| Hey |
[Jan. 1st, 2010|12:05 am] |
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Happy NEW YEAR, everyone! |
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| (no subject) |
[Dec. 31st, 2009|06:41 pm] |
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Happy New Year to you all. Whether 2009 was good or bad, I hope 2010 is better. :) |
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| Movie Review: "Sherlock Holmes" |
[Dec. 29th, 2009|10:52 pm] |
So, I just got back from the movie Sherlock Holmes . . . and it was a GREAT movie! I knew going into the movie that it was not going to be "true to the books" in any sense, but I have to say that it certainly had the same spirit of the books.
And that's what was so great about the movie: spirit. Both Robert Downey, Jr. and Jude Law played their roles with great spirit and good humor and just the right touch of seriousness. So while they did have their little spats and their own personal stories throughout the movie, those stories didn't subsume the main plot. I'd say that everything was extremely well balanced: personal stories along with main plot, as well as the larger plot. There weren't so many twists and turns that you got completely lost. You could follow everything and they explained nearly everything that dealt with the explanation of how the "crime" was committed. I only say "nearly" because there were a few handwaving moments when they didn't explain exactly how things worked . . . but I wouldn't say that was a problem. They explained exactly what they needed to in the detail they needed to. Any deeper explanation would have amounted to a science lecture and that's not what you go to the movies for.
And here's the thing: there weren't any movie tropes here. Oh, sure, good guys win in the end and such, but unlike Avatar I couldn't guess where things were going in the plot sense. So I was riveted to the pillow screen and kept involved during the whole movie. There were no slow points.
And the best recommendation I can give the movie is that at the end, I REALLY REALLY wanted to go immediately to the next movie. And there will definitely be a next movie, simply because I WILL IT! But just in case, I highly suggest that EVERYONE go out to see this movie.
And bring your pillow.
PS--Thanks to Joshua B for the last minute gift of some spare tickets! |
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| Just a Reminder |
[Dec. 28th, 2009|12:52 pm] |
The end-of-the-year book sale ends when 2009 does. So there's only a few days left to pick up signed hardcovers of INSIDE STRAIGHT, TUF VOYAGING, and WINDHAVEN at bargain prices.
(See my post of December 8 for details).
Going, going... |
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| Life Is... |
[Dec. 28th, 2009|09:56 am] |
| [ | Tags | | | nfl | ] |
| [ | mood |
| |  disappointed | ] |
... meaningless and full of pain... but sometimes it gives you an unexpected gift.
The Giants game was a disgrace. Bill Sheridan has to go. How he could destroy the Giants defense in a single year, when he had all the players Steve Spagnuolo had and then some, is a mystery for the ages.
And the Jets... well, yeah, I'm glad they got the W, but really... call me old school, but I believe a team should play hard every week, no matter what. What Caldwell did was a disgrace. A nice late Xmas present for Gang Green, sure, but all the other teams contending for the AFC wild card must be steaming, and Peyton and the other Colts first-stringers looked none too happy on the sidelines either. I would not be the least surprised if the Happy Horseshoes make an early exit from the playoffs after this. Disgraceful.
Meanwhile, back in the Meadowlands, I can only hope that the final Jets home game in Giants Stadium has a happier result than the final Giants home game. |
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| Dreams and Resolutions |
[Dec. 27th, 2009|10:43 am] |
| [ | mood |
| |  calm | ] |
Last night I dreamed about returning to my old music school in Tennessee. As I walked in, there was a concert going on, people were milling about the auditorium, I saw old friends, and continuing on towards the inner and outer halls I saw people with instruments playing this or that together, studying music together. It was wonderful. I missed it so badly.
So in this dream I went and sat at a university table with my old piano professor and began to ask her about obtaining my masters, and she was very aloof, as if she didn't believe I could do it. I tried very hard not to let it get to me. I knew I couldn't attend there, as I lived in Texas now, but I wondered why she was so unfriendly.
