You Know You Live In Utopia (Or The Orwellian Version Of It) When

You open up the newspaper to catch up on local events and the big headline of the day is, “People litter too much, you really should learn to clean up after yourselves.”

Or something to that effect.

Mind you, this is something that is problematic to Singapore. This is the ONLY country I’ve ever been in where they have to put signs up in the elevators saying, “Please do not urinate in the elevators” because… well, if you don’t tell them explicitly NOT to, they will. Singaporeans have a very strange habit of needing to be told exactly what they can and cannot do, otherwise, anarchy ensues. Then again, I’ve noticed the general sense of order on this island is imposed not by common sense so much as fear of punishment.

An interesting example of this is an argument that has recently broken out in the GameAxis forums where the majority of the posters are picking on someone who took a stand against playing pirated games. They all got angry when he accused them of breaking the law and generally being unethical. As usual, all the normal excuses from “They make billions of dollars anyway, it doesn’t hurt them” to “It’s not like I’m breaking into a house and taking anything, it’s still THERE” where thrown out, but what really piqued my interest was the genuine anger on the part of the supporters of piracy. They resented being told that what they were doing was wrong, and they really resented the idea that they could be considered bad people for doing it. In the end, the biggest argument thrown around was, “Look it’s a reality of life, so you may as well embrace it rather than pretend it’s not happening” and that seems to have settled it.

Needless to say, I found this whole line of thought quite horrifying and after reading that, I suddenly found it very easy to believe the people of Germany would just roll over and let Hitler have his way. That’s EXACTLY the kind of population you want; right or wrong doesn’t matter, simply doing whatever everyone else is.

R.I.P. Earbuds

Aside from the usual quiet Sunday which involved finishing up a final article for this month’s issue of GameAxis and making some final tweaks to the script for the TV program, I got final confirmation that I’m onboard for a television documentary about gaming in Southeast Asia, and i bid yet another pair of earphones goodbye.

Our other much more extroverted and people friendly cat, Uno, has a bad habit of munching on wires. Not just any old wire, mind you, only the very thin kind, exactly like the sort that you would find on earbuds for portable music/game players like an iPod or PSP. It took me a couple of seconds to digest that she had casually walked past me and started munching on yet another pair and I am now without any earphones for my PSP yet again.

Sigh. Time to start shopping again…

From Little Acorns Do Mighty Yadda, yadda, yadda…

Witness!

And there it is, something I am going to tell myself is just the start and not the be all, end all of my career as a writer of comics. Now that’s actually out in the stores (and I don’t see a dime of royalties, neither does the Wife, we sold all rights and are only getting commission) I can now actually talk about this mysterious kid’s comic that I’ve mentioned in the past. The title, as you can see, is the wholly unoriginal “Mythandria” and that’s because, you guessed it, I USED CREATURES OF MYTH IN IT! Wow, I’m really pushing the envelope of originality, cooking with gas, and any other assorted sarcastic compliments you want to pay me, they will bounce off at this point.

Having more or less gone with the high-concept tagline “It’s like the 80′s Dungeons & Dragons cartoon meets Tron” you pretty much know EXACTLY how the story goes; group of kids get sucked into a fantasy MMO, spend rest of the time trying to get out. Neither me or the Wife has put our names on it, so except from some small print in the occasional resume, this is probably the only time you’ll see any kind of concrete proof that we actually had anything to do with this. I figure that’s for the best since, to be perfectly honest, we’re hardly the kind of people you want children to look up to as creators. We are far, far from the cloth of people like J.K. Rowling and Roald Dahl, since they can be described as “impish adults with a childlike heart” whereas I could, diplomatically, be described as “An eater of children’s organs who uses their flesh as candle wax for his sacrifices.”

Still, I guess this qualifies as a professional sale so this is my claim to shame and fame. Assuming that other comic book work actually gets anywhere, if anyone ever asks me “So what was the first comic you ever did?” I’ll lie. And if they go digging around on the internet (or simply this blog, but really, how many people are smart enough to do that?) for more information, then the truth will come out; I worked on a kiddie comic.

As if that weren’t enough, check this out:

Whee, a game!

The print is too small to read, but basically, an online game will available for play after September 8th. I don’t have much hope for it, but there it is, kids…

Upon Revisiting David Lynch’s Dune

I have come to the conclusion that the movie is stil probably as incomprehensible now as it was in 1984, if you hadn’t read the book. And with the nostalgia filters brutally removed, the shield combat/special effects weren’t quite as magical as I had remembered (Damn you CG effects, you’ve ruined old movies for me forever…) and that perhaps Toto and epic science fiction orchestral soundtracks–mixed with wailing guitars–don’t actually mix after all.

Nowhere is now 117 pages. It was a slow day, but I’ll do a little better over the weekend, though there are still reviews and scripts to write.

Also, we may have some concrete direction on where to go with Nowhere in the near future, but we’ll wait and see how that pans out. I swear to God, if I get a comic published before a novel, I’m gonna’ hurt someone, but only after checks are cashed…

Another Disciple For Satan

In addition to finally getting my PSP back (Withdrawal is now over, I have something to do again on the train) the Sister-In-Law popped by for a visit (Y’know I’m still not used to throwing that term around) and she settled herself down with Guitar Hero and got totally sucked in.

