Nothing To Report

Woke up, shuffled around, bought some groceries and pet food, played some games, tinkered with Lost In Loveless and wrote a few e-mails that needed sending out. Aside from that, the only other thing of note is that a friend of mine Singapore with Amazingly Prominent Cheekbones has now been featured in a commercial. If it seems like I know entirely too many people in the media than is psychologically healthy, that is probably the case, but hey, what can ya’ do…

A Talented Brunch

Yes, I know that’s a horrible, horrible pun, but it’s also an apt description of this afternoon.

The Wife went off to meet with the group of artists in Toronto I’ve mentioned before, the Sketch Motel, and so we wandered slightly further past our usual haunts to another stretch of Annex populated by neat little shops and restaurants. It was a fascinating experience in comparing Canadian creatives versus their Singapore counterparts (or at least my recollections of them) and I was amazed at how different their behaviors are. They operated in almost diametrically opposed ways. Singapore creatives, for example, usually don’t talk much about the work or techniques they use, instead preferring to talk about Important People they know, the latest good restaurant, the prestige of their position or the soap opera of burn outs and back stabbings of fellow peers in the industry. The Canadian counterpart tends to concentrate a lot on talking about their work, sharing their techniques and secrets with each other, barely acknowledge that food exists, and tries to minimize the significance of their work, while at the same time praising and admiring their peers.

I remember meetings (both informal and not) in Singapore where creative types would imply that the little company they did work for was somehow linked to Microsoft, which meant that the creative doing the talking was theoretically working for Microsoft and wasn’t that just the coolest, most Award Winning, World Class thing? The creatives here will offhandedly mention they’ve gotten job offers to storyboard the latest Incredible Hulk movie, or have someone congratulate them on the stellar job they did for Coca Cola or Camel cigarettes and then talk far more enthusiastically about a new function they’ve discovered in the latest version of Painter, whereas the Singapore counterpart would barely know what Painter is, would viciously guard every precious “secret technique” they know (in order to maintain a “competitive edge” I’ve been told) and would still be working off a pirate version they downloaded off bit torrent, because only idiots actually buy software whereas smart, clever people get things for free where ever and however they can. And oh, by the way, they were in the same room with Jude Law once, that’s practically being best buddies with him…

And the people of that island wonder why they’re not in the same league creatively as North America or Europe and blame it on the small population. I’ve met plenty of talented creative types in Singapore that I respect a lot, but they don’t fit the typical Singapore profile. And when they don’t fit, they do the only logical thing.

They leave and live in some other country as quickly as they can make it happen.

It’s night and day to me, and just staggered me what a vast, almost incomprehensible culture gap there is between these two groups that are supposed to work in the same profession. Hell, even though I was the only non-artist in the group, they insisted, “You’re a writer! That’s creative! You’re one of us!”

After that, we spent the rest of the daylight (which was considerable as spring rolls along) wandering through various areas of the city as the Wife took photo references in preparation for the story for Sonny Liew’s Cities-themed anthology. Aside from photos of the Annex, there was a trip through Queen Street West and the Front Street/CN Tower/Union Station/Super Money/Business District area. It was nice to see the place devoid of people, but there were still cars and traffic everywhere you looked…

Right. Theoretically I should be doing more writing, but after all that walking around, I may just goof off and watch movies and play games…

Supply Run

Yup, you guessed it. Down to the art stores of Queen Street West and then back up to Bloor and then home. Did some writing, watched Titan A.E. (and remembered thinking “If I were 10 years old and watching this, this would probably be the greatest film of my life”) and generally took it easy. This is what happens when you’re as boring as we are.

The Quiet Friday

In which a bit of reading, a bit of writing and a bit of game playing was done. And the Wife got back to work on a little bit of Nowhere, which is cool since it’s been dormant for a while. It would be cool to have some time to actually get back to it in a major way, since I was gearing up to finish off Book 1 and am about 80% finished anyway. Maybe I’ll just sit down and try tackling that some day very soon.

Done

The first pass at the anthology story is done, and–and I should have seen this coming a mile away, but somehow didn’t–I’m over the recommended 15 page maximum that was initially laid out by the guidelines. Fortunately, Sonny is being extremely flexible at this point, so perhaps some negotiation is possible, especially considering no one has actually finished a story yet.

Still, I’m happy with it. It’s a more quiet, lyrical little piece, full of dialog and nobody tosses cars or wears spandex or even has a secret identity.

Now all I have to do is wait for the Wife to read it, go bonkers and then tell me that I’m trying to put her into the grave prematurely with my crazy, writer-ly demands…

The Man Who Understands

The caricature on the left is a familiar sight to anyone that’s ever tried to answer the question, “How the hell do I make a comic?” Scott McCloud is one of the pioneers of taking comics seriously, and thinking about them in a critical way. He wrote the ground breaking Understanding Comics which is now considered the cornerstone of “Comic Book Theory” in that it laid out a lot of concepts and methodologies used in comics. Of course, artists had been employing these techniques for decades, but unlike film and literature, this was the first time anyone had ever broken down, piece by piece, the exact methods and the rationales behind those methods. In short, Scott McCloud became the first person to take a stand for Comic Criticism or Comic Theory in the same way that Literary Criticism and Theory had enjoyed the same kind of study and analysis for years.

