DREAMS WEAVING…

I always tend to have dreams that are just plain boring ordinary slice of life type dreams and they usually don’t have me in them. It’s like I’m somebody else living another life having conversations with people I’ve never met or seen before. But they are SO vividly real that I often wake up thinking it’s a memory of something I did. Very boring to describe them but the feeling of it being so real is freaky. Every once in a while I will have a strange and surreal dream. When I have those I’m always me in them. The other night I dreamt that I was now a homicide detective investigating these murders that took a place in a city park somewhere. My partner and I are there to explain our findings to Rudy Guiliani. Yes, thee Rudy Guiliani thats running for president. Very bizarre because I never dream about famous people. Anyway, we are surveying the crime scene with him and the places where the bodies had been are marked by yellow police tape in the form of crosses that are laying on the ground in various places around the park. We proceed to tell mister Guiliani that all of the bodies seemed to be placed in cross like positions with their arms outstretched from east to west, with their heads and feet facing north and south. We are explaining that we are trying to understand what this means. As we are all walking along one of the murder sites to look at these tape crosses Rudy points out that we are under this tree, a sort of dead blackened tree, which has this very strange plastic like giant growth forming at the base of one side of the tree. We are standing on this giant growth which is bright yellow with greenish spots and it sounds like it is a shell or something, strong but sort of hollow as we step. Then Guiliani begins exclaiming loudly that he knows what this thing is and is amazed that we don’t know. He is shouting happily that this is a very very rare tomato and they are delicious. so we step down off it and he cuts it open on one side with a pocket knife revealing that is is indeed hollow, but there are all of these strange purple root like things hanging inside. Guilani reaches in and grabs some in one hand and lifts them out very gently. He then starts to cut into of the roots which appear to have this soft like texture, very easy to cut, while telling us that we have to try some of this right now. I’m standing there thinking this is very odd when my partner steps forward from behind me to try some this plant fruit and realize that I have never seen my partner’s face during this whole time in the park. He has short cropped blonde hair almost in a historical roman style and hazel eyes, wearing a charcoal grey suit and tie. He stands there chewing a piece of this root nodding his head in agreement to how good it tastes. At this point Guiliani hands me a slice and I say “what the hell, I’ll try it too”. I put the slice into my mouth and immediately think it tastes really familiar and I say “y’know, it tastes just like a beet, you know, the purple kind”. At this point Guilani, with his jacket off and rolled up shirt sleeves, says that his office is right around the corner, let’s go there and finish the briefing. As we walk up to this average looking city building that is sort of dark grey a big black door begins to open at main entrance when we approach. Opening the door for us is this little old woman with pure white hair dressed in long grey and black robes and shawls. As we enter and she turns I can see that she is only half a person in the literal sense. Her body is missing the entire right side of itself including her head, and as we walk past her into the room we see that the part of her body that is there is hollow with no insides except for hundreds of little squirming grey tentacles attached to the pink interior membranes of her skin. I’m seeing this very close up as I enter through the doorway. I’m startled by it but I can’t stop staring at this as I walk past in what seems like slow motion. I choose not say anything since my partner and Guiliani are walking in front of me into the room and act as if everything is absolutely normal. And that is where the dream ends,

PACKAGING IN MY NOSE…

We had some furniture delivered this week and it was packaged neatly and tightly into these perfectly conformed boxes with styrofoam and plastic and tie wraps and tape and…you get the point. PACKAGING IS EVIL, sometimes necessary, but it’s still evil. after we got everything out of their packaging it looked like a fucking bomb went off in our living room. The type of styrofoam used was the kind that is molded into shapes to fit corners and such and when it breaks you get hundreds of little tiny nodules that stick to fucking everything. Including the inside of your nose when it breaks to closely to your face and you happen to breath in at that same moment. It’s just awful and pisses me off. I know I’m sounding a little like a nut job but after we were done getting the packing materials off there was as much of that as there was furniture. It was utterly ridiculous. The boxes after being cut down filled up our entire recycle bin plus two giant trash bags and the styrofoam filled our entire trash bin plus two giant trash bags. Insanity. We’ve been finding leftover little nodules of styrofoam for days. They were even sticking to the walls of the house. It’s just evil.
Now that I’ve bored you even further with that…

