Well, hell…I thought I was slammed tired yesterday but today it just feels even worse. My brain is so damn numbed out that it feels like the world around me is muffled into bleh. I find myself not being able to hold a clear train of thbenothaye==&^jjf, uh what?
Dragging My Ass Again
July 31st 2012
Texts, and fonts, and the meaning of verses all being orchestrated into clearly notable decisions. But it has to feel artful, to evoke some inner twang, of something intangible, something that might not be possible to properly convey with words. Their is a nice irony in that. Text is language. Font choices are language. The colors of them are language. Their meanings are language. The partially undefinable feelings they create are language. The images are language. The music is language. The final spark of emotional response to the entire experience of taking it all in once it’s held in your hands is language.
The Tenth And Final Stage Of This Phase Of The Sword
July 30th 2012
Repeating cascades of surrealist palettes, 10 in all, but each differing in mood. The effect is fluid until braced against an of edge mossy stone and red arcane language. The contrast is disconcerting and yet intriguing all the same. Symbolizing beauty and harshness coexisting together, a form of universal balance is struck. The bell tolls, and the deed is almost done.
The Ninth Stage Of The Sword
July 29th 2012
Now things begin to get intense, in their tediousness, as creation merges with specific adhered to details. Of technical acumen, brain zapping layering. The precise functionality of all the various aspects must meet up and yet convey the imagined inspirations of what came before. This is the least pleasing part of the process, but once complete, can be the most rewarding. To imbue pixel level aligned edges and circular labels with metaphysical undercurrents and resonance that can go beyond the printed image and out into the world’s energy is no easy task. Quite tiring, but when the performance of these duties is approached with an almost ritualistic meditative mind, a transference reaching through space and time can occur to influence cause and effect.
The Eighth Stage Of The Sword
July 28th 2012
Ethereal wave upon iridescent wave emanating from a scaly serpentine back. Hot red and cobalt blues dissipate into the void. The beast rises, teeth bared, ready for a battle to will imagination. Existence from the emptiness of nothing, the creation fire, sparking in psychedelic splendor that reaches down to the very core of all life. It will burn new energy into the very cells of the fabric of our flesh, all perceptions of reality will begin to alter resonating a new consciousness across time in ever greater widening ripples. But the here and now is only the idea of it, the process will slowly bleed into generations of the universal mind.
The Seventh Stage Of The Sword
July 27th 2012
On the remains of a dead world, she rigidly raises her pale arms to the sky invoking color and life to spring forth. The metaphysical radiance of the giving energies born at the beginnings of a universe stretch upward to the newly formed billowing atmosphere. While giant sunflowers turn to bask in all her dark cloaked glory, admiring as she walks through a mossy field delicately stamping out death underfoot. A tendril of red curls escape the edge of her black hood, caught in a fresh breeze. Sigils of song trail down her back in a purposeful straight line about to imbed in the new earth.
The Sixth Stage Of The Sword
July 26th 2012
A blade of obsidian black, and accented at the hilt in red. It descends down from an earthy green sky of a private language to pierce the very world, transforming it into a diagram that points toward knowledge being the core of understanding life and the universe. A red sun crests this horizon of science, beaming points of white. Song-sigils dance an arc across the curvature.
The Fifth Stage Of The Sword
July 25th 2012
Sigils and transparencies, the color of the vivd cosmos floats through and downward to a cracked dead crag of rock. Cold blue grays, with hints of a once thriving civilization, now in ruin. But yet there is still energy here, and through the metaphysical visions of symphonic power can this be seen, a cue, a spark of an idea for rebirth.
The Fourth Stage Of The Sword
July 24th 2012
Metaphysical feathered serpent of legend, winging its way upward in rising triumph. Carved from chunks of roughed brushed black, signifying its confidence as a powerful symbol of the coming change. It acts as harbinger, or better yet usher to a new age with it’s open round eye the pyramid of gods. A keen vision to watch over as witness of the inevitable transformation just peaking on the horizon, a cascade of never ending vibrating colors wash across.
