March 2007 Archives

I know I've said this before, but... it only gets worse from here. FYI. I know that some of you guys have mentioned that your company's 'net censor-ware blocks Templar at your jobs. Well, next week, I'm gonna EARN that.

I inked and lettered this page while listening to an old Dragnet radio show. I forget the title, but Joe Friday was tracking down pornography peddlers. He was going on about smut and filth and trash and so on, how bad porn was for society and how it had to be kept out of the hands of high school boys at all costs.

And he took two commercial breaks in the half-hour to tell me it was "wise" to smoke Fatima brand cigarettes.

Wonder what people will be laughing at us for in fifty years.

Y'know that little voice in your head that sometimes tells you not to says things? The voice that goes, "Hmm, that's a really prying and vulgar question, I think I'll just keep it to myself?"

Yeah.

Guess who doesn't have that.

Ray could probably follow this one up with "Ah, so's your old man, flatfoot." without being too chronologically gauche.

I listen to too many old time radio cop dramas and detective serials . That's gettin' kinda obvious.

Oh, yeah: I got my ISBNs a couple of days ago. Printing's back on track. I'll keep you guys posted!

I need to stop pretending I know when I'll finish this stuff.

That said, everyone here should go thank Jane Irwin for being alive. She called me up last night and gave me a couple of emails to try with Bowker, the ISBN people. One bounced back, but the other's clearly gone through, meaning at least one human being has read about how I can't get ten ISBNs out of these people after three (now four) emails and two phone calls. But there's a $500.00 charge on my credit card, so it's fair to say they owe me something.

But I digress. I'll save it for the pre-order blog.

Someone asked in the previous blog comments whether or not I do cons. I do, actually. Or rather, I'd like to. When I finally get this book printed, this summer will be my first attempt at "doing" the Midwestern con circuit. Most are anime cons, because most cons these days are anime cons. But I've been assured by my buddy Dirk that the crowds there might be receptive to Templar, so I'm gonna give it a shot. I'm not making plans, reserving tables, or scheduling trips until the book's put to bed, and 100% in the printer's hands, though.

More comics later.

No Templar this week, but this should eb the last time in a long time. I HATE disappointing you guys so much, but I'm just too far behind right now.

Comics on Monday.

One of you knows this man.

I don't know how well, but he's seen my comics. He says you showed him.

I love you, mmkay? <3 Even if you're responsible for that humiliating I MADE A POOPIE grin on my stupid face.

The man's name is Neil. He's holding a painting I made him, which is creepy and obsessive and reduces his bandmates to faceless shadows in the far background. No restraining order yet, though, so I think it went pretty well.

One of the nice things about being freakishly preoccupied with a band that doesn't play fifty jillion person arena shows is that you don't have to be a supermodel to get into the green room. You just have to paint them something. Ineptly. I suggest trying it out on your favorite band, see where it gets you!

And You-Know-Who-You-Are, thank you for making this the best concert I've ever been to. Ever.

Comics shortly.

A lifetime and a half ago, I had a comic on the Modern Tales site Girlamatic. It was called Lucas & Odessa. It was about a failed-at-sixteen dancer and a chain-smoking middle-aged vagrant, and it was never finished. Strangely enough, though, people still ask me about it. Who knows why.

In case you're curious, I've uploaded 13 pages, the first scene, to my ComicSpace here. More pages are forthcoming.

Consider yerself warned about the quality. Four-year-old pages, here.

If I were Roberta Gregory, Flannery would have a thought balloon over her head right now containing a drawing of a dog with pendulous teats.

Just saying.

By the way, for everyone who ordered a copy of the first Templar collection: Unless my guess is off, I should be getting those damned ISBN numbers on Monday. Finally. SONG AND DANCE!

And for everyone who didn't order a copy of the Templar collection, a riddle.

What's full-color, older than dirt, features a chubby Polynesian and a chain-smoking redhead, and rears its antiqued head in less than twenty-four hours? Find out soon.

PS: I SUCK AT RIDDLES

Poor Flannery. Ray's very territorial. More Saturday, as usual. I suck, huh?

And thanks to everyone for responding to my previous extremely nosy post. I learned a lot, namely that my assumptions about who was reading this thing are pretty much dead wrong. Mostly, anyway.

I dunno, I just always pictured you guys as college freshmen. All of you. Like, universally. I realize that makes no sense, but it was what was in my head. It's cool to see how diverse the audience really turned out o be. It kinda gives me hope that I'm not as hopelessly niche as I sometimes suspect.

Hi, guys.

Call me nosy, but I'm feeling all social and stuff. I know some of the people who post in this blog already, but not all of them.

Tell me about yourselves! Even if you usually only lurk. I'm curious.

I backed up the truck and tumbled a few more old comics down into my ComicSpace junkyard, today.

Abraham Todd was a strip I did a couple of years ago. The plan was to try to sell it to alternative newspapers and fringe mags, but I got very few bites and ditched the project for more successful pastures. Three guesses about which strip ultimately eclipsed Todd. No cheating.

I also updated the Pre-Order Project, but it'll apply to very few people and it's not good or bad news. Just a heads-up and a promise.

Back to work...

The Templar, Arizona site's misbehaving, and I know it is. Trying to get it back to normal as we speak.

The main problem seems to be the WYSIWYG editor WCN recently installed behind-the-scenes. It hates MAP and IFRAME tags, both of which I need. I hadn't edited any of the relevant fields for a while, so I never knew this was a problem until recently. When I tried to add some totally unrelated link buttons and saved the fields under the new system, the whole thing fell in on me and killed the blog feed and Project Wonderful ads.

Don't kick my ass, I'm doing what I can.

EDIT: Okay, some ghetto-fabulous tweaks and we're back in business. Every other page on the site now officially looks awful, because I stuck the code in the advertising fields, which are the only fields left that will take raw HTML without editing it. Playing with Dolls and Sparkneedle are hideous, but whatever. It's good enough until Joey can get back to me.

But hey, highlight of the mishap: DIRT CHEAP PROJECT WONDERFUL ADS. Click and buy for low, low prices!

Because if that particular "film" existed, it couldn't stay on the shelves.

I think it does exist, actually. Under a different title, anyway.

Nyu.

That look Reagan's talking about exists. It's kinda skeezy. And depending who you are, it either scares the shit out of you or pisses you off.

I need a shower. And to never work retail again.

More Saturday.