WATSON I PRESUME…

I seem to love anything by Andi Watson. His quirky style of art manages to fit perfectly with the types of stories he likes to tell and I love them. I just recently finished reading Love Fights and feel the same about this book as i do his other work. An absolute joy and very inventive, very smart. It was quite obvious that he has a love of good superhero comics even though he is poking fun at the whole superhero concept because it is done in this very endearing manner. It comes across as respectful and never degrading to that genre with a perfectly executed superhero type plot mixed with a real slice of life quality to the other characters. if you haven’t read Watson’s work I highly recommend all of it. But I do think that Love Fights screams for a sequel.

PINCHED…

Also just read Space Pinchy from Tony Takezaki published by Darkhorse. It is a Japanese manga but unlike what you expect from manga in style. It’s fully rendered in gorgeous digital color mixed with what appears to be 3D graphics. It’s a collection of short stories with interweaving themes that wrap up at the end of the book. I really enjoyed it even though it is extremely sex obsessed in a sort of adolescent sense humor about it way. If you are one that is easily offended by sexual attitudes then don’t read this. However it is clear right away that the creator knows he is being ridiculous and therefore revels in it, making that sort of the point. It’s wild and full of crazy mad ideas on just about every page and a lot of fun if you just let yourself be taken on this surreal psycho ride.

MUSIC…
ipod on shuffle mode plus…
BLACK NASA–
BLACK NASA– deuce
BLONDE REDHEAD– melody of certain damaged lemons
FELIX DA HOUSECAT—virgo blaktro and the movie disco
HAWKWIND— independent days
HAWKWIND— spacebrock
HOLLY GOLIGHTLY & DAN MELCHIOR—desperate little town
HOLLY GOLIGHTLY & THE BROKE OFFS— you can’t buy a gun when you’re crying
VAST—april
GARBAGE—self made collection of b sides and mixes
THE CURE — self made collection of remixes and rare cuts
THE SISTERS OF MERCY — some girls wander by mistake

RED WINGS AND BLACK LEATHER…

Well, I’m 5 pages into the next project finally. So production has officially begun. I’m going to be trying different things here as it moves along (what else is new). I haven’t decided if it’s working yet. But thats how I like to play it. Just do it and see what happens. Anyway, things are off to a good start. Still have no idea when DC plans on making announcements but I think a lot of people have already figured out what this project is because there has been comments elsewhere in this regard.

BLACK AND WHITE GOODNESS…

When I was up in SF for the gallery event party I acquired some AIT/PLANET LAR books. Some were gifts, so thank you to the creators who gave me their work to check out. I’ve just finished reading them and they are…

FIRST MOON– by Jason McNamara and Tony Talbert— An interesting historical tale about early colonists to America but with a nice strange supernatural spooky twist that ties into a modern day family’s life. A really different concept based on familiar ideas making for a nicely executed story.

CONTINUITY– by Jason McNamara and Tony Talbert— This one is my favorite of the 2 books given to me by these guys. A really unusual story about a girl who is a little bit lost in her life, going down a not so good path. She finds that her dreams can somehow alter her waking reality in very dire ways and has caused this dystopian reality she now lives in, So in trying not to make things worse she decides she must stay awake. The result is a compelling read with characters that easily immerse you into their lives. As much as I liked Tony Talbert’s work in First Moon I think I like this better. His work here really gels with the story greatly. Nicely detailed and damn determined to TELL a story with his art.

WHITE DEATH — by Rob Morrison and Charlie Adlard— A well written character driven story about soldiers trying to cope with the situation they’ve been put in during a time of war. Adlard here uses a different style than what I’m accustomed to from him and it is very effective. However I think the printing is a little dark and sort of muddies up the details a bit in some places. Anyway, worth checking out.

