Myth Conceptions

The new installment of Myth Conceptions is up! This week Supporting Characters take the stage.

Click the post title to go to the column!

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Indy-Pendant

This week's column (#36) is up. I reviewed Redchapel #1, the winning title of last year's Small Press Idol from Dimestore Productions and the SPA.

I also mention my contribution to an entry in this year's Small Press Idol, which has already advanced to the second round!

Just click the title of this post to be taken to the column!

Remember to leave your comments on the column in the Comic Avalanche forums and via email to me. I hope you enjoy it.


Tomorrow the new Myth Conceptions column should go live, but I'll give an update here.

I ended up getting a lot done this weekend, including writing a few columns in advance, so I'm really happy with the little time I took it off. And though I'm nearly recovered from the bad cold I'm still going to take it easy today and relax a bit.

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Flying The Coop

To recover from this terrible cold I've contracted and to get some stuff done I will pretty much be absent from online save checking my emails probably until Monday. So if anyone needs anything or whatever EMAIL ME! That's more than likely the only way you'll get ahold of me unless something changes.

In the meantime, I've made about 4 posts in the past day and a half and have columns up and everything, so you can catch up on those if you haven't already. :)

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TV & Beyond!

American Idol

Overall tonight's performances by the guys were really good. There were about three or four of the twelve who didn't do as well, but the majority rocked. I'm loving the 29 year old fully gray headed guy that sings and moves like Joe Cocker. He's so unique and different from anyone else.

There are just some great singers this season, and I honestly, and not so secretly, wish I were among them. There are a couple I'm wondering how in the world they got this far and will probably be cut tomorrow night. But there is so much great talent this year unlike previous years there's no real clear cut winner at this stage.

In Season 1 there was no doubt in anyone's mind Kelly Clarkson was going to win.

In Season 2 everybody pretty much knew Reuben would win, with Clay proving to be a close second about halfway through the competition.

In Season 3 it was pretty apparent at least by week 3 that Fantasia was it.

In Season 4 Carrie was a shoe in and Bo was a shoe in for second.

This season it's not going to be so easy. My favorites thus far are Chris Daughtry, Ace, Elliot, Katherine MacPhee, the two youngest girls, Paris and I don't recall the other's name, and Tyler.

One thing that really psyched me up was something Elliot and Randy said. Ryan Seacrest made mention that Elliot was the rebel in that he didn't do any warm up excercises outside of just singing. After he went out and sang tonight, which garnered the response from Simon that he was the best male vocalist in the history of the show, Randy commented on the warm up exercises. He stated that "When you got it you got it. You don't need no special tea or lozenges, you just got it".

See, I sang in my church choir from the age of 13 until last year, which is a total of 15 years. And for most of those years our choir only consisted of 4 people or less. Now it's got about 7-10. But our choir leader, who is also my Pastor's daughter and five months my junior has always pressed hard on certain singing techniques.

The thing about Jessica is she's a bit naive and a bit of a sucker. She goes to other churches and sees them do something and jumps all over it. If it's a big church it must be the right thing to her. If they have a huge choir then they must know everything.

One once told her to drink orange juice like there was no tomorrow, and she tried to enforce this on us. I knew that any acidic juice drank constantly like that, and especially before you sing strips your vocal chordes and eventually wears them down. But she would never listen to me. After years of doing this she finally found out from someone she supposed more credible than I, who comes from a very musical family no less, that I was right, though she never admitted it. Her voice isn't what it used to be because of that and some other stuff.

Anyway, her latest craze last year was this absolutely ridiculous vocal tape of all kinds of over exaggerated exercises that I just couldn't get into. I have always only just sang a bit to warm my voice up, maybe hummed. To hear a professional concur really boosted me tonight!

Just thought I'd share. :)


Lost

The pilot episode aired tonight, and I was fortunate enough to tape it. Since I missed the entire first season I can now at least see the episode that started it all. One of these days I will get the season one DVD. It's just too rich for me right now.


Comics

I didn't get to pick any up today sadly. But I've still got several here I've been hanging onto for times like this. So I'll be alright. Once I'm able to buy again on a consistent basis I'm going to try ("try" being the operative word) to do a review a week here in the blog of anything that either really appeals to me or really doesn't.

