La la la la life goes on

Went to see The DaVinci Code with Caitlin on Monday. Was...eh. Long. As in "prohibitivly long when you're on a date" long. Overall it was an OK movie, but...meh. It was ok. Just didn't push my buttons.

Saw X-3 today. THAT is a good movie. A very high lethality factor. Higher than I thought (despite Alexander warning me in advance).

At the moment I'm putting some very serious thought to taking the "Tales from the Way Down" stuff and writing a Tom'o'Troubles solo book with art done via photography run through PhotoShop. I have a short list of names for people I know who I'd like to try to talk into modeling as various characters.

For some reason, Ray Fawkes is near the top of the list. As Tom'o'Troubles. I wonder what I'd have to do to convince Ray to give up a few hours of his time to set things up for that. In previous experience from doing actual photography (the artsy sort), it takes forever to properly set up a scene to your liking, and out of 30 shots you generally only use 5. Digital saves me from that, though, plus now I can draw things out as storyboards to give me an idea of how to position the "actors". Plus I can use Photoshop to get a stock set of poses (say...50-60 for each character), and vary those around with some editing work to fill up scenes and do full special effects (like levitating someone off the ground, for instance).

I really like the idea, and think it would work well as a series of 12-page mini-comics. Something to hand to editors to show that I'm a cool guy. If this ever ends up getting off the ground, I'll DEFINITLY ship one over to Diana Schutz over at Dark Horse with a big letter saying mainly "thanks for the mini-comics idea, you rock".

I gotta admit that adapting the Way Down stuff is something I've been considering for a very long time, but its a bit daunting in comics form. The stories are perfect for mini-comics, but at the same time even mini-comics require artists. But if I can do it with pictures, *I* become the artist. At which point its just a matter of how I can shape and edit the picture. Worked in I, Papparazi. And using just Tom'o'Troubles and his magic mafia (Glaistig, Jack-in-Irons, Jenny Greenteeth, John Grim, and other thugs named after British fairy stories) means that I don't need a cast with quite the same amount of makeup as the Way Down crew would require (Mimir's bad neck stitch job, Judas Janet's thirty facial piercings, Lady Vapor's gas mask, etc.).

Anyway, its something for me to consider.

Mobile ex machina

My father walked up to me this morning and told me that I'm getting a Razr. Just out of the blue.

Apparently my stepmother decided to upgrade to a Blackberry, so I get her Razr. Which is like...three upgrades beyond the phone I own right now, which doesn't even have a USB cable with which to upload its pictures from.

So yeah...by the end of this weekend I'll have a schway new cell phone. Rock.

Suicide Yakuza #3, pgs 1-4 prelimary sketches

I've finished the plotting for SY#3, and this is part of the process that follows. I sketch everything out so I have a general idea of whats in each scene to better describe to the artist.

Ty Templeton claims that after this all I need to do is describe the scene and add dialogue. Gonna be very interesting to see how this works out.

Last Post from Vic 2006

Moving out in about 20 or 30 minutes. Depending on when pater arrives. Needless to say, I'll be moving everything downstairs in the next 5 or 10 minutes.

Its been a good year. This semester has been rough. I was thrown for a loop, but I think I managed to get things back on track by the end, though I'm feeling a bit iffy about the English essay I rushed through in about 6 hours due to the prof not having a late policy other than Late=Zero.

Talked to profs today about grad school, and Professor Burgess, who's the undergrad coordinator for the Department of Classics said that I should take a year of Latin next year and apply to Museum Studies at UfT for grad school. He said he thought it would be really interesting, and that with my undergrad major in Classical Civ I'd probably have a good shot at a museum job. Oddly enough, this is what my good friend Jason Kalivas is studying over in Seattle. I'll have to speak with him about it. The English prof I spoke with, Professor Levine, suggested that I should try for a Masters before a doctorate, given that my marks aren't unbelievably spectacular (I average around a 76-78), and that the LSATS may be a good way to go.