ROCK BOTTOM — by Joe Casey and Charlie Adlard— I have to say that this is my favorite of the bunch. I’m not quite sure why, it just fits my sensibilities the most I think. Another character driven tale about a man who has come down with this strange and incurable disease that is slowly turning him to stone. This is in fact a wonderful metaphor of the character’s time in his life. He can’t seem to get past the bad decisions he has made and now lives in a rut. So as he turns to stone he must come to terms with himself. It becomes a very emotional story that pulls you into it dramatically and fully convinces of these character’s believability. Charlie Adlard’s art here is absolutely perfect for the story and again he uses a different style than what he is known for. This time to much greater impact. Deciding to leave the blacks out of his inks here is wise move and allows the reader to really enjoy the qualities of his drawing more, making for the art to have a real beauty to it. Perfectly suiting the beauty in the writing. A very nice balance of art and story.

These all represent the sort of comics we need to see more of. Great stuff overall. I recommend you check them out if you haven’t already.

MUSIQUE…

short list this time because i’ve been doing the ipod shuffle lately.

SOLACE—nagari
THE DONNAS — bitchin’
ELECTRIC SIX — switzerland
DEBBIE HARRY —necessary evil
HUMAN LEAGUE — reproduction remastered
HUMAN LEAGUE — travelogue remastered
HOLLY GOLIGHTLY — the good things
FRONT 242 — pulse

This last saturday was the opening party for a month long rotating gallery event featuring the original art for all 3 issues of the just published Batman arc that i did, as well as a little bit of other stuff. What a blast that was. Crazy hyper energy infused Comicbook party madness. It went on for a good 6 hours and I loved every minute of it. I want to say thanks to all of you who came out for it and made me feel really welcome. I had a really good time meeting up and talking with you guys. I want to thank James and kirsten for putting on this event. If any of you are in the area of the shop please stop by and check out the work while it’s there. And those of you who were already there to see it, visit again weekly because the gallery will rotate.

The store is located at…

326 FELL ST.
SAN FRANSISCO CA
94102

www.isotopecomics.com

On the colbert report the other day was a guest by the name of Naomi Wolfe who has some interesting things to point out to america in regards to how fascist regimes have come into power in the past that there are signifiers or steps that every dictatorship fascist state has shown during their rise to power.
here is a description of her book THE END OF AMERICA from amazon…

” In a stunning indictment of the Bush administration and Congress, best-selling author Naomi Wolf lays out her case for saving American democracy. In authoritative research and documentation Wolf explains how events of the last six years parallel steps taken in the early years of the 20th century’s worst dictatorships such as Germany, Russia, China, and Chile.
The book cuts across political parties and ideologies and speaks directly to those among us who are concerned about the ever-tightening noose being placed around our liberties.
In this timely call to arms, Naomi Wolf compels us to face the way our free America is under assault. She warns us–with the straight-to-fellow-citizens urgency of one of Thomas Paine’s revolutionary pamphlets–that we have little time to lose if our children are to live in real freedom.
“Recent history has profound lessons for us in the U.S. today about how fascist, totalitarian, and other repressive leaders seize and maintain power, especially in what were once democracies. The secret is that these leaders all tend to take very similar, parallel steps. The Founders of this nation were so deeply familiar with tyranny and the habits and practices of tyrants that they set up our checks and balances precisely out of fear of what is unfolding today. We are seeing these same kinds of tactics now closing down freedoms in America, turning our nation into something that in the near future could be quite other than the open society in which we grew up and learned to love liberty,” states Wolf.
Wolf is taking her message directly to the American people in the most accessible form and as part of a large national campaign to reach out to ordinary Americans about the dangers we face today. This includes a lecture and speaking tour, and being part of the nascent American Freedom Campaign, a grassroots efforts to ensure that presidential candidates pledge to uphold the constitution and protect our liberties from further erosion.
The End of America will shock, enrage, and motivate–spurring us to act, as the Founders would have counted on us to do in a time such as this, as rebels and patriots–to save our liberty and defend our nation.”

