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HEX

cover in process again…

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THE BUG

cover in process…

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IT’S JUST TALK…

Part 1 of a new podcast interview with me can be found here.

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ONE OF MANY THINGS TO BE AWARE OF…THE FAMILY COE

Saw something on the news about these people and found it sorta creepy. So I read some things online about this subject. There is a book out (or soon to be out) that goes into some exploration. But in the meantime there are numerous articles to be found. Here is just one.
Scary stuff and almost beyond belief when thinking about the world wide ramifications. This is about power and corruption to it’s most conspiratorial degree. Something I normally would pass off but the evidence is there if you look.

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MISTER CAREY

An interview with Mike Carey can be found along with a contest to win Crossing Midnight trade paperbacks here.

There will also be an interview of yours truly for these same people up in a few days as well.

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BLOGGYDOOMY

WAR OF THE TAXMAN…

Well we picked up our tax papers the other day from the accountant and got the wonderful news, he says sarcastically, that we would have to pay additional taxes this year of a significant amount. We were quite shocked at this because our income was only slightly more than the previous year. The previous year we had overpaid and got a reimbursement. So we figured it would break even this year after all the quarter payments had been made. Nope. We pay. We thought this rather peculiar because our income was only slightly better in 2007. We went and looked at the tax brackets online and were quite pissed at what we found. As it turns out, we barely bumped into the next tax bracket, one of the middle class ones. So we moved from lower middle class to middle middle class. The next up would be upper middle class. So here is the rub. We literally have to pay 10% ADDITIONAL tax over what we paid the year before because of that little bump up. And it turns out that it is the ONLY bracket that increases the amount of tax by that much. If we had made it to the upper middle class the increase would not have been 20% but only 13% additional tax. And if we had made it even farther than that the percentage would be even less of an increase exponentially. So in essence the actual middle class get chopped heavily by the taxman more than any other category. Which leads to the title of this section. I had seen something not too long ago on one of political shows we watch about there being war waged on the middle class by the government in terms of the financial aspects of our country. This entails everything from affordable insurance to taxes. Don’t get me wrong I’m not complaining about our financial status. It could be far worse. We do pretty well. However the poor in our country are treated terribly in many ways. So the plight of the middle class pales in comparison on lot of levels. But after discovering that huge difference in the tax system percentages it causes one to pause and consider what actually is going on here. It is absolutely ridiculous to me that if you reach the upper levels of our society the exponential increase percentages in taxes get really small. Proving that the more money you have the better you are treated by the government. What boggles my mind, and I have yet to determine, is what the gain would be, to get such an increase of 10% when moved up slightly into a higher bracket is beyond me. What is the point of that other than just to keep the middle class down a bit and what purpose would that serve? The amount of money we would need to make to reach the next level in the tax system is literally almost $80,000 more to reach the upper middle class. So by bumping up just a little bit we moved into a bracket that raises the taxes an additional 10%. We are paying the same percentage of tax that someone who makes $79,000 more than we do. Doesn’t make much sense. So in essence after paying taxes this year we actually will have LESS money in our pocket than if I hadn’t had an increase in income. Bizarre. I can only imagine what it must feel like for someone who lives in poverty and then suddenly finds themselves making enough money to be considered middle class.

(and now for something fun) DOOMSDAY…

The movie. Went saw this today. Read many reviews from various sources before going. It seemed that people either hated it or loved it. I ended up in the loved it camp. I think some might not be getting what they are seeing. Is it an unabashed literal homage to post apocalyptic movies from the 70’s and 80’s such as Road Warrior or Escape From New York? Absolutely yes! But it doesn’t do it in a way that makes you feel the director is rehashing that stuff. It feels like he was truly wanting to make a movie that harkened to those absurd ideas. Now when I say absurd I mean it in the best possible sense. A lot of scenes in this film are truly over the top absurd and laugh out loud funny. But not funny because it’s absurd but funny because you/we are sort of in on the joke but without making us feel like we are watching a parody. A fine line to walk but this film does it beautifully. The entire car battle sequence is just amazingly entertaining in a very sadistically brutally funny way because it’s absurd in the most fun sense of the word. There is even a blatant product placement scene that is just laugh out funny. It plays as if the film makers know that since they have to have product placement to help pay for the movie that they’re gonna make you laugh about it. So if you are a fan of those previously mentioned films, and others of that older generation of B movie fun, I highly recommend this movie. It was obviously made with love for this genre. So ignore the nay sayers out there, who most likely like to piss in other people’s frosted flakes.

