last night

I had a mother of a nightmare. Sat on the front porch for a couple of hours afterwords trying to convince myself that a piece of me is not in hell right now, screaming for the rest of me to join it.

yea.

But the one good bit about the dream was in inexorably being reminded of this rather marvelous song's existence...



In other news...I killed the Ripper piece (and I like it very much), have three in progress interviews being conducted, and also have a pair of unrelated pinups to knock out (asap).

Dodgem Logic 3

The third issue of Alan Moore's truly unique magazine is available now, right here. Featuring a wraparound cover by Mister Moore himself, along with extended page count so as to better exhibit the works of such stalwarts as Robin Ince, Josie Long, Steve Aylett Steve Moore, Kevin O'Neill, and Savage Pench!
As a special gimmick, a free iron-on tee-shirt transfer lovingly illustrated by Lost Girls artiste Melinda Gebbie!
Order now or the Yog-Sothoths will devour your town next!

Who is...Rex Graine?

Earlier today I found this great post at Michael Aushenker's Cartoon Flophouse blog:

Role Models in Journalism: Rex Graine at the Daily Crusader

Very nicely written commentary on the alter ego of Ditko's masterful Mr A character. My favorite comic book character of all time, mind you. Well worth the read.

musical interludes

Those who know me know that I love music. And this tune has been in my head a lot lately. Deadboy & the Elephantmen was the last band Dax Riggs was in before he finally went solo. Dax of course, was the frontman for Acidbath, Agents of Oblivion, and about a zillion other side projects over the years, and I feel he is by far one of the more original musicians currently dancing the muse.



One of the things differentiating SP! Nexus from Arcana Magazine is that while Arc is all comics-inclusive, from mainstream to underground, from Disney to Kinko's, SP!N fingers its way into like-minded cultures as well, especially all things DIY in flavor (being as it were, a reincarnation of the old Self-Publishers Magazine). My reviews there will continue to branch out into realms beyond comics and as such, I am excited to be getting back into some record reviews soon- something I have not really explored since my mini-comix daze of the late 90's.
And obviously, I have taste.

distance

Busy busy times.
Compiling content for the monthly digitals SP! Nexus and Arcana Magazine, as well as for the debut iss of Arcana's print mag AND a special bonus iss we are putting together for this year's SDCC (which I might actually be attending). Tons of review articles and interviews.
As well, my series of artist interviews continues for the A.N.A. Comics blog, although I am giving myself a brief rebreather on that.
Andy Dawe-Collins has completed art for our ten page story for the A.N.A. Comics Spring anthology, which will be out later next month, although preorders are still in effect. We wrapped our lettering corrections just last night, and I love how it all turned out. Of course, our non-secret plan is to continue the story of Rafferty as an ongoing, weekly webcomic to be hosted at the A.N.A. website.
Lucid, my story for the Less Than Three (<3) anthology of romance-themed comix is in full swing too, with the lovely and talented and lovely Melike Acar churning out some of the prettiest pages I have ever seen. Jaymes Reed is on tap for lettering and prepress. Len Wallace, the book's conductor and a good pal of mine, has been putting together a pitch (with assistance from yours truly) withwhich to find a publisher at the big fat C2E2 this weekend. I will not be attending the new Con in Chicago, although I learned a wee bit too late that my name is indeed on their media list.
Also inching forward with my two commitments for my friend Alex Ness, on the Ripper book and illos for his book of verse. Although, finding windows of time to get into the proper mindset for those has been troublesome. Comparably, my NEON EDEN project with Peter Palmiotti and the Control Syndicate project with Greg Harms and Roman Morales III are dripdropping their respective ways into reality at an agonizingly slow pace.
I am looking for side gigs still, day work to keep my coffeecup full of bourbon. But having difficulties finding prospective employers who can so much as pretend to be at all organized.
Spring is here, though it feels like Summer. I spend most of my waking time reading and writing and working on this near-dead laptop. Al and Nat are good flatmates for me now. I like to think we all keep each other proactive. However, I am not sleeping enough, not eating enough. I have been having nightmares again, regularly. Very vivid and confounding imagery.

That's where I am. Mostly.

rebirthing

Springtime is supposed to be about birth, not death.

Unfortunately, Peter Steele, the frontman for legendary gothic band Type O Negative, has faded to black permanently. As bullshit as MTV has always been, they did a nice little article on the man over here.
In commemoration of the season, and of Steele's own appreciation for all things absurd, I can think of a finer way to mark his passing...by his own beautifully damned words.