Here are some comparisons of some of these steps with real current day events and circumstances taking place in america…

INVOKE AN EXTERNAL AND INTERNAL THREAT= terrorist actions/al qaeda

DEVELOP A PARAMILITARY FORCE NOT BEHOLDEN TO GOVERNMENTAL LAWS = blackwater (research them and you will seriously get freaked out)

CREATE A SECRET PRISON SYSTEM = as seen and reported on recently in the news over the last year or so

SURVEIL ORDINARY CITIZENS = the wire tapping program that now has been supported by the courts

HARASS CITIZENS GROUPS = recent attacks on moveon.org and other groups that speak out against the administration’s policies.

TARGET WRITERS, ENTERTAINERS, AND OTHER KEY INDIVIDUALS FOR DISSENTING = the attitude the administration has taken over the years toward those speaking out against the war and current policies, claiming that disagreement with above actions is unpatriotic and treasonous.

INTIMIDATE THE PRESS= recasting dissent as “treason” and criticism as “espionage”

SUBVERT THE RULE OF LAW= the slow dissolution of our constitutional rights

These are just some of the things that are pointed out in this book as similarities to current events and that of past rises to power of fascist regimes. Is this paranoia? Or is this something we as a nation really should be looking at much closer. All of this is a bit chilling to think about. I recommend that you all pick up this book and come to your own judgments because the book goes into a lot more depth than i can possibly cover here. This just may be something we have to do something about before we all lose.

by H.I.M. is magnificently glorious!!! Heavy, dark, challenging, and deeply satisfying. I cannot wait to see them live at the warfield in november.

…fucking rock!!!!! Went and saw them play in san fransisco in support of their new album. A great and fun show and blazingly fast. The length of their set was average but felt way too short because of the electric energy of their music live just sweeps you up.

HOLYBATGALLERY…
There is going to be a month long rotating gallery feature of the original art to my Batman work focusing mostly on the recent arc. This display will be held at The Isotope Comics Lounge in San Fransisco with an opening party to be held on saturday september 29th from 8pm to midnight. Come by and hang with us and let’s have us party!!! details can be found at…

WWW.ISOTOPECOMICS.COM

TEZUKAGOD…
Our trip to see the Osamu Tezuka exhibit last week at the Asian Art Museum in San Fransisco was brilliant. The exhibit was astounding. The amount of work that was produced by him was overwhelming. An absolute inspiration to see so many original pages from across his career. One thing that was a very nice surprise was that they didn’t let Astro Boy (Mighty Atom) out weigh his other, less famous, works to americans. There was a good representation of material that hasn’t had proper translation here in the states. Fortunately Vertical seems to be intent on changing that by bringing over more of the less mainstream oriented material, like they have done with Buddha. They are publishing several of his single novel length books over this next year. That makes me very happy. I’m not sure if Viz will have anything else come out other than the end of Phoenix. The pleasure of seeing so much original art from the master japanese comics was a genuine high for me and I probably will never have such an opportunity again. Since I had never seen original manga art before I was surprised by how small of a drawing size a lot of it was done. Which astounded me even more when seeing the precision of the tiniest details. If any of you haven’t read Tezuka’s works or are just familiar with Astro Boy I highly recommend that you pick up some his more ambitious works like Adolf, Buddha, or Phoenix.

OTHER PLEASURES AND TREASURES….
The Asian Art Museum offers quite a lot of beautiful art and historical artifacts from a multitude of cultures. I was very amazed at how big and extensive this museum is. There are giant tapestries dating back to times older than our nation itself, statuary and sculptures from all of Asia. Full japanese armor and plenty of other beautifully decorated objects of daily use from the histories of those varied lands and cultures. One of the most interesting things I noticed was even though all of this material was from asian origins there was a very distinct difference in styles, materials and palettes from one culture to another. Very fascinating and thought provoking.

We also went to Japan town. That was interesting as well with several shops purely dedicated to merchandise that was japanese specific. That area of the city was much smaller than I thought it would be. The next day we went to China town which is much much bigger than I thought it would be. An endless array of shops and interesting little restaurants where I bought a mah jong set. So I will be learning to play that soon.