In my own projects, I heard back from the artist and editor of one title yesterday and today, so I know everyone's still out there working on it. More on that once I've got something concrete to share.

I'm really considering some options that I won't go into detail about just yet. I don't mean to be ominous or suspensful, I just don't want to put a seed out there then change my mind about it. Suffice it to say that I am contemplating expanding my horizons in certain areas as I'm not completely satisfied with where my current level of involvement in these areas is taking me.

There's some words to think on and speculate about for ya. ;)

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Zoom Suit

Oh, I almost forgot. If you want to see how comic reviews should be done, go check out Jason Berek-Lewis' review of Zoom Suit #1 at Broken Frontier. I can honestly say this is the absolute best review I have read in a long time.

I say that not because I know the guy and know how talented he is, but because I honestly believe it. He tops mine by far for sure, and any and all recent reviews I've read elsewhere.

Not that the others are bad, but this particular one is just great!

And contrary to popular belief, no, this announcement is not paid for by the other JBL, Jason Berek-Lewis (if you're a WWE fan you'll get that. If not, look it up. *smile*)

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Reigning It In

So my Mom got injured at work about a month or so ago and has been missing all kinds of work, unpaid, going to doctors and all that jazz, and for weeks they haven't been able to nail down what exactly is wrong with her.

Yesterday, they finally made the decision that she would be on indefinite leave WITH PAY until they found out what was wrong and how to treat it. Her injury (which is affecting her leg mainly as that's where something snapped, but also her back) got to the point where they restricted her from even twisting her body in any way. Her employer determined they had nothing she could do that would meet her restrictions, so there you go.

They still don't know what's wrong with her, but at least she's not having to torture herself everyday and she's still getting paid for it. My Mom's one of the hardest workers I know, and if anyone deserves a reprieve it's her.


On another topic, I have reigned in some of my comic projects, going as far as putting one on hiatus. After hearing of the hiatus of Paper Dragonz, one of the companies I used to edit for, I started looking realistically at all I was doing. I am trying in earnest to prioritize what needs to continue at this point and what needs to halt until a bit later. The fact is I need to concentrate more on paying bills for now and less on getting ten dozen of my own projects out there.

For those working on my projects don't get scared. Any projects of mine that have art completed are still a go. And other collaborations still exist, but they are slow going anyway, so that's okay. And of course the lettering is still ongoing. I'm just limiting anything new I put out there for a few reasons.

One, I don't want to overwhelm myself, and two, I'm really wanting to take the proper time and care with them to make them the best they can be. I don't have the time or money I thought I would to devote to them as earnestly as I would like.


I'm also weighing a lot of things right now, trying to make some hard, yet necessary decisions to get where I need to and want to go. I've been on a very slow track this past year or so and I need to pick things up in that respect.


Totally off subject, there are a lot of rumors about who will play the Batman villains in the next film. Some are saying Hugh Jackman as Two Face and several names have been mentioned for Joker. I'm not sure who I'd like to see in either role. Some posters over at DW think Crispin Glover (see pic on left) would be good as Joker, but I'm not sure I agree.


The first performances of the top 24 of American Idol aired last night featuring the top twelve girls. There were 3 or 4 that I could see going home Thursday, and equally there were 3 or 4 that are shoe ins. The rest are in the middle.

My vote for ones to go home based on last night's performance alone would probably be Heather Cox and either Stevie (don't remember her last name) or Becky Donahue.

Tonight the 12 guys perform and Thursday two of each will be cut. I will say that so far this season outshines the last two or three for me. Last season was incredibly boring for me and at times I didn't even want to watch. This year there are some really talented singers, and many varied styles in the top 24, both of which I am very thankful for!


The pilot episode of Lost airs tonight also opposite the second half of American Idol. I missed the entire first season, so I'm hoping somehow I can tape one or the other.


In wrestling, looks like the main events for Raw and Smackdown at Wrestlemania respectively will be John Cena vs. Triple H, and Rey Mysterio vs Kurt Angle vs Randy Orton. Both are great matches potentially.


In my column this Sunday I'll probably review a couple or few comics including one that was sent to me recently. I have a couple that I might spread out over a couple of weeks. We'll see.


Got some critiques on the artwork I mentioned last post, and they weren't as positive as I thought they would be or hoped for. Quite the opposite really, which honestly surprised me. I thought it was a pretty good piece. Sigh. As soon as I have the extra cash I'm investing in the entire series of Burne Hogarth Dynamic series books!

