Saturday, October 30, 2010

Friday Slice of Heaven, Slice Into the Woods 10/29/2010

This is my only entry for this week as I have been madly working on the 4th draft of my novel to help shed 50 pages and start to send out query letters in November.  I was originally intending to have my first round of queries out before the end of the year, but one to two months early is where I am heading and I am definitely fine with those results.  I am also excited to start a five-issue mini-series for a comic book I am slowly working out the details for and will start that hopefully next week.

I feel a cold coming on and my thoughts are not quite holding together this morning, so forgive me if I start making no pancakes on this early Friday zombification.  Tired...so very, very tired.

Slice of Heaven

Finishing a new five page story for the Comic Creators Workshop - Every month at the Comic Creators Workshop, offered through Comics Experience with Andy Schmidt, a new writer's/artist's challenge is posted and attendees decide whether or not to participate.  For the first challenge, my five-page script was chosen to be critiqued by none other than Jason Aaron and was a challenge to write, requiring that the panel descriptions be no more than one sentence long.  His feedback was incredibly helpful and I will be revising the script and reposting hopefully this week.
The October challenge involved writing a script as if I had to motivate a highly-detailed and brilliant, yet in-need-of-encouragement artist to make him psyched to illustrate the script.  I got nutty with the writing and was quite pleased with the results.  From what I could tell, other members of the workshop enjoyed it as well, which always feels good.  Another workshop member's script was chosen to be critiqued by none other than Dan Abnett.  Of course I wanted my script to be chosen again, but after reading the other script, I would have been foaming at the mouth to draw it out...too bad I can't draw.
The workshop continues to be an amazing tool to improve my writing and an immensely fun experience.  Jumping from writing scripts, to critiquing other's scripts and to receiving criticism from others has proven vital to my growth as a writer, not just in the comics medium, but other mediums as well.  I am also considering taking the lettering class and possibly the coloring class next year, when they are offered up again.
I can't give this workshop enough praise.   Oh...the November challenge is up.  Time to crank up the mental gears.

Morning Glories #3 - Written by Nick Spencer and illustrated by Joe Eisma, published by Image Comics.  Morning Glories continues to be the comic that I anticipate picking up from the comic store  the most each month.  In this issue the mystery and intrigue deepen and we are introduced to a past Morning Glory alum...with past meaning centuries in the past.  Although this issue only centers on three of the modern day (?) students, we are given deeper characterization and insight into each of them.  There is one point early on when a sentence or two of the dialogue is like nails scraping on a chalkboard, and I was thankful that Eisma did not choose to illustrate what was described; my twisted little brain was more than happy to fill in the details.  *shiver*  If you are not reading this book, then please let me know what the hell is wrong with you...seriously.  Issue one and two can be bought from ComiXology for the computer, iPad, iPhone, iTouch and who knows what else.  Now I get to wait for issue number four...3 weeks to go.  *sigh*
Morning Glories #3


Secret Six Vol. 3: Danse Macabre - Written by Gail Simone and John Ostrander and illustrated by Daniel LuVisi, published by DC Comics.  I have not mentioned Secret Six on my blog before, but with the release of the latest TPB, it was time to say how much I enjoy this dark yet amusing book about a team of ex-villains gathered together to run questionable missions for the mysterious Mockingbird.  Deadshot takes the spotlight for much of this book, which has a Blackest Night tie-in, but it is not too overly obnoxious.  The current members of the Six are as follows: Scandal Savage - the "damn hard to kill" former in-team leader who has recently been put on the sidelines by...; Bane - The man who broke Batman and is now acting team leader; Catman - a vicious and deadly fighter, who once, according to Catman, beat Batman; Ragdoll - the rather insane and obscenely flexible psychopath; Jeannette - an incredibly strong and resilient combatant with a tendency towards dressing in French Revolutionary clothing.  Oh yeah, she is also a banshee; Deadshot - a cold and merciless killer.  Never get on his bad side; Black Alice - a teenager with the ability to mimic the power of any magic using hero/villain she encounters.  She is the most dangerous and unreliable of the bunch.
Although this is Vol. 3 of the series, there is also a mini-series and a book before that as well, bringing the count to five TPB's currently out.
Villains United, Secret Six: Six Degrees of Devastation, Secret Six: Unhinged, Secret Six: Depths and now Secret Six Vol. 3: Danse Macabre.

Secret Six Vol. 3: Danse Macabre
Secret Six Vol. 3: Danse Macabre


The Mercury Last Saturday Night - Okay, this one would have ended up in the Slice Into the Woods section if not for the fact that I had to get home to finish a five page comic script for a Comic Creator Workshop challenge that I was able to finish on time and for which I was quite proud of the finished product.  That Saturday night, Amy and I agreed to meet a friend for a drink at the Mercury Lounge and before we even walked into the bar, we saw a whupped-ass looking person with fucked up long black hair and semi-torn clothing.  My thought was, "Great...I hope we don't have to sit next to that guy...errrr girl...errrr whatever that was."
We walked in and there was a screen showing the title menu to a DVD being projected at the bar entrance and three quarters of the patrons were dressed as zombies.  There were cookies, gummy worms and other treats for everyone, not to mention the Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA waiting for me.  We were completely confused as to what the hell was going on, but found out that they were having a "Zombie Party" for a bartender who was leaving to pursue other opportunities and that at 10:00 PM, they were going to be showing the movie Wild Zero.  "What is Wild Zero?" you might ask.  It is a Japanese Rock and Roll film with flying saucers and zombies.  WHY THE HELL DID I NOT KNOW ABOUT THIS MOVIE SOONER?  Holy shit, if there are naked hot girls in it, I will have everything that I could possibly want in a movie.
I was torn to let Amy and our friend head home, while I shirked my responsibilities to the five page script that was due in three hours and stayed to watch the movie.  Instead I left to further building my new career.  BUT, I rented the movie and we will be watching it at a party on Saturday.  Now if I could only figure out what the other movie was going to be that The Mercury was going to screen at midnight.
*side note* - The DVD for Wild Zero has a built in drinking game that will show a mug when the following occurs:  a zombie's head explodes, anything explodes, someone shouts "ROCK AND ROLL," someone combs their hair, anything shoots fire.  The game is simple, when the mug appears, you drink.  I have a sneaking suspicion that there will be some drunk fools within the first 40 minutes.


Slice Into the Woods


Nothing much to gripe about other than the usual bunch of big corporations attempting to buy our elections and continue to damage our economy so that a few thousand white-haired white guys can become even more rich than they are now.

Besides that, this week just simply dragged along at a snails pace.  I need to stop living for the weekend.
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