The reason I mention all of this is because the man is coming to Toronto on May 6th and there are only 450 tickets on sale. We’ve got ours, and by some miracle, he’s going to be giving his talk within walking distance of our place. God, I love living in the Annex…

I find this eerily relevant since there’s a whole lotta’ comic creating going on to begin with this year. Between the kid’s comic, Nowhere (nope, it’s not dead, just hibernating), the anthology that Sonny Liew is putting together, a possible inclusion in this year’s Indie publication Slam Bang Comics (which the Wife has already appeared in solo a few times previously) and some Other Thing I Can’t Talk About Yet, I’m finding the creating of comics to be something I not only do often, but am enjoying far more than I’d actually anticipated. I really like how it occupies that nebulous half-way point between literature and cinema, treading both a visual and textual landscape, and affording far more control than a film, with its team of hundreds, requires in order to pull it off. So I’m EXTREMELY curious to hear what McCloud is going to say, since he’s such a proponent of comic creators, and with any luck some of his wisdom will rub off on us.

Man, I’m looking forward to this.

It’s Up

And it feels good.

It’s a little surreal, though ultimately meaningless if you’re not a gamer. But I’ve been faithfully reading IGN on an almost daily basis for years now. As far as I’m concerned, they’re just about the best place to go for a more casual approach to games, comics, movies and DVDs. Most of the geeks I know will, at some point, reference a review or product that has been covered on IGN, it’s a geek staple. So it strikes me as almost unnatural that the Geek Capital of the Internet now has a piece credited to me for the entire planet to see. Unfortunately, the only people who can read the interview in its entirety are those that are subscribed to the premium content service of IGN known as IGN Insider, but for anyone that wants to at least read the intro, here it is.

And now, back to comics…

Thunder & Lightning, Very Very Frightening

Today was all about the work. I’ve been working away at the script for the anthology, and for once I have a title. I’m loathe to say what it is here since I don’t want to give away too much at such an early stage, but it’s nice to know that that’s one less Usual Concern sitting on my shoulder as the story comes together.

I have to admit, it’s nice to be working on a script like this. It’s in my comfort zone, that being lots of dialog and fairly adult themes and situations, not in the naked sense, so much as in the “this is the kind of thing kids would find boring” sense. Well, unless they’re particularly thoughtful, poetic children. I’m still very much into writing and finishing Lost In Loveless but this being my first attempt at a children’s novel, it’s not as easy or “reflexive” for me to get the story out as it is for something like this.

Also, the Wife managed to have that most rare of experiences, watching an actual bolt of lightning hit a tree. She happened to be standing right at the window, watching a torrential rain storm that seemingly came out of nowhere (that is if you don’t follow weather reports, the way we don’t) when an actual, Zeus-like bolt of lightning descended from the angry heavens and struck a tree just across the street. The tree actually exploded into sparks and then a vast chunk of the tree fell away from the main structure and buried a couple of cars that were parked directly underneath. The fire department and police were called up, yellow tape was set around the perimeter, a blockade was set up to keep cars from using the street and even a CityTV news van pulled up to get some shots, presumably for Film At Eleven. We watched all this on and off from the window and it was quite fascinating.

And lastly, this won’t do much good for people that don’t have a special subscription called “Insider” but my very first North American video game based gig will–according to the editor I’ve been working with–go live on IGN as of tomorrow. It’s no big deal now to say that this first interview is with adventure game developer Ragnar Tornquist whose games I have mentioned in glowing terms here in the past, and whose blog has a link here as well. For those of you that do subscribe to IGN Insider, it’s a pretty comprehensive look at how he got his start in the industry as well as his thoughts on adventure gaming in particular and gaming in general. The editor over at IGN seemed pretty happy with it, so I guess it’s a safe bet now that I might get more work out of them, which would be very cool.

But for now, at least I can say I did it. I’ll have my article up on one of the biggest, most heavily referenced game-based websites on the planet. At the very least, that means I don’t suck.

Comics & Cities

The weekend continued with more temperatures in the 20′s. Pretty much everyone was in a T-shirt on the streets, except for some men-folk who actually went topless. Man, that blows my mind, considering that you can stay out all day without breaking a sweat. Or at least, you can if you’re more used to equatorial heat.

The Wife and I wandered the neighborhood, specifically the northern area where Casa Loma lies, taking pictures of said castle, and anything else that looked visually interesting. I’m quite surprised by how the pictures turned out; her camera manages to just drink in the details quite nicely, but then it’s not a tourist grade, point n’ click affair, so I guess its obligated to perform better than that. Afterwards, we spent a good part of the evening in the backyard, having a dinner with the neighbors and just talking about anything and everything while the sun set. It was a nice way to see the day off.

