Tuesday, May 13, 2008
THE END OF AN ERA!
This weekend the local comic shop I managed and spent most of my young life at is closing down and moving to a different location, and while the store is doing fine and it's merchandise will all be moved to a nicer store front to live on forever, the building that holds all of my memories will be sadly left behind. I was talking with my friend Chris about the good times we had in that store and he came up with the idea of us making lists of the top ten most memorable things that happened.
I apologize in advance if there are duplicates.
10. Little Ben
When I was a young man and just getting into comics in the late 80's, I had a lot of catching up to do on all the comics I had missed from the previous decades. I was well versed and up to date on my TMNT, Real Ghostbusters and Transformers comics, but the superhero comics of yesteryear seemed endless in their volume. My earliest memories of this comic shop are of having my Mom drop me off and leave me at the store for hours so I could go through the back issues and teach myself the history of comics. Every time I thought I had seen everything in the store I would find a hidden box of magazines or a box of quarter comics I had not seen before. The inventory was overwhelming and I was not satisfied until I had seen it all. It was a comics Valhalla. (This actually happened at the VERY first store location. The one I worked at was the second location of this same store, but I thought I'd include it because these memories of rummaging through back-issues all day and annoying the employees are what made me love comics so much and eventually want to work there.)
9. All Night Porno Party
When I first started working there, my future buddy Chris was the manager. Chris was organizing a birthday party for another manager in the chain named Jeff. Jeff's birthday party consisted of dinner, drinks (for those of us of age) and a visit to the porno store. We were actually looking to rent Peter Jackson's cult adult Muppet tale "Meet The Feebles" and had been told we should try checking out a video rental place call "New Fine Arts" that carried odd movie like this. This info turned out to be dubious as we drove all the way out to Dallas to learn, once we were in the store, that all they carried was porn. This was the first time many of us had been in such an establishment and after we were done giggling at the wall of whips and dildos, Chris decided he had to buy Jeff some birthday porn. This particular store had just recently had a in-store signing by porn star Chasey Lain and had a discount bin of her videos set up, which Jeff made his choice from. It was then decided that we all HAD to watch this thing. Understand this was way before the Internet was an easily accessible 24 hour porn portal and you could have counted the number of completely nude women we had all seen most likely on one hand. The only problem with this plan was many of us were still living at home and the only place with a vcr/tv combo and relative privacy was the store which we had closed down for the night. So we went back after hours ordered some pizza and the group of us (I think there was actually a couple of girls with us... I remember becoming very embarrassed) sat and watched a porn from beginning to end while leaning up against the high dollar comic lock box. It's was a lot of fun at first... but once we ran out of vagina and penis jokes, it dwindled down into lots of fast forwarding, clearing of throats and a hilariously awkward tension in the air before we finally went home.
8. Stalker Girls
For whatever reason, guys working at funny book stores will always have at least one stalker girl customer. I even had a few stalker men... which was weird, but we are talking about good times here so I will share a story about my buddy Pat.
Pat was alone in the store and had a young girl who was trying to get his attention by flitting around the behind him as he did his best to ignore her and stock the comic shelves. Apparently she thought the best display of her beauty was to dance around like a fairy princess or ballerina. When she finally left and we returned from lunch, Pat informed us of what had been going on and we all went to the security tapes to catch this mating dance in action. To all of our great amusement, during one of her twirls, she lost her balance and completely ate shit in the comic aisle, quickly checking to see if Pat noticed her crash (he did not) she picked herself up and resumed her pixie dance. This became even funnier when frequently rewound.
7. Sewer Water
Let nothing come between the customer and the product.
One hot summer day, the plumbing in the walls between us and the shop next door backed up and began flooding out into the floor, soaking the carpet with the foulest smelling sewer water you could ever imagine. The entire store stank, but it was manly concentrated in the 12 foot of wet carpet just under our display of lead miniature battle figurines. Most of our customers fled the store in disgust as I wanted to do, but not all of them. Some valiant soles tried to stretch across the soiled area, braving the foul stench in order to complete their elf army... and some, to my amazement, just stood right in the middle of it as though nothing was different at all! It was all I could do to keep from screaming at them, "That's fucking shit water! YOU'RE STANDING IN SHIT WATER!!!"
6. Sam Jackson Drinks Pee
One of the many great things about having a fun crew work at the store is you attract a crowd of regulars that become more than customers. One of these regulars was a man named Sam Jackson. Sam is a great guy and was the elder statesman of our group because he had a family and was a bit older than us. Sam got in a large special order at the store and to just have a laugh, Pat scribbled in Sharpie marker "Sam drinks pee." in large letters on the side of the plain cardboard box it shipped in. Sam laughed when he saw it and took the box home with him paying it no further mind. Later that year at Christmas with his wife's family, his holiday eggnog was ruined by the screams of his nephews repeating "Sam drinks pee!" Sam's wife had unknowingly used the same box for Christmas gifts, causing him to spend the rest of the his holiday trying to explain to his family that he did not, in fact, drink pee.
5. The Finger Trap
We had a clear plastic display box of trading cards with a flip front/top on it for accessing the cards. When the flip top was open, the hinge left just enough space for you to fit your fingers in. Chris was behind the counter playing with the flip top while talking to Sam, who was in front of the counter. Chris's fingers slipped into the space the hinge left open and then he accidentally dropped the flip top, pinching his fingers in the hinge. Trying not to let Sam know he was stuck, Chris searched with his free fingers for something to grab on to, but the box was too wide. He was completely imprisoned but continued his conversation with Sam as if nothing was happening. Sam went on gabbing with Chris, pretending not to notice his swollen digits until Chris started to turn red in the face. He finally asked, "Do you want some help with that?" to which Chris whimpered, "Yes please"
4. Child Endangerment
Every once and a while a kid is gonna get hurt.
