Snoop a Loop

Saw Snoop Dog last night at Bud Bowl in Tampa, was worth it, the crowd was pumped, people just love that guy. On the website front, coming along, on the Comic Front, putting together my cover letter and synopsis. Goal is to have them done this weekend to send out packages this week. Will take longer for Xeric application

Website update

More flash work today, prepared images for a slide show. Started mapping out online game experience that will coincide with comics. Raining out. Maybe its just Tampa being so spread out, but you'd hardly know there were people in town for the Super Bowl. I haven't seen huge masses of people, but maybe I'm just in the wrong areas

Website Update

Made all the buttons, all the states. Now all the navigation is in place on the stage in flash. This afternoon, I'm going to add interactivity and start to create the content for each of the areas. Will work on interactivity for the buttons. Ever the optimist, I realize that if I ever get this off the ground and people might come here, I can't be so forthright in the interactivity of the co-story websites. Hmmm...I'll need to not be specific in those updates

Afternoon Update: Started the text input for the website. Scrollable text fields. Its starting to look messy now, because of all the layering now. I have yet to start the timeline.

Review: LOST "Jughead"

Good episode, but it felt like it was a lot of set up for upcoming conflicts, interactions.

So there's a buried, aging nuke on the island, wonder if this will play into the future? I can only imagine how the time shifts might effect a nuclear device. Those old bombs required a very precise sequence of detonations to start the nuclear chain reaction, especially in hydrogen bombs, so if the explosives are kaput, it should be relatively harmless. Relatively. Anyway, a theory, that woman with the gun on faraday, could that be his mother? He said she looked so much like "her". Who knows?

Tonight On TV

Ok, I'll pretend for now that someone is actually reading this. Tonight at 9:00 on ABC, LOST is on. If you haven't already started to watch LOST, then you should, rent, buy, borrow the DVDs, this TV show is a fluke, its unique, and probably will be legendary in what it has done on TV. Good stuff, good writing, literate and TV that doesn't insult your intelligence, it rewards it.

Website Update

Imported PNGs into flash, created the animation movie for the "neon" effect, looks pretty good. I think I'll try some more tonight, try tackling the buttons, hope to be finished with the buttons tomorrow. Which would be really cool. Just getting all the elements together and in flash, then the hard part comes, getting it all to work, but hey, that's the fun of it, right?

Review: Watching the Watchmen

Dave Gibbons has put out a book that details, in part, some of the behind the scenes thinking that went into the now legendary "Watchmen" comic book by him and Alan Moore. This isn't a complete telling of the story of how the Watchmen came to be, to get the full story, you'll have to also buy the "Absolute Watchmen" edition of the comic. So the story of the DC aquisition of the Charlton characters, and their eventual transformation into the iconic persona we know now is incomplete. However, what this IS, is a view into the creative mind of an artist/illustrator. It is amazing to see how much of the sketches Dave Gibbons has saved. He even has the home-made inkblots he used to figure out Rorschach's mask effect. This book probably was green-lit because of the upcoming movie, but who cares, its a treat. Its a look into the nuts an bolts, behind-the-scenes of what it takes to produce a comic. Its quite something to see the onion-skin manuscript that Moore sent to Gibbons. A reminder in this digital age, of how writing used to be done, laboring at a hulking metalic beast of a typewriter, having to use white out, smudging the script... That is what is great. The Chip Kidd cover is good, and has a nice obverse to the Dr. Manhattan cover. Now onto what's not so good. The interior design, not done by the estimatable Mr. Kidd . The inside is layed out out alright, but the designers choice to use colored body copy against black backgrounds, makes it VERY hard to read, the legibility of this design makes it difficult to give the book 5 stars out of 5, so I can't.  4 out of 5. It would be lower because the actual information (which is important in a book presentation) is so poorly designed, had it not been for the phenomenal source material, I would likely rate it a 2.5-3 star book at best. But its a definite recommend, and ultimately it needs its companion, the previously mentioned "Absolute Watchmen", but buy it, its a great read (tough on the eyes), and a great piece of art.

Website Progress

I have the design for the flash website finished. Today I cut all the PNGs out, I will layer them to create the illusion that the TVs are projecting actual information, this will make it much more modular, and allow me to pre-load the front part of the website, and then load the separate movies for each category. Tomorrow I start creating the buttons and individual movies that will combine on the website.

Tomorrow, my first comic related review....

OK

This blog's main purpose is to detail my endeavor to get published, what it takes to write, draw, produce, sell, and promote a comic book. Hopefully it will be full of all sorts of interesting trials and events, ups and (cross fingers) not too many downs. BUT I will also be using this blog to give reviews of books, comic books, movies, DVDs video games, whatever. I'll send it out to the ether, and if anyone wants to read my take on them, great. 

Sigh...

January 26, 2009: 8:44 PM, create blog.

January 26, 2009: 1:13 PM. Get first phishing email. Internet you are a fickle...Well you know what kind of fickle thing you are.

Up and Running!

Well, here it is. The first post to the blog for Big House Comics. I'm updating my website www.bighousecomics.com and am integrating flash into the design. I got my color copies back from the printer, happy overall with the color, good enough to send out. Will be drafting the cover letter this week, and synopsis.