The Third Stage Of The Sword
July 23rd 2012
A mixed bag of pieces. On the front there will be a desert of ruins in cold azure, as the very dryness of the earth splits open into a pie shape of molten sparks against a dead black sky. The goddess is above this appearing to be larger than the world, gesturing for all to hush. On the other side, bones and death and dirt. Soon flowered life will rise up from this base, growing from the deep brownish greens of mossy scalps of skulls. Hollow eye sockets of the once living still seem to stare in mocking silence, yearning for a life now denied. The soiled remains act as fertilizer for a re-imagining of a new time, the grey transforming into the bright colors of spring’s abundance, radiating rainbow waves up to the burgeoning vast rich blue sky. Here, the goddess now grounded, raises her arms as if in honor to the transition.
The Second Stage Of The Sword
July 22nd 2012
The task for this one step of many more to come in the process takes roughly six hours to complete. At the beginning it feels ritualistic as I gently remove the small box from one of the cherry wood drawers of my desk. A suitable sensation for the subject that will begin to live here for awhile. Setting down the little black and white box and opening it up to reveal only five small capped plastic and metal tubes, each a basic primary, except for one white and one black. Now dabbing various colors into one of the small glass bowls that I use, I begin to softly swirl them, blend them to create a new palette. Its been quite some time since using these skills, so as I begin brushing on swaths of tone onto the board, I feel trepidation and nervousness. This is when the stress mildly sets in as I begin to paint dusky brooding shades, creating what will soon be a cosmic goddess in a cloak of feathers.
The First Stage Of The Sword
July 21st 2012
I’m a bad husband. Why? Because I tend to ignore things I shouldn’t ignore, or I forget them. So in my oblivious self, I’ve not used hand sanitizer regularly as I was smartly told I should before touching shared items or places around our home. Very very bad when I’m walking around as what my wonderful wife affectionately calls an “outbreak monkey”. The end result being that I’ve contaminated our domicile sufficiently enough that now poor Wendy has begun to come down with the same viral nastiness I’m currently in the middle of. So before too long here, we’ll both be unhappy campers. So yeah, I need to listen better.
Spreading The Love
July 20th 2012
Well the news this morning when I woke up was horrifying, truly horrible. But strangely an interview I did yesterday went up today. It feels odd to me that I’m having to think about anything other than the tragedy of last night. But maybe this interview will give some a small something other for the mind temporarily. My heart goes out to the families.
I…AM…SO……..TRASHED… This damn bug has gotten the better of me, but yet I still must crank away. I’m going to have to work every single day until the end of the year if I’m going to make it through to the end, regardless of being ill or not. Finished this cover for issue 14 of Batwoman. Even under the miasma of violent sneeze fits, and headache haze, I must say that I like this new cover, quite different from any cover before it for certain. Everything is tinged by yellow and orange, but yet it all feels creepy in a skewed way. Not the ordinary creepy way, if creepy does have an ordinary expectation that is.
And So It Is
July 19th 2012
Here we are at the final chapter of To Drown The World. It seems some of you like where we’ve got things set for the ending. Now that its all done, I feel we’ve been relatively successful in setting out to do what we intended to with this arc. For the most it the narrative experiment has worked, and I’m sure when read as a whole it’ll be even stronger. Thanks to the efforts of Amy Reeder, Trevor McCarthy, Pere Perez, Todd Klein, and Guy Major.
My head swirls in twisting off kilter equilibrium haze. The drags have become like moving through molasses. What was that I saying about balance the other day? The pendulum seems to have fully swung the opposite direction, at least for how my body feels. A tiny war is clearly being waged inside me, causing tiredness as collateral damage. I thought for sure I’d feel better today, but actually I feel much worse. Can I remove my nose? Gouge out my sinuses please? The blasting sneezing, the never-ending viscous nose, the incessant coughing scraping my throat, and not being able to breathe can stop any damn time now. I really have no time to be sick, six months down the road okay, but not now damn it. A new secret bio-weapon assault from Mister Time perhaps?
I’m Ridiculous!