One year yo-yo's were really hot and the owner of the store wanted all the employees to learn how to yo-yo so we could teach the kids that bought them. This command was also followed with the decree that employees should be yo-yoing when walking around the store to show how fun it was. I had just graduated to a solid wood yo-yo with no extra springs or gizmos to help it work and was pretty proud of my limited yo-yo skills. A man, who had come in with his son, was leaving out the door in front of me and called for his boy to join him, who was standing somewhere behind me, as I thrust my wooden yo-yo up and down while standing in the middle of the aisle. The boy quickly stopped what he was doing and ran to join his father running right under my hand as I unknowingly released my solid wooden yo-yo smack on the top of his head. There was a hollow THUNK and then a surprised look from the boy, who was now halfway to his Dad, when he turned around, rubbing his noggin, wondering what the hell just happened.
3. Tits in the Comics
This happened before my time, but was too funny to let slide. I don't even know the poor girl's name only the legend of her. Apparently she was short in stature, but well endowed in the chest area.
We had a large lock box in the store in which we kept all the high dollar funny books. It had a large plastic lid that swung open like a coffin lid and when someone wanted something out of it, you had to stand there like a moron, holding the lid up, as they shuffled through the books. The box came up somewhere around my waist and just below this woman's breasts. In fact, when the box was open she had to lay her boobs on the comics in order for her arm to be long enough to hold the lid up, much to the delight of our silver age customers. One day, the lid slipped out of her hand and slammed down on her mammaries with a horrendous WHACK, creating an uncomfortable comics/tits sandwich and leaving an angry red welt across her visible cleavage. Ouch.
2. My Circle of Friends
The number two most memorable thing that happened there was of course meeting all the people who shopped and worked there, most of whom I still talk to today. I worked at that store for nearly 5 years and it had a profound effect on my social development and the sort of folks who I hang out with today... most of whom are from that store.... in fact, pretty much ALL my friends are from that store somehow.
1. Marlena
That's right, that same damn store is where I met my beautiful wife and the mother of my child, Marlena. I try not to delve into our personal life too much on this blog, but when she first walked in that door looking for an application, I was immediately hooked. I knew she was the one.... and almost 9 years later I'm just as enamored with her as I was then, if not more so.
So thanks comic shop. Seriously.
I will dearly miss you.
I apologize in advance if there are duplicates.
10. Little Ben
When I was a young man and just getting into comics in the late 80's, I had a lot of catching up to do on all the comics I had missed from the previous decades. I was well versed and up to date on my TMNT, Real Ghostbusters and Transformers comics, but the superhero comics of yesteryear seemed endless in their volume. My earliest memories of this comic shop are of having my Mom drop me off and leave me at the store for hours so I could go through the back issues and teach myself the history of comics. Every time I thought I had seen everything in the store I would find a hidden box of magazines or a box of quarter comics I had not seen before. The inventory was overwhelming and I was not satisfied until I had seen it all. It was a comics Valhalla. (This actually happened at the VERY first store location. The one I worked at was the second location of this same store, but I thought I'd include it because these memories of rummaging through back-issues all day and annoying the employees are what made me love comics so much and eventually want to work there.)
9. All Night Porno Party
When I first started working there, my future buddy Chris was the manager. Chris was organizing a birthday party for another manager in the chain named Jeff. Jeff's birthday party consisted of dinner, drinks (for those of us of age) and a visit to the porno store. We were actually looking to rent Peter Jackson's cult adult Muppet tale "Meet The Feebles" and had been told we should try checking out a video rental place call "New Fine Arts" that carried odd movie like this. This info turned out to be dubious as we drove all the way out to Dallas to learn, once we were in the store, that all they carried was porn. This was the first time many of us had been in such an establishment and after we were done giggling at the wall of whips and dildos, Chris decided he had to buy Jeff some birthday porn. This particular store had just recently had a in-store signing by porn star Chasey Lain and had a discount bin of her videos set up, which Jeff made his choice from. It was then decided that we all HAD to watch this thing. Understand this was way before the Internet was an easily accessible 24 hour porn portal and you could have counted the number of completely nude women we had all seen most likely on one hand. The only problem with this plan was many of us were still living at home and the only place with a vcr/tv combo and relative privacy was the store which we had closed down for the night. So we went back after hours ordered some pizza and the group of us (I think there was actually a couple of girls with us... I remember becoming very embarrassed) sat and watched a porn from beginning to end while leaning up against the high dollar comic lock box. It's was a lot of fun at first... but once we ran out of vagina and penis jokes, it dwindled down into lots of fast forwarding, clearing of throats and a hilariously awkward tension in the air before we finally went home.
8. Stalker Girls
For whatever reason, guys working at funny book stores will always have at least one stalker girl customer. I even had a few stalker men... which was weird, but we are talking about good times here so I will share a story about my buddy Pat.
Pat was alone in the store and had a young girl who was trying to get his attention by flitting around the behind him as he did his best to ignore her and stock the comic shelves. Apparently she thought the best display of her beauty was to dance around like a fairy princess or ballerina. When she finally left and we returned from lunch, Pat informed us of what had been going on and we all went to the security tapes to catch this mating dance in action. To all of our great amusement, during one of her twirls, she lost her balance and completely ate shit in the comic aisle, quickly checking to see if Pat noticed her crash (he did not) she picked herself up and resumed her pixie dance. This became even funnier when frequently rewound.