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AND NOW…

part three.

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PART 2…

of the interview here.

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SOMETHING ELSE

Part one of a 3 part interview can be found here.

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STUFFBLOG

A MESSY HOUSE…

I haven’t been able to work or blog for a bit due to having lots of work and repairs done around the house. We’ve been living with contractors for about the last 3 weeks. I had planned on working through it all but things didn’t quite work out the way they were in my feeble brain. We had to put a new roof on the house because of it’s age and we were having leaking problems. The leaking caused damage to both bathrooms and therefore they needed major repairs done. Yay. Anyway, $15,000 dollars later and having total chaos around here I’m finally getting back on track.

I’m starting work on the second issue of the “unnamed” project and finally finishing up my one off issue of Jonah Hex. Oh, and look for something involving an ambushed bug.

MASTER OF HORROR…

No, this is not a reference to the poorly executed tv series of the same name. I’m referring to horror comics master Junji Ito. I’ve just recently completed reading the 3 volume set that dark horse had published. As to be expected they were truly haunting works. The first 2 volumes dealt with his Tomie stories. Truly creepy. In fine Japanese tradition they were about obsessive behaviors and usually ended up with the horrific death of Tomie. She is this girl who keeps coming back to life in one bizarre circumstance after another of men murdering her in very violent ways. But it quickly becomes much more complicated than pure fantasy of men having power over women, which is what the author wants you think you are reading at first. That you are reading a misogynist male powertrip. But in essence it really is an exploration in the power of survival in the guise of an unknown demonic or alien entity in the form of a girl that uses obsession to provoke one to dismember her in garish ways. You see this is how she multiplies. Her individual dismembered body parts slowly become multiple versions of herself. One of the interesting things though is in one story is that the separate versions of herself are compelled to kill each other as well. As to say that she must continually struggle to become the most evolved version. Strongest of the fittest. What is fascinating is that you would think that the murderous rampage images would be the most horrific. Though they may be horrific, the most shocking and truly creepy, make your skin crawl, images come from the scenes with her regenerations. Mr. Ito may be trying to say that formation of life is messy and icky. The other thing about Junji Ito’s work, as in other Japanese horror, he doesn’t try to explain the technical reasons for what is happening. You just have accept what you are seeing. I think this lack of explanation found in Japanese horror is what truly makes it scary and thought provoking. It is very chillingly compelling when compared to American horror, where most of it explains everything to such a degree that it takes any of “thrill” out it. In my opinion, good, truly scary horror, is when something is completely unknown, unexplainable. It touches on a more primal fear. My only complaint is that the Tomie stories don’t form a single narrative larger story much like his other works I’ve read.

Volume 3 focuses on his short stories. Some of them are okay but others are truly amazing.

Other Junji Ito works I recommend that are available in english are Gyo and my personal favorite, Uzumaki.

MUSIC…

Perversely playing with my ipod with obsessive fervor.

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LOOKING FOR SOMEONE

Her name is Brooke Devine and she put some batman art pages on hold sometime ago but i have misplaced her contact info. I know its probably a long shot but if any other collectors reading this blog know her, could you be so kind as to see if she would email me through this website? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

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OPENING TIME

As some of you have already discovered, the official store is now open as of sometime sunday evening. For now we are presenting a large number of original pages and concept work and tidbits like that. Also the sketchbooks are available in there as well. In the future we will be adding some limited specialty items such as signed comics sets and tpbs as well a some other goodies. At some point we will be adding a very few sketched edition hardcovers too. In the meantime enjoy looking at what is in there. Feel free to email us with any questions.

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HA! HO! HE!