July 18th 2012
Softly breezy, the air isn’t too warm today, usually its blazing around here this time of year. Still feeling the drags from the con kick. Hacking my lungs, while hacking my way through a cover today. Surprisingly, I’ve managed to actually get something done with a decent amount of energy. Usually after I break for a madhouse convention like SDCC it can be hard to get back to it, especially with a bit of a bug on the attack. I tend to have to rev up the engine so to speak, but today’s piece flowed rather smoothly. Thank Zeus for that, because I wasn’t in the mood for frustrations of an artistic nature.
On The Forward March
July 17th 2012
Bland headed and compacted sinuses, the drags. A bit of the typical viral con bug has latched on, giving me the doldrums. Metaphorically in sync with the emotional comedown from the high weekend. I view it as balance, there is balance to everything, a pattern that I’ve noticed some time ago. That in most cases one experience is countered oppositely by another in terms of meaning or motion. Up and down, or side to side, backwards then forwards, coming or going, or at least thats how things happen in my life. It keeps things in check and allows perspective to be gained by these experiences through comparisons. So after having a ramped up last 4 days, my body has allowed micro-bugs to force me to essentially mellow out, but I don’t like the drag.
The Energy Pendulum Swings
July 16th 2012
Dusk is elegantly setting in, with only the slightest hints of the pinkish affected remnants of the sun gracefully tucking away over the far horizon of the pacific ocean. The hum and drone of the propellers zoning out my mind, eardrums muffling from the change of altitude pressures as we are up in the air over the golden city lights of Los Angeles against the darkening landscape. The seat perpetually uncomfortable, stuffy air, and a crying baby, all acting as the reality transitioning effect of leaving the massive undertaking that is SDCC. Suitably so, since we’re moving from the brief pop spasms of geek-mecha to head back to our hermit like conditions. Feeling a bit sad knowing friends that we’ve immersed in won’t be there in morning with bright shining faces and heartfelt companionship. It can be so tough to only see some of our most favorite people face to face every few years, friends that span the globe. It was a glorious four days for certain. And the fans, those wonderfully quirky people eager to say hello, we’ll miss them too. There is kinship in them that we adore. The pervasive hum, like soothing white noise, I drift off to sleep…
Flying Home
July 15th 2012
Aching feet, overly warm from too much humidity, walls of never-ending people clad in vibrant colors of character from a menagerie of genre and geek culture. Voice is shot from attempting to have long conversations in the din, reverberating down to the cores of my ears. But the spectacular energies being exchanged from long distance friendships which we are relishing in being able connect eye to eye, sadly something that happens all too rarely in our little niche world of paneled lives. Tomorrow is the last day already, on one hand feeling like we’ve all been here for so very long, while on the other it seems so fast. And still didn’t get to meet Anthony Bourdain, oh well…
The Good Times Roll
July 14th 2012
He stands tall and enigmatic, charisma that ebbs through the air, bouncing from unseen molecule to unseen molecule changing the dynamic of space. The master chef word wizard is just fifty feet away, but might as well be as if he is still just on my TV screen.
Didn’t Get To Meet Anthony Bourdain
July 13th 2012
News is now out! This is happening, but I’m not leaving Batwoman either. This so damn exciting!
There is nothing quite like the valley heat, well I suppose thats not true, there are plenty of places that get ungodly hot. But I suppose its the fact that its in my face when having to travel, lugging a few heavy bags around, and this computer I’m writing on in 108 degrees that causes me to lament. But I’m sure part of the irritation comes from that I’m a sucky traveller, I tend to get easily upset as my blood pressure wants to elevate, I’ve always had this, the getting nervous bit of moving outside my comfort zone. But at least since our plane has landed this cool evening and we’re now in San Diego, we get a nice break from our usual oppressive summer heat, left behind at home to remain the normalcy there. Here its a bright new energetic time. Already easing into enjoying friendships that in most cases are long distance. If there is anything I truly miss about attending the San Diego Convention is connecting with people that we hold dear but live too far away from. Its like a family reunion of sorts. But a little bit bittersweet in knowing that some our dearest friends aren’t here this time. I think its been 4 years since last coming to this monster show and tomorrow will begin the real maddening chaos of the event, but tonight I let nostalgia reign.
First Evening At Comic Con International
July 11th 2012
Today sees the release of the book shown below, read it, its good stuff.