So I'm reigning it in on all kinds of stuff right now and we'll see where that takes me in the long run.

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On The Horizon

Today is February 21st, which means one thing...1 month until my BIRTHDAY!

Not that I am all that excited about turning one year closer to 30, but I just thought I'd share. :)

Alll the lettering work I currently have is caught up save 4 pages I've slacked a bit on because I caught yet another cold and am really sick right now. Bryan, I'm coming, bro.

I do have a few upcoming lettering assignments though, so that's something to look forward to.

I am also excited about an art project I am working on. I don't want to jump the gun with it because I want it to be special. As I mentioned not too long ago I have decided not to post my art online until I've improved a bit.

Well, something came to mind to do and I just sat down last week and started drawing. The result so far is something I'm very pleased with. It still needs some work, and I don't really want to say what it's for yet, but I think you all will love it when it's done.

Godhand with MSC, which I announced was recently put on hold, is back off the shelf, so I'm trying my best to get that done as well.

Lab Rats, my Platinum project is still giving me trouble. I've gone through what seems like 20 drafts so far and just can't get it right. But I'm working hard on it and will hopefully nail it this time.

Crossing fingers and toes as I type, which is kind of hard to do with crossed fingers...

Still waiting to hear if I landed a writing gig with another studio. If I don't get it I hope Jason [Berek-Lewis] does as he equally deserves it.

And speaking of Jason, in what would be his 100th blog post (check my blogs section in the sidebar) had he caught it (it was actually his 104th) he delivered a wonderful speech that really touched me. He had very kind words to say about me, the other guys at the Creatorfuze forums, and several others that was just too kind.

If you ever hear or read Jason's trials through life and then see how motivated and talented he is now you will understand what an awesome guy he is. I am really honored to be mentioned in the manner I was and alongside so many other great people.

Now I just hope I can live up to the hype!

And that's all I got in my look to the horizon for now. More when I'm fully awake and not delirious from cough medicine!

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Myth Conceptions

Sidekicks Part III is up in the new installment of my column,
Myth Conceptions:

http://www.silverbulletcomics.com/news/story.php?a=1243

Unfortunately, J. Torres is not going to be able to contribute to the column at all in the foreseeable future. I deeply apologize for this and I hope to find a suitable replacement to wind up the overly extended Sidekicks topic. Thank you.

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Dragon Box

This is a page from a short story I wrote that will (hopefully) be included in a fantasy anthology at Ronin Studios. The pages are already lettered and in the process of being colored. Hope you enjoy it!

Pencils and Inks by TG Sangalang

And this is my 125th post! :)

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Indy-Pendant #35

Later today, February 19th, my 35th column goes up at www.comicavalanche.com entitled "Indy-Pendant".

This week I review Digital Webbing Presents #22, which came out last year. It contains the following shorts:

Dreah: Queen of Thieves in "Eye of Fire"
Portrait of a Lady
Hero Happy Hour in "Par for the Course"
Atland in "Divine Intervention"

I also once and for all clear up the confusion on last week's Bronx Angel: Politics By Another Method review.

Come check it out and let me know your thoughts!

www.comicavalanche.com/columns/indypendant.htm

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Digital Webbing Presents

Digital Webbing Presents is in need of your help. Go out and buy this anthology published by www.digitalwebbing.com at your local retailers or online retailers that carry it. DO NOT rely on subscriptions as these do little to help the book from the distributor's perspective. Buy from retailers! For more information go here: http://www.digitalwebbing.com/comics/ordering/

Issue 28 is due out next month!

If you are a supporter of www.digitalwebbing.com in any way then this should be important to you. Please do what you can if you'd like to see DWP continue.

El Muerto

Here are some Valentine's cards featuring El Muerto figures. Look for more coverage to come on El Muerto on SBC and Comic Avalanche in the near future.

Frank Frazetta

I caught the last half of a documentary on the legendary artist, Frank Frazetta this morning and man was it inspiring. Not just his art, but also his life.

The guy saw a girl and pointed to her on the street, a girl about 8 years his junior, and she came running over. That was it. They were married less than a year later.

Both he and his wife were stay at home parents, Frank doing his art and Ellie managing it, and their kids couldn't have been happier.

