Archive for January, 2005
Spamusement
Spamusement is “Poorly-drawn cartoons inspired by actual spam subject lines!”
Like, oh, 1-4 extra inches makes a massive difference, or making whoppy have never been this staisfying, or even U are Stupid Dumbass If U Pay Retail Price For Softwares mentioned.
I don’t know why, but I think most of them are hilarious.
Fraction and Casey on blogs
Over in their Basement Tapes column, Matt Fraction and Joe Casey discuss the comics “blogosphere” and its impact on our current culture, both within and outside of the comics community. And Fraction coins my favorite new alternative to the term blogosphere: “Blogachusetts”. Sweet.
“FRACTION: There’s probably a paradox at work – the less a blogger cares about audience reception, the more audience it deserves. The same foibles and fuckups that turn forum-based communities into trips to the cult of personality Kool Aid bowl can wreck a blog, or blog culture, all the same.”
Daily Musings: Day 84
Signs that you’re getting old(er):
- Instead of thrilling you, rollercoaster rides just give you a headache and hurt your spine.
- While going down an otherwise “sweet” sledding hill, all you can think about is “oh god, I hope I don’t wipe out”.
- You find yourself jealous of the 6 year olds on skis who seem to have no fear, while you’re contemplating trying a jump vs. what your HMO co-pay is.
Signs that you’re still not “old”:
- Despite the bruises, you still hop on another rollercoaster.
- You go sledding with all your other grown-up friends, and there’s no beer involved.
- You try the ski jump and even though you wipe out, it’s all good.
Surveys on promotion…
Over on the Pulse they have an interesting thread asking fans ‘what it takes to try a new comic’. Some good suggestions to be had here (inbetween all the suggestions for the big three) The five page preview is a great promotion. I’ve thrown them up on my releases page before. Though I haven’t tried leaving a downloadable preview for retailers. Oni just redid their previews pages recently that now have a small preview for each novel and series.
Dollar bill art
Artist Kamiel Proost draws miniature portraits using dollar bills as the canvas. I’m pretty sure defacing currency over here in the states is illegal, so it’s probably a good thing he lives in Amsterdam.
(via boingboing)
Daily Musings: Day 83
Do you have one of those friends who’s so good at sports that it makes you jealous? I went skiing today with a few friends and one of them was trying out the sport for the first time. Now, I remember my first day of skiing. I spent more time face down in the snow than upright, and by the end of the day the entire left side of my body was huge black-and-blue bruise. I don’t think I got the hang of the whole thing until my third time out.
Meanwhile, my friend spent an hour on the bunny hill and the next thing I know he’s hitting the green runs. Which brings up the other difficult skill to master: the ski lift. I think I fell off the first two or three times I rode it. He had no problems. In fact, after about 4 hours of total skiing time, he only took one spill.
I guess some people just have an aptitude for sports. I know the same can be said about artists. There are some kids that just outshine others when it comes to drawing, even before any formal training. Makes me wonder if the same can be said about writing?
If so, I’m the kind of writer that still takes a nasty spill down a slope every once in a while.
Check out the new article on Jeff Soto- one of my favorite artists working right now. Matt would definitely get a kick outta this. A few paintings are posted in the article as well. He does some illustration work but primarily is a painter. Jeff mixes graphitti, robotech, and comic book iconography in his work. Some really fun wacky shit.
Daily Musings: Day 82
(this is being post dated on Sunday)
So the new Blade movie Blade: Trinity is already at the el cheapo dollar theater. My friend Nam was in town this weekend and we were in the mood for a mindless action flick. So guess what we ended up seeing?
Things I learned watching this movie:
- Apparently vampires need lanterns and glowsticks to see in the dark.
- Making an R-rated movie means you can have one of your characters utter “clever” strings of multiple curse words that no human would ever think of saying.
- FBI field agents use Alienware computers. Huh, didn’t know they had won some government contracts.
- If wrestler Triple H thinks he has a shot at a movie career, he’s sadly mistaken. At least The Rock is a good looking guy (he says, completely secure in his sexuality).
- When all has been done in vampire movies, invent a new conflict: vampire hunter vs. media PR campaign!
- You know you’re unabashedly whoring out to product placements when your script has to make it a point to talk about “MP3s” and “playlists” while prominently displaying Apple’s iTunes and iPod. (See also: Alienware)
- Some movie franchises just don’t need to be made into a trilogy. (See also: The Matrix and Highlander…although in both of those cases they should have stopped after the first one)
- The fact that this movie was written by David S. Goyer, the same comic book writer and self-professed “fan” who has written the script for the new Batman movie suddenly lowers my expectations about that project.
Oh well, it still wasn’t as bad as, oh, say Resident Evil. Heck, it was entertaining and occasionally a nice bit of eye candy. The bit where they show one of the old Tomb of Dracula comics was a cute touch. But really, the only reason Blade II was any good was the amped up fight scenes and the inclusion of Ron Perlman. This one was just an unnecessary movie from start to finish, and no amount of special effects could wash the stench of “servicing the franchise” off of it.
Day of the Dude
Jeff Parker writes about the day Steve “The Dude” Rude dropped by their Mercury Studios, and the young aspiring artist that happened to be at the right place, at the right time.
“When Rude sees that a new kid is in town to learn, he plops down on the couch to go over his pages the same way he did with me over ten years ago in Pasadena. For the full effect, Matthew Clark donates some of his vellum so Steve can do one of his famous tracing paper critiques. There’s nothing like having someone who knows the human form from every possible angle show you how to get ten more miles out of the figure you drew by working over it.”
Daily Musings: Day 81
(this is being post dated on Sunday)
So Wendy likes to tease me about my, shall we say “excessive zeal” for recycling. I recycle pretty much anything that can be recycled at home. Which isn’t too difficult, when you think about it. There’s a pick-up station just down the street from me and you don’t need to sort all your recyclables by category. They all end up in the same bin.
But where the teasing comes in is at work. We do minimal recycling there, basically just pop cans and white office paper. So if I ever comes across other items, I’ll bring them home with me so they’ll end up in my recycle box as opposed to the trash bin at work. Stuff like those big plastic containers from 100-pack CR-ROM spindles, cardboard cereal boxes, plastic pop bottle, etc. And it’s not that I go digging through our trash for these things, it’s only if I’m the one disposing of them or see them laying around.
So I suppose you could look at that and say I’m a) weird, b) a treehugger, or c) an eco-nazi.
I’d like to think d) responsible.
Although I’ll settle for weird too.