OOW Studios

Astrophysicist Stephen Hawking getting his Zero-G on. The apple, an homage to Isaac Newton. Love this photo. What a powerful image.

[From the Washington Post]

In an outstanding display of geek craftsmanship, this dude converted his basic Moleskine notebook into an 80GB hard drive. A nice little marriage of old fashioned resources and modern tech, no?

Oh, and lest you think about discarding those cut out pages, consider first recycling that precious paper into a Hipster PDA. What’s a Hipser PDA, you ask? Well, it’s essentially a stack of paper, note cards — whatever — simply clipped together. An effective and subtle “fuck you” to your close-but-wealthy friends.

[Link via Boing Boing, naturally.]

This is an excerpt from an old interview with Warren Ellis in a book entitled Writers on Comics Scriptwriting.  I’m guessing it’s from around 2000, judging by the comics he was working on at the time.  I find this specific piece interesting and think it’s still accurate and profound.

Your work is, by and large, deeply political. Do you think comics, as a medium, make for a good political soapbox?

“Well, it’s one of the last mediums you can get on a soapbox in.  It’s one of the last media to not have had all the interesting quirks and creases ironed out of it by corporate control and the demands of a mass audience, because the mass audience doesn’t want to hear about politics. A mass audience wants its football and its tits. This is one of the bonuses, if you like, of working in comics. We address a relatively small and relatively literate audience. We’re not addressing the culture as a whole, so we get to do things like be on a soapbox or write our comics on drugs and be quite open about it. It’s nothing you could do with television or film any more.”

– Warren Ellis

Back from San Francisco, the Alternative Press Expo specifically, and back into the grind. Had a pleasant but quick trip with Pier, Felipe and Caleb. APE is a lot like SPX, but the venue is bigger and much nicer than the confines of a hotel conference hall. Indie comics goodness as expected. No cosplay or Klingons or Stormtrooper Elvis. Although, there was some asshole dressed in a full body costume of the X-Men’s Archangel. I think it was more as a joke, though. I hope.

Spent most of the con “scouting for talent” and checking out new mini-comics. The big discovery, for me, was the art of Camilla d’Ericco. She has a gorgeous manga style infused with just a tad of Ashley Wood, from a few of the sketches I saw in her book Fallen. I guess it’s more the poses of her characters that look ispired by Wood. Either way, beautiful.

Chris Pitzer, publisher of the excellent AdHouse Books was nice enough to give me a free copy Johnny Hiro (which looks fantastic) and a Paul Pope sticker that I quickly slapped on my day planner. Thanks, Chris!

Ran into some L.A. dudes like Kevin McShane of Toupydoops, Kazu from Flight, J-Fish, and Dan Evans of Image’s Texas Strangers. I also saw a lot of familiar faces from SPX. I’m starting to really love this indie comics circuit. There’s a lack of pretentious posturing which probably stems in no small part from a lack of money and exposure in the community. It’s creators making comics for the love of the game.

The next two weeks will find me scrambling to get this anthology off to the printer. Simultaneously, I’ll be crossing my fingers that my new(ish) pilot script, co-written with Teddy Dunn, is approved by our respective managers to go out and pitch. Teddy and I have spent the better part of two years getting this story in fighting shape. I think it’s ready. It’s a solid 60 page cable tv draft. That said, I’m expecting our managers to ask us to provide a network draft at some point. Cross that bridge when we get there, I suppose.

Also need to find time to develop Secret Pilot and Secret Comic some more. Gotta get these developed in time to capitalize on the heat that’s sparked by the anthology and pilot.

Otherwise, I’ve been catching up on tv in my down time. Any of you guys watching Heroes? Last nights episode was great. HRG is a bad ass.

Jace writes about the fate of Veronica Mars over on his splendid Televisionary blog. Daily reading for me.

Back to work. Oh, and today is the annual Armenian Genocide Day in Los Angeles. Traffic is a bitch. Nothing like speeding white Mercedes and BMW’s with waving red/blue/orange flags to get you white-knuckled, clutching your steering wheel.

I never managed to keep up with this show, but I know a few of my friends got hooked on the Donnellys. NBC has uploaded two unaired episodes for your viewing pleasure. “In Each One a Savior” and “All of Us Are in the Gutter” can be found at NBC.com.

Nick, get at your boys about this.

Busy week out here.  All my burners are full and there’s a number of things in the queue that need my attention.  Same is it ever was.   I’ve been using a 2007 date book this year — as I’m notoriously unorganized — and it’s actually turning out to be a life saver.   Put simply, if I don’t write things down I’ll forget.  I have the memory of a tiny animal — it’s horrible.

I’ve been spending some time the last couple weeks planning for San Diego Con.  The anthology I’m editing is dropping at San Diego and it’s important to parlay that momentum into the Next Thing.  I’m developing a comic book pitch that may or may not prove to have legs.  Need to get the pitch off to the usual suspects, a few trusted friends that I respect, to get notes.  Funny, my younger brother now falls into that category.  He just wrote and shot a short film with a childhood friend that impressed the hell out of me.   Gets me excited about the future.

I just received an e-mail from my old screenwriting professor.  He sent me the longline for a screenplay he co-wrote.  It sounds like the mutt’s nuts.   A very intense, topical story.   I’d expect no less from the man that taught me how to write stories.

You know, that gets me thinking.  I haven’t a read a book on the craft of writing in ages.   It wouldn’t be a bad idea to read something new (see above: memory) and stretch those brain muscles.  Any of my writer friends that are reading this, post in the comments section if you’d recommend anything.  I’ve read all the “classics”, I’m more interested in something new.

It’s that time of the month. The March 2007 numbers for direct market comic book sales are in. Last month finds DC getting kicked in the junk by Marvel, yet again. The House of Ideas dominates the top 10, with DC and Dark Horse each placing one title. Buffy the Vampire Slayer #1, placing 9th, came through like a champ for the usually quiet Dark Horse.

We don’t find another non-Big Two title until Star Wars Legacy, down the list at number 65. In fact — and this is pretty typical — there’s only 8 titles in the top 100 that weren’t published by Marvel or DC.

On that note, I need a stiff drink from yonder kitchen.

Paul Pope is The Comics Destroyer. His art is like epic sex at 3 a.m., sipping carefully brewed coffee post-coital and smoking fine cigarettes — all served to you by your helper robot. Along with Warren Ellis, he’s one of few comic creators working diligently in science fiction — speculative fiction — whatever you want to call it. Most of his work is largely unavailable/out of print due to the fact that many of his comics were self published and he can’t be bothered to reprint them, I think. That, and, I suspect, he’s a man who looks to the future not only creatively but in the way he approaches life.

You’ll have the easiest time finding 100% and Batman Year 100, of which I recommend the former. Heavy Liquid, published years ago by DC’s Vertigo imprint, is still out of print but worth searching out. As is THB (a masterpiece) that might be available through AdHouse. I bought a 90-ish page novella from them at SPX in Bethesda last year, but that might have been a convention-only thing since Pope was signing.

Pope’s blog, Pulphope, is an absolute gem for fans of comics and art and straight up intelligence. I know I have friends out of state that only read super-hero comics, and I take this moment to grab you by the collar and implore you to try out something new.

At the very least, skim through Pulphope for free. It’s a feast for your mind.

Props where props is due.  This goes out to a literary giant of the 20th Century.

Goodnight, Mr. Vonnegut.