!50 INTERVIEWS 50!

In order to combat some recent bad hoodoo, I am going to gloat here for a spell. Now I freely admit that I may or may not have been stoned earlier when this refreshing tidbit of news dawned on me. Regardless, as of today and including the three currently in progress, I have conducted fifty comic book-related interviews, since I began this path back around January of ought-seven.
Fifty interviews.

This is not counting the interview I very reluctantly had to turn down with famed and still sexy actress Nichelle Nichols, nor the interview that has been a one-year and running scheduling frustration with comic writer/horseman/swordsman/actor/voice of the current Transformers film franchise's Bumblebee Mark Ryan.
Moreso, I can think of another baker's dozen from my time at ComicNews.Info that I had some hand in, even if not actually conducting. From lining up initially to proofreading and/or editing and/or packaging (like questing for linkage and pix, etc).
Moreso yet, between my interviewing for one of my blog groups, as well as the now two(!) magazines, I have ten more thus far scheduled for over the next few months. This is not considering that time last year when Chuck Dixon presented me with his card, or the offer I extended recently to gentleman John Reppion.
I might well be unemployed right now, but by golly am I busy.

Something else to consider now, and all comments are indeed welcome, is the notion of collecting these interviews into a singular print volume for sale. I own all of these articles, and even when I acting in common decency reacquire permissions from each and every one of said fifty-plus names for reprinting, should I be looking to magcloud or lulu? A good POD to give more folks a chance to, via several hundred and growing page floppy pamphlet of groovy, to get to better know guys like...
My very first for ComicNews.Info, the GOD of mini-comix Sam Henderson.
A first group interview, with the creators of the world's first and only self-published motion comic, Cardboard Gods.
Living legend and all-round cool S.O.B. Mike Grell.
Finnish film and video director Timo Vuorensola.
Spider-Man voice actor (and boyband survivor) Josh Keaton.
Writers like Bobby Nash, Adam David Gragg, Mark Ellis, and S. Steven Strubble.
Artists like Todd Nauck, Micah Gunnell, Roman Morales III, and Richard Serrao.
Publishers like John B. Lai, Jason Thibault, and Peter Simeti.
Filmmakers like Scott Marcano, B. Alex Thompson, and Kevin VanHook.
so many more, too.
Would people be at all willing to pay money for this, to see the thoughts and words of so many fantastic creative forces? And these are great artists and authors and thinkers the world over. Old and young, rookie to veteran of their craft.


postscript-
Apparently, I ain't so antisocial after all. huh.

debut

So it has been officially announced, that A.N.A. Comics are now accepting pre-orders for their Spring Anthology set to be released in a couple of months.


Rise of the INDEPENDENTS offers a range of materials from numerous creators, including Anthony Hary, Nicholas Myers, Adrian Wilkins, Richard Caldwell (coughcoughcough), Andy Dawe-Collins, Freddy Lopez Jr, and more.
Yes. Though not the first project I have pushed through in the last year, this will certainly be the first to hit. And considering the imaginative content, the charisma of its contributors, and the many many things that are birthed in this book...
I would be deeply hurt if you do not check her out. Buy multiple copies even.

hip to the jive

I realized long ago that someday I will die cold, hungry, and alone.

But sacrifice and compromise are not the same thing. This life is nothing but sacrifice- always has been and always will be. And everything I have learned from all of that tribulation and trial boils down to never, ever compromise. The more compromises one makes, the more their victories lose all meaning, all importance. It's better to die on your feet than to live on your knees, right? Sacrifice is the religion that bridges the gap between art and survival. Compromise is a weakening of self without any spiritual or psychological growth about it. Sacrifice makes one whole, while compromise wears one away. Objectivity says "Do it right the first time or get the fuck outta my way." Objectivity has a very valid point, just as nothing can match the kinetic momentum of the guiltless conscience short of pure, unadulterated hellfire finding its intended target.

All the same, it's a backbone, not the mighty oak. I can take a punch whether I had it coming or not, but subservience will always be for the birds.

SP!N 4

Issue four of the monthly online megazine SP! Nexus is now alive.

Download it for free right here.

With six reviews from me this time, including the OGN Coin Operated Boy from Arcana, Phantom Jack: Off The Record from Visionary, Rich Johnston's Chase Variant from Image, the latest Robot 13 from Blacklist, the newest Stiletto from Ultimate Comics Group, and Collections: The Annual from Unico.
Lots of great comics, but the whole issue is loaded with fantastic content. Eyeball it.