7. Sewer Water
Let nothing come between the customer and the product.
One hot summer day, the plumbing in the walls between us and the shop next door backed up and began flooding out into the floor, soaking the carpet with the foulest smelling sewer water you could ever imagine. The entire store stank, but it was manly concentrated in the 12 foot of wet carpet just under our display of lead miniature battle figurines. Most of our customers fled the store in disgust as I wanted to do, but not all of them. Some valiant soles tried to stretch across the soiled area, braving the foul stench in order to complete their elf army... and some, to my amazement, just stood right in the middle of it as though nothing was different at all! It was all I could do to keep from screaming at them, "That's fucking shit water! YOU'RE STANDING IN SHIT WATER!!!"
6. Sam Jackson Drinks Pee
One of the many great things about having a fun crew work at the store is you attract a crowd of regulars that become more than customers. One of these regulars was a man named Sam Jackson. Sam is a great guy and was the elder statesman of our group because he had a family and was a bit older than us. Sam got in a large special order at the store and to just have a laugh, Pat scribbled in Sharpie marker "Sam drinks pee." in large letters on the side of the plain cardboard box it shipped in. Sam laughed when he saw it and took the box home with him paying it no further mind. Later that year at Christmas with his wife's family, his holiday eggnog was ruined by the screams of his nephews repeating "Sam drinks pee!" Sam's wife had unknowingly used the same box for Christmas gifts, causing him to spend the rest of the his holiday trying to explain to his family that he did not, in fact, drink pee.
5. The Finger Trap
We had a clear plastic display box of trading cards with a flip front/top on it for accessing the cards. When the flip top was open, the hinge left just enough space for you to fit your fingers in. Chris was behind the counter playing with the flip top while talking to Sam, who was in front of the counter. Chris's fingers slipped into the space the hinge left open and then he accidentally dropped the flip top, pinching his fingers in the hinge. Trying not to let Sam know he was stuck, Chris searched with his free fingers for something to grab on to, but the box was too wide. He was completely imprisoned but continued his conversation with Sam as if nothing was happening. Sam went on gabbing with Chris, pretending not to notice his swollen digits until Chris started to turn red in the face. He finally asked, "Do you want some help with that?" to which Chris whimpered, "Yes please"
4. Child Endangerment
Every once and a while a kid is gonna get hurt.
One year yo-yo's were really hot and the owner of the store wanted all the employees to learn how to yo-yo so we could teach the kids that bought them. This command was also followed with the decree that employees should be yo-yoing when walking around the store to show how fun it was. I had just graduated to a solid wood yo-yo with no extra springs or gizmos to help it work and was pretty proud of my limited yo-yo skills. A man, who had come in with his son, was leaving out the door in front of me and called for his boy to join him, who was standing somewhere behind me, as I thrust my wooden yo-yo up and down while standing in the middle of the aisle. The boy quickly stopped what he was doing and ran to join his father running right under my hand as I unknowingly released my solid wooden yo-yo smack on the top of his head. There was a hollow THUNK and then a surprised look from the boy, who was now halfway to his Dad, when he turned around, rubbing his noggin, wondering what the hell just happened.
3. Tits in the Comics
This happened before my time, but was too funny to let slide. I don't even know the poor girl's name only the legend of her. Apparently she was short in stature, but well endowed in the chest area.
We had a large lock box in the store in which we kept all the high dollar funny books. It had a large plastic lid that swung open like a coffin lid and when someone wanted something out of it, you had to stand there like a moron, holding the lid up, as they shuffled through the books. The box came up somewhere around my waist and just below this woman's breasts. In fact, when the box was open she had to lay her boobs on the comics in order for her arm to be long enough to hold the lid up, much to the delight of our silver age customers. One day, the lid slipped out of her hand and slammed down on her mammaries with a horrendous WHACK, creating an uncomfortable comics/tits sandwich and leaving an angry red welt across her visible cleavage. Ouch.
2. My Circle of Friends
The number two most memorable thing that happened there was of course meeting all the people who shopped and worked there, most of whom I still talk to today. I worked at that store for nearly 5 years and it had a profound effect on my social development and the sort of folks who I hang out with today... most of whom are from that store.... in fact, pretty much ALL my friends are from that store somehow.
1. Marlena
That's right, that same damn store is where I met my beautiful wife and the mother of my child, Marlena. I try not to delve into our personal life too much on this blog, but when she first walked in that door looking for an application, I was immediately hooked. I knew she was the one.... and almost 9 years later I'm just as enamored with her as I was then, if not more so.
So thanks comic shop. Seriously.
I will dearly miss you.
Labels: updates
Monday, May 05, 2008
CAPE!... sort of...
How was your Free Comic Book day? Was it good? Did you enjoy your Free Comics?
I didn't....
I didn't do anything this year because I have all too many projects in the works and nothing with a definite publishing time. No artbooks, nothing to pimp, no reason to leave the house. It was my first time to not attend CAPE!, Zues Comics' Free Comic Book Day event
I did however go to meet my partner-in-crime, Dave Justus, for dinner as he had driven all the way up from Austin to attend CAPE! I did not realize the dinner he was going to was an after party to thank the folks that participated in CAPE... Of which, I did not this year. So I was a little embarassed to be there and felt a bit like an interloper. I did not partake in any of the free food to punish myself for this crime.
It was really good for me though. Having my baby boy slowed down alot of stuff that was in the works for me, so getting to see old friends and meet some amazing professionals was really fun.
Excuse me while I name drop....
I got to meet, and hang out with Matt Sturges, Tony Bedard, Paul Benjamin, Paul Maybury, Kristian Donaldson and Chad Thomas.
