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.

Nowhere Is Still Going Somewhere

Just veeeeeeery sloooooowly. The sketchy artwork to the left (clickable as usual for enlargement) is a rendering of Fen, one of the main characters of the story. Yes, he is an Elf with a katana. No I am not going to explain why, not here. There’s a fairly lengthy story behind that, and it will have to wait for the comic to be told.

Speaking of which, yes, the comic. It is still sitting on a pile over at Slave Labor Graphics, a smaller, indie style publisher, and we have been told that the Chief Guy Who Picks Comics, Dan Vado, has indeed seen the submission sitting on said pile. He just hasn’t looked at it yet. Having had much experience with the speed with which book publishers work, this comes to me as no surprise whatsoever. When you actually have a buzillion other things to do–like making sure your existing titles come out on time, for example–finding some time to look at new stuff and consider it can take a while. Still, at least that’s not a “no.”

At least not yet. Oh well back to tweaking some scripts…

Busy Little Bee

Back to the grindstone again.

After a somewhat more manageable last couple of weeks I find myself once again in the middle of a lot of projects. A short break in one of the TV series I’m writing for is now done, and they’re in “We need it yesterday mode” with two episodes required by Wednesday and Friday of next week. The other documentary is also gearing up, so that’ll keep me occupied and Nowhere is still not quite done, although that ceiling of 150 pages on Book 1 is fast approaching.

Comic Book Progress

123 pages and counting. Don’t ask me how many individual “chapters” or “issues” that is, because I haven’t bothered to keep track. I think novels have pretty much spoiled me, I find it pretty difficult to squeeze all the plot I need to into the allotted space sometimes without giving the impression that things move way too fast.

The submission package has been sent and is doubtless sitting on a Slow Boat To Cali. Fornia, that is. Slave Labor Graphics is the first target in not-so-scenic San Jose, so we’ll see what they think, though I’m seriously entertaining the suspicion that they might say “Great art, but can we junk this writer?”

Oh well…

Tweaking

Spent some time fixing up the written portion of the submission. The Wife took a hatchet to it and it’s now down to a more reasonable four pages. Now all that’s left is all That Other Stuff and we can see whether or not this is the kind of thing that anyone besides us would like.

Comic Book Submissions

Well, part of it is done, anyway.

The cover letter itself is one page. The outline of the series runs another five pages, and the character descriptions totalled up five pages as well, bringing the written portion of the submission to 11 pages. There’s still the actual character designs and the minimum 5 finished pages (Though we’ll probably submit more than that) and we’re good to go.

I’m starting to wonder though if maybe Slave Labor Graphics shouldn’t update their website on submission guidelines or something. They make it quite clear that their submission procedure is to make their life easier and minimize their visits to the post office, asking for submissions to include a self-addressed stamped envelope and not to be registered or certified. However, for a submission that is international, you can’t include stamps with it, and so have to include International Reply Coupons which can redeemed for stamps… once you go to the post office to do it.

Maybe they should say “For non-American submissions, don’t bother with the IRC stuff, we’ll e-mail you.”

Well It’s A Start

Look, physical evidence of our comic online! Whee!

And thanks go to old college friend Aerin for making sure the Latin doesn’t make us look like idiots.

Productivity Sucks

If there’s one thing that really bugs me, it’s keeping busy and doing stuff everyday. I really get off on being an idle slacker so actual deadlines, hitting milestones and all that other assorted managerial crap tends to get on my nerves, and yet that is exactly what is happening these days.

I find that between the regular GameAxis gig, writing episodes for one production house, having started preliminary research on a documentary for another production house, writing articles for Maxim, writing a comic for Kid’s Company AND writing a comic for… no one in particular, I’m being depressingly productive and can look back on each day with a solid chunk of accomplished work.

Sucks, man.

I’m now in the process of sloooowly filling out the submission requirements for Slave Labor Graphics, who is the first target of Operation Please Print This Comic. I still have to finish up the cover letter, write up some character descriptions and then give a synopsis of the story (and let the record show that on this day, I did admit, “I know how it ends” so that if it should go to print and run on and on and on forever, no one will think “he made it up as he went along.”) and then wait for the Wife to gather up the visual samples. She needs to produce character sketches as well as at least 5 finished pages to show that she’s not just a pin-up artist and understands the concept of sequential art.

Sequential art sounds so much more legitimate than “funny” or “comic” books.

On top of that, some good games are coming down the pipeline and Guitar Hero (STILL!!) is not finished, though Cowboys From Hell by Pantera is edging closer and closer to actually being a playable song rather than a marathon of confused fingers.

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…

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…