Ripper The Jack

This is a glimpse behind the curtain, after a fashion, as I like to see this blogger/blogspot as a production blog (among many other things). And I want to share a bit of the backstory on the Jack The Ripper book which I believe I have done little more than but mention before.
Autumn Painted Red is a coffeetable book concerning the dastardly notorious Jack The Ripper murders that plagued Whitechapel over a century past. It will feature the work of a small collection of authors, myself included. And the project actually began over a year and a half ago. During the brief window of time in which Alex Ness had recruited me to write for popthought.com and I in turn had recruited him to write for comicnews.info, he told me of this book he wanted to put together, offering different literary reactions and commentary on dear old Jack. The idea of tackling a somewhat psychological evaluation on the ramifications the case to this day still inspires in popular media and culture...well, I was in. But it has been a very stop and go project since, however. This is mostly due to conflicting schedules of all contributing parties. Joe Monks wrote the introduction for us, and loved what we were trying to do to such an extent that he later agreed to publish the work himself. Much progress has been made in the past several months, although my segment is still in progress. I am putting so much into this.
I possess extensive notes and research from the past year, with each a skeleton and a rough draft completed. I have known for a long time exactly what my own mission statement in all of this would be. Unfortunately, I approach writing in much the same way that method actors approach their own trade. Getting into the appropriate mindset for something like this has on occasion been problematic in maintaining. In addition to relevant reading materials, I am drinking more, I am smoking pot, I am loosening the inhibitions of daily survival mode. I am hitting a punching bag daily- partially for exercise and partially for release, but also as an attempt to get into a more violent frame of mind. I have been looking up Domestic Violence legal cases from every decade going back to that particular Autumn Painted Red. I am trying to alienate myself, to create this distinct mood oh so damn necessary for this. Moreso, my regular job even involves security in the nightlife environment of the local social scene. I see a number of dark alleys with an almost uncomfortable regularity.
And every piece of this experience is going into my part of the book. Which I absolutely must finish in the very very near future, for the sake of deadline as well as to be free of this infectious monster altogether.

a choice selection...

...from High Adventure In The Great Outdoors, by Henry Rollins, 1992. Published by 2.13.61 Publications.


Man and woman
Forever ruptured
Forever severed
Clutching
Clawing each other's flesh
Fucking in shallow graves
Rolling in blood soaked dirt
He looks into her eyes
He reaches inside her
Deep inside her
He rips her uterus out
And shakes it in her face
He screams
Whose idea was this?

fish

Earlier tonight and post work, in an effort to decompress of the past few weeks I attempted a viewing of the Darren Aronofsky film, The Fountain, which I had somehow missed actually seeing before, beyond random fragments. And this, in spite of Pi being my all time favorite film ever. A respite was heavily warranted, and the day was in fact, 3.14, so...

But what a leveling notion on my part. I cannot remember ever sobbing up over a movie before, and yet there I was completely lost in the much needed taste of escapism, brief as it was.
To be honest though, I have been winning my share of battles lately. I have a place to live for the time being, with good flatmates who are great people. I have a credible day job, in which it is rather easy for myself to actively succeed and excel in. I have minimal bills, and money both in the bank and in my pocket. My creative projects, though forcibly pushed to the waiting room over the wintery months, have surged on ahead. I have been working hard, fighting for survival.
A good way to begin this, with a metaphorical climb over the mountain so wondrously and vicariously symbolized within the glimpsed window of such a great and powerfully beautiful work of cinematic fiction. Love as loneliness. Death as life. And still with the minuscule threads of Order knotting about the Chaos of this here universe we all know and fear and long for.


I am 32 today, on this the fifteenth day of March twenty ought-ten.

that interview series

The ongoing artist interview series I am conducting for the A.N.A. Comics blog is off and running and marvelous.
Thus far, I have Torquemada'd the A.N.A. collective's founders...

A.N.A. President, Managing Director, and writer Adrian Wilkins
A.N.A. VP of Intellectual Property Development, writer, and artist Nicholas Myers
A.N.A. VP of Brand Management, Editor in Chief, and artist Anthony Hary

and now will be hitting artists from all walks of life, beginning with freelance painter par excellence, JK Woodward.

I have two more interviews already in progress, and a list of more to keep me busy, and the blog updated regularly, for many many moons. As educational as it is entertaining, this is well worth keeping an eye on.

a March hare bewildered

I am busting arse with the newfound day job, working security as only I can. Money should settle in via multiple sources towards the end of the month, so March is once again that mystifying time of year wherein wrongs are somewhat righted anew.
Today I finally finished the rest of my script for a short story that will appear in the A.N.A. Comics Spring Anthology in coming months, but I wanna sit on it for a night or three just to be certain my inner perfectionista is thusly satisfied. The story, to be illustrated by the incomparable Andy Dawe-Collins, will hopefully lead in to an ongoing webcomic to be hosted at the A.N.A. website proper.
I have three interviews in progress as I type this, with a list of over a dozen more names verified to receive the Torquemada bit in coming months. Some will be for the SP! Nexus megazine, but the majority will be slated for the ongoing series of artist interviews I am conducting for the A.N.A. Comics blog. Lots of great talents, some of whom I have waited years for a chance to stab at.
I have a few other articles and reviews planned for upcoming issues of SP! Nexus as well, and expect some fantastic news from our office thereabouts in the weeks to come.
And of course, the long-running, on again and off again projects for my pal Alex Ness are looking to be completed at long long long last, over the next few days. These are non-comic book stuffs, dreamworks that have been teasing us all for many many moons, and I am beyond elated at the progress I have been bleeding out lately. Hard work is paying off. Naysayers, ain't that there crow mighty tasty?