A certain someone for whom this website belongs to and is very giddy at the moment as he writes this blog has this thing over at the ComicsNexus that he wants to share with all of you…and the award goes to…__________

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BLOGGY

GALLERY…

The uploading process has begun for the gallery. It all is sort of random to what is going up. So this round as with the subsequent uploads will not be in any particular order. Hopefully that doesn’t annoy anyone. This time around there is all kinds of stuff. Some batman, some promethea, con sketch commissions. and various other things. I think I may have added at least 50 new images. My goal is to create something that people can come back to time and time again. To come to the gallery and view things at your leisure. I know most online artist galleries aren’t going to be as large as this as time goes by and hopefully you will come to enjoy the vastness of it as it progresses. I wish to show multiple versions of things that went through major or minor changes as the work was completed or as changes needed to be done based on editorial notes as work progressed. I’m showing these sorts of things to promote thoughts on design and process. Particularly with cover images and their relation to the logo work I had done. I know some of this will be a bit redundant but I want to create an online documentation of various aspects of every image I produce. I hope, even with the redundancy, you will find merit in this notion of a full on compendium of my work as it develops over time. Anyway, enjoy the new images for this round of uploads.

THINGS YOU SHOULD SEE…

Robotika by my friend Alex Sheikman has started up it’s second series from archaia press. Samurai sci-fi with a bit of surreal attitude. I contributed a pin-up to the first series and wanted to point you in the direction of his new material at…

Tabloia is another ongoing project from another friend, Chris Wisnia. Very fun and wild retro-cool-monster-driven stuff. I also have contributed a pin-up for his publication as well. Please explore his crazy worlds at…

These guys need support for their unique vision of independent comics. Find them, buy them, enjoy them.

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FIXINS

We have fixed some of the bugs in the gallery. So you should be able to view things without error messages. There are still a few things we need to adjust, but at least it is viewable now. Our esteemed webmaster has set it up so you can navigate through the images using a control slideshow motif that is rather nice or you can go directly to flickr to view images from there. Hopefully next week I will be adding a lot more images to the gallery in one fell swoop. My goal for this gallery is for it to keep growing and sort of be a giant digital compendium of my work. Please enjoy.

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BLOGAZOOMA

GALLERY OF ERRORS…

We have noticed awhile back that we seem to be having problems of a technical nature with the gallery viewing and are working to rework that area of the site. So please bear with us as we remove bugs. Which will be nice so I can add lots of new images that are ready to be put into cyberspace for your viewing pleasure.

MANIFESTATION…

Recently I have been pondering the question of what makes us who we are and how we are perceived by those around us. In some ways our physical persona that is recognizable by others exists because of our desires to be recognized in a certain way. This can shape our appearances and we evolve physically to meet the demands of our imaginations. I believe we are perceived by others in ways we have subconsciously chosen for ourselves and we live out those roles as imagined. Some would say that we are perceived differently than we view ourselves, and to some extent that is true. But we always come back to what we believe ourselves to be and continue to live our lives with our self perceptions. Therefore the choices we make in life lead further toward what we imagine ourselves to be. Manifesting ego and personality. For some this happens early on and for others they constantly morph themselves as changlings. Refusing to be truly known by others. Sort of continuously redefining and therefore they take on changing physical attributes. This idea of self manifestation can be put to control over our environments, shaping our realities in little increments over time to make our lives into what we want them to be. In actuality we choose our fates, even if we don’t want to admit that. Everything we see ourselves being influences where we end up and how our lives are affected. Belief makes reality. But you have to truly believe in something for that something to come into being. If it is half hearted then it doesn’t come to pass. We define ourselves through manifestation of our soul’s desire, not by outside circumstances.