I was really fun!
For some reason, my other buddy, who was supposed to hang out, completely ditched.
That's right Thomas P. Reidy III... I'm looking at you!
I didn't....
I didn't do anything this year because I have all too many projects in the works and nothing with a definite publishing time. No artbooks, nothing to pimp, no reason to leave the house. It was my first time to not attend CAPE!, Zues Comics' Free Comic Book Day event
I did however go to meet my partner-in-crime, Dave Justus, for dinner as he had driven all the way up from Austin to attend CAPE! I did not realize the dinner he was going to was an after party to thank the folks that participated in CAPE... Of which, I did not this year. So I was a little embarassed to be there and felt a bit like an interloper. I did not partake in any of the free food to punish myself for this crime.
It was really good for me though. Having my baby boy slowed down alot of stuff that was in the works for me, so getting to see old friends and meet some amazing professionals was really fun.
Excuse me while I name drop....
I got to meet, and hang out with Matt Sturges, Tony Bedard, Paul Benjamin, Paul Maybury, Kristian Donaldson and Chad Thomas.
I was really fun!
For some reason, my other buddy, who was supposed to hang out, completely ditched.
That's right Thomas P. Reidy III... I'm looking at you!
Labels: updates
Monday, April 28, 2008
MST3K COMES TO DALLAS!!!
Whenever you meet someone you've idolized for most of your life you get hit with two separate feelings:
Holy Crap this can't be real, there he/she is!!! In the flesh!
and
Man, I hope he/she is not a douche in real life...
Luckily everyone who was involved with the Satellite of Love was a genuinely nice person and really, really off-the-cuff funny. I was a little disappointed to learn they all are in fact human and there were apparently some quarrels and bumping of heads behind the scenes, that they were all too gracious to talk about while the show was still airing, but I appreciated their candor. This is apparently what led to so many changes in the cast over the years starting with Josh Weinstien in season one. During the panel, we learned why each of them eventually left the show, except for Trace who joked he was fired at one point. Only Frank Coniff left to pursue other things. Fortunately, all of the group that appeared at the Film Festival seemed to really get along and enjoy each others company.
The night started with a Q and A panel in which the audience asked the cast a number of dumb questions, which somehow always resulting in revealing and entertaining answers. Even though I had a million questions, I couldn't come up with just one. Once I had one question answered, I would not have been satisfied until I had all of my questions answered... preferably over dinner and drinks, but since that was not going to happen, I sat back and watched in glee as the icons of my youth returned questions like "which was a worse movie this or that" or interesting, but unrefined questions in which the subject of the question had to be discussed at length before an answer could be made. One goob even had the cojones to stand up and accuse them of stealing a skit he sent them on video. They quickly reduced the man to a spineless puddle of goo like a pack of highly trained ninja let loose on a doddering old man. It was hilariously awkward.
I'm am always amazed at my fellow geek's inability to operate in a public setting. This activity was brought up again when we filed out of the theater after the Q and A to let them clean up, and then piled back in to enjoy a live performance of them riffing on the Roger Corman classic "The Wasp Woman". We enjoyed our original seats, having gotten there an hour early just to secure them, and wanted to return to the same seats for the movie. So instead of going to the bathroom or getting something to eat, we got right back in line, damning our aching bladders. When we were let back into the theater, the people in front of us took our old seats... no big deal, the other side of our aisle was still open so we quickly grabbed seats over there. When I sat down I noticed a small paperback novel someone had left behind and sat next to it. I did not realize that that one paperback was a beacon to any newcomers that the ENTIRE ROW OF SEATS was saved until we were verbally accosted by a group of nerds who accused us of stealing their place. When we apologized, and tried to explain that we tried to return to our original seats but they were taken so we sat in the next available chairs, their nerdish eyes glowed white hot with the fires of Mordor. They argued with us for a while (actually thinking we would move), cursed us in what may have been Klingon, begrudgingly took back their novel and found seats elsewhere in the quickly filling up theater. After the show, having finally gotten over their immature indignation, one of them finally apologized to us by telling us he hoped we enjoyed the seats and kindly waving both his middle fingers at us as he stomped to the restroom.
We, of course, did enjoy the seats... thank you kind sir.
As far as the actual show went, watching them perform live with a large audience was more enjoyable than any tv show that ever aired. I kept having to remind myself that they were doing this live and were actually in the theater with us. The audience howled and cackled at every single joke. Every... Single... One. And I felt like I was twelve again, laying on my belly in my parents front room as my whole family howled and cackled at Joel and the bots and the retched movie Dr. Forrester and Tv's Frank had forced them to watch.
It's was an amazing night.
The one and only down side of the event was the hilarious Kevin Murphy, who was scheduled to appear, canceled due to sickness. I've would have really enjoyed to see him, Mike Nelson and Bill Corbett as well (who were not scheduled to appear but have formed the equally hilarious Riff Trax ), but I count myself lucky I got to see as many of my favorite actors as I did. Afterwards, the cast shook hands and signed autographs out in the hallway. I stupidly didn't bring anything to sign, nor did I go talk to them. Instead I snuck a few photos and slunk back into the night with my memories. In my mind these people are legends... and you just don't meet legends.
Labels: updates
Monday, April 14, 2008
WACOM CINTIQ
I bought a Wacom Cintiq this weekend.
That's right...
Jealous?
Even if you can part with the Nine hundred and ninety-nine dollars it takes to buy one of these things, just purchasing one can be a challenge in itself.
