Archive for July, 2009
We went camping on the Little Miami River this weekend.
Wendy’s parents, brothers, and her nieces and nephew joined us.
We took Duncan.
He made lots of new friends, from the four-legged variety…
To the two-legged ones.
Canoeing and kayaking was involved.
Duncan fell asleep while we were sitting around the campfire, so we covered him with a blankie.
The night sky wasn’t really this color, but this is the picture my camera took without a flash.
It was a good weekend.
The end.
This weekend, in honor of the 40th anniversary of the moon landing, we bring you the supernatural slugfest you have been waiting for: Werewolves on the Moon versus Vampires.
That’s right. On the friggin’ moon!
(Conspiracy theory time: I’m pretty sure this cover is a hoax, and that werewolves never battled vampires on the moon. The first clue is the US flag. How can it be rippling in the wind when we all know there’s no atmosphere, and hence no wind on the moon? This comic is an elaborate government cover up.)
This is Comics rolls out on August 1st and runs through the month at the Mahan Gallery. Featuring local Phonzie Davis, Anders Nilsen, John Porcellino, Nate Powell, Ron Rege Jr. and others. Reception is August 1st from 6-10pm. Wear your white belt and ironic scarves kids, it’s going to be a slammin’ good time.
The Big Two publishers have not had open submissions for many years now, especially for writers. Not that I’d ever consider sending them unsolicited pitches. I know that’s just a one way trip to the circular file.
So a while back I decided to adopt a different strategy: with some higher profile indie books under my belt, I decided to send them published samples on a monthly basis. I included a very brief cover letter, introducing myself and stating that I was sending them my books “in hopes of opening a dialogue with DC Comics”. I was hoping that my tenacity would pay off with at least a simple “ok, we’ll talk to you” email. For 5 months, I sent them a package with a small mix of my self-published PANEL books alongside the Image and IDW books. I even sent in a copy of my Lifelike graphic novel.
Not surprisingly, there was no response. However, today I came home to a packet in the mail addressed to me:
Now, maybe I’m a “glass half empty” kind of guy, or just a realist, but my first thought wasn’t “cool, finally!” No, my first thought was “I bet they’ve sent back my books.”
Sure enough, that was the case. But not all the books I had sent in over the 5 months. Just the few from last month. And accompanying the returns was this rather standard form letter (redacted by yours truly for posting on the blog):
Now, I knew it was a long shot to try and garner any interest in my writing by just sending in copies of my books. So I’m not really surprised at the rejection. A bit disappointed, sure. But the part that bugs me is the standard “unable to accept any unsolicited proposals” verbiage. I wasn’t proposing/pitching anything. I was just trying to get a dialogue going with DC editorial, as a precursor to hopefully being invited to pitch something. Back in 2003, I received a rejection letter from DC that was much more personalized, saying something to the effect of “thank you for your writing samples, we’ve read through them but unfortunately we currently do not have any opportunities for writers…” But then again that was 2003, and this is now.
Oh well, whatever.
I’m keeping to my current plan of polishing up the Brainbot and Twilight Order pitches, and keep pursuing the creator-owned angle.
I will say this for DC, though. Their letterhead is very cool. Here’s the back of the letter:
Now look back at the front of the letter, and visualize what happens when you hold the whole thing up to a light.
Here’s an interesting article about Augmented Reality, with a brief note at the end about how it could help you get laid.
“Augmented Reality” is the practice of using web-based applications to add metadata to real-life objects. For example, imagine pointing your smartphone at a shop and finding out what they sell, what their hours are, and what’s on sale that day. To really implement it, you’d need to put some kind of smart chip into just about everything, or else have some kind of GPS database that generally knows where everything is.
Or, pointing your smartphone at a person and using it to call up their public facebook page. Then you could walk up to that person and deliver a personalized pickup line, based on their tweets.
Fiction-wise, this has a lot of story potential.
1. Near-future rom-com meet-cute: A guy attempts to pick up a girl using one of her twitter posts, not realizing the tweet is about her dad dying.
2. Fish-out-of-water: In a country as big as America, it takes a while for a technology to get rolled out everywhere. City kids get sent to stay with their country cousins, in an area that doesn’t have augmented reality. They have to learn to relate to the real world — and learn lots of interesting lessons.
3. Brazil-style near-dystopia: Farther in the future, after tons of information has built up over each location and no one’s really maintaining the databases anymore. A fellow has a series of amusing misadventures when his smartphone keeps taking him to the wrong places.
That’s just off the top of my head. I could do better once I’ve had a chance to push past the cliches.
What do you think?
During the “bad girl” craze of the 90s, venerable indie sexpot character Vampirella made a big comeback, and it seemed like every other month she was involved in some sort of crossover or “special issue”. This week, we take a gander at Pantha vs. Vampirella.
Yep, this very special issue was written by current Marvel darling Mark Millar. And no, I don’t know how Pantha gets into (or keeps on) those crotch-high boots. It’s probably part of her panther powers. Or something.
No, it’s not a weird veterinary school prank. The guys at CowTV Productions were at Comfest 2009, interviewing various vendors and festival attendees. Ferret Press is featured prominently in their video diary, starting at the 7:00 minute mark (Tom Williams makes a cameo at around 8:00).
I usually feel uncomfortable being filmed, but for once I feel like I was pretty coherent.
This weekend’s comic book crossover that nobody asked for: Venom vs. Carnage
Also known as:
- Inkblot vs. Spilled Ink
- Venom vs. Venom Too
- Venom vs. Son of Venom
- Venom vs. Hey, That Venom Character Is Pretty Popular So Let’s Make A Rip-off Character Exactly Like Him, But You Know, Red Instead Of Black, Yeah, That’s Why We’re “The House Of Ideas”
Believe it. It’s been making the rounds on the internets. The clip’s from from an Independent week on Subterranean.
I’ve never wanted a skate deck till now. David Choe will have two limited edition decks for sale at Comicon. From Giant Robot.