LEONARD IS YOUR MAN…
just finished watching the film I’m Your Man. It’s about the songs of Leonard Cohen featuring performances by some very talented artists doing their renditions of his music. The film was intermixed with some insightful interviews with the artists sharing their feelings and influences from his songs along with interludes of Leonard himself sharing bits about his life. It’s a really good film and worth watching even if you are not familiar with his music (and if you’re not, shame on you). I’d say the only draw back to the performances given here is there are 3 that include Rufus Wainwright whose music and vocal style I can’t stand on a good day. So I really didn’t care for his renditions at all and couldn’t understand why there were 3 by him, overshadowing much better artists. Other than that you really should see this film if you haven’t already. His music and lyrical wit by far surpasses many of his peers. Truly one of the greatest song writers ever.

HIS INFERNAL MAJESTY…
Venus Doom, the new album by HIM is arriving this tuesday to a store near you. This is definitely one of best bands to come along in a very long while and the new material is amazing, as to be expected. My copies of the special and limited editions are already shipped and should arrive on my doorstep possibly the day before the official release date. CANNOT WAIT!!! I’m also purchasing my tickets to see them in SF in november at the Warfield.

A JESUS SURPRISE…
when looking for tickets for the HIM show I came across event ads for Jesus And Mary Chain to be playing 2 dates in october at the Filmore. These guys are one of the all time greatest and its awesome to see them back and working on a new album after many many years. I must go see them as well.

WELL…

yep it has certainly been too long since I last blogged. I know I suck. But it is entirely blamed on something else, or rather Directly Company oriented. I’m talking about the absolute dreaded deadline of doom. Basically said company decided to schedule the Batman issues every 2 weeks to make up for another artist being late, at my expense, even though I wasn’t done with my SCHEDULED work and everyone involved knew what my pace is. I always do my best to work as diligently as I can. I didn’t find this out about the shipping until I was half way through the 3rd installment when I came back from con. And the way I found out was when I got lettering proofs for the first 2 issues back to back. So very kind of them to inform me so eloquently. So instead of being an ass about it I decided to not take any weekends off and work everyday until I was finished by a certain time. What a nightmare it turned into. It ended up with me working over a month, with the last day being a 24 hour work day, without time off. You would think I could crash after that, but nope. I needed to do the next Crossing Midnight cover before that ended up being late. So it turns out everything in my life needed to cease in order to get this stuff done in time and it still might ship late because we are so on the wire with this. And that is why there have been no blogs for so long. That is if anyone really cares about what I have to say in these things anyway. So there you have it. My website obligations have already gone to shit. But next time this happens, and it probably will because the companies are shit for planning properly, I’m not going to be a nice guy and help them with such a bone-head decision on their part. That was pure hell and made me not very pleasant to be around, just ask my wife. Enough with this longwinded pity party!!!

The second issue of my Batman arc arrived a short time ago with very positive reviews overall. Just yesterday I went over the final color corrections for the final installment and I think it will fit perfectly as the ending chapter. The overall effect of this arc needed to have this building up to a crescendo feeling and I think it does that pretty well. The 3 issues have a real sense of progression to them with the first being medium on a scale and the final being at the highest. Hopefully most of you will agree when you see it. That this story has this feeling of slowly burning and ramping up.

SIDES…

I just recently finished reading THE OTHER SIDE published by vertigo, between sleep and work. What a great read that was. I’m not a big fan of war stories unless they offer something different than the usual stuff. This one certainly did. I was at first compelled to check this out because of the amazing Cameron Stewart. I love his work. But as I got into the story I was really impressed with how well it was written by Jason Aaron. Very intense, and hard to take at times, but a story like this should be. Cameron drew the hell out of this book, stunning. The combination of Jason’s thought provoking writing and Cameron’s extremely detailed art (that doesn’t forget the emotions of the scenes) made for a powerfully emotional impact. The ending just hits you very hard and haunts you for quite sometime afterward, which is very appropriate. When you see the content you’ll know what I mean by that. Great stuff.