CYBER GHOSTS…

Just finished reading Ghost in the Shell: Man Machine Interface by Shirow Masanume published in america by darkhorse. An extremely challenging read full of very dense futuristic computer navigational references that can be a bit overwhelming. Entire battle sequences take place within the electric digital realm of cyber-reality. I feel if you can past all of that and allow yourself to be immersed in that form of technical thinking, the ending will become that much more satisfying. Basically the ending reveals a new form of combined life, a kind of artificial intelligence. But what I find most interesting is this new life is shown to exist in the cyber-realm, on another plane of existence if you will and is handled in such a way to be more on the metaphysical side. Cascading colors that make you feel things rather explain them. As if you would be looking into creation itself. A very interesting perspective for a story that primarily relies on pages and pages of dense technical jargon and configurations. By having to absorb such a dense and antiseptic form storytelling makes a highly charged and revelatory awakening in the final segment. It sort makes me think that author is saying that no matter how far technology moves in the future that creation is more wonderous and spiritual and metaphysical than we would like to admit. That no matter how separated man gets from unseen energies we will inevitably come back around to the metaphysical no matter how far technology takes us. Another interesting thing to note about the art is how much the author can’t help but focus on the human form, sometimes in titillating ways. Even as characters move through digital realities they are portrayed as nude human forms. This could be taken as just a story telling device, surely, but also it comments on the fact that we will always have to be physical creatures if we are to understand our world and our role in it. So at the end, this new form of life being introduced is shown as light in the eyes of one of main characters, revealing that creation is truly a metaphysical event and not just purely scientific and biologic. This entire series has been nothing really but a question of what makes us what we are. Our spirits and souls exist outside the context of our bodies but need the physical form to self manifest and affect our surroundings and to be known by others, to find some sort of fulfillment to make ourselves into something more. A lot of people have gotten caught up in the computer and technical aspects of the Shirow’s story about the future of mankind but I think they have missed a crucial point being made about humanity and our uniqueness and what is creation exactly.

MUSIQUE (you should hear)…

NFD — dead pool rising
SIOUXSIE– mantaray
FIELDS OF THE NEPHILIM / NEFILIM — self made collections of rarities and mixes
CHRISREEDUNIT — minimal animal
RILO KILEY — under the blacklight
!!! (aka CHK CHK CHK) — myth takes
PERRY FARREL’S SATELITE PARTY — ultra payloaded
VNV NATION — judgement
TEGAN AND SARA — the con
SEAGULL SCREAMING KISS HER KISS HER — no! no! no!
FOREIGNER (yeah i know, cheese)– self titled debut
THE HIVES — the black and white album
PINK FLOYD — wish you were here
SUITE 666 — pretty corpse
BANG SUGAR BANG — thwak thwak go crazy!
NEW YORK DOLLS — one day it will please us to remember even this

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HAPPY MERRY SOMETHING OR OTHER

Well, as usual I’ve got nothing to really say at the moment but it has been awhile since my last blog. so I ‘m feeling the need to blog now! I hope everyone out there who is so inclined to be celebrating a holiday at this time of year really slows down to really enjoy it. Best wishes to you all.

AT MIDNIGHT…

Just finished my last 3 covers to Crossing Midnight and my single interior page contribution to issue 16, fully colored by myself as well (click on image below). It saddens me that my participation in this series is ending so soon. I really enjoy working on it and really tried to give the covers an unusual perspective while still being creatively dynamic. Overall I think I was successful at that, though there is a couple weak spots in my opinion. This series is fantastic in every way. Please pick up the trades as they come out. You won’t be disappointed by the creator’s efforts.

THINGS YOU SHOULD SEE…

Amy Hadley’s work. Known most recently for her beautiful authoring and renditions on Fool’s Gold published by tokyo pop. SEE. very nice work. She also has a project in the works with Matt Wagner.

I just celebrated a birthday on December 18th. Had a really good time and received some awesome gifts, a signed photo of Debbie Harry (which is now proudly displayed next to the drawing table), a new ipod, robinson crusoe on mars dvd, pan’s labrynth dvd, the notorious bettie page dvd, a bottle of booze, a gift card, a signed copy of the black dossier with a head sketch by kevin o’neil (fucking awesome), cerebus the last day, cake and ice cream, and this hilariously cool portrait/avatar by my friend warren wucinich…