They all got to rub elbows with celebrities who admired Frank as much as he did them.

When Frank would walk into an art studio the artists just couldn't work because they were overwhelmed by his presence.

http://frazetta.ragnarok.no/images/frank_frazetta_thesilverwarrior.jpg

Frank then hit a time of depression for eight years where he dropped 70 pounds and no doctors could find anything wrong with him. They all told him it was in his mind as a result of his artwork. His family believed this and continually told him that, and it nearly drove him crazy. He nearly killed himself a few times.

8 years later a doctor finally finds the thyroid problem, and Frank then resented his family for a bit because they made him think he was going crazy.

http://www.die-einherjar.de/volume1/frank_frazetta_birdman.jpg

A couple of years later he started having a string of strokes, the last taking him a long time to recover. He couldn't walk or speak right.

He overcame all that, but he could no longer paint with his right hand because it would jerk and ruin the piece. So he taught himself how to paint with his left hand!

None of his kids were interested in following in his footsteps, but his grandchildren all love to draw. He loves kids and lights up when his grandkids come in the room.

http://www.die-einherjar.de/volume3/frank_frazetta_conan_the_buccaneer_2.jpg

Man, this was a great, touching and inspiring story whether you're a writer, artist, or anything else creative. It was more than the art, and even more than the battles he faced (he was shunned by artists of fine art because he was doing something completely different). But it's most inspiring for his dedication to his family and enjoying life with them.

This really jerked me out of the funk I was in yesterday.

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Valentine's Quiz

Found this quiz on DW: http://www.blogthings.com/whatdoesy...dyheartsayquiz/

And these are my results:

Your Candy Heart Says "First Kiss"

You're a true romantic who brings an innocent hope to each new relationship. You see the good in every person you date, and you relish each step of falling in love. Your ideal Valentine's Day date: a romantic dinner your sweetie cooks for you Your flirting style: friendly and sweet What turns you off: cynics who don't believe in romance Why you're hot: you always keep the romance alive

What Does Your Candy Heart Say?

I am pretty much a hopeless romantic, but I'll do the cooking. ;)

Just One 'O Them Days!

I didn't have a great day today. To begin with it's Valentine's Day, and while I know it's just another day exploited with commercialism, but I rather enjoy the holiday...when I'm with someone.

Problem is I have only been dating someone on Valentine's Day once, and that was my first girlfriend! Ever since I have been alone on the coveted day. The last time I was almost with someone on V-Day I broke up with her weeks before. She was falling for me and I wasn't there yet. That didn't make her too happy, so we called it quits. I still made her a card though, but that doesn't really count.

So anyway the day was already off to a bad start for me. Yeah, I know I'm being a total wuss, but I was lonely and I'm man enough to admit it.

So from there everything that happened today just hit me hard for no apparent reason. Posts on messageboards really got to me as people were just rude and know it alls, and wouldn't let up even when I agreed with them. Normally I don't let that get to me, but the past couple of weeks it has.

Then I heard back on a story I submitted and am told the letters I just re-did after the penciler's attempt at them, which wasn't great, will probably have to be redone again because the layout guy probably won't like all the uniform tails and sfx. On a normal day I'd be cool with this, but today it really bothered me. I got to looking at other offerings from this particular studio and the lettering wasn't that great in any of them, and all their tails looked nearly identical, and their sfx were plain and boring. So I'm thinking "what in the world is wrong with them?"

Then I get into a minor tiff with my mother who's never been good at the motherly consoling thing. She raised me by herself, so she took the stricter side of things.

And on top of all that I just couldn't get motivated to do anything today. After lettering 20 pages over the weekend I thought I'd be on a roll this week. I got maybe a page and a half done today, which is just nothing.

Not to mention the whole mess with the misinterpreted review in my last column, which is still bugging me. And in an attempt to cut my own hair, which I do all the time when I can't make it to my barber who is a 30 minute drive from me, I kind of messed it up. It's not an easy thing using the clippers on the back of your head while trying to position a mirror to see just right. I got a couple of small nicks here and there. Not really noticeable, but I know they're there.

Oh, and I ran out of turkey for my sandwich and broke a waffle bowl (like a waffle cone - for ice cream) trying to get it out of the package.

