You've done you're first press release. Congradulations.
You think everybody who comes across this blog should read it here.
In the last two months you've put out two music videos, and one installment of Droid Soldiers. You're working on the next installment. You really need to register for Staple!, but money is very tight right now and you don't know if you'll have it in time to get a table.
Nemion is on the bill for Texas Industrial Fest this year, so you're going to have to start rehearsing again here soon. Which means getting the studio set up for such, as it's been set up for the above mentioned video shoots.
The GF is outside enjoying a cigarette. You wish she would quit.
Anyway, you're working on the next installment of DS while researching how to distribute your press release. You're contemplating calling the Austin division of the Associated Press, since they only take news tips by phone. You need to contact the Chronicle, the Statesman, and any other local org. This is how you let people know about your shit. It's a dice roll whether or not they pay any attention to you, but it's better than no chance at all if you don't try and contact them. You used to find these kind of things repulsive, but you've gotten more practical of late and accepted that this is how things get done.
The GF more than made up for the cigarette.
Back to drawing...or contacting news orgs.
Sunday, October 21, 2012
Friday, July 27, 2012
Planetoid Critique
Picked up the second issue of Planetoid this afternoon so today I feel like breaking from my usual 'second-person' writing structure to do a review of the series thus far.
Planetoid is set in the distant future when human corporate imperialism has expanded through out the stars. The central character is Silas, former soldier turned smuggler who crash lands onto a dead factory planet populated by various tribes of humans struggling to survive amongst giant sadistic robots controlled by a central A.I.. Armed with a survival kit, a hyper-advanced PDA, and a pistol that does super-mega damage to anything he fires it at, Silas has to do whatever he can to survive and hopefully escape the Planetoid.
I have to say I'm fond of this series. Thus far, me being a fan of industrial-horror-sci-fi like the Terminator and Aliens franchises and the movie Pitch Black, author/artist Ken Garing has done a fair job of keeping those parts of me appeased. The line art is nice and gritty and is complemented by a rusty-metallic color palette, clearly defining Planetoid's visual language for me. Doing all the writing, art, and lettering himself, he's sure not to over-render on the inks, instead using color to create the illusion of detail, but still conveying a satisfying amount of expressiveness in his characters ( something I usually require of any cartoonist I read ). I'm curious to know if he does his line art traditionally with ink on paper or if he does everything digitally as he does the colors, letters and other effects.
The pacing is what I want from a comic like this. The dialogue is usually only where necessary, with good chunks of the story being told with pure visuals to good effect. However there are places in both these first two issues where the exposition gets a bit heavy handed for my tastes. In the first issue Silas goes through his "inventory" with his PDA. Garing does this by illustrating each item with the PDA character naming them respectively. It just felt out of place for me - like a video game ( though I can see how others might dig it ). Later when the first human Silas meets tells him the Planetoid's history some of Garing's word/sentencing choices gave the exposition an unnatural feel. The next issue this unnatural exposition felt worse with the second human Silas meets as she tells him her past. I guess to me it just felt like he was trying to spoon feed me the info, which I don't care for in story telling unless it's done in a pretty specific and non-cliche way, and he was not hitting the mark for me there.
That leads me to my other major criticism: the second human Silas actually meets ( as opposed to just encounters ) is a slim, attractive female red-head. It's really just a personal gripe, and I'm kind of torn too, as I have issues with the entertainment industry's standard of every major female character needing to be a hot chic - it's just not that believable for me - and especially now that every time I go into the comic book store over a third of the books feature a hot female red-head on the cover. But I understand the appeal, especially for a comic book character, and particular in this book where red really stands out amongst the bulk of the appropriately drab color palette - it makes her more interesting and unique ( in the purview of Planetoid, in the comic book industry she's one of dozens of red-headed female leads ).
However, I do like the way Garing illustrates Onica ( the aforementioned red-head ). She's a survivor living off of alien lizard meat in a harsh environment, so she's slim with taught muscles the way I imagine someone of her body type would be in those circumstances, ( that and she doesn't prance around in high-heeled boots like some fantasy super-model ).
Each issue thus far has been the standard 32-page magazine that most comics come as, however, unlike most monthly titles, these 32 pages are made up entirely of story and art, which is a lot considering that the cover price is still $2.99 when so many other books in the industry seem to be feeling the effects of central-bank induced monetary inflation and increasing their prices accordingly from $3.50 to $3.99 an issue. I suppose it helps that the production of this comic is a one-man operation, but being that it's a color comic ( and more expensive to print, let alone time consuming to produce ) it's pretty nice of Ken Garing to pass on the savings to the reader.
With all the pages filled up with story and art, there isn't any space for the artist's comments or letters from the readers ( there's some space on the inside cover but I suppose Garing and the Image folks would rather leave that for other things ), so it isn't apparent whether or not this is an ongoing series or a limited one. If it's a limited series, I can see how Garing will be able to keep up with a 32 page monthly production schedule, as he probably has everything done and ready to go. The Image website has preview summaries of the first four issues listed, with the fourth one giving no real indication whether or not it's the final chapter.
I honestly hope it is ongoing, as it's so far an overall cool series and I have yet to get tired of the "lone stranger in a strange land" storyline, but I'll be surprised and uber impressed if Garing can keep it up at 32 pages a month, though understanding if it drops down to the standard 22-pages we see in most modern monthlies.
Planetoid is set in the distant future when human corporate imperialism has expanded through out the stars. The central character is Silas, former soldier turned smuggler who crash lands onto a dead factory planet populated by various tribes of humans struggling to survive amongst giant sadistic robots controlled by a central A.I.. Armed with a survival kit, a hyper-advanced PDA, and a pistol that does super-mega damage to anything he fires it at, Silas has to do whatever he can to survive and hopefully escape the Planetoid.
I have to say I'm fond of this series. Thus far, me being a fan of industrial-horror-sci-fi like the Terminator and Aliens franchises and the movie Pitch Black, author/artist Ken Garing has done a fair job of keeping those parts of me appeased. The line art is nice and gritty and is complemented by a rusty-metallic color palette, clearly defining Planetoid's visual language for me. Doing all the writing, art, and lettering himself, he's sure not to over-render on the inks, instead using color to create the illusion of detail, but still conveying a satisfying amount of expressiveness in his characters ( something I usually require of any cartoonist I read ). I'm curious to know if he does his line art traditionally with ink on paper or if he does everything digitally as he does the colors, letters and other effects.
The pacing is what I want from a comic like this. The dialogue is usually only where necessary, with good chunks of the story being told with pure visuals to good effect. However there are places in both these first two issues where the exposition gets a bit heavy handed for my tastes. In the first issue Silas goes through his "inventory" with his PDA. Garing does this by illustrating each item with the PDA character naming them respectively. It just felt out of place for me - like a video game ( though I can see how others might dig it ). Later when the first human Silas meets tells him the Planetoid's history some of Garing's word/sentencing choices gave the exposition an unnatural feel. The next issue this unnatural exposition felt worse with the second human Silas meets as she tells him her past. I guess to me it just felt like he was trying to spoon feed me the info, which I don't care for in story telling unless it's done in a pretty specific and non-cliche way, and he was not hitting the mark for me there.
That leads me to my other major criticism: the second human Silas actually meets ( as opposed to just encounters ) is a slim, attractive female red-head. It's really just a personal gripe, and I'm kind of torn too, as I have issues with the entertainment industry's standard of every major female character needing to be a hot chic - it's just not that believable for me - and especially now that every time I go into the comic book store over a third of the books feature a hot female red-head on the cover. But I understand the appeal, especially for a comic book character, and particular in this book where red really stands out amongst the bulk of the appropriately drab color palette - it makes her more interesting and unique ( in the purview of Planetoid, in the comic book industry she's one of dozens of red-headed female leads ).
