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Saturday, January 29, 2005
Here's the cover to my new book. A little something I like to call...
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Wednesday, January 26, 2005
I can't believe it has taken me this long to write about the passing of Johnny Carson. Especially since I was a big fan. I have even said as much elsewhere in this blog.
To tie it into comics, it is something like right after Miller did Dark Knight Returns. Everybody was trying to make both new and established characters "grim 'n' gritty". They grabbed the surface aspects but not the essence. All flash and no substance. Johnny Carson was funny. Innately funny. He was about feeling good. The healing power of laughter. Ever since his retirement over ten years ago every johnnycomelately to the late night talk show scene tried to grab his magic and missed the mark. All through the 90's TV watching audiences in this country were subjected to every kind of schnook under the moon. One after another. All of them trying to be Johnny and all of them a pale imitation.
When Leno inherited Johnny's throne he (or the new producers) revamped the show completely. Don't care. He is still not as funny as Carson.
I honestly believe Johnny was having as good a laugh if not better than his audience.
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Alas Horatio,
After the tsunami oceanographers are finding forms of sealife that they have never seen before. It is a little cool to think that there are still some parts to our own world that we have not completely explored.
check this out.
This next guy should be irradiated and forced to fight Godzilla
And if Giger is designing fish someone should tell us.
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Friday, January 21, 2005
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By now most of you are sick to death of my tirades against taggers and graffiti. But this time I think I really have the answer. Negative aversion therapy. And no, I don't mean electro-shock therapy. How barbaric! Mine is a much more refined and modern technique: slapping.
That's right, slapping. But it has to be effective. You can't just run up to gang members and criminals and start slapping them. Though Lord knows I have wanted to plenty of times.
Arrest them. Capture them. While you have them in your custody put them in a cell chained to the wall so that they have to sleep standing up. Then while they are fast asleep quietly creep into the room and slap them in the face. I don't mean like in the old movies. "My Gawd, Margaret. You are hysterical. Smac." I mean put your back into it.
Then just leave. Don't say anything, just leave. Creep back in the next night and do the same thing. And repeat this for days never even speaking to them. Don't tell them what they are being punished for. They know. Let them think about it.
Pretty soon I am sure that the slightest creak or rustle will have them snapping awake instantly alert.
Or have a can of compressed air with you and spray it as you approach them from out of the dark and then slap them. Do this often enough and they will come to assoiciate the sound of a spray can with facial pain. Like a shell shocked veteran who winces and grimaces everytime he hears a loud pop or a helicopter. Man that would be great.
Then just release them. Again in complete silence. They will be too busy trying to reestablish a normal and healthy sleep pattern to go out and commit vandalism. You've got my guarantee.
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Thursday, January 20, 2005
and of course it's copyright '05 zailo
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Sunday, January 16, 2005
Here is brief interview with my pal David Lawrence. whose first cyberpunk novel just came out. Enjoy.
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Friday, January 14, 2005
WELL IT IS ABOUT TIME!
There is finally something that we have needed for some time now. I have designed the world's first anti-graffiti robot. I call it: ROB'S RUBOUT ROBOT.
It basically is capable of finding taggers and then grabbing them with its state of the art arm clamps.
It then is programmed to attempt to wipe off the graffiti off with the taggers. We here at the Zailo Propulsion Laboratories have found that this never works. But it sure does a number on the taggers' bodies. So of course the RRR has a program that when it realizes that this doesn't work, a chip inside plays out its message of "Well this isn't working! It only seems to be making things worse!" It is programmed to then quickly wad up the taggers like pieces of tissue paper and toss them away.
Then on it's merry way for more cybernetic vigilantism
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Wednesday, January 12, 2005
MOVIE REVIEW TIME!
Warning: I am now not just critiquing movies but also parts of the movie that either I thought should have been in the movie or parts if I fell asleep and dreamt it as part of the movie,
So I saw The Missing. This was the western produced and directed by Ron Howard from last year. I think he has lost it. It starred Henry Winkler as an aging Indian chief looking for his granddaughter or something. She has been kidnapped by her lover, a brave named Chachi, from a warring tribe. Winkler gives some passing through trappers played by Pat Morita and Tom Bosley a stirring thumbs up.
