Closing Out the Month

Well, I didn't get everything I had hoped to get done finished, but I did get a lot done nevertheless.

I got all the HOPE stories lettered (at least, all the pages I had so far), which was actually five, not four.

I also got all the pages of Elite #1 I had on hand done (well, I've got about one and a half pages to finish up before I go to bed and that will be true).

I finished Spy Girl just fine.

En Garde I laid out, but haven't gotten much further than that yet.

The APA website is all but done, just some final touches.

And the thing that's kept me most busy this week, Haven, has been steady. We've gotten a lot of submissions in the past week or so, so those kept me quite busy.

In all that craziness I think I totally forgot to send Chuck my column for this week, but then he was without power, so I don't feel so bad about it. I'll get it up soon.

Tomorrow I head to Florence, KY to see the new Comics 2 Games store, have some meetings with some fellow creators, and have some much needed fun hanging out and chilling.

I have to be thankful that we did not lose power during the ice storm. Several of my family members did, and some were here, but now all but one of them has power back I think. So things are good on the home front.

Took a break to watch Friday Night Lights and Battlestar Galactica tonight. Both were really good episodes this week, and I'm lovin' it.

And on that note, next time you hear from me it may very well be February and Super Bowl Sunday. That is, of course, if I don't feel like blogging tomorrow night. I guess we'll see when the time comes.

Ice Storm

As it is in several parts of the country right now, the weather is rough here right now. The past couple of days have brought on an ice storm with thousands losing their power. I've been lucky so far, but most of my family is without and may be without for a couple of weeks. If that's the case some of them may be here tomorrow.

I've been making plenty of progress with the lettering and will continue to do so as long as I'm fortunate enough to have power.

I'll update as I can. I'm trying to keep my time on work.

By the End of January

Ok, I've got it worked out now, and this is what I intend to accomplish by the end of January 2009 as far as work goes.

Lettering
Spy Girl (today or tomorrow actually)
All four HOPE stories (for Chris, Jeff, Barri and Bobby)
Empyre submission
Elite #1
Suicide Note (first 6 pages at least)
Tainted (all pages I have on hand)
Black Paw (pages I have on hand)
En Garde (pages I have on hand)

(Note: Ellium, Venger and Genesis will get attention the first two weeks of February)

Logos
Empyre
Jack the Rabbit: Living Legend of the Purple Plains (at least start on it)

Other
Haven (ongoing)
APA Website (not too much left on it actually, so it should be wrapped up)

And that's where things stand as of right now. The 31st I'll be gone all day, so I'm attempting to complete all this by the 30th, which gives me just over a week. Wish me luck!

New Design of the Comic Related Forums Live!

Click the title of this post to check out the new swanky design! I'm thrilled to have my own forums hosted in such a sweet messageboard!

Been Posting My Art

I've been posting some old and recent art in my forums over at Comic Related. A lot of it is old, old stuff, like Transformers drawings I did in fourth grade. But I also posted a couple of things I did in 2007, one of which was published in a comic!

Check out these specific drawings here. Click the title of this post to be taken to the main hub of my forums.

Oh, and sometime today the Comic Related forums are getting an overhaul to their look to match the site. Get a sneak peek here.

Freenlancia

Tis the land I dwell in and am consumed by at the moment. I'm still catching up and knocking 'em down little by little. I'll continue to be more absent over the next few days as I make my way through these. I've got some deadlines creeping up I've got to meet.

I keep meaning to go through everything and post an update here as to when to expect progress, but my time at the moment is better served actually doing the work rather than laying it out and talking about it I suppose.

I'll still try to give a solid update soon either here or individually via email if I haven't already.

In the meantime, click the title of this post to check out a logo I did for Bill Gladman over at Comic Related for one of his projects.

Link-O-Rama

Found some interesting things on the 'net today and thought I'd share 'em. Hey, why not, I got nothing better to do... save work and all that. :) (I did get some work done today, though).