However, I do like the way Garing illustrates Onica ( the aforementioned red-head ). She's a survivor living off of alien lizard meat in a harsh environment, so she's slim with taught muscles the way I imagine someone of her body type would be in those circumstances, ( that and she doesn't prance around in high-heeled boots like some fantasy super-model ).
Each issue thus far has been the standard 32-page magazine that most comics come as, however, unlike most monthly titles, these 32 pages are made up entirely of story and art, which is a lot considering that the cover price is still $2.99 when so many other books in the industry seem to be feeling the effects of central-bank induced monetary inflation and increasing their prices accordingly from $3.50 to $3.99 an issue. I suppose it helps that the production of this comic is a one-man operation, but being that it's a color comic ( and more expensive to print, let alone time consuming to produce ) it's pretty nice of Ken Garing to pass on the savings to the reader.
With all the pages filled up with story and art, there isn't any space for the artist's comments or letters from the readers ( there's some space on the inside cover but I suppose Garing and the Image folks would rather leave that for other things ), so it isn't apparent whether or not this is an ongoing series or a limited one. If it's a limited series, I can see how Garing will be able to keep up with a 32 page monthly production schedule, as he probably has everything done and ready to go. The Image website has preview summaries of the first four issues listed, with the fourth one giving no real indication whether or not it's the final chapter.
I honestly hope it is ongoing, as it's so far an overall cool series and I have yet to get tired of the "lone stranger in a strange land" storyline, but I'll be surprised and uber impressed if Garing can keep it up at 32 pages a month, though understanding if it drops down to the standard 22-pages we see in most modern monthlies.
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
It's been a while since you last blogged. People say you should blog everyday for promotional purposes, and you get that, but you rarely have the time nor the inclination. Really you do this when you need the outlet, which is not exactly helpful in your career.
Last night was the second Nemion show of the year, and first in Austin for 2012. It was at Headhunters and you felt good throughout the entire show, but ironically afterwards you found out that the first three songs sounded like shit. You knew you fucked up "Comfort" ( some how the piano patch changed mid-song into something completely inappropriate ) and some on "Flesheater", but you didn't realize at the time they were that bad. A lot of it was technical with the drum mix volume disrupting things, but you apparently sounded rushed as well. The crowd was good over all, better than most, and there were several people who responded positively to the performance, but you still haven't really hit on what needs to be hit on to inspire people to support you materially. The exception possibly being with the song "Puppets" - that song always has a strong response, but it's not even on the album Nemion just released. Why is this you wonder. What makes this track more interesting than the others? For one it's simpler. It's basically one part played in different ways throughout the song. Simpler songs are easier to get into, especially when they're unfamiliar to the listener.
Simplicity. It's something you purposefully avoided when writing most of the songs on Flesheater. It's only recently that you've started exploring minimalism in your arrangements. Perhaps simplifying your stage rig further is in order. You'd have to rewrite a lot of live versions of your songs, but the current level of complexity contributes to a lot of fuckups and sound issues, and it could free you up to enhance your performances. Not to mention it might be easier on your back - maybe. But then there's so much sonically that you would not be able to do on stage.
The other bands of the night, Buzz n Bangs, Death Ray, and Arrowstrike kept their shit so simple. Guitar/Drums, Guitar/Guitar/Drum Sequence, Guitar/Drums respectively. And they were totally free to put on some badass performances. Something else of note is the stage presence that a lot of them had. They're personalities were forceful and energetic. You have yet to really reach that level of comfort with yourself.
Then there's the ever present question of earning substantive income doing this sort of thing.....
You're running out of juice for this post, but you ought to talk a bit about Enrod The Clockman before you bring it to a close. You made your update schedule this past Sunday, but not with the next installment of the comic - for which you fell dramatically behind because of your recent move as well as going to a politcal convention and maybe some other things. So instead you just posted some sketches and concept art as filler to share with your readers.
You're getting impatient again. Impatient with growth of the comic. You've put a lot of money into the album release so you're not willing to buy any advertising to promote the comic right now, so that's slowing it down, but you're also discouraged by Facebook's change in policies, especially when you feel like they do such a shitty job explaining to you the changes. Needless to say, if you want people to see your page's posts on their walls, you have to pay FB extra to make sure they do. The price of going public and they want their advertisers to pay for it.
You're thinking that you want to eventually try the conventional model for distributing your comic. You're planning an ongoing series ( which you had been doing since the beginning ) and you're thinking that once you get the trilogy completed you'll put the website on temporary hiatus and see about getting the necessary first 3 issues in the can before you solicit a publisher. At you're current rate that's about a year and half of work. We'll see. You have to remind yourself that you still need to put all you can into promoting Nemion and Flesheater, as you've only scratched the surface. You need to continue to improve on syncing up Nemion and the Clockman so that they cross-market each other.
You should look into Anime cons again. You're not going to any this year. Artist alley tables have been selling out before you even think to register for them. But next year, you have to try and make it down to Houston, specifically because you owe somebody down there a drawing.
That's all for now. Go organize your recording studio and do some drawing.
-
http://www.enrodx.com
http://www.facebook.com/enrodx
http://nemion.ginckmedia.com
http://www.facebook.com/nemion
http://nemion.bandcamp.com
Last night was the second Nemion show of the year, and first in Austin for 2012. It was at Headhunters and you felt good throughout the entire show, but ironically afterwards you found out that the first three songs sounded like shit. You knew you fucked up "Comfort" ( some how the piano patch changed mid-song into something completely inappropriate ) and some on "Flesheater", but you didn't realize at the time they were that bad. A lot of it was technical with the drum mix volume disrupting things, but you apparently sounded rushed as well. The crowd was good over all, better than most, and there were several people who responded positively to the performance, but you still haven't really hit on what needs to be hit on to inspire people to support you materially. The exception possibly being with the song "Puppets" - that song always has a strong response, but it's not even on the album Nemion just released. Why is this you wonder. What makes this track more interesting than the others? For one it's simpler. It's basically one part played in different ways throughout the song. Simpler songs are easier to get into, especially when they're unfamiliar to the listener.
Simplicity. It's something you purposefully avoided when writing most of the songs on Flesheater. It's only recently that you've started exploring minimalism in your arrangements. Perhaps simplifying your stage rig further is in order. You'd have to rewrite a lot of live versions of your songs, but the current level of complexity contributes to a lot of fuckups and sound issues, and it could free you up to enhance your performances. Not to mention it might be easier on your back - maybe. But then there's so much sonically that you would not be able to do on stage.
The other bands of the night, Buzz n Bangs, Death Ray, and Arrowstrike kept their shit so simple. Guitar/Drums, Guitar/Guitar/Drum Sequence, Guitar/Drums respectively. And they were totally free to put on some badass performances. Something else of note is the stage presence that a lot of them had. They're personalities were forceful and energetic. You have yet to really reach that level of comfort with yourself.
Then there's the ever present question of earning substantive income doing this sort of thing.....
You're running out of juice for this post, but you ought to talk a bit about Enrod The Clockman before you bring it to a close. You made your update schedule this past Sunday, but not with the next installment of the comic - for which you fell dramatically behind because of your recent move as well as going to a politcal convention and maybe some other things. So instead you just posted some sketches and concept art as filler to share with your readers.
You're getting impatient again. Impatient with growth of the comic. You've put a lot of money into the album release so you're not willing to buy any advertising to promote the comic right now, so that's slowing it down, but you're also discouraged by Facebook's change in policies, especially when you feel like they do such a shitty job explaining to you the changes. Needless to say, if you want people to see your page's posts on their walls, you have to pay FB extra to make sure they do. The price of going public and they want their advertisers to pay for it.
