the vagaries of equilibrium

In general annoyance of the holiday, my energies are focused on more realistic concerns.

Twouldst seem that my hard work and time spent on the interview with Mike Grell have been well met. The success of that piece will directly affect the chances for my number two in the Spotlight series hatched by myself and the good Alex Ness. Grell is a fantastic human being.

I have two other interviews in varied stages of dress, both with creators whose work I honestly believe deserve further attentions. In a niche dominated by the rampant Uncle Tomfoolery and unashamed cocksuckery of the larger media sites (newsarama/comicbookresources/aintitcoolnews), I am pleased that our growing staff at comicnews.info are fighting the good fight. Randy Myers, one of my finds, has had a column spin off into a thread at the Whitechapel forums. Good for him. And now we have our thirteenth, in the lovely form of the business-minded Ms Belkis, whose blog Gary and I have been faithful followers of for some time now.

We are nigh finished with hammering out the last of the glitches in the new template for the site, and the end product suits us well, I think. Gary has realized his preference for unearthing film news over comic books, just as I have realized I would rather pull back from reviews; all of which will lead to some minor alterations in routine for the core team at play. So as of now, the staff and roles executed shall be:

Gary Rodrigue, Editor in Chief, weekly column- the Sunday Stroll;
Richard Caldwell, Managing Editor, biweekly column- the Lottery Party, monthly side column- Gaslights Web'd;
Jaymes Reed, columnist, irregular column- Digital Captions;

Andrew Bearden, reviewer- biweekly film & television (teevee, cartoons, dvd's, video games, movie reviews);
Joseph Copeli, reviewer- comic book reviews;
Philip Eaves, reviewer- comic book reviews;
Che Gilson, reviewer- biweekly film & television (teevee, cartoons, dvd's, video games, movie reviews);

Gus Higuera, columnist, weekly column- the Wonder of Comics (web-centric coverage);
Kev McHugh, columnist, biweekly column- Fetch Me a Top Hat;
Randy Myers, columnist, biweekly column- From the Frontlines (retailer coverage);
Joshua Pierce, columnist, weekly column- Should You be Reading This? (non-mainstream/monthlies);
Steven Surman, columnist, biweekly column- Outsider's Art (investigative);

and the details for Ms Belkis we are still developing, though her contribution will likely be a monthly column focusing on marketing and promotions coverage.

So the house is built.

As for personal works, I will be delivering bad news to Molly Crabapple regarding this, my third pseudo-project for the Art Monkeys. It will lead to some disappointment for her, though not aimed at me. Due to the 118 hours worked weekly at my other job, coupled with growing responsibilities at comicnews.info, I have no choice but to take this time to resign from additional Art Monkey assignments.
I am still working on the story for the upcoming Winterlands anthology.
I am also still awaiting release details with regards to the article I wrote for a European mag recently.
And for comicnews, I am researching information for a couple of conventions later in the year.

Time to take this show on the road.