Category: comics

barking

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I don’t know what the deal is the last few days, but my girls won’t stop barking.

It’s driving me insane. It’s impossible to read a book or edit a scene with this going on.

I can barely get through a comic.

Five minutes, ladies. All I’m asking for.

Maybe twenty. An hour.

Three hours, tops.

Maybe eight.

Nine?

How about a whole day?

Target: 1400 words
Written: 1797 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Magic Kingdom For Sale - Sold!, Terry Brooks
Comics: Battlestone 1, Bloodstrike 16, Team Youngblood 15, Youngblood Strikefile 8
Music: White Trash, Two Heebs And A Bean, NOFX (hey, I don't name 'em)

rants that went the wrong way

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But were still somehow kind of right? Like, it’s the stuff you don’t want to say out loud, because it’s the kind of thing that a good and just society would never say or do, but ultimately, knows sometimes needs to be done?

I mean, I’m not saying anything in particular. In this case, it’s a part of Bad Neighbours, a peak point where things have gone off the rails and the main character has made a certain decision that ultimately, is the wrong decision, but also, kind of the right decision, in the way that we’d all like to ignore Nazis and let them have their little hate parades and such as long as they’re just out there playing pretend and don’t have any actual power and aren’t physically hurting other people.

But the second they do that? Well, I mean, I know how Jack Kirby would have seen it: see a Nazi, punch a Nazi, and certainly, the second there’s violence, it’s up to us to oppose it. I truly believe in the Tao concept of entering a fight like a funeral, with the same solemnity, and the intent to simply end it as quickly and peacefully as possible.

But then, what do I know? I’m a lifelong pacifist who has never actually been in a fight ever, beyond some wrestling with my older brother as kiss. I don’t think I’ve ever been punched in the face.

Then again, maybe that’s because I’m not a Nazi.

Target: 1300 words
Written: 1826 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Captain Paul, Alexandre Dumas
Comics: Tomb Raider 33-36
Music: Welcome To My Dream, MC 900 feat. Jesus

forty-eight plus one

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And we’re back in the office.

And the office is making it very difficult to get done all the things I need to get done.

I need to get the Mungk in more hands.

I need artists, letters, colourists, an editor for Romance and Western Cradle.

I’ve more or less resigned myself to including the poetry and short stories in with The Mungk (well, maybe not the poetry – once I have enough of those, I may just do a volume of it).

But The Mungk – it needs to be seen. Romance, it’s just a calling card of a comic to build fans, a free giveaway I can hope someone enjoys, and then recognizes the creators later when we put out other stuff.

Western Cradle though – I think it’s good. It may be kind of rape-heavy, which sucks, but if we do it right, draw it right, it could be very, very strong.

But for now. The Mungk.

Target: 1300 words
Written: 1141 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: A Study In Scarlet, Arthur Conan Doyle
Comics: Deadly Class 25-26, Seven To Eternity 4, Black Science 27
Music: Experimental Jet Set, Trash And No Star, Sonic Youth (palate cleanser after Bette fucking Midler)

thinking a lot about sex today

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Not because I need to get some (I do) or that I’m particularly feeling my oats (I am), but that’s mostly because for the first time, I’m writing a sex scene.

(Well, not the first time, but the first time in canon. I alluded to the father’s use of a late night laptop session in The Mungk, and a couple of the short stories referenced sex – Get Back Again’s misogynist ghost threatening/chastising his murderer with abuse/promiscuity, Forest Edge’s main victim being a prostitute, its villain getting what comes to him at the hands of the prostitute’s best friend after being seduced, oh, and Western Cradle, which deals almost exclusively with a woman’s revenge for the murder of her family and her own gang rape).

Okay, well, then, this is the first time in canon, and also, the first time where the character is engaged in a consensual act that they really have no love for.

It’s something I would do without hesitation, and would hope my partner is open enough to find fun and sexy, but Walter, the main… he’s a little repressed. Well, a lot repressed.

And so, this is hard for me to write, because I don’t have a lot of boundaries, and it’s difficult for me to get into the mindset of someone who does. For me, it’s no big deal; it’s play.

For others, it’s world shattering.

For me, it’s fun; for Walter, it’s disgusting (hygienically and morally).

And believe me, we aren’t talking anything that weird here.

You’ll see when it’s all done.

When it finally comes out.

When any of this comes out.

Most of it has gone nowhere.

I might be getting a little stale.

Target: 1100 words
Written: 685 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Adam Bede, George Eliot
Comics: Cyber Force v3 4-6, Cyber Force & X-Men 1
Music: Invisible, Everclear

heart tests

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I feel like I’m going through one right now.

And I literally went through one this morning.

I am trying not to give up, but damn. It’s so hard.

I can’t even bring myself to submit anywhere. Even though every single thing I’ve ever written has been accepted and published somewhere, since I first decided to start sending them out (minus comics – I don’t have an artist to work with and the one with whom I’ve considered working in the – whose style is ideal for Romance #1, is entirely unreliable), I can’t bring myself to do it.

I worry.

Get Back Again was banned for, you know, being told from the bad guy’s point of view, and since that view was super misogynist, it was considered ban-worthy. Like, have these people ever read fiction?

Good fiction doesn’t insist all their villains act like good people.

It’s kind of the whole point.

Anyway, fuck it.

Who wants some?