You're thinking that you want to eventually try the conventional model for distributing your comic. You're planning an ongoing series ( which you had been doing since the beginning ) and you're thinking that once you get the trilogy completed you'll put the website on temporary hiatus and see about getting the necessary first 3 issues in the can before you solicit a publisher. At you're current rate that's about a year and half of work. We'll see. You have to remind yourself that you still need to put all you can into promoting Nemion and Flesheater, as you've only scratched the surface. You need to continue to improve on syncing up Nemion and the Clockman so that they cross-market each other.
You should look into Anime cons again. You're not going to any this year. Artist alley tables have been selling out before you even think to register for them. But next year, you have to try and make it down to Houston, specifically because you owe somebody down there a drawing.
That's all for now. Go organize your recording studio and do some drawing.
-
http://www.enrodx.com
http://www.facebook.com/enrodx
http://nemion.ginckmedia.com
http://www.facebook.com/nemion
http://nemion.bandcamp.com
Monday, April 30, 2012
Broken Stuff and Getting Out
You just finished penciling for the next installment of Enrod The Clockman. You are cutting it close for time, having eaten up so much of it finishing up the debut Nemion album. You need to call the city to confirm Jury duty scheduling....
And fortunately, according to the machine, they've already made their selection so you don't have to go. You do still need to make a trip back to your own apartment for stuff - namely ink and pens, but you also need to go to the Post Office to mail off your busted smart phone.
That was a bit of an adventure last week. You car engine suddenly stopped running in the middle of an intersection and a co-worker had to help you push it into a nearby parking lot. While you were doing that your phone fell from your belt and into the street without you realizing it. Your co-worker saw it but wasn't able to get to it as you were pushing up an incline. After you got the car parked, he ran back to grab it and brought back smashed from having been run over by somebody's vehicle. One thing after another. It's days like that that make you believe there is a God and he really doesn't like you.
You went to the Austin half of the salvaged Terrorbyte festival Saturday night. That was a much needed excursion, as you hadn't gone out in a long time and you've been getting somewhat depressed lately.
That last sentence warrants a bit of an explanation. You're getting impatient. It seems you're working harder and harder to make something cool, but you don't feel what you've created, and are still creating, are getting validated. People compliment them, but very few are inspired enough to support it tangibly. You know this is you're fault. You know that if you want to attain your desired level of tangible support, you are responsible for creating something that will inspire the necessary number of people to give it to you, and evidently you have yet to do so.
There are a lot here in Austin that are dealing with the same struggle, a lot that you are well acquainted with. As critical as you are, you see the flaws in their work, in their strategies, yet so many are further ahead than you are with your social-networking incompetence, and what's worse you find yourself agonizing over all the flaws in your own work. That lack of tangible support validates your perception of those flaws.
On the upside, last week you got several positive and encouraging emails from fans of Nemion. You wished people would write in like that in response to Enrod The Clockman. On the other hand, you find yourself getting somewhat addicted to the attention of people writing in to compliment you, which leads to depressing disappointment when the next day you don't get any emails at all.
You need to not be so attached.
Sunday, March 11, 2012
It's can't-get-any-sleep-time!
You need to be in bed as you have obligations at 7am, but your sleep schedule is so jacked up that you can't sleep right now, so your up and making a long overdue update on your blog.
You're behind on ETC. You still have three pages of digital work to do, as well as the digital part of the lettering for all 8 pages and the two "news" pages on top of that. Then you have to update the website files. All by Thursday. Fortunately, you have vacation time from the dayjob, so you should be able to get that all done on time. But it's frustrating to have lost the two week lead time you had with previous updates. But there is a reason for that.
You've also been working on the mixes for the debut Nemion album, which is what you spent most of your waking time today doing. Originally you'd planned to rehearse with T-Bone, but he ended up getting booked up to work security for SxSW.
SxSW. You can't help but wish you were a part of that somehow. At least on the inside so that you can promote your own work. It helps to face the reality that you are simply not ready for it. You need to have the album completed. You need to have a couple tours under your belt. You need a fanbase. The last you are growing to some extent thanks to NumberOneMusic.com.
While you ate dinner this evening you watched a BBC documentary online about Mobius:
In Search of Moebius - Jean Giraud clip1/3 by foivosloxias
Just about every sci-fi/cyberpunk visual that ever inspired you was either a part of, or derived from, that man's work. A lot of times without you even being conscious of the connection. You have a copy of Dark Horse Presents somewhere that you picked up years ago that had a very well written and well illustrated story-installment in it that you like a lot that was by Moebius. Austin Books carries the hardcover of the completed work and you want to get it someday. You recall when seeing Fifth Element in the theatre for the first time, you were actually kind of disappointed by what you then considered to be "cliche" design elements, not realizing that they were done by the same guy who had done all the stuff you thought it was ripping off.
Still not sleepy. Maybe you should get an apple out of the fridge and munch on that.
Last night you went to a friend's birthday party. It was a good one. Good because you were surrounded by people that liked to discuss things that you find interesting. And good because you all hold similar, or at least relateable, world views, which is a rarity.
You have all kinds of ideas in your head. Bouncing and zipping around. You need to make a poster for Droid Soldiers to post around town advertising that copies are at Austin Books. You wonder if doing a traditional serial comic of Enrod The Clockman would be worth the expense of printing, as it's something you want to do in the future. You need to fix EnrodX.com so that people can more easily sign up for the mailing list. You need to create character profiles for the website. You need to once again totally revamp the Nemion website and move it onto the EnrodX server. You need to put a photo gallery up on the website instead of using Facebook all the damn time. You need to earn some money.
On the upside, you got your ancient car to pass inspection. You'd been tweaking out different things on it all last week trying to get it's exhaust output clean enough to pass. Part of why you haven't been updating the blog since Staple!.
Oh damn! You totally forgot! You got to meet Kevin Eastman, one of the creators of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles! He was the special guest at Staple! and you got to see him speak at his panel, which inspired you to buy the new hardcover collection of the first 7 issues of the original series that he and Peter Laird wrote and drew and have him sign it. Seeing him speak totally reminded you of how much of a fan you were of that cartoon and the characters overall as a kid, and how much they impacted you and your work. It seems you'd been actively trying to distance yourself from them in order to keep your work from being seen as similar, which is why you had all but forgotten about what they were to you. You really geeked out when you got to meet and shake Kevin Eastman's hand as he signed your fresh copy of the hardcover collection. You almost wanted to cry. He was gracious enough to receive a copy of both Tales From Planet Aeruen and Droid Soldiers: Chapter One. You downed your artwork in TFPA, which was stupid, but you hope he has the time and energy at some point to actually read and get something out of them anyway. You hope.
You have a headache. Goto: Place.Bed;
You're behind on ETC. You still have three pages of digital work to do, as well as the digital part of the lettering for all 8 pages and the two "news" pages on top of that. Then you have to update the website files. All by Thursday. Fortunately, you have vacation time from the dayjob, so you should be able to get that all done on time. But it's frustrating to have lost the two week lead time you had with previous updates. But there is a reason for that.
You've also been working on the mixes for the debut Nemion album, which is what you spent most of your waking time today doing. Originally you'd planned to rehearse with T-Bone, but he ended up getting booked up to work security for SxSW.
SxSW. You can't help but wish you were a part of that somehow. At least on the inside so that you can promote your own work. It helps to face the reality that you are simply not ready for it. You need to have the album completed. You need to have a couple tours under your belt. You need a fanbase. The last you are growing to some extent thanks to NumberOneMusic.com.
While you ate dinner this evening you watched a BBC documentary online about Mobius:
In Search of Moebius - Jean Giraud clip1/3 by foivosloxias
Just about every sci-fi/cyberpunk visual that ever inspired you was either a part of, or derived from, that man's work. A lot of times without you even being conscious of the connection. You have a copy of Dark Horse Presents somewhere that you picked up years ago that had a very well written and well illustrated story-installment in it that you like a lot that was by Moebius. Austin Books carries the hardcover of the completed work and you want to get it someday. You recall when seeing Fifth Element in the theatre for the first time, you were actually kind of disappointed by what you then considered to be "cliche" design elements, not realizing that they were done by the same guy who had done all the stuff you thought it was ripping off.