TRADES…

Volume one of the old Tangent comics stuff has come out and some of you may not know that I was a contributor to some of that material. I worked on the Tangent Universe version of Green Lantern one shot, with James Robinson as the writer. This was one of the early experiments I did in regards to shifting styles on a story. The issue was written as an anthology with bridging sequences and normally this sort of thing will have several artists working on the individual stories and maybe one artist for the bridging sequences. For some reason that I have never discovered the editor wanted just one artist for the whole anthology. I thought this was an odd and intriguing idea, so I decided to tackle it as if each story was drawn by a different artist but actually it would be all my work. This was an interesting challenge to me and I hadn’t really considered this sort of thing very much before. I was surprised by the results and how much it really looked and felt like a true anthology when it was all finished. This really opened my eyes early on to the possibilities of where I could take things and led me down the path I went on with other projects. Anyway, if any of you are so inclined, pick this up if you like superhero stuff. It was fun.

MUSIC…

GOD SPEED YOU BLACK EMPEROR—lift your skinny fists like antennas to heaven
KILLING JOKE —brighter than a thousand suns
MOTORHEAD—another perfect day (expanded edition)
THE GOSSIP—e.p.
THE MISSION —god’s own medicine (remastered and expanded)
THE MISSION— the first chapter (remastered and expanded)
THE MISSION —children (remastered and expanded)
THE MISSION —god is a bullet (u.s. version)
MOBY with DEBBIE HARRY—new york, new york e.p. single
KLAXONS—myths of the near future
FOREIGNER—double vision
VCR—power destiny
SKYE—mind how you go
69 EYES —angels
SIA—colour the small one
OLD CROW MEDICINE SHOW—big iron world
NINA SIMONE—remixed and reimagined
FIELDS OF THE NEPHILIM — mourning sun

VENUS DOOM IS COMING!!!

Only a few things to comment on. Not much else going on other than trying to get work done.

BATBRAINS…
Well my first issue of my Batman arc with Grant Morrison arrived this week. It came out pretty well but I think the following issues will be better. Dave Stewart did a bang up job with the color and it worked really well with all of the wash tones I did. The response has been mostly positive. I’m going to miss working on Batman but I’m getting ready to prep for my next gig, which is ‘bat’ related and I will be on this one for awhile. I’m currently on the tail end of the last issue of this club of heroes arc. This stuff has been more time consuming than I anticipated but the results are nice.

MIDNIGHT CROSSING…
The ninth issue came out recently, wrapping up the four part ‘map of midnight’ arc. I’m about to start the covers for issues 14 and 15. I’m having a really good time working on these. It gives me a different creative outlet from the DCU stuff. Also if you haven’t read this series yet pick up the first trade, which is out now. It’s titled ‘cut here’.

FOR THE LOVE OF JOHN…
We’ve been watching JOHN FROM CINCINNATI every week and we can’t wait to see what happens tonight for the final episode of the season. This show has been brilliant since day one. Thought provoking and challenging, its pure genius. If you’re not already watching then you better get to it and catch up on it’s existential bliss.

A BLUE TIME TO BE HAD…
I’ve just finished reading BLUESMAN by Rob Vollmar and Pablo G. Callejo. What a great little thriller set in the deep south during a very depressive time. The characters are engaging and the fully rendered black and white artwork is just amazing with it’s authentic detail and mood. I see a little bit of Crumb in the art. The story itself obviously wants to convey a fondness for the blues without it being directly about that. It’s a good character piece with a real sense of drama mixed with crime fiction. You really feel like this story is about real people going through a very tough time and all the faces look like they’ve really lived a rough life, loaded with personality. go pick it up.

MUSIC THIS WEEK…(listened to and recommended for your health)
siouxsie and the banshees –remasters
HIM—uneasy listening vol. 1 and 2
the good the bad and the queen
isobel campbell & mark lanegan–ballad of the broken seas
M83—dead cities, red seas, & lost ghosts
roxy music— siren remastered
skinny puppy— mythmaker
solace— balance
the mission— keep it in the family e.p.
lordi— the arockalypse
dengue fever— escape from dragon house
air— pocket symphony
blonde redhead— 23
whale— we care and pay for me
the dears— gang of losers
willie nelson— songbird
be your own pet
the 69 eyes— angels
the horrors

VENUS DOOM IS COMING!!!!!!!!