I went to buy it at at Fry's Electronics who put on a fairly big production for a single piece of hardware. When I first walked through the door, I had a hard time getting an employee to look directly at me. Once I cornered one, like a frightened rabbit, and asked for the expensive bauble, all of the sudden I had changed in their eyes from a bum with no money, to an unstable character who at any moment could explode into a parade of testicle-kicking and hardware thievery.
As if I didn't have enough guilt about purchasing it already, the utter freak-out involved in getting the damn thing out of the store made me start to think twice about the financial burden I was putting on my family. (It's really not all that bad, we have the cash, but the never ending flow of random medical bills from the baby are STILL rolling in which makes me jittery about large purchases)
In any case, the thing was not even out on the shelves, nor was there any type of sign saying they even carried it among the cheaper wacoms and knock-offs. I actually had to find someone and beg them to point me towards the man in charge. They took me to the "guy with the keys" who then sent some poor sales associate into the "cage", as they called it, with a key and a flashlight to fetch the locked up item. Once the young girl came back, lugging both the heavy 20 inch and 12 inch wacom because she didn't ask me which one I wanted (I had a hard enough time explaining what a Cintiq was), they still wouldn't let me have it! They printed me out a ticket with my name on it and then raced it to the check-out aisle so it would be waiting for me. (I'm sure I was not that hard to beat as I unfortunately chose the path jam packed with sweaty men in ill-fitting shirts, pricing Cat 5 cable and external hard drives on my way to the front of the store. I finally broke free of them as they fell, one by one, to the sweet promise of caramel nougat at the candy aisle just before the check-out counter.)
When I finally tried to pay for the tablet, there was much curiosity displayed over what it was exactly I was buying and why anyone would pay that much for such a thing. I began to rub my head and worried some more that I was wasting my new family's hard earned cash.
Once they begrudgingly gave me my receipt I ran to my car as though I had a suitcase full of gold bricks cuffed to my wrist and would be jumped, beaten and robbed at any moment in the parking lot.
Of course, once I got it home, it was totally worth the price! It has taken a little getting used to, but man.... It's great. I really believe my productivity will double with this cool little gizmo.
...
Least I hope it does.
I'm still learning how to use it. I'll post some Cintiq work on Wednesday for review.
That's right...
Jealous?
Even if you can part with the Nine hundred and ninety-nine dollars it takes to buy one of these things, just purchasing one can be a challenge in itself.
I went to buy it at at Fry's Electronics who put on a fairly big production for a single piece of hardware. When I first walked through the door, I had a hard time getting an employee to look directly at me. Once I cornered one, like a frightened rabbit, and asked for the expensive bauble, all of the sudden I had changed in their eyes from a bum with no money, to an unstable character who at any moment could explode into a parade of testicle-kicking and hardware thievery.
As if I didn't have enough guilt about purchasing it already, the utter freak-out involved in getting the damn thing out of the store made me start to think twice about the financial burden I was putting on my family. (It's really not all that bad, we have the cash, but the never ending flow of random medical bills from the baby are STILL rolling in which makes me jittery about large purchases)
In any case, the thing was not even out on the shelves, nor was there any type of sign saying they even carried it among the cheaper wacoms and knock-offs. I actually had to find someone and beg them to point me towards the man in charge. They took me to the "guy with the keys" who then sent some poor sales associate into the "cage", as they called it, with a key and a flashlight to fetch the locked up item. Once the young girl came back, lugging both the heavy 20 inch and 12 inch wacom because she didn't ask me which one I wanted (I had a hard enough time explaining what a Cintiq was), they still wouldn't let me have it! They printed me out a ticket with my name on it and then raced it to the check-out aisle so it would be waiting for me. (I'm sure I was not that hard to beat as I unfortunately chose the path jam packed with sweaty men in ill-fitting shirts, pricing Cat 5 cable and external hard drives on my way to the front of the store. I finally broke free of them as they fell, one by one, to the sweet promise of caramel nougat at the candy aisle just before the check-out counter.)
When I finally tried to pay for the tablet, there was much curiosity displayed over what it was exactly I was buying and why anyone would pay that much for such a thing. I began to rub my head and worried some more that I was wasting my new family's hard earned cash.
Once they begrudgingly gave me my receipt I ran to my car as though I had a suitcase full of gold bricks cuffed to my wrist and would be jumped, beaten and robbed at any moment in the parking lot.
Of course, once I got it home, it was totally worth the price! It has taken a little getting used to, but man.... It's great. I really believe my productivity will double with this cool little gizmo.
...
Least I hope it does.
I'm still learning how to use it. I'll post some Cintiq work on Wednesday for review.
Labels: updates
Monday, April 07, 2008
WEBCOMICS AND STUFF
I'm getting back into the swing of things now. Yay!
Dave Justus and his lovely wife came over this weekend and we talked about getting Filthy Habit among other things back on track and out the door. I did some sketching, he did some bitching and we all learned he freaking blows at video games. Not just a little bit either, he's like the Sultan of Suck at it... at least that's what we heard. He did not give us a demonstration of his horrid abilities.
Webcomics...
I've got so many comic projects I want to do and so little time to do them, I've been giving a lot of thought to turning one of my projects into a "long-form" webcomic. A subject that is currently being discussed at length on the Panel and Pixel forum. If you are interested in this stuff at all, there is some very cool info in this thread.
The very same thread made me check out Wowio.com again. I've been there before, but couldn't figure out the pricing structure. Most everything was free, but I didn't understand how long it would be before I had to pay to download a comic. The answer is NEVER. Wowio has a whole list of completely free comics to download. They are paid for with ads and you can only download so many a day/week, but they have some really good stuff on there. If you like comics, you should really give it a look see. I mean... it's free quality comics. What's not to love?
