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.

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http://www.enrodx.com
http://www.facebook.com/enrodx
http://nemion.ginckmedia.com
http://www.facebook.com/nemion
http://nemion.bandcamp.com

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