So it just hasn't been a great day. My Mom did get me three comics from Kroger though. And even though a couple of the stories (she got two Marvel flip books and the latest issue of X-Men) were old I had only read one of them, so that was cool.


My little 13 year old brother was so cute though, I have to say. You'd have to know my brother. He's a total goofball and a ham, he's been outgoing since the day he was born and never knows a stranger. He's into skateboarding, playing guitar and rock music. He's got a white boy fro, and he's just crazy.

Well, he has all these female friends, but none of them are his girlfriend, wink, wink. He got it in his head to get them all something for Valentine's day. So the boy goes out and spends $45 on two cds and 6 roses, then comes home and creates 6 cards on the computer. So he went off to school with presents and roses for 6 girls today. He is such a player! He's gonna be a heartbreaker for sure.

And of course they all loved the gifts. Then he comes home and leaves again to go to a Valentine's party! Man, my life at that age was so not that eventful!

So at least somebody had a good day.

As for me, well tomorrow's another day, and 2007 is another year. Maybe luck will change on one of those for me! :)

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Happy Valentine's Day!

Oh, and Happy V-Day to all you lovely ladies out there!

Myth Conceptions

Latest installment of my Myth Conceptions column is up. It's part two of the Sidekicks topic:

http://www.silverbulletcomics.com/news/story.php?a=1213

Bronx Angel: Politics By Another Method

This is the title of the book I reviewed in my column, Indy-Pendant, today. Before continuing on with this post please go read that review: Indy-Pendant.

Now, there seems to be some ill feelings about the review I gave from the writer. Not because of my opinion on the merit of the book, but rather for a miscommunication either on his part or mine.

I am making this post to clear that issue up for any of you who happen to read it and feel the same way he did.

Dan's perception of what I stated at the end of the review was that either I hated the book and only said nice things because I happen to know the guy, or that I wasn't man enough to state my true feelings about it.

Now I have re-read my comments and I read them twice when I first wrote it, and I honestly don't see where that comes from.

The thing is after reading the book I noticed some minor flaws with the story-telling and the art. I, at first, feared that those minor points would overshadow the review and make it sound more negative than I intended.

Since I had said from day one that my column would be low on the negativity I felt I needed to preface the review with my stance on the column and how it works today.

As I wrote the review I really started thinking about the story and how much it impacted me, and that resulted in a very positive review with very little negative points throughout.

I ended the review and the column stating my reasons for the preface, and that after having read back the review I realized it wasn't overshadowed by the negative points I brought up, and so the preface wasn't really necessary.

Maybe I could have worded it differently, or maybe upon realizing the preface and closing were unnecessary I could have omitted them. In the end I thought it made the column well-rounded, so I left it.

I still don't see how anyone could get the impression that I hated the book and was just sucking up to the writer?

For the record, I will never blow smoke just to please someone. I am honest to a fault, and for that reason some people don't like me. My mother an I are frowned up in our family because we speak the truth when noone else will. My Nana was like that, God rest her soul, and she was a wonderful woman.

Now I do tend to use a bit more finesse and I'm not outright rude like some people I know. But I am honest if I'm anything, and it deeply offends me that someone would accuse me of shooting bull in my column or elsewhere.

So Dan, I've apologized in private, now I apologize in public, if I offended you in any way, or you perceived it as such I'm sorry. It was not my intention, nor do I believe it's accurate. But none the less, I am sorry.

In closing, if anyone reads the column and feels I gave off the impression Dan got please let me know via the blog, email, a messageboard, a letter, a dixie cup tied to a string, or whatever so I can fix it. Thanks.

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Snow & Go

I woke up to about 3 inches of snow this morning, but by afternoon half of it had melted. But for most of the day our street was decorated with miniature snowmen, including a topless female one wearing a thong. Oh, the horror!

I had gotten to feeling better for a few days and knocked out tons of lettering (several more pages today), but last night I started feeling bad again. Today I feel terrible again. Sore throat, upset stomach, the works. I think it's the change in weather here, how it goes from 60 to 30 and back to 70 then 20 on a constant, never ending cycle through our crazy winters.

Tomorrow's Indy-Pendant column (link in sidebar) features Bronx Angel: Politics By Another Method from Proletariat Comics. You'll have to read the column to find out what I thought. ;)

I may have mentioned this last post, but I sent in the latest installment of Myth Conceptions (also in sidebar) and it should be up Monday. It's part 2 of the Sidekicks discussion.