Still not sleepy. Maybe you should get an apple out of the fridge and munch on that.
Last night you went to a friend's birthday party. It was a good one. Good because you were surrounded by people that liked to discuss things that you find interesting. And good because you all hold similar, or at least relateable, world views, which is a rarity.
You have all kinds of ideas in your head. Bouncing and zipping around. You need to make a poster for Droid Soldiers to post around town advertising that copies are at Austin Books. You wonder if doing a traditional serial comic of Enrod The Clockman would be worth the expense of printing, as it's something you want to do in the future. You need to fix EnrodX.com so that people can more easily sign up for the mailing list. You need to create character profiles for the website. You need to once again totally revamp the Nemion website and move it onto the EnrodX server. You need to put a photo gallery up on the website instead of using Facebook all the damn time. You need to earn some money.
On the upside, you got your ancient car to pass inspection. You'd been tweaking out different things on it all last week trying to get it's exhaust output clean enough to pass. Part of why you haven't been updating the blog since Staple!.
Oh damn! You totally forgot! You got to meet Kevin Eastman, one of the creators of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles! He was the special guest at Staple! and you got to see him speak at his panel, which inspired you to buy the new hardcover collection of the first 7 issues of the original series that he and Peter Laird wrote and drew and have him sign it. Seeing him speak totally reminded you of how much of a fan you were of that cartoon and the characters overall as a kid, and how much they impacted you and your work. It seems you'd been actively trying to distance yourself from them in order to keep your work from being seen as similar, which is why you had all but forgotten about what they were to you. You really geeked out when you got to meet and shake Kevin Eastman's hand as he signed your fresh copy of the hardcover collection. You almost wanted to cry. He was gracious enough to receive a copy of both Tales From Planet Aeruen and Droid Soldiers: Chapter One. You downed your artwork in TFPA, which was stupid, but you hope he has the time and energy at some point to actually read and get something out of them anyway. You hope.
You have a headache. Goto: Place.Bed;
Thursday, March 1, 2012
#CreatorOwnedDay
Today you tried to post a reply to this Newsarama blogpost: but it didn't appear right away, so either it was too long, or it just hasn't loaded yet. Either way, you're reposting it all here:
The creator-owned revolution back in the early nineties had a pretty strong effect on me. I was about 12 or 13 when I bought Spawn #1 on impulse from the stack of fresh copies sitting by the register as I was purchasing whatever it was I was collecting at the time ( I think I was into the Midnight Sons at that time ). Being out of touch with the industry, I was completely unaware that Image was being built until I read that first issue of Spawn and found out my then favorite Spider-man artist was the man responsible for it. I think that was when I became aware of the difference between creator-owned and work-for-hire in comic books and the divide that seemed to exist between the two.
But, it was Spawn #10 that really made an impact on my creative world-view. Written by Dave Sim and featuring a guest appearance of his character Cerebus The Aardvark, it introduced me to both. The whole thing put my adolescent brain through a ringer as I tried to put the characteristically Dave Sim metaphor together with the continuity of the series. In spite of that, the last page struck a particular chord in me: Spawn is owned by Todd; Cerebus is owned by Dave - forever.
I think any fantasies I had about drawing comics for Marvel ( except for Batman, I wasn't into DC back then ) pretty much evaporated, and the fantasies of creating my characters and telling my own stories dominated. Like a lot of fanboys I'd already been doing it anyway, but this "revolution" that I could feel gave it a new meaning. Ever since then I've had little interest in either the DCU or the MU ( though I've enjoyed most of the cinematic versions ). In almost twenty years I've only bought Wolverine: Origin, Civil War and the Prelude collected, two Iron Man hardcovers, and the Live Wires mini series ( I like robots ).
Having said that, being a self-publishing indie-creator for the past few years now, and also having done a lot of commissions for people, I have come around to understanding the work-for-hire point of view. When I'm trying to make some extra money, I'm there to provide value for whoever is willing to pay me for it. If they're hiring me to design a character that they are going to own the "rights" to, I know well enough that once the work is done and the check has cleared I'm going to walk away from it ( and gladly so since maintaining a character is a lot of work ). I already have my own characters and my own world, and nobody writes or draws them but me ( though I'd be flattered if any indie artist/writer decided to make their own versions ).
That's not to say that I agree with the heavy handed rights enforcement I've been seeing from Disney/Marvel, but in a world where Intellectual Property and corporations are the norm ( both concepts I have little value in, seeing them create more conflict than benefit in society - personally, if we're going to have an IP system, I'd rather all creations go into the public domain once all the original creators are dead - at the latest ), a deal is still a deal. Sure I find it saddening to see where some of these older creators are ending up, but risk is a part of life, and if I get the short end of the stick in a deal that I made, I have no expectations from Darth Vader that he's going to alter the deal in my favor. It's my responsibility to keep my financial affairs in order so that I don't end up in the gutter like Edgar Allen Poe.
However, considering that the Big Two manage to sell millions of copies a month, with most top-selling indies not even coming close ( The Walking Dead excepted ), the concept of a Creator Owned Day is something I see value in as a way to help bring more attention to alternative works and creators that are out there. Personally, asside from the movies, I find the MU and the DCU mostly boring except as a source of occasional nostalgia.
Now, to those who are putting their money where their mouth is by providing financial help for those older creators they value, I commend you. If we don't like the way giant corporations are treating past contributors to their fiefdoms, we should stop giving them our money and give it to those we feel deserve it.
Happy #CreatorOwnedDay!
- Jenner Carnelian
http://www.enrodx.com
http://nemion.ginckmedia.com
The creator-owned revolution back in the early nineties had a pretty strong effect on me. I was about 12 or 13 when I bought Spawn #1 on impulse from the stack of fresh copies sitting by the register as I was purchasing whatever it was I was collecting at the time ( I think I was into the Midnight Sons at that time ). Being out of touch with the industry, I was completely unaware that Image was being built until I read that first issue of Spawn and found out my then favorite Spider-man artist was the man responsible for it. I think that was when I became aware of the difference between creator-owned and work-for-hire in comic books and the divide that seemed to exist between the two.
But, it was Spawn #10 that really made an impact on my creative world-view. Written by Dave Sim and featuring a guest appearance of his character Cerebus The Aardvark, it introduced me to both. The whole thing put my adolescent brain through a ringer as I tried to put the characteristically Dave Sim metaphor together with the continuity of the series. In spite of that, the last page struck a particular chord in me: Spawn is owned by Todd; Cerebus is owned by Dave - forever.
I think any fantasies I had about drawing comics for Marvel ( except for Batman, I wasn't into DC back then ) pretty much evaporated, and the fantasies of creating my characters and telling my own stories dominated. Like a lot of fanboys I'd already been doing it anyway, but this "revolution" that I could feel gave it a new meaning. Ever since then I've had little interest in either the DCU or the MU ( though I've enjoyed most of the cinematic versions ). In almost twenty years I've only bought Wolverine: Origin, Civil War and the Prelude collected, two Iron Man hardcovers, and the Live Wires mini series ( I like robots ).
Having said that, being a self-publishing indie-creator for the past few years now, and also having done a lot of commissions for people, I have come around to understanding the work-for-hire point of view. When I'm trying to make some extra money, I'm there to provide value for whoever is willing to pay me for it. If they're hiring me to design a character that they are going to own the "rights" to, I know well enough that once the work is done and the check has cleared I'm going to walk away from it ( and gladly so since maintaining a character is a lot of work ). I already have my own characters and my own world, and nobody writes or draws them but me ( though I'd be flattered if any indie artist/writer decided to make their own versions ).