If you wanted to go to the New York Comic-Con, but you couldn't get a table, somebody's got one for sell if it isn't already gone.

Speaking of sales, Eon Comic Art Boards, the company, is up for sell also, lock, stock and barrel. I've already told a few friends about it, but if you're interested check out the announcement here.

Thanks to an old SBC colleague I came across a link to an interview with Kate Vernon (Ellen Tigh) of Battlestar Galactica talking about the final season and the reveal of the final Cylon.

While we're talking about BSG, there is a strange Lego BSG rap out there.

The annual Edwin Awards are back again. This is an awards ceremony for the Avengers of Marvel Comics named after butler Edwin Jarvis.

If you like Star Wars and offbeat comedy you've got to check out Jedi Gym on YouTube.

Ok, so that's not a lot of links, but it's a few to check out. Have fun!

Zombies At My Door

I received a box of copies of Zombie Cop this morning from Quebecor. Thanks so much to Shadowline (Jim and Kris) and Jeff and Szymon. It was a pleasure working with them all and the book looks great!

So, if anyone wants a copy... :)

Journey of a Wannabe - Rekindling

The latest column is up! Just click the title of this post to check out some old crappy G.I. Joe art and stuff from my past. :)

TGI.. Forget It

Man, it's even colder today! When I woke up it was -2°F and now it's only 0°F. The high today is supposed to be 17 and sunny, but I don't think it's gonna make it. They even canceled school here because it was too cold. Apparently buses were late yesterday and kids about froze to death waiting on them, which caused many parents to complain.

I don't think my heat's working properly. We currently have it on 73° and it's still very cold in here. I'm wearing a t-shirt, a turtleneck and a thick robe to keep warm. It's ridiculous.

And Crazz, no black socks and sandals for me!!! I'm young, I'm young I tell ya. :)

The day does have a couple of bright spots, though. Tonight, as I mentioned before, Friday Night Lights and Battlestar Galactica come on, so I'm excited about that. Yep, I'm a dork and I'm proud of it. When BSG first came on I couldn't get into it, but after watching a recap of the first two seasons I got hooked. This is the final season and I'm looking forward to what they have in store.

Speaking of TV, both Smallville and Supernatural were great last night. Smallville featured some of the Legion of Superheroes, so that was cool. And Supernatural took a wild turn as the brothers had to face off against murdering humans instead of the usual, well, supernatural threats they're accustomed to.

I finally put a five pager to rest for Mike Dolce of The Sire last night. I'll be sending the high res today. There were several changes over the past couple of days, so it kept coming back up. But they're happy with it now, and so am I.

Ate some soup and drank some Sprite last night. I'm feeling okay. Obviously I'm not bed ridden or anything, so that's a good sign. The weekend is young though, so we'll see.

Zombie Cop Possibly Delayed In Some Areas?

I'm not sure what to think about this, but one contact I have on the East Coast informs me that his shop won't get copies of the book until the 28th! However, the writer, Jeff Mariotte, saw copies in his local store in Arizona. Strange.

I don't know if we have it here or not as I haven't made it out to the comic shop to find out. Once I do I'll let you know though.

Please let me know if you find it in your area.

Thanks!

I Feel It Coming On

No, not a song and a dance.

Remember that weather I spoke of earlier? Well, it seems to be taking its toll on me. I'm feeling a bug coming on. It just kind of crept up on me like Artemis Entreri to all you Forgotten Realms fans.

It started with the throat, then moved into the nasal canal, and now my whole head is stuffy and my nose is runny. I hope it's just a simple head cold, preferably one I can work through, and not a touch of the flu that's going around right now. I really need to work.

I am so behind right now it's not even funny. I have been working steadily the past couple of days, so I'm out of my funk thank goodness. But now I'm just so stacked it's a bit overwhelming. But I plan on making some strong headway over the next four days. So I probably won't blog as much as I have been as I buckle down and get 'er done, as they say.