As far as resolutions for the new year:
1. Eat Healthier
2. Exercise More
(wow, how generic I am)
3. Read the scriptures daily
4. Spend more time camping and outside in general
5. Get back in the swing with Fly Lady (if you don't know who the Fly Lady is, she's awesome, and here she is: http://flylady.net )
6. Never say anything bad about anybody (okay that'll be hard!)
Now I need some awesome ones:
7. Do at least one cannonball into a pool over the course of the year
8. Grow something new (flower, fruit, vegetable, or herb) in a garden
9. Find a new vista to gaze at and then gaze at it
And last but not least:
10. Never decline opportunity
Now to go back and look at my last year's resolutions. Oh right, I dumped them all when I had a paradigm shift. Which isn't a bad thing... my new year's resolutions last year were pretty stupid. Strange how much you can grow in one year's span.
A few things I want to do this year for certain:
- Camp in the Ozarks, particularly at Blanchard Springs.
- Visit family in Tennessee.
- Continue cultivating various art forms.
The End ` chyaaaa! |
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| Devious Journal Entry |
[Dec. 26th, 2009|05:16 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  cheerful | ] |
Lords of Kibalos by ~Saehral on deviantART
Annieeeeeeeee your present is there! XD
Hope everyone had a good Christmas - I did! :D Spent the day at my mom's with family and pets, eating and watching movies, which is pretty much what our family does on any given holiday XD
Mario Bros. Wii is awesome to play with 4 people; that game is NOT one of the friendly co-ops where you can't hurt your teammates. If you like to constantly scream while desperately shaking your Wii-mote - and enjoy causing others to do the same - this is THE GAME FOR YOU! Killing off your teammates to take on the boss by yourself is often the only way to progress. I like the spinner hat - the Penguin Suit, while cute, makes me die. Even more than usual. Which is quite a lot. |
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| Merry Christmas |
[Dec. 24th, 2009|06:01 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  happy | ] |
Here's hoping all my friends and readers have a merry Christmas.
And you other people too. |
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| (no subject) |
[Dec. 24th, 2009|03:34 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  bored | ] |
Ahh, nothing like spending Christmas Eve at work! sigh. But I'll be home tomorrow by 9 or so, so it could be worse.
Plans for tomorrow include big breakfast (bacon, eggs, french toast) and then pigging out on snacky foods (shrimp, crackers, etc.) all day. And making gingerbread cookies! Oh, and getting drunk. We have 2 bottles of wine, a bottle of Baileys, and some eggnog deliciousness. Very excited! |
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| (no subject) |
[Dec. 23rd, 2009|03:58 pm] |
So I decided not to risk the trip to see my uncle's ashes interred. Sad to miss it, particularly as I haven't seen my cousins in ages, but it made no sense, with the weather the way it is. The ex was severely delayed in getting here to take the kids off my hands (no buses until after 11), so what with the snow delays, I had little chance of getting there in time, and would have had to turn around more or less immediately.
Christmas Day would have been my uncle's birthday, but the time I associate the most with him is Ne'er Day. All of my dad's family (up to five generations are one point) used to get together for dinner - initially at my uncle's golf club, later at a local Chinese restaurant. Then we'd go back to our house for drinks and stuff.
Those days seemed to last forever when I was a kid, though it couldn't ever have been more than nine or ten hours all told, the meal and then the evening at ours. The adults would sit and talk, my cousins (who are much older than us) would play snooker, and we kids would run riot around the house. The adults rarely stirred from the front room, so we could do as we pleased. My uncle had this battered leather bag full of bottles he'd bring every year, because my parents rarely had much alcohol around. I can recall seeing that bag when I was five or six, and saw it last just a few years ago.
Sadly, the last time I saw it was when this tradition stopped. My grandparents had died, and so had my dad: my uncle was too ill to visit anyone for more than an hour or so: my cousins had all stopped coming anyway. Well, things change, but it's a fitting time to remember.