That's not to say that I agree with the heavy handed rights enforcement I've been seeing from Disney/Marvel, but in a world where Intellectual Property and corporations are the norm ( both concepts I have little value in, seeing them create more conflict than benefit in society - personally, if we're going to have an IP system, I'd rather all creations go into the public domain once all the original creators are dead - at the latest ), a deal is still a deal. Sure I find it saddening to see where some of these older creators are ending up, but risk is a part of life, and if I get the short end of the stick in a deal that I made, I have no expectations from Darth Vader that he's going to alter the deal in my favor. It's my responsibility to keep my financial affairs in order so that I don't end up in the gutter like Edgar Allen Poe.
However, considering that the Big Two manage to sell millions of copies a month, with most top-selling indies not even coming close ( The Walking Dead excepted ), the concept of a Creator Owned Day is something I see value in as a way to help bring more attention to alternative works and creators that are out there. Personally, asside from the movies, I find the MU and the DCU mostly boring except as a source of occasional nostalgia.
Now, to those who are putting their money where their mouth is by providing financial help for those older creators they value, I commend you. If we don't like the way giant corporations are treating past contributors to their fiefdoms, we should stop giving them our money and give it to those we feel deserve it.
Happy #CreatorOwnedDay!
- Jenner Carnelian
http://www.enrodx.com
http://nemion.ginckmedia.com
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
To Consign, Or To Get A Discount
You are sleep deprived, so you're not going to be particularly productive today other than what you did to earn cash today and finally posting an update to your blog ( you should update your Deviant Art account too ). You did manage to get copies of Droid Soldiers #1 consigned at Austin Books & Comics today ( your brain is so muddled, you forgot the name of the customer-friendly woman in charge of consignment there, and you kind of feel bad about that, especially since she's also going to have a table at Staple! - not good form, but as stated, you are lacking sleep, which you will remedy shortly ). Unfortunately, you were unable to get copies of DS #1 into Dragon's Lair as they are currently doing a mass inventory count in preparation for Tax-Day. You wonder about their business model, as Austin Books doesn't seem to do anything like that, but the upside is that during this time of year Dragon's Lair starts have massive discounts on select inventory. So today, with a 70% discount, you paid $18+ for graphic novels totalling $70 retail. Included in this booty is Artesia Afield: The Second Book of Dooms ( Hardcover ); NYC Mech Volume 2: Beta Love, and The Mice Templar: Destiny Part Two ( Hardcover ). All excellent finds at 70% off.
While you had previously acquired the first volumes of both Artesia and NYC Mech, you don't have any of the previous volumes of Mice Templar, but it was worth it to get none-the-less. The production quality on that book is some of the nicest you've come accross, complete with a red ribbon bookmark. It also has a nice prologue to get you up to speed on the setting and where the story is at Indeed, it's a beautiful book throughout and you expect it to take a least a couple weeks for you to get through it all, especially with the Afterward and text-heavy extras at the end. You do have some nitpicking criticisms in the digital lettering being a bit cold to your eyes - maybe it's just that you prefer the irreplaceable organic feel of hand-lettering in your comics - but it doesn't really work for you. The art style, while cool and very well executed, also leaves you desiring something, the way Mike Mignola does in his Hellboy comics, which uses similar hard and thick-lined approach to the inking. It's very minimilistic, which would translate very well to animation, but doesn't exactly gel with your tastes. But again, this one is definitely a treasure and you plan on keeping it your library and collecting the other hardcovers in due time.
Artesia is one of the most brilliant series in the graphic novel medium. It deserves every award it gets. The detailed world and mythology, believable story and characters, simple lines, accurate forms, and the deliciously warm water colors. However, in it's successful efforts at realism in character responses and military culture, it lacks an element of fun. Like a healthy and hardy meal with only hints of paprika to add flavor only at key points. This can be either good or bad depending on one's mood or taste. These days you're more often looking for tasty fun with your hardy meal, but you none-the-less enjoy and respect it for, as well as inspired by, it's craftsmanship.
NYC Mech is a series you have always found intriguing, being into robots, but lost interest in when it was first serialized. The writing and art are all great and the stories were equally clever. But the problem you had with it was that, far from being a story about robots, it felt like a story about humans who were drawn to look like robots. One of things you think you find fascinating about robots is the contrast between the condition of being human and the condition of being an autonomous robot. If a community of autonomous robots emerged, you're pretty certain that their culture would have some marked differences from that of humans. But these are essentially just stories about life on the street, except every being is made out of metal and circuitry. You had your suspicions as to what the real angle was, but in that first story arc, there was not a hint of explaination as to how New York, and the rest of the world, became populated by robotic equivalents of every living thing on earth. This botherd you enough to not buy past the first issue. In spite of this, you bought the first volume in collected form, along with 24/7 ( a robot anthology edited by the author of NYC Mech ) to study the art, also to give it all a second chance, and you're glad you did, especially after reading this second volume, as it finally gave you the hint that you wanted it to have to make the fact that it was all robots interesting to you again.
It's time to go to bed. You should try to write about the Bunny Incident next time.
J.
While you had previously acquired the first volumes of both Artesia and NYC Mech, you don't have any of the previous volumes of Mice Templar, but it was worth it to get none-the-less. The production quality on that book is some of the nicest you've come accross, complete with a red ribbon bookmark. It also has a nice prologue to get you up to speed on the setting and where the story is at Indeed, it's a beautiful book throughout and you expect it to take a least a couple weeks for you to get through it all, especially with the Afterward and text-heavy extras at the end. You do have some nitpicking criticisms in the digital lettering being a bit cold to your eyes - maybe it's just that you prefer the irreplaceable organic feel of hand-lettering in your comics - but it doesn't really work for you. The art style, while cool and very well executed, also leaves you desiring something, the way Mike Mignola does in his Hellboy comics, which uses similar hard and thick-lined approach to the inking. It's very minimilistic, which would translate very well to animation, but doesn't exactly gel with your tastes. But again, this one is definitely a treasure and you plan on keeping it your library and collecting the other hardcovers in due time.
Artesia is one of the most brilliant series in the graphic novel medium. It deserves every award it gets. The detailed world and mythology, believable story and characters, simple lines, accurate forms, and the deliciously warm water colors. However, in it's successful efforts at realism in character responses and military culture, it lacks an element of fun. Like a healthy and hardy meal with only hints of paprika to add flavor only at key points. This can be either good or bad depending on one's mood or taste. These days you're more often looking for tasty fun with your hardy meal, but you none-the-less enjoy and respect it for, as well as inspired by, it's craftsmanship.
NYC Mech is a series you have always found intriguing, being into robots, but lost interest in when it was first serialized. The writing and art are all great and the stories were equally clever. But the problem you had with it was that, far from being a story about robots, it felt like a story about humans who were drawn to look like robots. One of things you think you find fascinating about robots is the contrast between the condition of being human and the condition of being an autonomous robot. If a community of autonomous robots emerged, you're pretty certain that their culture would have some marked differences from that of humans. But these are essentially just stories about life on the street, except every being is made out of metal and circuitry. You had your suspicions as to what the real angle was, but in that first story arc, there was not a hint of explaination as to how New York, and the rest of the world, became populated by robotic equivalents of every living thing on earth. This botherd you enough to not buy past the first issue. In spite of this, you bought the first volume in collected form, along with 24/7 ( a robot anthology edited by the author of NYC Mech ) to study the art, also to give it all a second chance, and you're glad you did, especially after reading this second volume, as it finally gave you the hint that you wanted it to have to make the fact that it was all robots interesting to you again.
It's time to go to bed. You should try to write about the Bunny Incident next time.
J.
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
A Blip
Things are working, you need to be sleeping, you spent all day mixing, fairly good time fixing, with an email update trixing.
That is all for today.
http://www.enrodx.com
http://nemion.ginckmedia.com
J.
That is all for today.
http://www.enrodx.com
http://nemion.ginckmedia.com
J.