Also how long has Amazon been selling subscriptions to comics? Am I completely in the dark on this?
Dave Justus and his lovely wife came over this weekend and we talked about getting Filthy Habit among other things back on track and out the door. I did some sketching, he did some bitching and we all learned he freaking blows at video games. Not just a little bit either, he's like the Sultan of Suck at it... at least that's what we heard. He did not give us a demonstration of his horrid abilities.
Webcomics...
I've got so many comic projects I want to do and so little time to do them, I've been giving a lot of thought to turning one of my projects into a "long-form" webcomic. A subject that is currently being discussed at length on the Panel and Pixel forum. If you are interested in this stuff at all, there is some very cool info in this thread.
The very same thread made me check out Wowio.com again. I've been there before, but couldn't figure out the pricing structure. Most everything was free, but I didn't understand how long it would be before I had to pay to download a comic. The answer is NEVER. Wowio has a whole list of completely free comics to download. They are paid for with ads and you can only download so many a day/week, but they have some really good stuff on there. If you like comics, you should really give it a look see. I mean... it's free quality comics. What's not to love?
Also how long has Amazon been selling subscriptions to comics? Am I completely in the dark on this?
Labels: updates
Thursday, March 20, 2008
I'M BACK!
So I had a kid. Whew. That's pretty crazy. He's an amazing boy and we are getting into a pretty good groove now.
Marlena and I left the house for the first time without the baby on the 4th of this month to see They Might Be Giants in concert. It was bad ass and the first time I'd seen them in several years.
I have not drawn anything in over a month and I'm ready to go. I feel re-energized and have a lot of stuff in my life to be happy about and look forward to. Lets see if I can make it happen.
Marlena and I left the house for the first time without the baby on the 4th of this month to see They Might Be Giants in concert. It was bad ass and the first time I'd seen them in several years.
I have not drawn anything in over a month and I'm ready to go. I feel re-energized and have a lot of stuff in my life to be happy about and look forward to. Lets see if I can make it happen.
Labels: updates
Friday, February 08, 2008
GRIFFIN HALL IS HERE!
On Tuesday at 8:12 am my wife Marlena gave birth to our beautiful son, Griffin Hall. We just got home from a 5 day stay at the hospital and it was excruciating and wonderful at the same time. I've never been more proud of my beautiful wife and I've never had something effect my whole view of the world like my new son. I love him.
It's simply amazing.
Labels: updates
Monday, February 04, 2008
THE LIMITS OF MY ABILITIES
Every time I start working on a new comic project, I try to set goals for myself on how long it should take me to finish different portions of the work.... I'm always a lot faster in my head than I am in real life.
Good news is, every project gets me a little closer to figuring out a schedule that works for me. At this point, I've learned, with my current set-up, I can put out a page of quality sketch work a day, without burning out all together and wanting to stab my pencil in my eye.
When I get behind, I will usually try to get back on track by doubling up on work. This never works. I always think, "Well, I'll take off today and do two pages on Sunday." The reason this doesn't work is because something else later in the week always comes up that causes me to fall another day behind which gives me three or four pages to do on Sunday. Then Sunday rolls around and when I put pencil to paper, the pressure from all that work on my back causes everything I draw to be fairly poor and difficult. It doesn't always work like this, but it's happens enough to want to avoid the situation altogether.
Last week I set a modest goal of tight sketching one page a day for my latest Filthy Habit project and it worked out pretty well. The backgrounds were all pretty loose, but I still had a lot of the day left over to goof around with, before or after I was done, depending on my mood. It ended up feeling less like work and more like doodling and having fun... like it should. This week, I'm going to see if I can knock out full page sketches and tighten up a previous sketch page to finished pencils. Hopefully working on different pages will keep it fresh and fun for me. We shall see. Marlena is due to have the baby any day now and the last thing I want to do is try to ink pages with poopy diaper hands.
Tonight I am going to sketch out page 29 of 32 for the Fithy Habit book so I am doing pretty good. Maybe I'll post some of my rough sketches later.
On another note, my late night sketching routines and recent Cable TV upgrade have put me together with my new favorite TV show Garth Marenghi's Dark Place. It airs around 1:00am Central on Cartoon Network and it seems it was made just for me. It's a BBC send up of poorly made 80's horror/adventure/hospital tv dramas. It's brilliant. I have no idea why more people are not talking about it.
Good news is, every project gets me a little closer to figuring out a schedule that works for me. At this point, I've learned, with my current set-up, I can put out a page of quality sketch work a day, without burning out all together and wanting to stab my pencil in my eye.
When I get behind, I will usually try to get back on track by doubling up on work. This never works. I always think, "Well, I'll take off today and do two pages on Sunday." The reason this doesn't work is because something else later in the week always comes up that causes me to fall another day behind which gives me three or four pages to do on Sunday. Then Sunday rolls around and when I put pencil to paper, the pressure from all that work on my back causes everything I draw to be fairly poor and difficult. It doesn't always work like this, but it's happens enough to want to avoid the situation altogether.
Last week I set a modest goal of tight sketching one page a day for my latest Filthy Habit project and it worked out pretty well. The backgrounds were all pretty loose, but I still had a lot of the day left over to goof around with, before or after I was done, depending on my mood. It ended up feeling less like work and more like doodling and having fun... like it should. This week, I'm going to see if I can knock out full page sketches and tighten up a previous sketch page to finished pencils. Hopefully working on different pages will keep it fresh and fun for me. We shall see. Marlena is due to have the baby any day now and the last thing I want to do is try to ink pages with poopy diaper hands.