Of course tonight and tomorrow night will provide some distraction with the return of four shows I watch: Smallville, Supernatural, Friday Night Lights and Battlestar Galactica. I'll definitely be taking time out to watch those.

I have yet to watch the four hours of American Idol that aired over the past couple of nights. I taped them and may watch them this weekend at some point if I have the free time. If not, oh well. I'm not that concerned with it this year oddly enough.

So, what am I still doing here? I've got a lot to do!

I Hate Cold Weather

Ugh, it's 11 degrees here right now with a high of 16 for the day. I'm thankful I don't live further north, but this is too cold for me also. Oddly I have never gotten accustomed to the cold winters Kentucky has in the 27 years I've lived here. I guess I got spoiled as a child by living in places like Georgia, South Carolina and Arizona.

I am so ready for Spring, but of course I dread the bugs that will bring. But you always have to take the bad with the good.

As you can guess, my room is an icebox right now, so I've been sleeping in the loft and my brother's room (when he's not in there of course) because they are much warmer areas.

The other day I foolishly went out without a coat on to pick up some food. I really wasn't aware of how cold it was as I hadn't checked and hadn't been out. I was dressed with a sweater on and was kind of hot, so I figured running down the street to pick up some food wouldn't be too bad. Well, I was wrong.

Despite the fact that it was REALLY cold out, it was also snowing rapidly at the time, and so by the time I got from the house to the car my black shirt was white. And I didn't heat the car up, so the whole way to the restaurant I was shaking and wondering why I had been so stupid.

The snow didn't stick, which is usually the case around here, but it was enough to add to the cold as the snow melted on my clothes making them wet. So there I was wet, cold and without a coat clinging to the hot food to keep me warm.

I'm obviously not of the same mind as my friend Chuck Kennedy who loves the snowy winters he's getting near Chicago. The man's insane going out at 3am to shovel snow! I couldn't do it. Give me Florida or California any day. I like snow on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Beyond that I could live without the stuff. That said, I do feel for Jason and Ray who are burning up in the hot Australian nights right now! I've lost track of where Cary is at the moment, but he's probably in warm weather too, while Jenny, I'm sure, is feeling the cold of Philadelphia.

Apparently, however, I am as lame as Chuck claims to be because I too have just spent an entire post talking about the weather.

New Column Section

The new column will be up later in the week, but for now all the columns on Comic Related now have a hub page. You can check out mine, which includes links to all previous columns, by clicking the title of this post.

Just a Reminder

Not to harp on this, but my first Image Comics lettering work comes out today in the Zombie Cop GN!

So please head over to your local comic shop and pick up a copy!

Zombie Cop is an original graphic novel written by Jeff Mariotte, with art by Szymon Kudranski and lettering by Brant Fowler, coming from Image Comics/Shadowline on January 14, 2009. 136 pages, $14.99. 96 pages are a comic story, and the remainder is an original horror novella set in the same universe.

Joe Mundy is a doomed cop, desperately clinging to the last vestiges of his humanity before the virus that infected his town turns him into zombie as well! Will he have enough time to solve the mystery of what caused the virus before he succumbs to his horrific fate? Alternately humorous, horrific and tragic, Zombie Cop will leave you questioning just what it means to be human. Critically acclaimed author Jeff Mariotte brings a tale of horror you're unlikely to forget!

Site Feed Fixed... I Think...

By the way, I was informed yesterday that where I had changed my blog address that my RSS feed was now dead. I apologize for that, it should be fixed now. This only affects my lonely two subscribers, but still. Please let me know if you still have problems with it.

Promising Developments

I'm not going to say too much just yet because one, I don't want to jinx myself, and two, they're not set in stone. But if things work out I could have some steady streams of income pretty soon. We'll see how things go though.

Let me give a shout out to my cousin Danielle who turns 30 today! I seriously doubt she or any of my family read this blog, but just in case, cards are on the way from us, and I wish you a very happy B-Day, girl.