As everyone can see my blogs went to shit just before i had to leave for con. Blame it on cheap equipment and no backups. Hopefully no events like this again. We are trying to see if anyone subscribed to the blog in order to get them archived. From now I am no longer writing these on the program used for posting so that way I have a backup here at home.
Now that I’m somewhat recovered from con-monster 2007, and diligently trying to get back into the swing of things, I recently found out that DC is planning biweekly shipping on my Batman issues this month. So both 667 and 668 will ship this month and I’m sort of irked about it because I’m not done with 669 yet so now that one may be late. Not happy about that. Apparently a previous issue was late and they are trying to make up time at my expense. Yayy me. So be warned. We will do our best to not be late with 669. Also I came to find out that DC decided NOT to announce my new project during the convention and didn’t warn me of this. So I’m feeling sort of like a dork telling everyone that the announcement was coming. I even went as far as telling people at the con what exactly the project is going to be when asked what I’ve got coming up. Really bad communication from the powers that be. However, an official announcement should arise someday. Those loving bastards.
On to fun con stuff…
The NAKED FAT RAVE booth was even more successful this year and shaping up to be even bigger next year for the 5th year anniversary. After 2 days I was finally able to talk to the artist most influentially responsible for me wanting to be a comicbook artist and he was in our booth this year. I was acting like a 12 year old knowing he was right there, sitting only 10 feet away, not knowing what to say to him. This person is Michael Golden. If you don’t know who he is I can’t help you. It turns out that he is quite a nice guy (you never know what to expect when meeting your idols). It was a thrill of a lifetime for me to meet him and tell him how much of inspiration his work has been to me all of my life. His work is brilliant beyond words. My wife Wendy even bought me an original Fantastic Four art cover from him and surprised me in a very devious Wendy-like way (our friends know what that means). Very overwhelming. She is the best!
We got to see Grant for a bit as well and managed to loosely talk about the creator owned project we are planning for down the road. Its gonna be a killer.
My spotlight panel went off beautifully. So I must thank Laurenn McCubbin, Grant Morrison, Scott Johnson, and all of those who showed up for it, for making me feel all warm and fuzzy. You guys are awesome. And thanks to John Fannucchi for helping choose images for the slide show. All of the interview stuff went smoothly even though I was nervous as sin. I”m not very comfortable speaking publicly and the seats were pretty full. Maybe 250 to 300 attendees? One thing thats a bit disappointing is that I haven’t found much coverage of the panel on the web. Which is strange because I saw people filming and stuff. I wanted to see that film. I’ve only come across one small article.
I’ve been invited to join Bruce Timm in a project which will showcase many amazing talents and I’m honored to be asked to be a part of it. Now I have to think of something really cool for it.
Spoke to the late Seth Fisher’s mother for a time as well, as she brought over a cover piece that Seth had done for the Batman: Snow story that we worked on together before he passed away tragically. It was very emotional for us and we were honored that she remembered how much we wanted something of his work from that project to remember him by. Our love continually goes out to Seth’s family and friends. We miss him dearly.
I was approached by someone from Sam Raimi’s production company in regards to them wanting access to Desolation Jones. Apparently they’ve been trying to see about getting the film rights from Warner Brothers and that WB is holding onto the material without actually moving forward on the subject. This is the first I’ve heard of this and don’t know if Mister Ellis was already aware of the volley ball with the property so I sent this person to talk with Ellis since he was at the show.
I got to see a copy of the new 24/7 book due out now. This includes a second story by our esteemed webmaster Frank Beaton who was also involved in the first volume. It looks to be even better than the first and thats saying a lot.
Lots of positive feedback from certain key individuals in regards to a personal project that I’ve been developing for awhile. So that just may be able to get off the ground and get published somehow by someone someday.
The show was an insane mad house overall. Something like 175,000 people came through those doors. We stayed up to the wee hours of the morning on too many nights, hence still in recovery mode. So much happened that I’m having trouble remembering everything to post here.
Anyway… back to work for me.