MUSIC YOU MUST HEAR…

AIMEE MANN–one more lonely drifter in the snow
MOONEY SUZUKI– have mercy
THE CULT —born into this
DAVID J AND BASIC–splinters of the cross
HANK WILLIAMS III– straight to hell (double disc version)
BUTTHOLE SURFERS– weird revolution
SEA WOLF—leaves in the river
NINE INCH NAILS–year zero
PETER BJORN AND JOHN — writer’s block
THE VINES — vision valley
LCD SOUNDSYSTEM– sound of silver
X — wild gift
X — los angeles
THE SUGAR CUBES — the great crossover potential
DETROIT COBRAS — tied and true
PRIMAL SCREAM — riot city blues
SWAN ISLAND — the centre will hold
ANTONY AND THE JOHNSONS — (untitled)
THE AQUA VELVETS –guitar noir
DIE KRUPPS — rings of steel
DIE KRUPPS — odyssey of the mind
HER SPACE HOLIDAY — the past presents the future
MINOR THREAT — complete discography
KRISTOFFER RAGNSTAM — sweet bills

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DEBORAH LOVES YOU

Debbie Harry Rules…..!!

James and Kirsten from the Isotope, Drew from Image, and myself all went to see Debbie play live at the Filmore in SF sunday night. It was the final night of her tour for the new album Necessary Evil and we got prime spots about only 5 feet from the front of the stage. What an amazing show. It was the first time I’ve gotten to see her play solo material live. What a treat. All of the new songs sound fantastic live and are loaded with the same vitality of the recorded versions. She was obviously happy to be playing a solid retrospective of her solo material and full of energy. No surprise, considering the energy of the new material from the album. In the middle of the set we were treated to 2 very unusual acoustic versions of Blondie classics. Just amazing. Seeing this show was a real concert highlight for me.

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A IS FOR…

A IS FOR…
updated

Todd Klein’s website had a special print with a new text piece by Alan Moore but its…

IT’S ALL GONE NOW. hope everyone who wanted one got one.

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BLOGDOM OF BOREDOM.

Hmmm…

Not really much to report on or talk about of late. Work is going fine. I’m at the half way point of the first issue of the project that is “unnamed” and it is all turning out well so far. The other parties involved seem to be pleased as well. Taking a little break from it though to work on the final Crossing Midnight covers and to do an interior page for issue 16. It looks like the final issue will be 19. I’m saddened to see it end. I think it was really an outstanding project and everyone really put their love into it. But the series just couldn’t drum up enough financial support unfortunately. I very much enjoyed my part in it’s production providing the covers. It gave me a different and challenging creative output from the interior pages I’ve been working on. It really had a creatively open aspect that I always found refreshing to work with stylistically. The series will get entirely collected from what I’ve been told so maybe it find new life in that format.

Gallery and Store…

I’ve been working diligently to get the content ready for the expansion of the gallery section. When it gets updated soon it will grow by massive amounts and continue to do so. My goal is to offer a solid compendium of works for it to provide hours of amusement for those who want to spend their time looking at my work from over the years.
I’ve also been getting the content together for the opening of the store which will feature original art and sketchbooks and other limited goodies to follow. More news when it launches.

Music…

Went and saw HIM in SF a couple weeks ago at the Warfield. Great show, even though they seemed to have some sound problems. Ville (their singer), along with the rest of band, took things in stride and didn’t let the annoyance they clearly were having get them down. They were determined to have a good time and give us one as well. The opening act though left something to be desired. They’re called Bleeding Through and are a metal outfit that wasn’t very good. But then I’m really picky when it comes to metal. My idea of great metal is along the lines of Black Sabbath or Motorhead. In my opinion Bleeding Through don’t even scratch the surface of those mentioned bands’ quality. The vocalist also was bit undeservedly arrogant when saying things like…”we don’t mean to intimidate you with our scary music”. Oh please! I’ve been listening to bands way more scary than they could ever hope to be for decades. Hell, Nefilim would destroy them. Yes, I’m sure you can tell I’m a little annoyed. But there is nothing I can’t stand more than being talked down to by wanna-be-badass-rockers. Aren’t I being just cheery?

Turkeys…

I hope you all here in states had a good holiday weekend. I pretty much had too much homemade mac and cheese, slept a lot, and took care of a sick bunny.