So instead of going, I played in the snow with the kids. Here's a snowman they built with my neighbour's kids*:
I helped them with the face a bit, but mostly 'cause the three smaller ones couldn't reach it. We also had snowball fights and slides and stuff. :)
And now I'm just sitting and chilling out, contemplating what to have for dinner and when to put the mulled cider on.
*yes, that neighbour. |
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| Odds and Ends |
[Dec. 22nd, 2009|05:55 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  busy | ] |
SUICIDE KINGS is out in hardcover (see below) and BUSTED FLUSH has been released in mass market. Meanwhile, I've delivered the additional content -- three new stories -- for the first volume of this storied series, WILD CARDS itself, which Tor will be reissuing later in the year. Since the first volume was historical in nature, telling the story of the wild card from 1946 to 1985, adding some original material to cover some of the "lost years" seemed like a natural.
The three new tales:
-- "Captain Cathode and the Secret Ace," by Michael Cassutt,
-- "Powers," by David D. Levine,
-- "Ghost Girl Takes Manhattan," by Carrie Vaughn.
No publication date yet. You'll know when I do.
As for FORT FREAK, the twenty-first volume in the series that WILD CARDS began, first drafts are all in, I've given the usual editorial note, and the writers are all off revising. This one looks to be a lot of fun. The Class of 2009 is doing some great work, and the old-timers ain't half bad either.
On other fronts, Gardner Dozois and I are very close to delivering our original cross-genre anthology STAR-CROSSED LOVERS, to Pocket Books. We're waiting for some minor revisions from one writer. Once those are in hand, the book will be delivered. Only it's not STAR-CROSSED LOVERS any longer. Pocket's sales force did not like that title, so the anthology has now been rechristened SONGS OF LOVE AND DEATH. Got a great line up of writers for that one, including Diana Gabaldon, Jim Butcher, M.L.N. Hanover, Peter S. Beagle, Marjorie Liu, Jacqueline Carey, Carrie Vaughn, Robin Hobb, Neil Gaiman, and many more.
Everybody's talking about AVATAR, which I haven't seen yet... but I have been going to movies. While the crowds queue up for Cameron, I've been catching up on some of the other films now in release. I enjoyed THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG, and liked INVICTUS as well, but the one that really impressed me was ME AND ORSON WELLES. The guy who plays Welles should get an Oscar nomination for that performance.
As usual, I am way behind on my Xmas shopping.
Where does the time go? |
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| Now On Sale |
[Dec. 22nd, 2009|05:01 pm] |
Today was the official publication day for the latest Wild Cards book, SUICIDE KINGS.
Run, don't walk, to your favorite bookstore and getcha copy now. And hell, while you're there, get copies for all your friends as well. All you Xmas shopping in one swell foop.
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| Giants Crush |
[Dec. 21st, 2009|11:42 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | nfl | ] |
| [ | mood |
| | happy | ] |
Well, that was fun. If only every game was like this...
(Maybe it is, if you're a Colts fan).
These were the Giants I remember. The swarming aggressive D, the sacks, the knockdowns, the hurries, the interceptions, runners tackled at the line of scrimmage. And on offense, long time-consuming drives ending in touchdowns. Eli looked terrific, spreading the ball around. Nicks, Smith, Manningham, and Boss all had big catches, and even Derek Hagan scored a touchdown. The running game was back, especially when Ahmad Bradshaw had the ball. The O line opened gaping holes, and the D line was so relentless that our wafer-thin secondary was never threatened.
Yeah, these were the real G-Men.
I have no idea who those clowns in the Redskins uniforms were.
That fake field goal the Skins tried at the end of the first half had to be one of the most bizarre plays I've ever seen. Watching Steve Young talk about it in the postgame was hilarious.
I do feel sorry for Jim Zorn, whose postgame press conference was... well, obviously, no one ever taught the guy Coachspeak. Poor guy is not long for D.C.
But it was a great win.
Now we need two more like it, coupled with a Cowboys loss.
(Or a Packers loss, maybe... but while I know the G-Men have the tiebreaker over Dallas, no one has ever mentioned who wins a tie between New York and Green Bay).