Danielle also got married last year, the weekend of Mid-Ohio-Con. It was her wedding I missed because I had already committed to the con. So let me extend a belated congrats on that as well. I hope the Illinois weather isn't too bad for you today.

Does anybody out there know anything about Joomla 1.5 and VirtueMart? If so, I could use some pointers. The thing is kicking my butt!

I've got an idea for yet another column I want to do. I'm gonna wait a bit to get my bearings and see how these potential streams of income work out and how much time they take first though. I definitely don't want to rush into another column if I can't sustain it.

Speaking of columns, I need to send this week's in. Which means I have to dig out and scan in some art to go with them. The bad thing is I have no idea where the art I need is right now. It might be behind my chest of drawers, which is set caddy cornered to allow me to throw a bunch of junk behind it for lack of space. :) If they're not there I wouldn't even know where to look. So I hope they're there!

I can't decide whether I'm hungry or not. It's been about 11 hours since I last ate, and I didn't eat much then. But I still can't tell. You know how your stomach grumbles a bit but you can't tell if it's because it's full or empty? That's how I feel right now. I'll probably eat. I don't need to, but I probably will. I'm so weak.

I tried to video chat with someone today but I could not get my microphone working to save my life. That's one disadvantage of using Skype for my phone. For some reason it totally messes up my mic settings. Granted, I use an actual phone with it and not just a mic and speakers, which is where the trouble comes in. I constantly have to change the default mic and speakers if I need to use something other than the phone. It's a pain.

I want to go pick up a copy of Zombie Cop at my LCS tomorrow, but I don't know if I'll have the cash. I'm sure I'll get a copy, but it would be cool to walk in there and say "I lettered this". Of course, in a state that has Robert Kirkman, a partner of Image Comics, David Mack who works at Marvel, and RD Hall who writes Heroes GNs, they probably couldn't care less about a lowly letterer with one Image Comics credit. But it would still make me feel good. :)

Oh, did you hear? Me neither.

I don't know...

Anyway, American Idol returns for season 8 starting tonight. As anyone who even slightly knows me knows, I have always loved the show and wanted to go on it a few years ago. So watching it is always bittersweet for me. However, the past couple of years have kind of been wearing thin on me, and this year I'm just so not ready for that whole machine to start up again. Maybe it's because I'm getting older, or maybe it's because it's run its course for me. I don't know. What I do know is that I'm not excited about its return tonight. I'll watch it (or tape it), but I'm not looking forward to it. Go figure.

Ok, I've been up for about 20 of the past 23 hours (took a short nap this morning) so I'm gonna figure out whether I'm hungry or not, then eat regardless, and then probably hit the sack so I can get up later and get back to work.

Productivity Increase

Ah, I guess I finally got motivated last night as I made quite some progress on a few things last night and into this morning. Feels good to be back at it accomplishing stuff.

One motivation was a part-time job I'm hoping I get. I'm still waiting to hear back, but it would be a fun job for decent, steady pay, which is something I need.

I still have plenty to keep me busy while I'm waiting though.

Last night I finally caught Tropic Thunder. That was actually a funny and enjoyable film. I had no idea all the cameos were in there, especially Tom Cruise, and just the whole subject matter was, well, different. I've expressed my boredom with Ben Stiller in some of his most recent films, but I was pleased to see him take it to another level here. I mean he had a hand in just about every level of production on this one, plus starring in it. And it wasn't so over the top that it became just ridiculous. It wasn't another Along Came Polly, or even a Zoolander. It was funny and had some hysterical parts in it. One of the best spoof films I've seen in a long while.

This Friday one of my new favorite and much missed shows Friday Night Lights comes back on NBC! It was moved to Direct TV only back in the Fall, but thankfully it's coming back to network TV this week. I'm not into football, but this show hooked me when I first saw it and now I'm just in for the long haul with it.

Battlestar Galactica comes back for its final ten episodes very soon as well. Last night I caught a 30 minute look at where the show has come from and where it's headed. I'm very excited about it.

And Lost is returning soon as well!