Tomorrow I hope to complete 6 more pages of lettering for possible inclusion in a fantasy anthology from Ronin Studios. We shall see.

We're trying to come up with a new name for my Death Lurker title at Midnight Studio Comics. Originally they were all going by color names, mine being "White". But because of various reasons they'll still bear the Death Lurker Sagas logo, but be individually titled. I'm having trouble coming up with a name they like, so we'll see what comes of that. Soon preview pages of that comic will be available.

That's pretty much all I got right now. Just wanted to make sure I got a post in today, however late it may be. I'm off to eat soup and watch TV.

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Progress

Finished 15 more pages of lettering. I have to make some minor corrections here and there, but the bulk is done. I'm nearly catching up. I believe aside from the corrections I have 10 pages left to letter and then I have a couple more starting up soon after.

I didn't have anything to talk about yesterday, so I just didn't post. Today's not much different. Just trying to catch up with my lettering and writing.

Speaking of the latter, I have a couple of interviews in the works for Narwain, I have a special guest for Myth Conceptions coming up in not the next, but hopefully the next column after that. I have some other stuff in the works that I'll update as soon as I can.

I also got some more feedback on my Platinum project, and so there's a lot more work to do with that.

So things are keeping me pretty busy lately, which is a good thing. I enjoy every minute of it.

More when there's more.

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Retraction

I guess it was some kind of problems they were having because I can access the accounts again. So you can still use indy-pendant@adelphia.net, or the one mentioned last post if you feel safer.

Indy-Pendant Email!

For some unexplained reason all my email accounts through my cable company, Adelphia, which is the worst cable company I have ever had the displeasure of using by the way, have been blocked due to an invalid account number??? Yet my internet and cable work fine, though there was an outage earlier today for about 20 minutes.

This is just ridiculous how many problems I've had with them of late. Not just the internet service, but also my cable service. They are very unorganized, and the local office here sucks. It's just a terrible company, but unfortunately for me the only digital cable service in the entire city. Ugh, I hate this city!

So anyway, if you mail anything to me concerning the column, until further notice please use submittogonzo@yahoo.com

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A Short Little Ditty

I'm taking a break from lettering. I had some stuff to complete last night and thanks to this cold, following a break last night I fell asleep! So I'm finishing up now, but wanted to get a post out today while I had a chance.


Speaking of breaks, Blogger has a scheduled outage at 7pm Pacific time, which means 10 for us Easterners. Just so you know.


I recently finished Kingdom Come for the first time and absolutely loved it. I have some conflicting thoughts about the story though. I will dedicate a solitary post to it in the near future.


Broken Frontier is looking for web comics as posted on Digital Webbing's talent search. It's currently the first posting here: http://www.digitalwebbing.com/talent/submissions.html


Erik Larsen wrote a great column this past week at CBR about being connected in the industry and the affects of media on creator demand and such. It's one of his best yet. You can find it here:
http://www.comicbookresources.com/columns/?column=20


I intend on posting my thoughts on the moral decay of society that most of my readers here probably won't agree with, but we'll still be friends, I promise. :) There have just been some things posted in several messageboards comic and otherwise, and in other media that have really been bothering me. I'll dedicate a solitary post to that as well.


Speaking of which, I am long overdue in writing a letter to Strange Girl from Image Comics. I hated this book and everything it stood for, but more than that the statement of Rick Remender in the back of the book really made me want to comment. I wasn't upset by his statement, but I feel he doesn't have any understanding whatsoever of what he was talking about, and far be it from me to let that go by without clarification. ;)


Thank you to all who have sent comics to be reviewed in my column, Indy-Pendant. And thank you to those who have recommended others. I really hope to be able to increase my indy spending in the next month or two so I can help to expose even more indy goodness.


I guess by now everyone's heard the talks of Silver Surfer and Galactus possibly being in Fantastic Four 2. I personally hope that's not the case. While that would be very cool, I wonder what it would do for the supposed Silver Surfer movie? I'll tell you who I'd absolutely love to see in Fantastic Four 3 thought...Super Skrull! Of course they'll probably change his origin and instead of making him an alien, make him some engineered Marvel (pun intended) of Dr. Doom's creation. Sigh.