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ACME COMICS

The new interview for Acme Comics is up at WWW.THEACMECOMICS.COM. Or you can click below. If you use the interview link here please go check out their other interviews on their site.

powered by ODEO

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BLOG-ADEE-BLOG-ADAA

NEW INTERVIEW…

This will be for acme comics, featured sometime this week on their website. The interview will be conducted via phone and recorded to be put up on their site later this week. In the meantime check out some of their other programming at…

WWW.THEACMECOMICS.COM

IN OTHER NEWS…

Just finished Jonathan Hickman’s Nightly News series published by image last night. I really enjoyed this. Much more so than I thought I would. I was skeptical about it because of it being SO design heavy. Pretty ironic that I felt that way considering how much design stuff I use myself. However, the series is very well written. The character’s are written well enough that you quickly get past the wall of design images. I’d say that the only complaint I would have is that because of the heavy design treatment I felt a bit detached from caring about any of the characters at all. This is the only real problem with the presentation besides not being able to tell where things are taking place sometimes for storytelling sake. That is not to say that the detached feeling isn’t what he was going for, considering the subject matter. But the intelligence and provocativeness of the story and daringness of Hickman’s art more than make up for any perceived flaws. I highly recommend this book. It’s a really bold statement of experimentation and thought provoking subject that everyone should check out. I’m eagerly awaiting his next project.

IT HURTS ONLY WHEN I…

Doing some physical work around the house the other day I had a bit of an accident. During which, I heard a little pop accompanied by a sharp “stuck with a knife” like pain in my left rib cage chest area. I think I may have cracked a rib. Right now it is very uncomfortable and somewhat painful to move around. Particularly trying to sleep. I just love sharing my woes.

THY NAME IS COEN…

The Coen brothers have a new film, FINALLY. It’s called No Country For Old Men and will be released soon. I cannot wait for this!! These guys are brilliant. I’ve become enamored with pretty much everything they’ve done and it has been awhile since they’ve had a film out. So I’m thrilled. They’ve got a few projects on the burner so we will be getting a good fix from them for a bit.

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….BLOG….BLOG

DREAMS WEAVING…

I always tend to have dreams that are just plain boring ordinary slice of life type dreams and they usually don’t have me in them. It’s like I’m somebody else living another life having conversations with people I’ve never met or seen before. But they are SO vividly real that I often wake up thinking it’s a memory of something I did. Very boring to describe them but the feeling of it being so real is freaky. Every once in a while I will have a strange and surreal dream. When I have those I’m always me in them. The other night I dreamt that I was now a homicide detective investigating these murders that took a place in a city park somewhere. My partner and I are there to explain our findings to Rudy Guiliani. Yes, thee Rudy Guiliani thats running for president. Very bizarre because I never dream about famous people. Anyway, we are surveying the crime scene with him and the places where the bodies had been are marked by yellow police tape in the form of crosses that are laying on the ground in various places around the park. We proceed to tell mister Guiliani that all of the bodies seemed to be placed in cross like positions with their arms outstretched from east to west, with their heads and feet facing north and south. We are explaining that we are trying to understand what this means. As we are all walking along one of the murder sites to look at these tape crosses Rudy points out that we are under this tree, a sort of dead blackened tree, which has this very strange plastic like giant growth forming at the base of one side of the tree. We are standing on this giant growth which is bright yellow with greenish spots and it sounds like it is a shell or something, strong but sort of hollow as we step. Then Guiliani begins exclaiming loudly that he knows what this thing is and is amazed that we don’t know. He is shouting happily that this is a very very rare tomato and they are delicious. so we step down off it and he cuts it open on one side with a pocket knife revealing that is is indeed hollow, but there are all of these strange purple root like things hanging inside. Guilani reaches in and grabs some in one hand and lifts them out very gently. He then starts to cut into of the roots which appear to have this soft like texture, very easy to cut, while telling us that we have to try some of this right now. I’m standing there thinking this is very odd when my partner steps forward from behind me to try some this plant fruit and realize that I have never seen my partner’s face during this whole time in the park. He has short cropped blonde hair almost in a historical roman style and hazel eyes, wearing a charcoal grey suit and tie. He stands there chewing a piece of this root nodding his head in agreement to how good it tastes. At this point Guiliani hands me a slice and I say “what the hell, I’ll try it too”. I put the slice into my mouth and immediately think it tastes really familiar and I say “y’know, it tastes just like a beet, you know, the purple kind”. At this point Guilani, with his jacket off and rolled up shirt sleeves, says that his office is right around the corner, let’s go there and finish the briefing. As we walk up to this average looking city building that is sort of dark grey a big black door begins to open at main entrance when we approach. Opening the door for us is this little old woman with pure white hair dressed in long grey and black robes and shawls. As we enter and she turns I can see that she is only half a person in the literal sense. Her body is missing the entire right side of itself including her head, and as we walk past her into the room we see that the part of her body that is there is hollow with no insides except for hundreds of little squirming grey tentacles attached to the pink interior membranes of her skin. I’m seeing this very close up as I enter through the doorway. I’m startled by it but I can’t stop staring at this as I walk past in what seems like slow motion. I choose not say anything since my partner and Guiliani are walking in front of me into the room and act as if everything is absolutely normal. And that is where the dream ends,