I have also found out that Sonny Liew, the guy with a link here, who recently got nominated for an Eisner, is putting together an anthology. He’s been inviting artists he knows to create short stories for a comic book anthology that’s going to have the theme “cities” although there’s no name for the actual book yet. As to be expected, he’s got a lot of interesting (and extremely high quality) talent joining in for the project, and the Wife is one of the people he’s calling in to make a contribution. Although I haven’t actually received the Siren Call, the Wife assures me that if she’s in on this, Sonny just wouldn’t have the heart to turn me down, so I’m already working on a script, and enjoying it a lot. Of all the writing I’ve been doing in the last few months, this is actually the one I’m enjoying the most, for some reason. I discussed some ideas with the Wife and she came up with a really great one that fired my brain off, and now the story itself is pretty much screaming at full volume to get out, so I’m just releasing it in bits and pieces into the cage known as the comic script format, where hopefully it will find the environment comfortable enough.

One of the scary things about this anthology though is the level of talent. I’m not particularly competitive about this, especially considering most of the people involved are artists and I know I’m not just not in the same league, I’m not even in the same game. But Sonny has managed the trick of getting his recent collaborator, Mike Carey to agree to write a story which Sonny will presumably illustrate. Mike Carey has done some very impressive work following up on the legacy of Neil-O with his Lucifer series, a Sandman Presents one shot called The Furies, and currently writes for the X-Men and Ultimate Fantastic Four. So yeah, that is one damn serious heavy-weight that’ll be making an appearance, and it goes without saying I feel just a teensy bit monolithically stupid and playing the wrong band to think that anything I write will have to share space with this guy.

Oh well. All I can do is write it, try to have fun with it, and see how it goes.

Weekends Feel Like Weekends Again

Another Saturday rolls by and I’m reminded of the fact that here, in Toronto, a weekend feels like a weekend again. People who have never been to Singapore probably don’t know this, but when it comes to places like offices, many Singapore companies have a 5 1/2 day work week, where, despite the fact that no work usually gets done, employees are expected to come in and put in a half-day of work (usually ending at noon or 1 pm) on Saturday. If that sounds a bit excessive, you also have to remember that Singapore is the kind of place that values time over efficiency; given a choice, a Singapore employee will prefer (and handsomely reward) a worker who is so hopeless inefficient that it takes them all night to do a simple task that could be done in an hour. I’ve personally seen people who were completely incompetent at their jobs rise the corporate hierarchy for no other reason than the boss would see them sitting at their desk well after hours, struggling to finish a simple job that another employee could finish in a much faster time. Said efficient employees are usually punished for their speed by never getting promoted because they’re not as “hard working” as the ones that stay at the office working (or in some cases, playing Counter-Strike with their co-workers, something I’m happily guilty of) till the wee hours of the morning. Which is why the typical Singapore worker quickly learns that the best way to get ahead is to waste time. Most people who figure out the system have a regimen of checking e-mails, surfing the ‘net, talking to friends on Instant Messaging systems and going to lunch for an hour or two, then coming back and doing more of the same until about 5 or 6 pm, then finally getting around to doing work when it really counts. Needless to say, this doesn’t necessarily work once you get out of Singapore, but if you plan on staying there for life, it’s actually a pretty sweet arrangement.

But anyway, the weekend.

The Annex is slowly coming to life, which is pretty cool to see. Now that the temperatures are in the teens, or, as in the case of today, over 20, the streets are bustling, but it’s not that hurly-burly, everyone’s in a rush kind of energy you normally feel during the week. People are sitting at their porches, reading books, smoking cigarettes with friends, or even just napping. Dogs of every size are being walked by people of every color and fashion, and even the women are getting into the act with ridiculously short shorts and incredibly small, tight tank tops that are causing drivers to fail to notice the change in traffic lights as these Poster Girls For Slut-cercise promote their bounce and their curves on the street.

It’s very weird to have that sense of time and progression again. After over 10 years living in a country where the sun always-and-without-fail set completely by 7:30 pm, regardless of the year, still having daylight outside at 8:00 pm is unfamiliar and, to the Wife, extremely unnerving. But it’s nice to see the change in the people as well. And feel that relaxed bustle of people everywhere, who are simply taking their time to do what they want or just enjoy themselves. When Saturday rolls around in the Annex, it really does feel like everyone is loosening up and taking it easy, as opposed to Singapore where the nervous energy actually jumps up another notch because the mentality is “Oh my God, I’ve only got 36 hours to get this stuff done before work starts up again, I gotta’ hurry!”

People who go shopping here seem so relaxed and leisurely. People who shop or even simply walk around in Singapore always seem to have a clock ticking over their heads and that makes them jumpy.

Did I mention I’m really, really, REALLY happy to be back? Well I am.