I have been looking into RSS for the first time. I never really understood what it was, and after researching it I only have a vague understanding. A guy named Dale Wilson once explained it to me in detail, but I think that conversation is lost to me now, and I don't think I quite grasped it then.

At any rate, I get that it's useful for people accessing the web on handhelds and stuff, but I just don't see the usefulness for those on broadband connections on a home PC. I guess at work it's more work friendly in some cases because of no pop-ups, or whatever. I don't know. Maybe it's a way to circumvent firewalls?

Anyway, I tried it out myself. I downloaded and installed a program called RSSOwl and viewed Image's blog, and it was okay. But for me I would just rather visit the actual blog. So if anyone has any insights (Dale) on what other uses or purposes RSS serves then please let me know.

Regardless, in the near future I fully intend on adding an RSS feed to this blog for those that prefer it. So don't say I never gave you nothing. ;)

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110 Down

This is my 110th post. The title is also a tribute of sorts to the Super Bowl. It's not hard to figure out it's meaning, but I'll explain it if noone gets it. Anyway...

I'm finishing up 16 pages of lettering today. 16 down, 18 to go with more on the way! I'm rockin' and rollin'!

We decided to go with grayscaled pages for my Midnight Studio Comics project simply because we were having such a hard time with colorists. We have some colored pages that had some flaws, but made decent grayscales, so we'll see how that pans out.

We got our first decent snow of the season today, which means about 1-2 inches and icy roads. Every few years we get a massive downpour, but that doesn't look likely this time around. We've had two or three ice storms in the past five years or so, and they were something awful. The last one half the city lost power, including us, for several days. Some lost power for up to two weeks! Luckily there's no forecast of that happening this year.

Maybe it's a product of the weather, or maybe yesterday was the calm before the storm in a different way, but though I felt better yesterday I woke up feeling much worse this morning. All the symptoms are back with a few extra for good measure. Lucky me.

It's Super Bowl Sunday, and if I were a football fan, or if I even had a group of friends to watch it with as I do from time to time just for the excitement, it might mean more to me. As it is, though, it's just another day.

I watched Coach Karter last night and it was a pretty good movie. Longer than I anticipated, but worth it. It sent a great message and it wasn't overshadowed with a great deal of negativity. Of course anything Samuel L. Jackson is in you can pretty much bet it's going to be moving and entertaining. He's such a great actor that not only brings a presence to the screen, but an intelligence and passion beyond measure. For me he goes down in the books as one of the greatest of all time.

Speaking of movies, it had a preview of Sahara, which looked okay. The voice over promo killed it, but the actual movie looked okay. Not great, but okay. Has anyone seen this, and is it any good?

A new edition of Indy-Pendant went up today. I reviewed two books from King Tractor Press, Devil Water #1 and Innocent: The Sword #1, as well as Bad Planet #1 from Image. The link is in the sidebar. Check it out and let me know what you thought.

Next week I review a book from Proletariat Comics among others.

Sometime this week Myth Conceptions will have a new installment with a very interesting guest, at least from my perspective, if I can get him to do it. I will be continuing my discussion on sidekicks.

I hope to get all the lettering I currently have done this week. I also intend on getting some writing done. And if all goes well I intend on working on my website this week also.

Of course, you know what they say. The road to Hell is paved with good intentions. Let's hope that's not the case this time!

B-Out

Scryptic Studios

New forum icons are up all over the site today. I even added some new smilies.

I also learned how to make animated gifs as the forum required two, so that's how I spent a couple of hours this morning. I always wanted to know how, so I'm glad I had a reason to learn.

So if you get a chance, swing by the forums and check them out. The color may change slightly as they came out a tad brighter than they were originally, but other than that I personally think they came out great.

Howard "Hobbes" Wong deserves the credit for the original folder and arrow designs. He laid the foundations and I just added little stuff here and there for him as his time was taken up from the new arrival in the family.

I may add some avatars as well once I get a chance to play around a bit.


In other news, I'm feeling a bit better today. My stomach is still bothering me and I still have a slight fever, but I'm okay to sit around on the PC, so that's a good thing. Especially since I have to complete 12-16 pages of lettering this weekend to keep with my self-imposed deadlines!

So off I go...

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False Alarm

Whew. Got the cable problem taken care of pretty quickly, so all is good.

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Cable Companies Suck!