Next week, the Panthers. Who beat the Vikings yesterday. Let's hope the real G-Men show up. |
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| oh god |
[Dec. 21st, 2009|10:22 pm] |
The week between Christmas and New Year's is traditionally the lowest-traffic week of the year for my site, and I'm gonna be out of town anyway, so I thought I might try something a little different this year. Here's a teaser for my idea:
I've already got the basic idea for the story and will hopefully start working on it before we drive down to Maryland (one advantage of driving down is I can actually bring my big Cintiq with me) for the holiday. Of course, going over my outline and idea list, this might end up being MORE work than the usual QC strips >.<
So uh I no promises yet I guess, but hopefully I won't puss out and will actually get this done. |
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| Almost Merry Christmas! |
[Dec. 21st, 2009|04:17 pm] |
Hey, it's Christmas in five days or something! Merry Christmas everybody!
(This is a card I made for Strange Adventures, but we'll just pretend it's for everybody, since I don't have time to do a Christmas card for the internets.)
Man, was this whole month a giant failure in terms of work... freelance and other things distracting me away from my comic-making, and to make matters worse, pretty much all my friends are up and leaving Halifax due to the general awfulness of the animation industry here, so what little extra time I had was spent with them. Sad, sad, sad times. Sucks when people leave.
I haven't been able to work on Ice much lately. I have a few pages pencilled, but wasn't able to finish them... so much for a year end update. Sorry! :( I'm still plugging away, though. SLG and I have spoken about them publishing it, and it's something I'd like to do, with some changes and updates to the story, which has been going on for far too long. Anyway, I hope that the Small Press Publishing Gods are kind to both SLG and me, and we'll be able to make that happen next year. I feel uncomfortable with the idea of my older work being passed around in book form, but I think that with the changes I want to make, Ice could possibly be a nice little graphic novel. I won't mess with the online content, and it will remain up, so I'm planning for there to be two different versions of Ice, one online and one offline. That's the plan. We'll see what happens.
I feel kind of in flux lately regarding comics and the internet. It's really weird. During my time doing Demonology 101, I never told anyone in Real Life that I drew an online comic, mostly because I felt kind of like I wasn't a REAL comic book artist. Now that I'm working full-time doing a book for a "real" publisher (whatever that word means) I miss the internet, and the interaction with readers, and I feel like I should be doing more art/comics/whatever online ('cause, y'know, if I don't, people might forget about me oh nooooo!). Sometimes I draw a panel in Friends With Boys, and feel pretty bummed about the fact that no one will see this panel for another two years. It's hard to be patient.
Unfortunately, I have never made money off my online comics, so it's hard to try and make anything online a priority when you have paying work demanding your attention. I'd really like to finish Ice (God, when??? wheeennn???) and move on to some kind of comic that actually works online, rather than a long-form story. Which doesn't work. And doesn't sell t-shirts or any of the stuff that makes online comics sustainable. Anyway, these thoughts are probably more of a result of me being a horrible worrier more than anything (must have many revenue streams to pay bills! Can't hitch only wagon to shaky print industry! What if everything fails? What if??? AHHHH! Dogs and cats living in sin together!). Even if I have nothing to worry about, I worry about cosmic death rays or something. Bah, humbug.
On the days that I don't let the publication date for the book bug me, working on Friends With Boys is awesome. I love drawing it. Sometimes the story weirds me out, like how there's little bits of things I went through in high school, and I get nervous over it, because it's like picking at a scab you didn't realize was still there. People who are honest, honest, honest to God memoirists are masochists, I think. But man, I love drawing comics. Please, Comic Gods, let me do this forever and ever. |
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| Book Review: "Zombie Raccoons and Killer Bunnies" edited by Martin H. Greenberg & Kerrie Hughes |
[Dec. 20th, 2009|08:23 pm] |
I’ve finished Zombie Raccoons and Killer Bunnies, edited by Martin H. Greenberg & Kerrie Hughes and overall it was an OK anthology. A few stories stood out, and those I’ve denoted with bold titles. A few of the stories were disappointing, either with an ending that wasn’t as satisfactory as I would have liked, or with an ending that just didn’t make sense to me at all. There were some good chilling stories in here, along with some fun humorous takes on the theme, so a wide variety overall. If you like “creature of the night” stories, then you’ll find a couple of good reads in here, but in the end I was a little disappointed overall.