Monday, February 13, 2012
Working Past/Present/Future & The Record
This week is music week for you and Nemion. You spent the majority of the past week penciling the next installment of Enrod The Clockman. so now you are going to focus your energies on the album, Flesheater. You just spent the better part of the late-afternoon/evening tweaking the mixes of the songs Flesheater and Pain Of Loss. Neither are 100%, but both are now close. There's some clipping in Pain of Loss to fix, and some samples that need fixing in Flesheater, but you'll get back to them later, hopefully next week. Time has run out for the day, so you've got to start preparing for bed. Tomorrow you plan to focus on two other songs, following the tweak-notes that you've written for them, along with all the other tracks.
Unforturnately, you didn't manage to get your car to the shop today. It's something you're going to need to get taken care of very soon. That squeeling sound when you first apply the gas after starting it up from sitting for several hours is concerning. You're told that normally signals that the belts need to be changed out. You also need to get the oxygen sensor changed, or else you probably won't pass the Travis County environmental test during inspection, which your car is due for come March. At least you managed to fix the burned out brake light.
You had a good conversation with your girlfriend's writer-friend yesterday evening. He's working on a graphic novel himself in collaboration with an artist, and he wanted some insight on the comic book industry in general since he wasn't very familiar with it. Interesting how knowledge you've come to take for granted over the years would have so much value to someone else. You're reminded of your senior-year high school English teacher giving you insight on how teaching isn't just the giving away of knowledge, but is a process of learning in and of itself as well. The process puts things in perspective, sometimes a variety of perspectives, which can lead to new levels of understanding. It was a fruitful experience, both intellectually and materially as he also gave you the download link for the scripting software he was using, which looked very robust and useful to your own endeavors. You're looking forward to trying out the software, possibly writing the final draft of Droid Soldiers chapter four in it.
Later that evening you met with your girlfriend at a karaoke bar where old friends of hers were celebrating birthdays. You both had agreed that after flaking out of going out on Saturday night, that you both needed to get out and socialize after having stayed in all week working on respective projects. At the karaoke bar, one of her friends you met was a government employee. You seemed to forget yourself, because you immediately started talking to him about the inefficiency and immorality of the state, though not in those words. You never used the word "libertarian", but you later found out he pegged you for one and decided he didn't have the patience for the discussion that he was foreseeing, especially since it was his birthday. You regret this social faux pas; you've done it many times in the past, but you've since become more sympathetic to the desire of others to just enjoy being and not discuss anything serious, especially politics.
For the record, you don't label yourself as "libertarian". If you do take a label, it's "voluntaryist"; at least for now. At this point, you currently organize your position as follows:
Unforturnately, you didn't manage to get your car to the shop today. It's something you're going to need to get taken care of very soon. That squeeling sound when you first apply the gas after starting it up from sitting for several hours is concerning. You're told that normally signals that the belts need to be changed out. You also need to get the oxygen sensor changed, or else you probably won't pass the Travis County environmental test during inspection, which your car is due for come March. At least you managed to fix the burned out brake light.
You had a good conversation with your girlfriend's writer-friend yesterday evening. He's working on a graphic novel himself in collaboration with an artist, and he wanted some insight on the comic book industry in general since he wasn't very familiar with it. Interesting how knowledge you've come to take for granted over the years would have so much value to someone else. You're reminded of your senior-year high school English teacher giving you insight on how teaching isn't just the giving away of knowledge, but is a process of learning in and of itself as well. The process puts things in perspective, sometimes a variety of perspectives, which can lead to new levels of understanding. It was a fruitful experience, both intellectually and materially as he also gave you the download link for the scripting software he was using, which looked very robust and useful to your own endeavors. You're looking forward to trying out the software, possibly writing the final draft of Droid Soldiers chapter four in it.
Later that evening you met with your girlfriend at a karaoke bar where old friends of hers were celebrating birthdays. You both had agreed that after flaking out of going out on Saturday night, that you both needed to get out and socialize after having stayed in all week working on respective projects. At the karaoke bar, one of her friends you met was a government employee. You seemed to forget yourself, because you immediately started talking to him about the inefficiency and immorality of the state, though not in those words. You never used the word "libertarian", but you later found out he pegged you for one and decided he didn't have the patience for the discussion that he was foreseeing, especially since it was his birthday. You regret this social faux pas; you've done it many times in the past, but you've since become more sympathetic to the desire of others to just enjoy being and not discuss anything serious, especially politics.
For the record, you don't label yourself as "libertarian". If you do take a label, it's "voluntaryist"; at least for now. At this point, you currently organize your position as follows:
"LIMITS
FOR ALL
HUMAN VIOLENCE"
1. No one can legitimately initiate a threat or act of bodily harm or control against another human being without direct consent ( which can be withdrawn at will ).
2. No one can legitimately enter, possess, damage, or consume either directly or remotely, another human being's property without direct consent ( which can be withdrawn at will ) from that human being.
2a. No human being can legitimately be property.
2b. Nothing intangible can legitimately be property.
3. Violence cannot legitimately be employed against human beings who are not currently in violation of Law 1 and/or Law 2.
You didn't create these concepts. This is just your own personal wording for what is called the Zero Aggression Principle. or more commonly the Non-Aggression Principle or Non-Aggression Axiom. This doesn't directly account for dispute resolution rules, but really, any can be applied so long as they don't violate the above. Not all agree with your wording. But that's fine. Besides, you've already stayed up too late.
Saturday, February 11, 2012
Guts and Lawsuits
Your right half of your gut feels like it's been coated with metallic spray paint. You're not worrying about it though, at least not too much. What are you worrying about? Well, it's getting late again and you still have work to do on Enrod The Clockman. At least you don't have to work the day-job tomorrow or Monday. Time to focus on those things, though plans for social interaction have been made for this evening. Birthday parties abound. So many dang Aquariuses in this town.
You picked up volume 2 of Biomega today. Visually and narratively inspiring like all of Tsutomu Nihei's work. You would like to have it in a bigger hardcover format, though you know you can't afford it. If you were to nitpick about the work ( well you're going to ), there were some moments of exposition that came off as unrealistic for you, which you find to be typical in most manga and anime. Why would a grunt explain to his superior the newest protocol? Wouldn't the superior already be aware of the latest protocols? Disrupted the reading experience like a skip on a record or cd.
In the news of American comics, one of your favorite illustartors, Tony Moore, is suing one of your favorite writers, Robert Kirkman, over obligations regarding the work he did on the first 6 issues of The Walking Dead, which you've been collecting since issue one was first printed. Moore is accusing Kirkman of defrauding him.
Something more chilling is the court ruling with the Gary Friedrich case, a man who attempted to sue Marvel for additional rights as the co-creator of Ghost Rider, despite it being work-for-hire, only to have it backfire and have the court award Marvel with 17,000 dollars from Friedrich for selling his own Ghost Rider merch at cons without their permission. This concerns you because of the speculation that this could put an end to the "gentleman's" agreement where Marvel and DC don't sue artists for selling sketches and commissions of Marvel and DC characters, the bread and butter of comic and anime convention artists. It's how you pay for your booths and other expenses when at a con promoting ETC.
You might discuss this some more later, but it's time to go.
http://www.enrodx.com
http://nemion.ginckmedia.com
You picked up volume 2 of Biomega today. Visually and narratively inspiring like all of Tsutomu Nihei's work. You would like to have it in a bigger hardcover format, though you know you can't afford it. If you were to nitpick about the work ( well you're going to ), there were some moments of exposition that came off as unrealistic for you, which you find to be typical in most manga and anime. Why would a grunt explain to his superior the newest protocol? Wouldn't the superior already be aware of the latest protocols? Disrupted the reading experience like a skip on a record or cd.