Had coffee with a girl I met at my exam last night. She's pretty damn cool, and is possibly the ONLY person I've ever met who's also read Jim Butcher's Dresden Files. Which is saying something, considering that all the books are apparently "bestsellers". Was a rocking good time. And from there I went and had sushi (invited her, but she had a bunch of meetings with profs and a chaplain on campus...she's applying to American universities so needs to do something called a GRE or something like that).

And, finally, I FINALLY picked up "Territories", the new Forsaken sourcebook. Between that and Second Sight I should have plenty of RPG reading over the next few weeks.

I need to get a move on.

Excelsior!

Your Katherine Mansfield semi-quote of the day

"I'll become a writer...A student of Life, with an appetite so big I'll eat up everything that comes my way. Bring on the public spectacle."-Janice Kulyk Keefer, Thieves

Love that quote. Not sure if its an ACTUAL Mansfield quote, but either way that last sentence is the greatest.

America Needs a HOVERBOY!

When Ty Templeton told me about Hoverboy, I laughed. I mean...you can't put that much research into a hoax, right?

RIGHT?

But no. The Hoverboy website exists. And you must all follow the link above to learn the joys of it.

I will sing you now the Hoverboy theme song:

"Ace was just a boy like you and me
Fighting was a dream he longed to see.
In a cruel twist of fate
They handed him a second eight,
Citing physical deficencies.

Joe McCarthy needs a man
To keep democracy in hand.
To foil every Commie ploy,
America needs...a HOVERBOY!"

Go enjoy it. And watch the animated shorts. They're fucking HILARIOUS. Joe McCarthy bounces Commies off his chest.

Remember: Beware the Communist, children!

Flickr

Damn! I forgot to post my Flickr account here!

My Flickr account now has about 50 or so photos up form the con. That's only about a quarter of the many I took, but its some of the best. And also doesn't include the Schusters. Because there were a lot of photos for that.

I'll be using Flickr a lot now, though still doing specific links back over to PhotoBucket since I can post larger pages there.

Share and Enjoy.

"Pirates are the new pink."-Willow Dawson

Just read the first two issues of Willow Dawson and Emily Pohl-Weary's Violet Miranda: Girl Pirate today.

To quote Willow's little note to me in issue 2, "Pirates are the new pink".

What can I say about a comic involving two teenage girls learning to be pirates on a ship with the son of Anne Bonnie, one of the most famous female pirates in history?

Well, first off, its great. Its got a nice, fun story that keeps you reading. Its a solid pirate story, which is nice in a world where most pirate stories cross genres into horror or fantasy. Really, its a classic pirate story, involving a mysterious map, a buried treasure, and two girls shanghaied by the son of the man their fathers betrayed.

And Violet and her Elsa are no shrinking violets (no pun intended). By the end of issue 2 they've grown into a pair of swashbucklers who could probably give the Count of Monte Cristo a run for his money.

The art is great. Willow has this interesting style that's a bit hard to describe. Its not supre-realistic, but its refreshingly different from some of the more mainstream stuff I read. Its more than a little cartoony, but its fun. I really like it, and the covers are GREAT.

The covers are, in fact, what brought me to the book in the first place. Especially issue #2, which features Violet in her new breaches fencing on the deck of the ship with her wooden sword. It really encapsulates what the issue is about, but it also captures that playfullness that Violet and Elsa find in being pirates. Its a game to them, a game they are INCREDIBLY good at, and a game that's likely to cause them trouble in the future...but also take them far. That's not to say that they're not serious about it, but they really seem to come at piracy from the angle of the a pair of teenagers: full of energy and exuberance.

If you ever get a chance to pick up an issue, any issue, of Violet Miranda: Girl Pirate, do so. Its a rollicking good time.

Testing

Testing.

I'm having some troubles editing posts, like changing yesterday's Con wrapup to note that Eclipse & Vega is drawn by Bill Maus, not Saul Colt.

Unsure whats up. It seems to be a glitch on my end, but we shall see.