Tonight I am going to sketch out page 29 of 32 for the Fithy Habit book so I am doing pretty good. Maybe I'll post some of my rough sketches later.
On another note, my late night sketching routines and recent Cable TV upgrade have put me together with my new favorite TV show Garth Marenghi's Dark Place. It airs around 1:00am Central on Cartoon Network and it seems it was made just for me. It's a BBC send up of poorly made 80's horror/adventure/hospital tv dramas. It's brilliant. I have no idea why more people are not talking about it.
Labels: updates
Tuesday, December 04, 2007
ART TOYS!
I've spent the last week or so, turning my old studio room into a baby room preparing for my son's arrival in February. It's taking me A LOT longer than I thought it would. My wife and I spent all of last weekend going through our enormous comic collection and selling off almost 4 boxes of it to make room in the closet and last night I built the crib. Riveting stuff huh?
Well what I'm getting at is that all this stuff has put me really behind on my comic projects.
Hopefully this will help me catch up.
I just bought this sweet baby and can't wait to give it a go on some comic pages. I currently use a large projector to turn my crap sketches in to less crappy finished drawings, but I have to work on a back-breaking flat table with the projector directly overhead... which is difficult. I'm hoping I can work on the light box at an angle so that I can trace my sketches, and actually add to them, while I'm drawing making for a much better ,and much faster, finished product.
Now to just find the time....
Well what I'm getting at is that all this stuff has put me really behind on my comic projects.
Hopefully this will help me catch up.
I just bought this sweet baby and can't wait to give it a go on some comic pages. I currently use a large projector to turn my crap sketches in to less crappy finished drawings, but I have to work on a back-breaking flat table with the projector directly overhead... which is difficult. I'm hoping I can work on the light box at an angle so that I can trace my sketches, and actually add to them, while I'm drawing making for a much better ,and much faster, finished product.Now to just find the time....
Labels: updates
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
PUBLISHING FOLLIES
"Using comics in such a way highlights why so many start-up comic companies (Tekno, Malibu's Ultraverse, CrossGen, etc.) have folded by imitating this model. They are not publishing comics as a means to connect writer to audience (and thus creating quality reading material), but with the primary hope that they can create marketable properties to sell off to other lucrative licensing deals such as toys, movies, etc. This is most evident in that these companies work to create characters, as opposed to develop or seek out stories. Most likely, because they do not command the same level of product familiarity, they struggle both to secure a solid base of readership and interest as well as demanding high advertising rates. In a market that often banks on nostalgia and familiarity, establishing new properties with hopes that they will consistently flourish without the pull of creators working on them is an extremely hard sell."
A short excerpt from a great article by Neil Cohn , detailing the mistakes comic publishers have made... and continue to make and what next-gen comic creators should keep in mind to keep comics flourishing.
A short excerpt from a great article by Neil Cohn , detailing the mistakes comic publishers have made... and continue to make and what next-gen comic creators should keep in mind to keep comics flourishing.
Labels: updates
Monday, November 26, 2007
COMICS: STORY VS. ART
I ran across a few really interesting posts about the relationship between story and art in comics recently.
David Apatoff takes a look at award winning comics with art that fails to be as expressive as Mad magazine's Mort Drucker.
Jeff Parker writes an excellent piece on writing scripts towards an artists talents.
Both of which made me think of this great old post by Jesse Hamm. If you overlook the snarky attitude, there is A LOT of great info here on how NOT to write comics for artists. I've worked on many, many scripts (including my own) that contained more than one of the script errors he spotlights here.
David Apatoff takes a look at award winning comics with art that fails to be as expressive as Mad magazine's Mort Drucker.
Jeff Parker writes an excellent piece on writing scripts towards an artists talents.
Both of which made me think of this great old post by Jesse Hamm. If you overlook the snarky attitude, there is A LOT of great info here on how NOT to write comics for artists. I've worked on many, many scripts (including my own) that contained more than one of the script errors he spotlights here.
Labels: updates
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
KNUCKLEJELLY AND FILTHY HABIT!
My big halloween themed comic Knucklejelly is going great. I was considering releasing it as a mini series, but the story is so large and the first issue is composed of mainly boring world building stuff (no matter how hard I tried to fix that), which makes me wonder if there's enough of a hook to get anyone to buy the second issue. So I'll be pitching it as a original graphic novel now.
This decision has me excited, because it will help the story as a whole, and bummed out that it will probably be another year before it ever hits the shelves (if I can find anyone to publish it.)
In any case, I'm doing some smaller projects while I'm working on Knucklejelly to keep my work on the shelves in 2008.
The first thing I've done is a short story starring my monster hunter Simon Squareskull, I've been kicking around doing a webcomic starring him, but I've saved his first published appearance to be in an upcoming Viper comics anthology. It's odd, experimental, but awesome stuff.
I also just started working on a really fun one-shot comic written by Dave Justus with half of the book drawn by me and the other half drawn by the awesome Thomas P. Reidy. We were planning on keeping a lid on the title and the story until Thomas spilled the beans on his blog. Ha! So now I have free reign. The book will be called Filthy Habit and it is a love song to exploitative movies from the 60's - 70's. It stars evil werewolf bikers and nuns. I already have three of my sixteen pages penciled and I just started this weekend. It's really fun! Here a few character designs from my sketchbook.
Things are good.
This decision has me excited, because it will help the story as a whole, and bummed out that it will probably be another year before it ever hits the shelves (if I can find anyone to publish it.)
In any case, I'm doing some smaller projects while I'm working on Knucklejelly to keep my work on the shelves in 2008.