So plenty to watch at night here soon. I best be getting the rest of this stuff caught up then, huh?

Short Sunday

So since I only slept for an hour and a half last night I am now to the point of exhaustion as my eyes keep trying to close. I'm trying to listen to podcasts as I letter (Comic Related, Comic Couch, Comic Geek Speak), but I'm now so used to it that it's starting to lull me instead of awaken me.

I want to try to do a little Haven work prior to conking out, but I don't know if that's going to happen. I did get some lettering done this morning, though, so that's a plus.

I was going to try to force myself to stay up today until at least this afternoon or early evening to try to gradually get my sleep schedule right, but I don't think that's going to happen today. I'm just far too tired.

I'll be up this evening of course, on my brother's laptop for a bit most likely doing Haven work or maybe some writing. Then of course late tonight and into tomorrow I'll be back on here lettering.

This week I am shaking myself out of this funk at all costs. I've got to. I've received more files to be lettered for other projects, and I've got stuff in the pipeline that's going to back up on me if I'm not careful.

In two weeks from yesterday I'll be heading up to Florence for a meeting with Scott about Wannabez. We'll also be meeting up with Chuck Moore and his wife (first time I'll meet her), the Ringtail Cafe crew, and people at Comics 2 Games. It's possible (and hopeful) that it will be in the new store, which will be cool, but we'll see. I'm hoping I have some extra money to buy some comics while I'm up there.

Speaking of buying comics, Zombie Cop from Image/Shadowline, which I lettered, comes out THIS WEDNESDAY! Please go check it out.

I have no clever closing, or even a dull one, so let's just leave it at that.

My Saturday Night

I had an uneventful Saturday night as usual. Hey, I'm almost 32 years old, and honestly, I haven't had many eventful Saturday nights since my late teens/early twenties.

Anyway, I started off by checking my emails and so forth. There weren't that many, mainly some from Lance for Haven related items. So I shot through those real fast and geared up for dinner.

Dinner consisted of a Subway Turkey sub with tomatoes, provolone, some mild pepperjack, mustard, black olives and just a tiny bit of green pepper for crunch (I'm not big on lettuce for sandwiches), a coke, and some Doritos. While I ate I watched the animated feature film Star Wars: Clone Wars.

The film was okay, and it was nicely designed, but the continuity bothered me a bit. In Revenge of the Sith Anakin is complaining about not being made a Master, and he never is because he turns to the dark side and joins the Emperor. Well, in this film he is a Master and takes on an apprentice! And this is before he kills Count Dooku in Revenge of the Sith. That alone is enough to make this film a failure.

Another thing I didn't like was Anakin's personality in the film. They were able to capture the essence of Amidala, Yoda, Mace Windu, the clones, Dooku, Palpatine and just about every character there is except Anakin. They just didn't nail his persona from the last two prequels and that bugged me.

So it was an okay flick, but not great.

After I ate and watched the film I jumped back on the computer for a while. Smackdown (wrestling) comes on late Saturday nights on a local channel since we don't get MyNetwork TV here, and so I put that on while going through my emails. Again, most of them were from Lance who evidently tried to call me at the time as well, but I was in the other room away from the phone. I did a little work on the Haven cart and a couple of other minor things, but not much.

After that I settled in and finished Dragonlance: Amber & Blood. I only had two chapters left, which consisted of about 14 pages, so it wasn't a long read. So I finished that, which was a nice wrap-up to both that book and the trilogy, and it set a permanent change in the world of Dragonlance, which was cool to see happen.

After finishing that I picked up an issue of Superman I got for Christmas that I hadn't read yet, issue #678, and read that. It was a decent read, but I'm so behind on all things comics reading that it was just ok. I hope to get the entire New Krypton storyline just to see if I can get into it.

When I was done reading I was a bit tired, so I laid down for about an hour and a half. I then awoke about 5am or so to start my Sunday.

And there you have it, one of THE MOST boring Saturday nights. Yep, I have no life.