| | As you may have guessed from the lack of a post on Saturday, Forgotten was not selected as one of the Top 10 for the Comic Book Challenge. However, in a strange twist of fate, one of the people I shared a room with, Chris Rhodes, did make it into the finals. Chris is an extremely talented artist with a fun, twisted sense of humor. Check out his stuff – I don't think you'll be disappointed.
Regardless, the trip to San Diego Comic Con was most definitely worth it. In addition to just being balls of fun, I had the opportunity to meet and show off work to a number of editors. One story that seem to garner quite a bit of interest was The Reckoners. The art for that project has kicked off as well with character sketches of both Patton and Ian. Enjoy. |
|
| I'm here at the San Diego Comic Con. I have to say that it's one of the most visually impressive events that I've ever attended. Naturally, this means that I forgot my camera.
The pitches for the Comic Book Challenge took place yesterday. You can see the sample art for each and every one of them over at the AT&T blue room. As for my own, I felt the pitch went well, but the Q&A session could have gone better. I went fairly early in the lineup, which was lucky, as I would have spent the entire day in a twist if I had just had to sit there and wait for it. It's difficult to describe the anxiety produced by sitting in a room filled with people, waiting for your one opportunity to pitch that idea, knowing that if you fuck it up, then it's just slipped away from you.
However, the folks at Platinum did a fantastic job of making everyone feel as welcome as they could. As a whole, writers and artists aren't the most outgoing bunch, so having to articulate their ideas into a two minute pitch in front of a group of strangers can be a pretty nerve racking experience. The Platinum staff running the show went out of their way to make this bunch of geeks as calm as possible in a pressure cooker situation. Handled differently, it could have been a horrible experience, filled with dread and despair, but they managed to avert this disaster.
Afterward, they threw one Hell of a good party. Even the most introspective of geeks tends to become more outgoing once they've got a few drinks in them. This provided everyone involved a better chance to get to know one another outside of the inhuman Green Room, where each of us writhed, twitched and sweated while we waited to pitch.
Anyway, the Top 10 is announced tomorrow, so I'll be posting then if I'm selected as one of these lucky few. If I'm not, there will be no post as I will be hiding in the back of my closet, quietly crying, while I clutch the vestiges of my humanity. |
|
| I'm off to San Diego tomorrow for the big showdown at the Comic Book Challenge. Wish me luck. Better yet, check out the polling on July 28th and vote for Forgotten. I'm getting a bit ahead of myself, though, as to reach that stage I'll need to qualify for the Top 10. As I said, wish me luck. There's a great deal of talent in the competition, so I'll need it.
The remainder of the week will be a busy one, so there most likely won't be a post on Friday. To hold you over I've posted a sketch of the cover art that may grace the first issue. There's a big empty space at the top for the as yet undeveloped logo, so scroll down a bit. |
|
| Judges for Comic Book Challenge have been announced. The line up includes:
Scott Mitchell Rosenberg - since he's the head of Platinum Studios, you had to see this one coming.
DJ Coffman - last years winner.
John H. Williams - head of Vanguard Animation.
Donald Faison - currently best known as Dr. Turk from Scrubs. Judging by the opening sequence from on his sight and his Superman tattoo, he's probably a comic book fan.
Get those mouse fingers ready to start voting. Page Thirteen for Forgotten is up. And here's a picture that's just damn cool. | |
|
| If you're looking for some good TV, check out USA's Burn Notice. It's a fun show that easy to watch and often very funny. The short version is the show is about a spy who gets canned, which puts him into quite a pickle; what are you suppose to do for a living when the last 20 years of your life are classified? Can't exactly put that on the resume.
The best part, though, is (of course) Bruce Campbell. Campbell plays Sam Axe, a cold war spy who now spends his time boozing and womanizing in Miami. I'm sure that there are better gigs, but I'm hard pressed to think of one off the top of my head.
My characters seem to have less cheery fates. Speaking of which Page 12 of Forgotten is up. |
|
| Lunatic, a common word for CRAZY! is derived from luna, i.e. the moon. This is just a good example of the longstanding link in folklore between the moon and madness. So I found it interesting that some empirical evidence for this has come to light. Now, I've never been a believer in Astrology. Most of the horoscopes that I've read are, at worst, incredibly vague or, at best, hilarious. But it is an inescapable fact that the moon affects the tides and that 70% of the Earth's surface is covered in water. So is it really so unbelievable that the phases of the moon would affect people, when we ourselves are 70% water?
Babbling aside, Page Eleven of the Forgotten story is up. Been awhile, but we'll be reaching something like a conclusion soon.
|
|
| I'm in the ATL airport, so there's not a great deal of time for me to write today. However, I have found an internet connection that has allowed me to post Page 9 of the Mojo Smith & Grandma Crow project.