The subplots of this flick are as compelling as the driving main story. Anson Williams portrays a bounty hunter on the trail of the man who shot his pa. The culprit of this foul deed is played by a remarkable Donny Most. He's still got it. This was easily the toughest role of the entire film and if Most doesn't win some awards for this then there is something dreadfully wrong with Hollywood my friend. Scott Baio shines like he has never shined before.
Then the movies takes an odd turn as an egg shaped space ship shows up with an apparently human looking alien who drinks from his finger. His appearance is almost as brief to be considered a cameo because as soon as he is introduced he runs off with two squaws. The costuming of the American Indians is supposedly quite authentic right down to the bead-embroidered "L" on the front of one of the girl's tunic. Add to this a pair of outlaws named McLenny and Squigstein on the run from an infamous lawman somehow called "the Big Ragu".
All the plotlines coalesce in a terrible shootout at a place called Arnold's Pass high in the mountains. I won't spoil the ending by telling you which character survives with a vow to open a chuckwagonhop.
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Thursday, January 06, 2005
DANG IT!
I am not online everyday (obviously) so I only read about this yesterday. Will Eisner died January 3rd. He made it to 87. I am strangely bummed out by the death of a man that I did not know personally. I am not going to use a bunch of cliches and say things about the death of legends, founding fathers, affecting us all, etc. But still I am somehow affected. Will Eisner really was someone who influenced (or should have) anyone who wants to do comics. And not just pencilers. Because he did everything, drawing, writing, lettering, the business of comics. He was a writer/artist when such things were unheard of. A few years ago Dark Horse sent me some xeroxed preview pages from Eisner's "Last day in Vietnam." I poured over those for days just digging every little detail.
And mood. I remember reading reprints of old Spirit comics as a kid and thinking to myself that not only can this person draw (I am sure I had no idea who Eisner was at the time) but he actually made you feel like you were on a cold rainy street corner. Or trudging in the hot sun of the Sahara. Or in a creepy old tenement with only one lonesome desklamp for illumination. I am not even mentioning his use of camera angles. His knack for fitting elongated and strange shaped panels right in next to the other panels on the page and making them not stand out or disrupt the flow.
And 3-D titles. I think that always working in the title as an actual piece of the story as opposed to an overlay is a very childlike (not childish) phenomenon. Where Denny Colt is actually crawling through or running across the logo or story title. This is something that would only occur to someone with the creativity of a child.
I actually saw Will Eisner many times at comic conventions but never really met him. In fact I only talked to him just once. Sort of. This was years ago and I was much less confident in my art. I was walking around the San Diego comic con and stopped for a moment and looked up to lock eyes with Will Eisner. I instantly knew who he was and I knew that he had no idea who I was and really had no reason to know who I was. But having not only been brought up in an era when common courtesy was more common he was from all accounts a gentleman. Immediately he said, "Hello. How are you?". Somewhere in the back of my pea brain a voice was yelling "That is will Eisner! Pull out your samples and stick them under his nose. Don't pass up this chance to not only talk to the man but show him some samples!"
Of course what I did was say something like,"Hi." and walk away too intimidated to actually make conversation.
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Monday, January 03, 2005
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DOOMSAYERS AND MADMEN!
magicians, vagabonds and cultists have always looked for signs of the endtimes. Unfortunetly I have stumbled upon one of the first heralds of the coming apocalypse. It is a simple spell. Words arranged into a specific order but in that
order they crack the seals of reality letting loose the forces of evil and destruction. I of course refer to the phrase:
COMING SOON AMBER FREY'S NEW BOOK!
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Well I hope everyone had a great holiday season. I haven't posted diddly here because I had time off and was putting it to good use. But look for more regular (I hope) content soon. To start off look for a comic I pencilled and inked half of in your local Virgin Mega-store. I believe they are also in some Tower records. The title of this fabulous book is NewG.A.R.D.E. It also appears in certain comic book shops.
Gotta go!
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