Mjǫllnir

I am building something.

The Cross

The world of words is a flurry over the recent news of Ratzinger having protected pedophiles. So fucking what? Why would anyone see this as noteworthy, the actions of Pope Benedict XVI regarding this ongoing sex scandal?

It's not like there are thousands of documented reports of priests failing to keep it in their pants worldwide, going back decades. Oh wait, there are.
But why the shitstorm of controversy, really? The Roman Catholic Church, the world's oldest corporation, MURDERED hundreds of millions of persons throughout its history, from the Holy Roman Empire to the Crusades to the "Spanish" Inquisition to the KKK and NeoCons of today (both clearly Christian in self-declaration and intent). Who cared then?
Not enough persons to keep the Papal's bloody hands from being wealthier than most of the nations on this planet.
Forget the rampant hypocrisy, the uncountable number of books banned and burned over the years, and forget all of these whiny little bastards griping about their loose assholes today. The Roman Catholic machinery is the world's largest religion, despite its having its many believers retardedly convinced theirs is the most shunned and dejected of faiths. Their ongoing system of influence can survive anything because, at the end of the day, they have grown strong through a very personal taste of sado-masochistic political muscle. People like to be ordered about, like to have their decisions made for them, and Ratzinger's clan would have it no other way. No justice will come from these events. Most folks truthfully don't even seem to care that the Vatican rests on billions of dollars in European real estate alone, while preaching hardship to the billions hungry and starving scattered around the world. Christians in general have always been all too eager to downplay and overlook the obvious, entirely out of fear.
I have friends who are Christians, who are Roman Catholics, and I do freely admit that I have problems giving them any credibility from time to time. Especially while knowing that the folks they can continue to look up to are capable of such heartlessly vile, sick, and immoral devastations.

Stop the madness. Boycott your neighborhood bingo hall today!

personal dialogue spilling over

Obviously, I could never in a zillion years be mistaken for either a Christian or a Republican. Hell, I love pointing out how essentially, Republicans are at their roots Christian in belief structure- both collectives interested only in keeping their respective numbers high. And lest anyone pegs me for a Liberal- I solemnly believe that Democrats are as completely clueless and vile as any right-winger. The two party system consists of separate sides of the same ridiculous coin, both self-serving and destructive to the whole, the greater, penultimate good.
All said, I am vehemently Pro-Life, at least with regards to abortion.
I do believe in Capital Punishment, having had murder in my own life before. Eye for an eye is a law older than written language. And I absolutely support Euthanasia, as that decision should deservedly rest solely on the specific mind at stake. But abortion is just fucking wrong. Let that life decide for itself. Period.
Is this a callous judgment?
I really don't see how it could or should be.
Every statistic in the world shows how the vast majority of committed abortions are the byproducts of base whoredom. Drunken college girls who put themselves into questionable situations, it really is the stereotype for a reason. Even morning-after drugs are just putrid in my mind. How dare anyone takes out their own mistakes, their regrets, their accidents, on others. Give that life, that prospective life, a damn chance to seek out its own meaning. Nobody in the world has the power to instill meaning in another, not rightfully. And if aborted fetuses are not life, then why the hell not ship those protein-rich corpses overseas to feed the hungry and outright starving of the world?
But what of those minority cases of rape, of incest? Buck it the hell up. Carry that life to term, and learn from the pain. You victims may not like the hand you've been dealt, but that is no cause to deal with said hand inhumanely. Spread that learned wisdom so that others might not have to share that worst of pains. Adoption exists for a reason. And really, since when the hell is this or any life about picking and choosing battles, naysayers, you selfish, selfish fucking bastards?

Why would I care so deeply? Because I am not only the product of a botched abortion (and from good Catholic parentage mind you), but I was with a girl a few years back who made that decision without considering my thoughts on the matter. That may have been the only chance at a li'l nilskidoo running about, stabbing his fellow grade schoolers in the eyes with crayolas.
There is just no excuse in the world for murdering something so helpless. If it grows up and can decide for itself the worthlessness that dominates most lives, then so beit.
Actions should speak for themselves. Judge a man by his actions, never before he even has the chance to act.

le PUNX

Today, the man behind the Sex Pistols finally found better things to do with his time. Rest In Peace, sir Malcolm.
And on the twentieth anniversary of the premiere of the unrelated Twin Peaks at that. For those of us with discerning tastes, this has been a confusing day. Tres punk, ya'll. On behalf of the Vomitoria family, go out
and fucking break something...

Egads interviews aplenty!