Table of Contents:
Death Mask by Jody Lynn Nye: This was a zombie raccoon story, where the raccoons come up against a farmer who doesn’t agree with the idea that you need to commune with nature. It was an OK story, but I had a hard time getting used to the voice of the farmer character, which threw me off.
BunRabs by Donald J. Bingle: And this was a killer bunny story . . . told from the POV of a chicken. *grin* The chicken’s POV of the world in general is hilarious, especially their take on modern day conveniences (and how they use them) and the mythology they’ve developed about rabbits and how they incorporate some of our own traditions into their worldview. A fun story.
for lizzie by Anton Strout: A cute little story set in Anton’s “Simon Canderous” universe, although it doesn’t feature Simon as a character. The main character is an archivist, dealing with a certain lack of social skills when dealing with the opposite sex . . . along with a rather ferocious little book wyrm.
Faith in Our Fathers by Alexander B. Potters: The idea here is that young child who can heal with his hands in upset because his pet cats keep disappearing. His father tells him it’s the fisher cats (who aren’t fishers or cats) that keep taking them, so the boy decides he wants to find these fisher cats and goes in search of them. He finds something more instead. It was an interesting story, written well, but at the end I wanted more. I wanted the story to do more, especially since there was so much potential for more in what was presented in the story. With that said, though, this is the best story in the anthology so far.
Bone Whispers by Tim Waggoner: The creature in this story is a rather large and supernatural groundhog, haunting a cemetery. The story revolves around a man returning to the cemetery to confront the groundhog, who had a run-in with when he was twelve years old. I felt like this story needed a little more development, with the connection between the groundhog, the man, the boy, and the groundhog’s hole (and the cemetery) fleshed out more. It had a creepy ending though.
Watching by Carrie Vaughn: And here we deal with pigeons. A man proposes to his girlfriend after taking her to Venice . . . only to have her say no. This sets the man’s life onto a whole new track as he sets out to backpack across Europe, discovering pigeons the entire step of the way. Only the pigeons aren’t exactly what they seem. The first half of the story was interesting, and the character drew me in, but then the story takes a hard sharp turn (perhaps even a hair-pin turn) in the middle and becomes a completely different kind of story altogether. This wasn’t a bad thing and the ending itself makes you smile, in a sort of funny/gruesome kind of way.
The Things That Crawl by Richard Lee Byers: This story doesn’t single out one particular type of creature, it sort of deals with snakes, lizards, alligators, etc, in general. And this is the most well developed story in the anthology. I connected to the main character, a detective who has an alcohol problem, so has been demoted and has relocated to the coast of Florida where, after a hurricane passes through, discovers that the local wildlife isn’t behaving as usual. He picks up on this and puts the pieces together (he is a detective after all), but the conclusion is, of course, too supernatural for the average person to believe. He ends up being forced to deal with the situation himself. Again, a very well-written, cohesive story with a rounded plot, rounded character arc, and a beginning, middle, and end.
The White Bull of Tara by Fiona Patton: This is a story centered around the White Bull of Tara. It begins interestingly enough—fairy cows are breaking through from the fairy realm to munch on the Druids’ garden and a pack of siblings/guards are tasked to stop the incursion. They figure out who’s causing the problem, and why . . . and then the story just kind of dies. They don’t really do much to stop the incursion from the fairy side, but the cows stop coming. Instead, the White Bull’s rival comes through and has his way with the local herd. It just felt like the story fell apart to me, or skewed off in a different direction from the first two-thirds of the story, and so the ending didn’t feel right.
