Been a bit of a spell since I got to update on here, so if this entry feels terse and fragmented, I’m sorry… but then again, it’s me… so you should really detect no real change.  Huzzah!

June got a little hairy as Jad came down with dengue fever and had to be hospitalized for almost a week.  I had flown down to keep her company as best I could, but the beginning of the rainy season had taken a bit of a toll on me as well — nothing quite as serious, fortunately, but I ended up not getting to stay with her at the hospital as often as I would have wanted, lest I got sicker and became a liability.  That said, my evenings at the hotel were still miserable, but hardly anything compared to Jad’s ailment which, we later discovered, is nicknamed “bone breaking fever.”  They really went out of their way to sugar that one up.

I had bought her a copy of Arnold Arre’s MYTHOLOGY CLASS, and she says it at least took her mind off being sick, if only for precious increments.  With prayer and a whole lot of soldiering on her part, she made a full recovery in a week and celebrated by attacking a happy helping of roast pork.

Brought my flu home with me.  Nothing a week of antibiotics couldn’t handle, but because they were pretty potent peyote-type shaman juice, I couldn’t draw quite as fast as I wanted to because I was getting tremors like a caffeinated mouse in a church bell.  So yeah, work went ouchy.

I hate flu season.  All better now though.

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A month after Zuda ended its monthly competitions, they announce that the site itself was shutting down.  PRs and official emails indicate that it’s a decision straight from the higher-ups, made in conjunction with DC’s whole digital initiative.  And while long-running series such as HIGH MOON and BAYOU will be migrated, the newer ones had to be cancelled.  Oh well, them’s the breaks.  More recent interactions at least have DC doing right by us creators, as far as ownership and fair compensation goes.  And I’ll leave it at that.  Heh.

Still talking to Gabe and Matt about Comixology and Graphic.ly.  But I’m currently committing a lot more of my time to 1888 — the first issue of which is nearly half done, as far as line art goes.  Bricks and dead whores, baby!  That’s my suggested alt title, but I don’t think Wolfgang will go for it.  Will keep pushing.  Don’t stop believing.  Heh.

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While I was stuck in bed, I got to read a whole bunch of stuff.  Too much in fact, that I’ll just post them as little blurbs instead of my usual “Reading: insert artsy fartsy title here” journal entries…

Scalped (Vertigo)

Sure, Jason Aaron’s Indian Reservation Noir is well into it’s fourth year, but I just got a chance to check it out.  Much like with IMMORTAL IRON FIST and PREACHER, I was late to the party.  But you know what?  I’m glad I was.  Because I don’t think I woulda been able to stand the 30-day wait between issues on this fantastic series.  Someone tell me why this isn’t on HBO.

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100 Bullets (Vertigo)

Now this series has been done for a while, but I finally got around to picking up the first three trades coz I’ve been on a weird crime comic spree as of late.  I apologize in advance for the pun, but it’s… hit and miss? As much as the revolving cast keeps things interesting, it also works against the narrative because you cant really invest in anyone.  But I’ll gladly stay in my seat for Risso’s art alone.

I Killed Adolf Hitler (Fantagraphics)

There’s something about the deadpan delivery of this comic that makes it a lot more touching than you expect it to be.  Whatever you’re guessing it’s about based on the title, you’re really only half way there.  The majority of the book is delivered in an 8-panel grid, so there’s a visual immediacy to the story itself, because the pacing really isn’t the point.  And when you get to the end, you’ll get that it’s really a love story more than anything else.

Switchblade Honey (AiT/Planet Lar)

The captain is an asshole and the crew is a mishmash of crack addicts and psychopaths.  Meet the people who will save you from super advanced aliens who see you as nothing more than germs with shoes.  Angry Star Trek.  Warren Ellis.  Go.

The Tres Komikeros podcast will be taking a break after episode 52, which is scheduled for recording this July 17th… coincidentally the same day Jonas Diego is running a 24 Hour Comic Day Challenge.  So we figured… one more show for this season?  We’ll all be at our desks for a whole day anyway.  Fuck it, let’s record a 24-hour podcast.  And that, my friends, is how big decisions are made.  With half-assedness and lots of cursing.  Come listen.  And learn yourself a thing or two… even if it’s only “don’t do it.”

Warren Sanchez is a 3-D animator.  A damn good one at that.  Warren Sanchez and I used to work together at an advertising/animation studio.  He knows I like to read a lot of comics and watch a lot of effects-heavy films.

Warren Sanchez knows I like to curse a lot.

Warren Sanchez has never heard me curse out of sheer awe of a movie’s visuals.

And then we saw Avatar.

2009 in Film is a closed book as far as I’m concerned.  Thanks, Jim.  After the Star Wars prequels, Transformers, and G.I. fucking Joe… I badly needed that.