In other news, a strong earthquake rocked northeast Japan today, resulting in at least five deaths. Among other things this tragedy marks a cultural distinction between the United States and Japanese. The picture below is that of a woman sitting outside of her own collapsed home. | | There's no way that this picture would have made it in any of the U.S. media. Where's the drama? The human emotion? I mean, she's just sitting there! Stoicism doesn't sell papers people! |
|
| On the move for the next several days, so posts will be thin. However, there is a new page up for the Mojo Smith & Grandma Crow story.
Meanwhile, from the 'If You Think You Have It Bad' file we've got this picture: | |
|
| Is it really all that surprising that the Bush administration doesn't want to cooperate? The system of checks and balances that's the foundation of our government has broken down over the last six years, allowing the executive branch to operate with impunity. This is an opportunity that they've (also not surprisingly) taken advantage of with gusto. Now that oversight has been restored to a greater or lesser degree, I wouldn't be surprised if we end up seeing an evidence fire burning in the Rose Garden. I mean, why come clean when you can just keep lying?
What I find most disturbing when I read the news, though, isn't the big stuff. It's the small tragedies and unexplained disappearances that just seem to fade away. Awhile ago I noticed another Colorado mystery with the disappearance of a Grand Junction woman. Paige Birgfeld was last seen on July 5th. On the 8th, her car was found on fire in an empty parking lot not three miles from her home. Fortunately, she wasn't in the car. However, no one, not family, friends or the police, has any idea where she is currently located. Perhaps more disturbing, facts have surfaced that Birgfeld was involved in activities that her family knew nothing about. This means she very well may have gone missing for reasons which her family has no inkling.
Anyway, another mystery for the Lifetime Channel. Meanwhile, let's keep things fictitious here with a new page of Mojo Smith & Grandma Crow. |
|
| The possible death of Harry Potter seems to have a great many adults upset. As I have no children and have read little of the series, I'm pretty ambivalent. However, once the sixth book comes out, I intend on picking up each of the titles and reading them for the purposes of researching a satirical essay tentatively titled, "How Harry Potter Advocates Nazism".
No one who's been paying attention can ignore the fact that the Harry Potter books have become international phenomena. R.J.'s style is certainly central to this. The writing is engaging and straightforward. However, the essay will put forth the theory that a large reason it has found such a strong following among children is its appeal to the same base human desires that made the Nazi party such an astounding success. There are two, specifically, that the books hit upon that resonate strongly with the insecure; the desire to belong and the desire to be better than everyone else. Harry and his group belong to a small, elite social caste that rules with an invisible hand over people too ill-equipped or just too foolish to realize they are there. An example of this status is exemplified in the opening pages of the first book a wizard (a not entirely human one) bursts into Potter's foster parents' home, bullies them about and then steals their ward without so much as asking their permission. In the process, the wizard even teaches Harry a cute slur for the lesser beings with no touch of magic; muggle.
Plus, Harry's got a lightening bolt on his forehead that seems strangely familiar.
There's a new lettered page up for Mojo Smith & Grandma Crow. You can find it right over there. |
|
| This just seems like a bad idea. Or at least bad television. The good folks at the Colorado Health Department have decided that the advertising designed to motivate people to ready themselves for a disaster just wasn't doing the trick. So they've taken it in the direction of reality television. "What if? Colorado" will simulate disaster situations, presumably to scare people into getting ready for possible catastrophes. Given the latent laziness of people the world over I'm betting against it. Hell, unless the production value is just spectacular, I'm betting most viewers just spend their time making fun of it.
I'll be traveling quite a bit over the next month, so updates may a bit sparser. With that said, here's something special: A friend of mine named John Woo was kind enough to take time out of his busy schedule and color a page from Forgotten. So without any further ado I present to you Page 8 in full techno-color! |
|
| Happy Independence Day! To all today's British visitors, I believe the phrase you use is, 'Sod off'.
Speaking of friendly rivalries, you may have noticed from the button on the left that I have been selected as one of the Top 50 entrants to the Comic Book Challenge. Along with myself, several of the other entrants have begun posting their work, so I've collected these and posted many of them over there. Check it out – there are quite a few talented folk involved.
Other projects continue as well. The latest lettered page (courtesy of Brant Fowler) for Mojo Smith & Grandma Crow can be seen right here. |
|
| If you are the tiniest bit of a Transformers fan, this article over at Wired is a pretty good read. If you aren't a fan of Transformers, I can say in good confidence that they are, in fact, robots in disguise.
Gabriel Hernandez Araya has begun work on The Reckoners project. He's already done some character sketches for Patton and Ian. A very promising start, if I do say so myself. |
|
|