PACKAGING IN MY NOSE…

We had some furniture delivered this week and it was packaged neatly and tightly into these perfectly conformed boxes with styrofoam and plastic and tie wraps and tape and…you get the point. PACKAGING IS EVIL, sometimes necessary, but it’s still evil. after we got everything out of their packaging it looked like a fucking bomb went off in our living room. The type of styrofoam used was the kind that is molded into shapes to fit corners and such and when it breaks you get hundreds of little tiny nodules that stick to fucking everything. Including the inside of your nose when it breaks to closely to your face and you happen to breath in at that same moment. It’s just awful and pisses me off. I know I’m sounding a little like a nut job but after we were done getting the packing materials off there was as much of that as there was furniture. It was utterly ridiculous. The boxes after being cut down filled up our entire recycle bin plus two giant trash bags and the styrofoam filled our entire trash bin plus two giant trash bags. Insanity. We’ve been finding leftover little nodules of styrofoam for days. They were even sticking to the walls of the house. It’s just evil.
Now that I’ve bored you even further with that…

WATSON I PRESUME…

I seem to love anything by Andi Watson. His quirky style of art manages to fit perfectly with the types of stories he likes to tell and I love them. I just recently finished reading Love Fights and feel the same about this book as i do his other work. An absolute joy and very inventive, very smart. It was quite obvious that he has a love of good superhero comics even though he is poking fun at the whole superhero concept because it is done in this very endearing manner. It comes across as respectful and never degrading to that genre with a perfectly executed superhero type plot mixed with a real slice of life quality to the other characters. if you haven’t read Watson’s work I highly recommend all of it. But I do think that Love Fights screams for a sequel.

PINCHED…

Also just read Space Pinchy from Tony Takezaki published by Darkhorse. It is a Japanese manga but unlike what you expect from manga in style. It’s fully rendered in gorgeous digital color mixed with what appears to be 3D graphics. It’s a collection of short stories with interweaving themes that wrap up at the end of the book. I really enjoyed it even though it is extremely sex obsessed in a sort of adolescent sense humor about it way. If you are one that is easily offended by sexual attitudes then don’t read this. However it is clear right away that the creator knows he is being ridiculous and therefore revels in it, making that sort of the point. It’s wild and full of crazy mad ideas on just about every page and a lot of fun if you just let yourself be taken on this surreal psycho ride.