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On the other side of the bowl of awesome sauce, I was at first worried about a project Jad and I were working on that was superficially similar.  HARBINGER WAR is a sci-fi tale pivoting on the premise of cavemen battling an extra-terrestrial threat.  The parallels are all there, but then I thankfully unclenched when I realized Lucas had beat Cameron to the punch with Phantom Menace, and Burroughs spanked them both with the Barsoom books decades before.

So yes, I’m good.  This, as they say, is fuel for a hopeful and mighty fire.  A movie hasn’t thrilled me like that in a long time, and if nothing else… it felt amazing being a wide-eyed kid again.

We are not smart people.

The night of the Watchmen premier, one of my friends asks the table if any of us thought all this knowledge of Star Wars, Marvel continuity, Mass Effect side quests, and Chuck Norris jokes actually meant anything.  There were about six of us, with a beer tower in the middle.  It was as close as we got to quarterlifing, and that tends to shake me pantsless.  “No,” I said.  Coz this stuff is important to me, sure, and I love it… but by no stretch of the imagination does it kick our IQ levels up any.  What we are, are a few of many kids hanging ten on a mortal wave.  I remember tossing the term Creative Zeitgeist out… but I don’t remember why.

See? (Read first sentence)

Been having fun lately.  Got to travel with my girl up to one of the country’s highest peaks to help shoot her music video.  Hummer was a bit cramped with crew and tech, but the view and how the music carried up there was well worth it.  Don’t get a lotta chances to do that, y’know?

PLUCK won Zuda’s October competition, so now Gabe is working like an animal for you people, making sure we give you a story well worth following.  I’m on creature design duty for the next week or so, that’ll probably gimme an excuse to update the blog. Also… FUCKYES!!!

Local comic scene has been gaining steam, and monthly Drink n’ Draws (bastardized DnD for you paladin-types) are proving fun and energizing, to say the least.  Never hurts to be around fellow fanboys to help you feel like a real person. Oh snap. Related to this, in the Public Validation Department, I recently got talked to by a local newspaper about working in comics and the scene in general.  Managed not to curse too much, so I’m fairly proud about that.  Interview should run near the end of the month if they don’t misplace the transcript amid post-Manny fight analyses and 2012 reviews.

Need to see that movie.

Looking to wrap up JUDAH and a coupla other projects and commissions by year’s end, as January is already looking busy.  Not quite ready to talk about the new projects yet, but it’s all pretty exciting.  Haven’t gotten to finish that Glutton God piece either, but it can wait.

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Wolfgang Parker is polishing the knobs on a previously discussed project.  Be afraid.

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Finally, shopping Tres Komikeros around to find it an FM radio home.  Each podcast episode runs for roughly an hour, which is way too much geek talk than is healthy (trust us, we know), so we’re looking into making only the half-hour review portion air-friendly, while the rest is online bonus stuff that’s bad for your children.

Bonus.  What a funny word.

Takeout.  Bought this bacon-raped cheeseburger thing at close to midnight, coz I usually get real hungry right around that time and it gets harder and harder to stay at the desk when my stomach begins to fuse with my spine.  But now that I have this sexy chunk of food in front of me, I’m not feelin’ it.  Not the least bit hungry.  Feel more like I’ve been pantsed by the Irony Fairy and she’s pointing and laughing at my wiener.  Eat big sandwich anyway.  Large fries.  Large coke.  Double patty.

Now happy as a pig in shit.  Pretty sure I look the part too.

Comics are glamorous.

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Work’s been hectic.  As mentioned in previous posts, OVERTHROW and 1888 are out of my hands (crosses fingers, toes, and all other crossable appendages), so I’m diving into some new things to keep me afloat as I wait for word.  JENNY STRANGE is cruising along, and I’m finally in the final lap of what, I must say, has been a real challenge to my page-orientation ethic.  I’m taking much, much longer than I would have liked though, and I humbly admit to a noobish ineptitude on my part regarding the proper adoption of the landscape comic format.  Never been more aware of the horizontal page flow than I am now.  Curse you, Zuda!

In concurrence with that (thanks, Word of the Day Cereal), I’m juuust starting pencil work on some pages that’ll hopefully make their way into a European mangazine-anthology-type book.  So I’m thinking JUMP, but with a Le in front of it.  I don’t know.  Alexis Nolte has written a sonuvabitch of a detailed period piece — a French 17th century detective comedy, to be exact.  And quite frankly… I don’t know what I’m spending more time on — all the wigs, or all the corset cleavage shots.

Penis Canals.

Good times.

…And still in the page-layout-and-script-munching stages is an also unnameable project with William Prince.  Not much to say about that until I bang some real stuff out, but I will say that fantasy-oriented existentialist themes always suck me in, especially when they don’t just feel like they’ve  been hammered into a comic-shaped chunk of pretense.  Things like this just give my inner Caulfield a hug and a handjob every now and then, and that never hurts.

So yeah… that’s going on.  Plus the cross-country trips.  Plus the podcast shenanigans beginning to snowball.  But in a good way.

Fairly confident I can get all these projects out of the way before the month ends.

Oh stop laughing.