Dead Poets by John A. Pitts: I don’t think I understand this story at all. I REALLY, REALLY liked the idea introduced at the beginning: the main animal here is the shrike, a bird, which (I didn’t know this before reading the story) apparently captures its prey and impales it on thorns on hedges and such around its nest. A cool factoid in and of itself. When, in the course of the story, the main characters finds that the shrike pestering her garden has started impaling pixies as well as rodents and such, the story jumped into a whole new level of interest for me. I seriously thought this would be the coolest story in the anthology . . . but then it completely fell apart near the end. Great setup, great idea, great animal . . . but nothing is done with it in my opinion. It kind of just trails off.
Super Squirrel to the Rescue by P.R. Frost: This story was cute, as the title suggests, with only a little touch of “evil creature from the night” to it. In this case, the evil creatures were crows, a whole murder of them, tormenting a neighborhood. Every attempt by the people to eliminate them was ignored and ridiculed with cawing. It required a rather supernatural squirrel to come to the rescue!
Her Black Mood by Brenda Cooper: This time, the creature of the night was much darker, a black toad created by the main character who can paint wooden carved creatures to life. However, she’s in such a black mood due to her life that this toad, when she paints it alive, comes out rather evil, with teeth and a lust for blood. Brenda Cooper captures the black mood of the character perfectly (we’ve all felt like this at some point, I’m sure) and the toad comes across as evil indeed, but I felt the resolution of the story could have used a little more umph. It made sense (unlike some of the other stories in this anthology), but I felt that so much time was spent on creating the situation and background that there should have been a little more time spent on resolving it all. It took 10 pages for the setup and making the toad as evil as possible, but only 2 pages to resolve the entire situation. A little unbalanced, but definitely a good read.
Ninja Rats on Harleys by Elizabeth A. Vaughan: The title pretty much says it all. *grin* A fun little story with evil rats and possums, a heroic mouse, and two flatulent dogs. Oh, plus a few humans. An interesting and enjoyable read, with just the right amount of humor thrown into the danger. But again this story felt unfinished. Unlike some previous stories in the anthology though, this one felt complete in and of itself, but also felt like the start of something much bigger. At least, I felt like I could have flipped the page and started another chapter when I reached the end. A good story overall though. Definitely entertaining.
Bats in Thebayou by Steven H Silver: Alien bats, anyone? That’s the main creature in this story (plus mosquitoes). Earth has been invaded by alien bats . . . we just don’t know it yet. The story flips back and forth between an alien bat perspective and the human perspective of two campers in Thebayou. I’m not sure this was effective overall, since I was much more interested in the alien bat perspective and not interested at all in the human perspective. But again, the ending was unsatisfactory to me. And aside from the main creature being a bat, there wasn’t much in the way of “creature of the night” feeling to this story.
Twilight Animals by Nina Kiriki Hoffman: This story was well-written, with a main character who could at this point in his life be labeled a “loser.” He’s hired to watch over his brother’s house while his brother and family tour Europe for a month. Since this guy’s in college, he decides to do some research on the neighborhood, ostensibly for a paper for school. Of course, he begins seeing things during his studies that just aren’t natural, in this case, a peculiarly large possum population. The ending is also peculiarly reminiscent of another story in this anthology, which is kind of bizarre. But overall a good story.
The Ridges by Larry D. Sweazy: The last story is about foxes . . . sort of. I can’t say much about the storyline without ruining it, so I’ll just say that the storyline here was good and it didn’t end the way I thought it would as I read it. I had the right idea, in general, but the author twisted it around into something different than what I’d expected by the end. Not really a “creature of the night” story in true form, although it certainly fit the theme of the anthology |
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| Jets Crash |
[Dec. 20th, 2009|06:04 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | nfl | ] |
| [ | mood |
| | crushed | ] |
Life is meaningless and full of pain.
I saw this one coming. Three missed field goals will always come back and bite you in the ass.
Great D, but Mark still has a lot of maturing to do.
With the Colts and the Bengals yet to come, I think we can kiss the playoffs goodbye.
And I'm not feeling good about the Giants game tomorrow either. |
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