MUSIC…
ipod on shuffle mode plus…
BLACK NASA–
BLACK NASA– deuce
BLONDE REDHEAD– melody of certain damaged lemons
FELIX DA HOUSECAT—virgo blaktro and the movie disco
HAWKWIND— independent days
HAWKWIND— spacebrock
HOLLY GOLIGHTLY & DAN MELCHIOR—desperate little town
HOLLY GOLIGHTLY & THE BROKE OFFS— you can’t buy a gun when you’re crying
VAST—april
GARBAGE—self made collection of b sides and mixes
THE CURE — self made collection of remixes and rare cuts
THE SISTERS OF MERCY — some girls wander by mistake

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BLOGOBLOGOBLOGO

RED WINGS AND BLACK LEATHER…

Well, I’m 5 pages into the next project finally. So production has officially begun. I’m going to be trying different things here as it moves along (what else is new). I haven’t decided if it’s working yet. But thats how I like to play it. Just do it and see what happens. Anyway, things are off to a good start. Still have no idea when DC plans on making announcements but I think a lot of people have already figured out what this project is because there has been comments elsewhere in this regard.

BLACK AND WHITE GOODNESS…

When I was up in SF for the gallery event party I acquired some AIT/PLANET LAR books. Some were gifts, so thank you to the creators who gave me their work to check out. I’ve just finished reading them and they are…

FIRST MOON– by Jason McNamara and Tony Talbert— An interesting historical tale about early colonists to America but with a nice strange supernatural spooky twist that ties into a modern day family’s life. A really different concept based on familiar ideas making for a nicely executed story.

CONTINUITY– by Jason McNamara and Tony Talbert— This one is my favorite of the 2 books given to me by these guys. A really unusual story about a girl who is a little bit lost in her life, going down a not so good path. She finds that her dreams can somehow alter her waking reality in very dire ways and has caused this dystopian reality she now lives in, So in trying not to make things worse she decides she must stay awake. The result is a compelling read with characters that easily immerse you into their lives. As much as I liked Tony Talbert’s work in First Moon I think I like this better. His work here really gels with the story greatly. Nicely detailed and damn determined to TELL a story with his art.

WHITE DEATH — by Rob Morrison and Charlie Adlard— A well written character driven story about soldiers trying to cope with the situation they’ve been put in during a time of war. Adlard here uses a different style than what I’m accustomed to from him and it is very effective. However I think the printing is a little dark and sort of muddies up the details a bit in some places. Anyway, worth checking out.

ROCK BOTTOM — by Joe Casey and Charlie Adlard— I have to say that this is my favorite of the bunch. I’m not quite sure why, it just fits my sensibilities the most I think. Another character driven tale about a man who has come down with this strange and incurable disease that is slowly turning him to stone. This is in fact a wonderful metaphor of the character’s time in his life. He can’t seem to get past the bad decisions he has made and now lives in a rut. So as he turns to stone he must come to terms with himself. It becomes a very emotional story that pulls you into it dramatically and fully convinces of these character’s believability. Charlie Adlard’s art here is absolutely perfect for the story and again he uses a different style than what he is known for. This time to much greater impact. Deciding to leave the blacks out of his inks here is wise move and allows the reader to really enjoy the qualities of his drawing more, making for the art to have a real beauty to it. Perfectly suiting the beauty in the writing. A very nice balance of art and story.

These all represent the sort of comics we need to see more of. Great stuff overall. I recommend you check them out if you haven’t already.

MUSIQUE…

short list this time because i’ve been doing the ipod shuffle lately.

SOLACE—nagari
THE DONNAS — bitchin’
ELECTRIC SIX — switzerland
DEBBIE HARRY —necessary evil
HUMAN LEAGUE — reproduction remastered
HUMAN LEAGUE — travelogue remastered
HOLLY GOLIGHTLY — the good things
FRONT 242 — pulse

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ISOTOPE IS THE SHIT

This last saturday was the opening party for a month long rotating gallery event featuring the original art for all 3 issues of the just published Batman arc that i did, as well as a little bit of other stuff. What a blast that was. Crazy hyper energy infused Comicbook party madness. It went on for a good 6 hours and I loved every minute of it. I want to say thanks to all of you who came out for it and made me feel really welcome. I had a really good time meeting up and talking with you guys. I want to thank James and kirsten for putting on this event. If any of you are in the area of the shop please stop by and check out the work while it’s there. And those of you who were already there to see it, visit again weekly because the gallery will rotate.

The store is located at…

326 FELL ST.
SAN FRANSISCO CA
94102

www.isotopecomics.com

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