In the news of American comics, one of your favorite illustartors, Tony Moore, is suing one of your favorite writers, Robert Kirkman, over obligations regarding the work he did on the first 6 issues of The Walking Dead, which you've been collecting since issue one was first printed. Moore is accusing Kirkman of defrauding him.
Something more chilling is the court ruling with the Gary Friedrich case, a man who attempted to sue Marvel for additional rights as the co-creator of Ghost Rider, despite it being work-for-hire, only to have it backfire and have the court award Marvel with 17,000 dollars from Friedrich for selling his own Ghost Rider merch at cons without their permission. This concerns you because of the speculation that this could put an end to the "gentleman's" agreement where Marvel and DC don't sue artists for selling sketches and commissions of Marvel and DC characters, the bread and butter of comic and anime convention artists. It's how you pay for your booths and other expenses when at a con promoting ETC.
You might discuss this some more later, but it's time to go.
http://www.enrodx.com
http://nemion.ginckmedia.com
Friday, February 10, 2012
Quick Tidbit
This:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwEKiFHDvpM&feature=endscreen&NR=1
is wrong.
Nobody should have the right to do this. But unfortunately, this: seems like it is coming to dominate the world. These people are effectively thug-gangsters, and are a natural consequence of a society allotting a monopoly on security services to a single group within a given area.
It's getting late, so you don't a lot of time for tonight's blog. You need some sleep, but you've got to get down South and deal with traffic. But before you go, you should leave this for the people's consideration:
http://www.enrodx.com
http://nemion.ginckmedia.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwEKiFHDvpM&feature=endscreen&NR=1
is wrong.
Nobody should have the right to do this. But unfortunately, this: seems like it is coming to dominate the world. These people are effectively thug-gangsters, and are a natural consequence of a society allotting a monopoly on security services to a single group within a given area.
It's getting late, so you don't a lot of time for tonight's blog. You need some sleep, but you've got to get down South and deal with traffic. But before you go, you should leave this for the people's consideration:
http://www.enrodx.com
http://nemion.ginckmedia.com
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
You've gotten a lot of pencil work done for the next Enrod The Clockman installment. This is good. A minute ago you were working on some outline notes for the graphic novel that will follow the one you're working on now. You're very excited about the ideas you have for it. But you still need to get faster, you still need to get more focused and increase your page turn-out without decreasing the quality of your artwork. You have so many stories to tell, but with the necessity of a day joy you only have so much time.
In other news, you went to the Specialist yesterday. Interestingly enough, the problem you were dealing with got resolved for the day right before your appointment. But it could come back. The Specialist told you in all likelihood that what you were experiencing was stress related. This is the second, though entirely separate, stress-related bodily issue you've had to deal with in the past six month. The first was when your had rupture underneath of the macula of your left eye, which has since gone away but left a probably permanent distortion in that eye's vision. Before now, you never really thought of yourself as being under any stress, but maybe you are. Maybe this feeling that you often try to maintain, this sense of being busy and not lazy, maybe this is stress. There's so much to do and keep up with, and maybe your constant thinking and worrying about them is causing you stress and you need to learn to rebalance these things. It's not like you don't take breaks, but maybe they're the wrong kind of breaks, or maybe you're not taking actually takeing a break, since you never stop thinking. Even last night when you watched several episodes of the Witchblade anime on YouTube you were studying it more than you were actually watching it.
About Witchblade: You never let yourself get into the comic. When you were reading comics growing up, you were always insulted by a lot of the stuff that was coming out of Image during the 90's ( as you've addressed in the forwards of both Tales From Planet Aeruen, and Guns, Robots and Talking Animals. ), and a big part of that was because of the way they made all the women look like porn stars, and Witchblade was/is a primo example of that era. You do like the concept of the weapon and the mythology, but overall, it never grabbed your interest enough to collect it, especially since you'd already wrote it off as a wank-off comic. And really, whenever you did try to read it, you just never were able to get into the characters. The writing was probably the problem. Lately though, you've tempted to start buying the collected eBooks from DriveThruComics.com, especially at nearly half off the print price.
Speaking of that site, you're very happy that both GRTA and Headhunter are now available as eBooks on there as well. Now you just hope people will buy them. You've discounted GRTA down to .95 cents, but maybe you should make it free. Or maybe you should upload TFPA and The Clockman short story and offer them for free instead. After all, GRTA is good enough that it shouldn't be free.
It's getting late. Post this and go to bed - you need your sleep for when you go over to your girlfriends to draw tomorrow.
http://www.enrodx.com
http://nemion.ginckmedia.com
In other news, you went to the Specialist yesterday. Interestingly enough, the problem you were dealing with got resolved for the day right before your appointment. But it could come back. The Specialist told you in all likelihood that what you were experiencing was stress related. This is the second, though entirely separate, stress-related bodily issue you've had to deal with in the past six month. The first was when your had rupture underneath of the macula of your left eye, which has since gone away but left a probably permanent distortion in that eye's vision. Before now, you never really thought of yourself as being under any stress, but maybe you are. Maybe this feeling that you often try to maintain, this sense of being busy and not lazy, maybe this is stress. There's so much to do and keep up with, and maybe your constant thinking and worrying about them is causing you stress and you need to learn to rebalance these things. It's not like you don't take breaks, but maybe they're the wrong kind of breaks, or maybe you're not taking actually takeing a break, since you never stop thinking. Even last night when you watched several episodes of the Witchblade anime on YouTube you were studying it more than you were actually watching it.
About Witchblade: You never let yourself get into the comic. When you were reading comics growing up, you were always insulted by a lot of the stuff that was coming out of Image during the 90's ( as you've addressed in the forwards of both Tales From Planet Aeruen, and Guns, Robots and Talking Animals. ), and a big part of that was because of the way they made all the women look like porn stars, and Witchblade was/is a primo example of that era. You do like the concept of the weapon and the mythology, but overall, it never grabbed your interest enough to collect it, especially since you'd already wrote it off as a wank-off comic. And really, whenever you did try to read it, you just never were able to get into the characters. The writing was probably the problem. Lately though, you've tempted to start buying the collected eBooks from DriveThruComics.com, especially at nearly half off the print price.
Speaking of that site, you're very happy that both GRTA and Headhunter are now available as eBooks on there as well. Now you just hope people will buy them. You've discounted GRTA down to .95 cents, but maybe you should make it free. Or maybe you should upload TFPA and The Clockman short story and offer them for free instead. After all, GRTA is good enough that it shouldn't be free.
It's getting late. Post this and go to bed - you need your sleep for when you go over to your girlfriends to draw tomorrow.
http://www.enrodx.com
http://nemion.ginckmedia.com
Friday, February 3, 2012
Garlic and Ginger
You can't sleep. You need to sleep. It's getting hot again, it's February in Texas and it's getting hot again, but you don't want to turn on the AC because your electricity bill was 20% higher than it was last month. You have the fan on so that keeps things circulating.
You're worried about your appendix. The area in which it resides was starting to burn again, and the swelling becoming more noticeable. You're worried that what caused it to be irritated might be something much much worse. You don't want to talk about it because you're embarrassed. So you're munching on raw garlic and ginger marinating in lemon juice while munching on Fiber/Protein cereal right now, as that's helped in the past ( at the the raw garlic/ginger has ).
The other thing that's going on is that Occupy Austin just got evicted from City Hall by APD, which involved several arrests, the first being Debbie Russel, renown local civil rights activist. You have the livestream on, but it's breaking up at the moment; they've marched from City Hall and are currently on 6th street. Part of you feels you should be there, but you've long since concluded that spending time on such activity doesn't bode well with your long term goals ( that and the businessman in you has little patience for the childish behavior you witness in too many "activists" ). Making an epic comic book series that everybody remembers is your long term goal, and if you can, making music that kicks ass as well.
The police just arrested someone for allegedly grabbing a barricade off of 6th street, they threatened to spray the other activists. It seems that one APD Officer Mistric is will soon be made famous by Anonymous. Your phone, via Facebook, just notified you it's also Adam Kokesh's birthday. Funny coincidence that.