The first thing I've done is a short story starring my monster hunter Simon Squareskull, I've been kicking around doing a webcomic starring him, but I've saved his first published appearance to be in an upcoming Viper comics anthology. It's odd, experimental, but awesome stuff.
I also just started working on a really fun one-shot comic written by Dave Justus with half of the book drawn by me and the other half drawn by the awesome Thomas P. Reidy. We were planning on keeping a lid on the title and the story until Thomas spilled the beans on his blog. Ha! So now I have free reign. The book will be called Filthy Habit and it is a love song to exploitative movies from the 60's - 70's. It stars evil werewolf bikers and nuns. I already have three of my sixteen pages penciled and I just started this weekend. It's really fun! Here a few character designs from my sketchbook.
Things are good.Labels: updates
Friday, November 16, 2007
SNEAK PEAK!
I've been working on a one-shot comic book with some very talented friends recently.
I've finished a lot of the preliminary stuff and am ramping up to start the actual pages... hopefully tonight. I'm going to remain kind of tight-lipped about the project until we are closer to actually getting it published, but I will say that it's an homage to those trashy movies from the 60's and 70's I love so much.
Here is a sneak peak (...or only peak) at an unfinished painting that I abandoned. It will never see the light of day because it ended up being lame, but it's the most completed thing I've done for the Project.
More to come...
Labels: updates
Monday, November 12, 2007
THE PROBLEM WITH COMICS
A few weeks ago I listed a few comics hitting the stands that I was excited about.
Number one on my list was Crawl Space #1: XXXombies as it seemed right up my alley.
New comics came out that Wednesday and I went to the store on Friday.
Guess what... they were sold out. I asked them to call around to other stores in the chain and no copies could be found. I kinda knew this would happen as the stores closest to me tend not to order high numbers of mature or adult themed books. I sighed loudly and figured I'd find it at some point.
Then, in a weak try at consoling me, the clerk dropped the following statement.
"That's why I always tell people to be here first thing on Wednesday morning."
When he first said this, I felt a pain as if he was right, I had fallen down on my geekly duties and the fact that I missed buying the book I wanted was all my fault. The early bird gets the worm and all that. But later, it started to really bother me as I tried to think of any other retail operation that blames the customer for not ordering enough of the desired goods. How long has this mentality been running rampant through comics. Is it because they are collectible? When I was a kid, hunting down comics was a fun hobby, now that I'm old I just want to buy the damn things with the least amount of fuss possible.
This is one of the many reasons that I've stopped buying single issues and am beginning to focus my money on trades. Because I'm a cranky old man that just wants to read his comics... not collect them.
Number one on my list was Crawl Space #1: XXXombies as it seemed right up my alley.
New comics came out that Wednesday and I went to the store on Friday.
Guess what... they were sold out. I asked them to call around to other stores in the chain and no copies could be found. I kinda knew this would happen as the stores closest to me tend not to order high numbers of mature or adult themed books. I sighed loudly and figured I'd find it at some point.
Then, in a weak try at consoling me, the clerk dropped the following statement.
"That's why I always tell people to be here first thing on Wednesday morning."
When he first said this, I felt a pain as if he was right, I had fallen down on my geekly duties and the fact that I missed buying the book I wanted was all my fault. The early bird gets the worm and all that. But later, it started to really bother me as I tried to think of any other retail operation that blames the customer for not ordering enough of the desired goods. How long has this mentality been running rampant through comics. Is it because they are collectible? When I was a kid, hunting down comics was a fun hobby, now that I'm old I just want to buy the damn things with the least amount of fuss possible.
This is one of the many reasons that I've stopped buying single issues and am beginning to focus my money on trades. Because I'm a cranky old man that just wants to read his comics... not collect them.
Labels: updates
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
HAPPY HALLOWEEN!
I never got around to doing another Halloween image, like I wanted to, before Halloween, but I'm sure I'll get around to it at some point. Every day is Halloween at the Hall house. Marlena and I carved our pumpkin last night and are all ready to give away candy and watch some Halloween themed entertainment.
One of the vids we watch every year is this Donald Duck cartoon. Enjoy!!!
Labels: updates
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
LOW EXPECTATIONS!
Man!
I just can't believe how long it's taking me to create now a days.
I've been trying to color the first six pages of Knucklejelly for the past two or three weeks and it's taken three times as long as I thought it would. I actually finished them on Monday, but I'm not super happy with them and need to tweak them some more. I think that's the problem with churning stuff out, you don't get a chance to step back and see what could be improved.
In any case, I wanted to post sketches to this blog three times a week, but with the way my life is right now, that's just not possible.
So my new plan is to post new art once a week and a Genre-xplosion once a week and then whatever else falls into my lap at least once a week. We'll see if I can keep up with that...
That should still equal at least 3 posts a week and keep this blog alive, even if it's not 100% art.
Wish me luck!
I just can't believe how long it's taking me to create now a days.
I've been trying to color the first six pages of Knucklejelly for the past two or three weeks and it's taken three times as long as I thought it would. I actually finished them on Monday, but I'm not super happy with them and need to tweak them some more. I think that's the problem with churning stuff out, you don't get a chance to step back and see what could be improved.
In any case, I wanted to post sketches to this blog three times a week, but with the way my life is right now, that's just not possible.
So my new plan is to post new art once a week and a Genre-xplosion once a week and then whatever else falls into my lap at least once a week. We'll see if I can keep up with that...
That should still equal at least 3 posts a week and keep this blog alive, even if it's not 100% art.
Wish me luck!
Labels: updates
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