPhone? Dropped it three days into owning it and cracked the screen diagonally across. It still works but now it’s ugly as sin qnd probably won’t last out the two years before I get to upgrade. Maybe by then AT&T will have droid.

See what else was in there? The other thing I hate about long abscences: the promise of more regular updates. I have the attention span of an infant playing with car keys. I’m often doing five tasks at once and feel lucky if I finish one of them. This is why Twitter is perfect for me and my addled MTV generation cronies.

So, we’ll see what happens. I don’t even know if the WordPress app will work to publish things, and I don’t even remember if I have this set up to republish to Facebook or Twitter, the real places I hang out online. Y’know, not the domain that I actually pay for.

We’ll see what happens. Who knows, maybe I’ll get comments on here and not feel like I’m just shouting in the wilderness.

Things on the horizon: Still working on GIFTED with Lee, which may be published online here as we soldier our way through the first arc. Working on two other comic projects as well, both of which (“Whig?” Really iPhone? That’s not even remotely a party anymore…) are in various stages of waiting for artists to work on them. I have high hopes though. Well, hopes anyway. SHADOW OF THE PAST has an agent looking at the full manuscript, so that’s something. It’s been almost a month so we’re gettinn close (maybe) to nervous email checking time. Finally, plans are underway for us to do a store podcast, so those of you that haven’t heard me on the panelsonpages.com podcast occasionally will get a chance to heat me talk up nerd shit in my own forum.

“Those of you who haven’t heard me…” Good lord, it 5 in the morning. No one is up this late. I shouldn’t be up this late.

Go back to bed.