I also made the curious discovery that I play Guitar Hero better when there’s a vacuum going on somewhere in the background. My theory is that the vacuum going off in the background simulates the atmosphere of being a struggling teenage musician that still lives at home and is trying to nail that riff in Symphony of Destruction but must focus out the fact that for all his long hair, drug use and devil worship, he’s still a suburbanite trying to be more interesting than he secretly suspects he isn’t.

However, it was still something of a breakthrough as I can now average about 60% of Cowboys From Hell before getting wiped out by the wicked guitar solo.

The Quick Impression Of Dead Rising For The Xbox 360

Wow, it doesn’t suck!

Lately I’ve been going through a ton of different webcomics just getting a general feel for them to see how they stack up when compared to their physical, paper cousins. There are a few good ones here and there, but not many, and it’s becoming quickly obvious that if you’re going to do a webcomic, you’ve got be sure you’re doing it as a labor of love. Webcomics for aspiring comic book artists are just like the typewriter or word processor for aspiring writers; just because it’s there and makes it easier, the better technology equipment doesn’t magically make you an artistic genius.

Of course, there’s also the fact that most webcomics are free, which is why it’s doubly important to make sure this is a labor of love, because unlike the comic artists and writers that work for the Big Boys like DC and Marvel, these people (for the most part) don’t see a penny for their efforts.

Of course that’s not always the case. For example over at the website Top Web Comics, which lists the 100 most popular webcomics on the ‘net, the #1 and #2 comics DID eventually get picked up by a smaller publisher (that specializes in Anime/manga style comics) and they are now making some money off of their work, but this is the exception rather than the rule.

For the most part, these comics are usually uneven in some way, whether its lopsidedness in favor or art or writing, but after a while, especially by traditional measurements of comic book quality, it becomes obvious why these guys aren’t with Dark Horse, or Vertigo or Image.

Mostly I’ve been mulling these things over because there’s still that question about what to do with Nowhere which is still slowly but surely being created.

It’s a bit of a kick still, to write out those scripts and watch them actually turn into the pictures. There’s a childish glee in looking at the process and seeing how it goes from thoughts, to words, to words and pictures and think “I had something to do with that.” But the exact nature of Nowhere’s online presence has yet to be determined.

Also, I think the fact that manga/anime is becoming the de facto style of art now, and that popular art is quickly devolving into either “Jim Lee super detailed musclebound spandex” or “Akira/Ranma 1/2/[insert anime title here]” is really putting the squeeze on individuality. It’s also having the unexpected side effect of making me actually dislike anime. I used to think it was so cool when it was this rare exotic thing in an overcrowded world of Transformers and He-Man, but now that it’s come into the mainstream and EVERYONE is drawing almost exactly the same way, I find it’s relentless conformity to be suffocating.

Or maybe I’m just getting old…

Jump On The Bloody Bandwagon, Why Don’t You

Finally got to play Dead Rising today, and it’s probably the first Xbox 360 exclusive title that actually makes the system desirable. I also finally remembered to finish a short 6 pager script for a stupid story called Money Man that the Wife will illustrate. After that, I have no idea what will happen to it, though she has contacts with some smaller Indie comics publishers so it may simply end up there.

It seems like suddenly all the official bodies of authority in Singapore have realized–only in the last two months–that there’s this industry called video games and people are actually making money out of it. Not only did a camera crew go down to the GameAxis office to shoot and interview my managing editor, not only did the BBC stick a camera in my face and ask me “What do you think of the PS3?” now one of my old production companies that I used to work for suddenly tells me they’re doing a program on gaming based program and need a writer for it and I was pretty much a no-brainer for candidacy.

I keep wanting to throw rocks at their heads and holler, “WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN THE LAST TEN FREAKIN’ YEARS?!?”

Man, these guys are slow…

The Writer Is Tired

Either I’m getting old or else the PSP withdrawal is finally getting its claws in, but the ride to and from the office today seemed EXCRUCIATINGLY long and by the time it was over I felt extremely sleepy.

Finished a feature for GameAxis which I can’t talk about since the issue isn’t out yet, finished some minor changes to a television script which has been largely approved (I reeeeeeeeeally like it when producers and directors are working on a tight deadline, then they only make changes when absolutely necessary rather than on sheer whimsy) and added a few more pages to Nowhere, which is now116 pages.

To think, before I started on this project I stupidly believed that working on a comic would make my narrative leaner and less verbose. OH WHAT A FOOL I WAS!

Now I’m going to bed to suck on my thumb go into fetal position and hug a decapitated teddy bear.

In The Can

Episode 2 of the local program I’m writing for is done. Nowhere is now sitting at something like 114 pages. It’s theoretically possible now to end the first book in 150 pages, not counting title pages for “chapter breaks”.

And it feels reeeeeally weird walking around now without a PSP to whip out and play, however, a comic will do in a pinch. Finally got around to reading Alan Moore’s Smax and it’s damn clever.

Script & Comic Day

Not a heck of a lot except for a friend stopping to drop some comic books off, and cranking out more TV script and comic script.