For some stupid reason the cable company shut our cable off, and we may not be able to get it back on until tomorrow. Since I have a cable modem it's possible my internet could go out as well, so I just wanted to give a heads up in case that happens. If you don't hear from me that's what happened.

In other news, I got a lot of rest yesterday and for the moment am feeling a little better. I just woke up though, so it could be that it just hasn't set in yet. I am still a little groggy and dizzy, but at least better than I was at my last post.

So that being said, I go off to check emails and such in case the aforementioned takes place, thus royally ticking me off!

B-Out

You Give Me Fever

I'm not feeling much better today. I've got a fever that's making me nauseous, dizzy and tired. I keep trying to do something with little actually getting accomplished.

I did manage to complete 6 pages of lettering and started working on a logo, so I'm psyched about that. I also found out 5 pages of lettering I had received were only roughs to show me what was going on, so I don't have to letter those yet. So that decreased my lettering workload by 11 pages, leaving me with 34 pages to letter, which is what I originally thought I had. :)

Luckily I set up a little deadline schedule as I think I mentioned last post, and have informed the writers of the dates I am aiming for completion. So far I'm on point with it, so wish me luck!

I don't really have much else to say right now as I can't really think straight at the moment. I just wanted to get something up as I try to keep the updates to this blog daily as much as possible.

I will say I am eager to complete my website so I can integrate the blog into it and change the layout a bit. I miss having a complete site and have resisted the urge to put the old one back up since I got the new domain. Maybe I should have, but I just wanted to start fresh.

Much to the chagrin of some, I'm still sticking with the silver and black them with just a little red thrown in because that's the look I really like. But this version will be funner to look at I think. Hopefully I'll get it up this month sometime as that is my goal.

At any rate, I'm feeling naseous again, so for the sake of a clean keyboard, I bid you all adieu.

B-Out

Astray and Under the Weather

I won't be online much today. The jury's out on the rest of the week. I'm not feeling good. I spent the day in bed yesterday save the few minutes I popped online to check my email and post very briefly on a forum or two.

If I'm on the computer at all today it will be to letter as I miscalculated and actually currently have 45 pages to letter, 6 pages to correct, and more lettering coming in! Not to mention I've got some writing I need to do as well. Monday night I laid out a schedule and set deadlines for myself for each project and I hope to meet those.

As for what's wrong with me, I'm not sure. It's mainly a deep fatigue kind of thing. My stomach and throat have bothered me ever so slightly, but it's more the fatigue. And yesterday afternoon around 4 or 5 pm I was trying to go to sleep and I kept shaking uncontrollably. Not seizure like, but like you do when you're really cold, only I wasn't cold or hot, but comfortable. Sigh.

Anyway, that's what's going on with me if you don't hear from me. Any of you that are waiting on lettering from me, if I said you'd see some this week you will. I am working on it. If I get any worse of course I will email you, but I fully intend to get done what needs to get done.

Quick Notes

A friend provided a link to Frank Miller's Harvey Awards speech from 2001 where he ripped up a Wizard Magazine. I had never heard or heard of the speech before, and my first reaction when hearing about it was that I enjoy Wizard.

However, after reading the end of Miller's speech I have changed my mind to a degree. I completely agree that the magazine, as Miller said, "reinforces all the prejudice people hold about comics". I had never really looked at it that way. I do still enjoy the magazine for the features and previews it has, but I totally see Miller's point, and it makes me really wonder if we are actually doing the industry harm by supporting this magazine. Can one newstand rag really have that much impact on the perception of the comic industry and those within it?

Well, yes. Where I live Wizard is available pretty much everywhere with all the other magazines, usually with the gaming ones, even if there aren't comics present. I wonder how many non-comic fans pick one up on occasion, take a look inside, and then throw it out as they are proven right?

This is a loaded topic and one I don't feel up to continuing at this time. Still, it's something to think about.

Here's the link: http://www.groundzerocomics.com/HarveyAwards2001.htm


I'm so sick of Digital Webbing lately. Posting while I feel bad probably wasn't the best way to address the problem either. But every thread I read on there goes into some kind of negative rant about this or that, usually with people cutting other people down for no reason at all except they like to see their witty, sarcastic comments on the screen so they can sit back and be proud of a stupid messageboard post. It sickens me.

And speaking of sick, I am, so...

B-Out