You've got a police-scanner app on your phone running now. Reception/audio-stream quality is kind of crappy.
Goddammit, you need to get to sleep, you have to be up for your main income-source by 6am, and you're body will never heal if you don't let it sleep! There's a party tomorrow night, and it doesn't look like you're going to make it. You still have at least two more pages of layouts for the next installment of Droid Soldiers on EnrodX.com. Maybe your girlfriend will just feel like staying in and working on art, instead of spending money on booze, and driving all the way up North to stay up late and look at goth chics in lingerie and bi-sexual boys make out with each other.
Now they've turned the livestream off because it was finally realized that APD was watching them through it, and the camera man didn't like the idea of feeding them live intel like that. The APD call-code dictionary would be useful..
Finally run out of juice anyway.
http://www.enrodx.com
http://nemion.ginckmedia.com
You're worried about your appendix. The area in which it resides was starting to burn again, and the swelling becoming more noticeable. You're worried that what caused it to be irritated might be something much much worse. You don't want to talk about it because you're embarrassed. So you're munching on raw garlic and ginger marinating in lemon juice while munching on Fiber/Protein cereal right now, as that's helped in the past ( at the the raw garlic/ginger has ).
The other thing that's going on is that Occupy Austin just got evicted from City Hall by APD, which involved several arrests, the first being Debbie Russel, renown local civil rights activist. You have the livestream on, but it's breaking up at the moment; they've marched from City Hall and are currently on 6th street. Part of you feels you should be there, but you've long since concluded that spending time on such activity doesn't bode well with your long term goals ( that and the businessman in you has little patience for the childish behavior you witness in too many "activists" ). Making an epic comic book series that everybody remembers is your long term goal, and if you can, making music that kicks ass as well.
The police just arrested someone for allegedly grabbing a barricade off of 6th street, they threatened to spray the other activists. It seems that one APD Officer Mistric is will soon be made famous by Anonymous. Your phone, via Facebook, just notified you it's also Adam Kokesh's birthday. Funny coincidence that.
You've got a police-scanner app on your phone running now. Reception/audio-stream quality is kind of crappy.
Goddammit, you need to get to sleep, you have to be up for your main income-source by 6am, and you're body will never heal if you don't let it sleep! There's a party tomorrow night, and it doesn't look like you're going to make it. You still have at least two more pages of layouts for the next installment of Droid Soldiers on EnrodX.com. Maybe your girlfriend will just feel like staying in and working on art, instead of spending money on booze, and driving all the way up North to stay up late and look at goth chics in lingerie and bi-sexual boys make out with each other.
Now they've turned the livestream off because it was finally realized that APD was watching them through it, and the camera man didn't like the idea of feeding them live intel like that. The APD call-code dictionary would be useful..
Finally run out of juice anyway.
http://www.enrodx.com
http://nemion.ginckmedia.com
Thursday, February 2, 2012
The Furry
It seems you have a million things to do. You start to feel like you can't keep up with it all. You have to do the layouts for the next installment of Enrod The Clockman, but you also need to get your earlier works formatted for DriveThruComics.com. There are so many formats to mess with. The easiest are .pdf and .cbz. You've got Guns, Robots, and Talking Animals and Headhunter uploaded, but only in .pdf format. You haven't taken the time to get .cbz files for them made because it took you twenty hours to get them rebuilt and tested for .pdf. Droid Soldiers Chapter One was a bit easier, less pages. You still have some page edits to make on the .cbz file; so you're not going to upload it yet. You also want to get them formated for both Kindle and Nook, but both are going to be a lot of work because you want them to be readable on the small black and white eInk devices, which means you're going to need to cut the pages up into individual panels and arrange in an eye-pleasing manner. Based on your research, you're likely going to have to do this twice, once for each device, as both have different screen capacities. You need to figure out how to stream line this process. You're also still waiting for what you have uploaded to be approved by DriveThruComics for their online store. You hope it's sooner than later, so that you can start promoting them.
The other thing on your head is a digestive disorder that you're not keen to talk about in public, but man is that taking up your time researching and trying to find homeopathic remedies for. When you think back, this problem has probably been going on for years, but in the last couple of weeks it's finally starting to come to a head. So you've finally made an appointment to see a doctor. You have insurance through your day job, but the costs after are still very high, all money you would rather be putting into Enrod The Clockman and Nemion.
That's another thing. Finishing the Nemion album is getting more challenging. You're so close but you've keep finding ways to make it better. In fact, you know there are things wrong with almost every song that you have to fix, and thinking about it all and everything else you've got on your plate makes your head spin. Nemion didn't get accepted into SxSW but you knew you wouldn't, so it's okay. Your putting getting into shows on hold until you get this album done. Nobody wants to hire a band that doesn't have a cd-release.
Then the social distractions, you can't forget about them. They abound. They frustrated. You have no time for them. Hold on a sec, you need to check on dinner....
Almost ready. Another experiment for your digestive issue.
Oh hey, you forgot to talk about your website/PHP issues. You're trying to figure out how to fix up an email form for EnrodX.com, but goddamn if you can't get the generated code from your webbuilder software, the software you used to build ALL your websites, to work on your effing server. You're trying to figure out how to use WordPress so that your sites can be dynamic.
One thing at a time...but time seems to be what is lacking. You only have so much life, yet you have a few thousand graphic novel pages of Enrod's life you want to tell, and at the rate your going you'll be lucky to tell another 1200 or so before your old and decrepit. So you need to figure out how to make this thing good enough that people want to support you financially for it. You need to make it easier for them to do just that than what you've already done. The same goes with Nemion, though thanks to NumberOneMusic.com you're doing a hell of a lot better at acquiring emails from people.
Was going to end here, but you don't want to leave on that last note. Okay, that's good enough.
Go eat dinner before it gets cold.
http://www.enrodx.com
http://nemion.ginckmedia.com
The other thing on your head is a digestive disorder that you're not keen to talk about in public, but man is that taking up your time researching and trying to find homeopathic remedies for. When you think back, this problem has probably been going on for years, but in the last couple of weeks it's finally starting to come to a head. So you've finally made an appointment to see a doctor. You have insurance through your day job, but the costs after are still very high, all money you would rather be putting into Enrod The Clockman and Nemion.
That's another thing. Finishing the Nemion album is getting more challenging. You're so close but you've keep finding ways to make it better. In fact, you know there are things wrong with almost every song that you have to fix, and thinking about it all and everything else you've got on your plate makes your head spin. Nemion didn't get accepted into SxSW but you knew you wouldn't, so it's okay. Your putting getting into shows on hold until you get this album done. Nobody wants to hire a band that doesn't have a cd-release.
Then the social distractions, you can't forget about them. They abound. They frustrated. You have no time for them. Hold on a sec, you need to check on dinner....
Almost ready. Another experiment for your digestive issue.
Oh hey, you forgot to talk about your website/PHP issues. You're trying to figure out how to fix up an email form for EnrodX.com, but goddamn if you can't get the generated code from your webbuilder software, the software you used to build ALL your websites, to work on your effing server. You're trying to figure out how to use WordPress so that your sites can be dynamic.
One thing at a time...but time seems to be what is lacking. You only have so much life, yet you have a few thousand graphic novel pages of Enrod's life you want to tell, and at the rate your going you'll be lucky to tell another 1200 or so before your old and decrepit. So you need to figure out how to make this thing good enough that people want to support you financially for it. You need to make it easier for them to do just that than what you've already done. The same goes with Nemion, though thanks to NumberOneMusic.com you're doing a hell of a lot better at acquiring emails from people.
Was going to end here, but you don't want to leave on that last note. Okay, that's good enough.
Go eat dinner before it gets cold.
http://www.enrodx.com
http://nemion.ginckmedia.com
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