All 15 pages of the comic are complete. Now, only the scanning, text, screentone, printing, and mailing remain. 9 Days until the deadline. 🙂
A few days ago at work, I witnessed a man dowse his entire body and face with “all purpose surface cleaner.” If you ever have the chance to witness such a spectacle, I highly recommend it.
I am proud of myself. I have actually maintained the schedule I laid out so I can complete my entry for the Tokyopop Manga Contest. Thus far I have finished 8 pages, leaving 7 more to go. Below are a few panels without text or screentone.
From Page 7
From Page 8
The puppetshow is also still running along nicely. We did a performance Sunday at Olvera Street. It went well except for the fact most of the audience ony spoke Spanish. So, I’ve decided to translate the show into Spanish for special occassions such as that. It should be both fun and challenging in an odd sort of way.
Someone had to do it so it may as well be me.
If this makes no sense to you, try reading up on the CA Governor Recall and go watch the movie Predator from 1987.
Tonight I began drawing my entry for the Tokyopop Manga Contest. The deadline is September 1st so I have vowed to do at least one page per night. This would allow me to finish all 15 pages by the 20th leaving me a little more than a week to scan, add text, add screentone, and submit. Hopefully moving and other things won’t interfere.
Below is the lower 2/3 of the first page which I drew and inked tonight.
The latter part of this month has seen a large increase in traffic to my site. It is primarily links to Crow Clock Shorts #03 from various websites. The thing I think is odd is almost every single one of these sites is foreign. Either I share the same sense of humor/interests as people not of my country or they like my stuff b/c they don’t understand what the hell I am saying. 🙂
Well, I’ve lived in Los Angeles for a year now and I just now finally got around to going to Magic Mountain. It was pretty fun although it got cold when night fell and I was still drenched from one of the rides.
Sunday night I got to help one of my coworkers kick a customer out of the bookstore. He had been thrown off the premises before for using a mirror to look up underage girls’ skirts. The funny thing is he threatened to sue the bookstore for having his business mentioned in public. Now just imagine how that would play out in court: The case of 45 yr-old pedophile vs. Respectable Local Bookstore involved in charity programs. Johnny Cochran, where are you?
Well, I’ll be moving from Pasadena to Burbank in a month. So, throughout August I need to pack and draw a fifteen page comic for the Tokyopop competition. After that, I’ll be starting a new story-arc entittled Excursions in the Mr. Fourchinnigan comic-strip. I’m even considering putting together a one-issue 32 page Mr. Fourchinnigan comic-book that I would distribute at comic shops. It would be all new material, not stuff from the online strips. It would also be more aesthetically pleasing since it would be for sale. Anyone interested?
Holy crap!
I don’t know where they are coming from, but over 2000 people visited my site today. I’ve topped 1000 on two occassions before, but this is twice that. I don’t know who is giving me all the publicity, but thanks.
Hell, just a week ago I was averaging about 100 per day.
Three updates in one morning. You’d think my life was interesting if you didn’t know better. Anyway, I was scanning across my online portfolio a few minutes ago. Below I am posting an image I put together weeks ago when I was soliciting a freelance position for a children’s book/tv show bible (which I didn’t get). I colored it in Photoshop.
During the year I have now been living in Los Angeles, I have spent a large portion of time unemployed. I have done various things for money ranging from Kinko’s to Graphic Design to Audience work to catering to internet surveys to puppet shows to ebay sales to now working in a bookstore (and I may have forgotten a few things). I have been registered with an extra agency since last summer. I have called their hotline numerous times, often daily. Mostly, reality television shows and especially things like The 5th Wheel were all they had to offer. Occassionally, there was a job I was interested in. One I did was an audience gig for a game show called Funny Money. So where is this headed? My point is they have never called me for work until a couple of days ago. They wanted me to do some extra work for a Rembrandt(the toothpaste I believe) commercial which I imagine would have paid fairly well. The problem? I now have a job and the precise time I would be at work is the precise time the production company would be shooting. I have been working this job for less than a month, I have been unemployed for spurts of 3-6 months while living here. What is the probability they’d actually call me when I couldn’t take the work? 1:3?
On the upside:
That same day I received the book Little Monster’s Bedtime Book by Mercer Mayer in the mail. I remember that book fondly from my childhood. It has been out of print for numerous years, but I found a used copy on Amazon.com recently and had to buy it despite my financial condition. I had been searching for a copy of that book for about 7 years. Now I own it again. 🙂
The Wonderful World of Public Access
Television is bad. The programming is mindnumbingly terrible, correct? Yet, therein lies an even harsher beast, the land of Public Access. Nearly anyone who can manage to burn images onto magnetic tape and find transportation to the studio can have a program on television thanks to Public Access. It has always done for television what the internet now does for everything: allow any shmuck to parade his/her creations across the airwaves. This is both fabulous and frightening. Horrendous things even worse than Flash intro movies on geocities websites can be found in the world of public television. There is, of course, the occassional gem if one wishes to wade through the morass of sediment and feces. Well, The Marvelous World of Moodoo will soon shuffle into the excretory mix. Perhaps we will be the gold nugget, but we may be no more than fool’s gold. Time will tell.
Monday night, the Moodoo Crew made our way to Adelphia Public Access in Eagle Rock. We had two hours to setup, shoot, and get out (although we sort of squeezed in an extra half hour). Using their studio and equipment we attempted to shoot our 30-minute puppet show. Anyone with any knowledge of video/film production knows this is a hefty ordeal. In the end, despite a camera problem with a DV unit Mike rented, we did shoot the entire show. Much of it turned out quite well. There are a number of pickup shots we need to make to cover up some holes. Despite the best efforts of our camera crew, shooting a mass of puppets and humans flailing about in close quarters is a tough job. It is impossible to always have the correct camera shooting the ideal shot. They did a great job regardless and only a few segments need reworking. Hopefully, one more session in the studio will lead to a final product. Then, we shall appear on Public Access. Hopefully, the pitching for a full-fledged television series on network/cable will begin soon thereafter.