Target: 1100 words
Written: 1050 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Kitchen Confidential, Anthony Bourdain
Comics: Cyber Force v2 16, Cyber Force Origins 3, Ballistic 3, Velocity 1
Music: Instrument Soundtrack, Fugazi

starting to wonder

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There’s been a recurring theme in my work, mostly because as a plot device, it’s evil, but it’s always the same. I know, I know. It happens the world over, but maybe I’m utilizing it too much.

Men and women have always been a complicated thing, but the reality is that it’s not actually that complicated.

It’s the same as anything, really. Be good to each other, and things will be fine.

Unfortunately, it’s far too easy (especially these days), to be shitty to one another.

And as has always been, no matter the race, creed or culture, women take the worst end of it. It doesn’t matter what you are, if you’re a woman, it’s worse for you.

And that’s bullshit.

I mean, I lucked out, technically; I’m a straight, white male. According to most of what I see these days, I should not be allowed to comment anything on these matters, but Yes, Ma’am. I agree.

While that might sound like complaining, it’s not. I do agree, for the most part. I don’t want to mansplain shit to anyone.

I do want to demonstrate that I understood the lesson.

I’m just starting to wonder about how things seem to go in my stories, if I’ve actually taken the lesson to heart.

It wasn’t part of The Mungk (except for maybe the hints of shrewishness in Diana), but it played a big role in Get Back Again, and in my recently written, but not yet published Western Cradle series, and here it is again, in Forest Edge.

Am I really learning?

Something to think about, going forward. 

Target: 1000 words
Written: 343 words, short story: Forest Edge

Read: The Oracle Year, Charles Soule
Comics: Preacher 64-66
Music: I Palindrome I, They Might Be Giants

regrets

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I’m thinking a lot about what’s evil and what is not.

I’ve just written a four issue comic series, a western based on revenge, which begins typically enough for the kind of spaghetti western I’m basing it on, but takes a wild turn at the end of the first issue (unrevealed future plot twist).

I’m a little worried it pushes me into territory I’m not comfortable representing.

That is, like Get Back Again, I’m concerned some right wing fuck is going to take it and construe it as pro-bigotry or worse, in this case, pro-life.

But that’s not what it’s about (and I’m very pro-choice); it’s similar to The Mungk in that it’s about trauma, and how it can shape us for the worse, until the evil that’s been done to us becomes us abusing ourselves, and maybe others, in ways we never would otherwise.

It’s also about whether evil can be used for good, sometimes?

It’s about guilt and remorse and self-hatred.

Because listen, I know more than a few women who’ve been through it, and despite what the right wing would have you think, most of them did not behave as though they were tossing a used Kleenex.

Most of them were genuinely distressed, upset, even traumatized by it. Not one of them didn’t have strong feelings about it, even if they didn’t want to say it out loud. It was clearly visible on their face and in their eyes.

The other thing that I know about it is that not one of them has ever said they would make a different choice. They don’t regret the choice, even if there’s still remorse.

Like putting down a terminally ill pet; it sucks, you hate it, it makes you weep for days, but even years later, if asked, you’ll say it was the right thing to do.

Anyway, thoughts and feelings on this day; I can’t imagine what the poor women go through.

Even if this case, it’s a little more… extreme.

Target: 1000 words
Written: 720 words, comic: Western Cradle #4

Read: Tropic Of Kansas, Christopher Brown
Comics: Preacher 57-59, Preacher: Tall In The Saddle 1
Music: I Know What You Did Last Summer Soundtrack, Various

marathon

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Well, that was a run. Very little time today, but I managed a rough draft of the conclusion of Western Cradle.

I like it a lot, minus the obvious criticism of first draft and the last few lines being maybe meaningful, but meaning I need to expand on that a lot more during the first three issues.

Well, fuck.

Target: 1000 words
Written: 2011 words, comic: Western Cradle #4

Read: Tropic Of Kansas, Christopher Brown
Comics: Preacher 49-52
Music: I Heard They Suck Live, NOFX

slept in

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Until EIGHT. In the AM!

Crazy, right?

I haven’t had more than about six or seven hours of sleep in months, without being ill.

Of course, I’m ill today, but fuck it. I am using this downtime to push forward hard on the things that I love – writing, reading, comics, with a side of meditation, exercise, cooking and music.

That’s pretty much the sum total, although I think travel, sex, video games, and various other sundry storytelling mediums also play a part.

What else could you possibly need? A greater purpose? People who love you? Righteous vengeance?

I don’t know, but I’m feeling better, anyway.

Still sick, but hell if I couldn’t use eight to ten hours every night.

Target: 1000 words
Written: 2575 words, comic: Western Cradle #2

Read: The Autobiography Of Malcolm X, Malcolm X/Alex Haley
Comics: Preacher: Saint Of Killers 1-2, Preacher 17-18
Music: Nowhere Generation I & II, Rise Against

the day after

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It’s time now to rest, to refocus and think about the next thing. In the meantime, it’ll be poems and short stories, maybe a comic or four, a new hip ditty and then…

Then.

It may seem relaxing, but I’m desperate to have had something of an impact. I don’t need to be Jesus or Buddha; I’ll take minor pantheon member. But hell, even though I’ve got so many plans, it still feels like my race is run, like the egg timer is about to go off and my goose will be officially cooked.

You know, the usual hair on fire stuff.

So, yeah. Back to work, back to the work. Downtime, with a side of poetry.

Also, selling The Mungk, but hey, every act of creation has its cross to bear.

Target: 1000 words
Written: 81 words, poem: Roses And Violets

Read: Constellation Games, Leonard Richardson
Comics: Chew 5-8
Music: The No Fun, Local H