Yet still, these cold evenings in proximity to the hellmouth of hellmouths (and so very far away from her), how they rip at my pineal like unfounded Catholic guilt. I walk everywhere, and go nowhere...

KICK OUT THE JAMS

I gotta kick 'em out.

Captain Britain and MI13

This is sort of a love letter.
As many readers will know, I have never reviewed a book from Marvel or DC before, though of course I remain well inside the loop of all comings and goings. I like many of the characters, and many more of the creators involved, but the regular dealings from each company leaves a taste in my mouth reminiscent of an obscene number of ex-ladyfriends.

All said, I loved Captain Britain and MI13. I knew of the series before it launched, but chose not to begin actively following the book until the start of its second of three story arcs, by which time I just could not help myself but to dive on in. Being unfamiliar with the work of author Paul Cornell, I was hesitant at first, but especially after the greatly distinct Jay Leisten began pitching in on the art I was already sold. I somehow had missed an early issue of the final arc, but was by then more than a bit peeved upon hearing of the short-lived series' impending cancellation last year.
Recently however, I had the opportunity to read the three trade collections back to back, and was reminded of my supreme love for this run. How could Marvel have allowed such an ingenious and well-researched book to face cessation? How in flying hell of hells?
I was a strong fan of the Marvel UK line (the earliest issues of Warheads remains in my mind the finest work to date from either Nicholas Vince or Gary Erskine), which arguably began roughly twenty years ago with the Knights of Pendragon mini and which had shared initial ties to Excalibur- a series which began wonderfully but after a couple of years wandered off into entirely too many directions, caused primarily by a musical chairs roster of creators. Captain Britain and MI13 was in its way, a continuation of all that was good of that gloriously British corner of the Marvel Universe.
Focusing mostly on Brian Braddock and Pete Wisdom, the multi-cultural and multi-national cast also included Spitfire, John the Skrull, the Black Knight, a woman who would come to be known by the name of the weapon she was graced to wield- Excalibur, and later, Blade joined the ranks as well. Guests included Marvel UK stalwarts Union Jack, Captain Midlands, Motormouth, and Killpower, along with a growing list of cameos. While the first story arc, The Guns Of Avalon, focused on the formation of the team amidst the Secret Invasion storyline then plaguing the bulk of Marvel's line, the book quickly found its voice due to the immediate clicking of Cornell with equally talented lead penciler Leonard Kirk.
Kirk was one of the many, many guys who got his foot in the door partially thanks to the efforts of the late DC editor Neal Pozner back in the early 90's. Though he'd maintained a steady freelancer career working on titles as diverse as Tom Mason's Dinosaurs For Hire and Supergirl, I feel that it was with this particular title that he himself found his definitive graphic style. Indeed, the skill of the creative team played a very assured role in the personality of this series, undeniably.

The second arc, Hell Comes To Birmingham, dealt in equal parts with subject matters both science fiction and horror in theme, showcasing how this team not only operates, but in a manner and feel quite unlike any other superhero team that might spring to mind. Dealing with a supernatural threat with shades of Cornell's stint writing for the Doctor Who character elsewhere, a depth is somehow given to each and every member of the core cast by this, the halfway point of the overall book.
The third and final arc, Vampire State, openly addresses aspects of the geo-political landscape of the Marvel Universe, while sneaking in a surprising list of guest stars and further cameos, most notably the resurrection of Braddock's lady true, Meggan. Unfortunately with the final issues was the perfect cover artist unleashed for the book, one Mico Suayan, whose Glenn Fabry-like detailed realism gave final polish to something that was inherently already a perfect comic book. An epic tale with which to end, and what a madcap sequence specifically with which to end on!
Throughout the stories, the overwhelming joy of reading something so well-versed in the lore of the history of this comic book universe is ever-present. Such a solid foundation to stand on for persons of this calibre of creatively intelligent leanings enough to see, Captain Britain and MI13 could well have gone a ways further than its sadly short existence. Regardless of Cornell's later claims of never having intended to go further than this triad of story amazement, mind you. Too much was established, quite masterfully, over too short a spell. Indeed, as many of the creative team were soon thereafter assigned to the Dark X-Men comic book, many a fan wondered if some attempts would be made to continue, in some form or another, the many possible threads at least innuendoed by this.

So why exactly did the book end, after but fifteen issues and an annual (along with an in-cannon twitter feed), as remarkably complete and irreverently whole the work so clearly was? Could it have been due to the growingly severe problematics of a generation of readers possessing of an ever-decreasing attention span? Might it be possible, rather, that the comic was just simply written disgustingly way over the heads of too many prospective readers?
This was, in my mind, one of the epic works from the mainstream of this medium, so solid a package, with nary a damn thing wrong with any aspect one might attempt to dig at. Mystery, comedy, romance, action, adventure, and oh so much more, this book defiantly told its tale ever too briefly, and I worry at the realistics of coming across another supposedly ongoing series capable of matching what was accomplished here. Shame on you Marvel powers that be, for not having the knowing zeal for keeping this beautiful creature alive, if only for just a bit longer. Shame on you.

the Ides

Two weeks from today I turn thirty-two.

I feel like an ogre.