Another roundup of the latest interviews from the ongoing series I am yet conducting for the fine feathered friends at A.N.A. Comics? Don't mind if I do...

I was able to tap the mind of the awesomely talented HC Noel, whose graphic novels might have slipped under the radar of a few folks, but his fantastic Tara Normal webcomic most certainly has not.
I was also fortunate in talking with both Brian Clevinger and Scott Wegener, the writer/artist team who have graciously given the world the ongoing wonder of Atomic Robo.

These gentlemen are young and talented and doing it all right. I myself am wrapping another interview, with another in progress, and soon to launch another, with still a sizable list of names to delve into in coming months. Everybody involved is having fun with this, so I extend a hearty invite to check out what these cool cats have to say. And let us know what you think, and fill up those damn comment boxes!

...and in other A.N.A. Comics news, the storefront is now open at the main website. Expect the selection to grow with many a dandy product. Go ahead and place your preorder now, for the Spring anthology. The pages Andy Dawe-Collins has turned in for the story we collaborated on alone make the book worth your pretty, pretty pennies. O yea!

nice weather we're having, innit?

In these early days of springtime of ought-ten, Global Warming is only one of many symptoms of Climate Change. And, despite the many naysayers to either threat, Climate Change is indeed a very real and increasingly disastrous thing, unfolding before us all.
Obviously, it was discovered only recently that many of the numbers relating to the studies of Global Warming have been wrong, but this does not mean that such a thing is not happening. It is my belief that the threat of Global Warming has always been played up by the media's right wing, as a means to discredit Climate Change warnings in general, and played up by the media's left wing as a pathetically desperate attempt just to be heard. In fact, the many detractors all (at least initially) shared the common grounds of being (or rather, being funded by) oil-rich Republicans. However, hysteria on the part of Democrats is certainly doing nothing to maintain the proper course of logic in any debates, at any level.
I do not rely on modern traditional media, which always has a political agenda beit right or left, to inform my opinions. I have 32 years of memories of times spent all over this country, seeing firsthand how exponentially the seasonal weather patterns are changing unnaturally. And obviously, our own species is at fault. Anybody who feels otherwise is allowing their politically funded news sources (no matter the outlet) to define their thoughts, regardless of what is and has been happening all around us. Get outside more, if you do not believe it. We now only have the two seasons, Winter and Summer, and even still both are bleeding into each other, with but a few select weeks of clear difference at either end.
Personally, I concur with the great and greatly missed George Carlin, on his thoughts concerning Environmentalists. Specifically, how dare they presume that we could ever fully destroy mama earth. Granted, we will most assuredly remove ourselves from the equation eventually, but this big mudball will still be here, still springing forth some degree of life without us in the picture.
A growing pet peeve of mine though, are frustrated "Libertarians" who oh so clearly are, in all actualities, bitter Republicans, completely in denial and/or ignorant as to which side they are jumping up and down for. Especially on matters concerning education, healthcare, and the environment.
Screw politics. We and our progressions are affecting this world. This is painfully obvious to anyone who has taken the time to actually work the soil, obvious to anyone who watches the growing list of natural catastrophes plaguing our homeworld. Are these earthquakes and hurricanes and tornadoes and typhoons and floods actually occurring on an increased scale, or are we only hearing of such events more easily now, thanks ironically to said progressions? The right wingers insist that numbers cannot be trusted, while the left wingers insist that they themselves have nothing in common with the right. Both are the same damn body of flawed ignorance, with neither doing anything at all productive but to deny the truth of our sky falling on down. Turn off your televisions. Do not pray, no, as that has never accomplished anything more than the killing of time. Instead, step outside, and enjoy this terra firma of ours while you still can.

So in conclusion, my last girlfriend (N) has just verified in writing that she is a bigger whore than every lady I have ever been with combined.

BAM BAM 23

Been going through boxes lately that have been unopened for years. Found some things written by my elder sister, Rebecca. This is really personal shite, I do admit, but I want to share her style with the world. She was a writer too, published in a number of zines and lit journals the world over. As my more faithful readers know, she was murdered in September of 2000. This was composed for a college project maybe a year prior. Take it away, sis...

BAM BAM 23
by Rebecca Caldwell

Mama nicknamed him Bam Bam after Barney's son on the Flintstones. Inside her womb, he kicked ferociously, pounding her insides and demanding to be let out. Once he was born, I was extremely jealous. Mama always sang to him. "Itsy bitsy boofy goofy boy-oy." To make matters worse, my baby brother had blond, blond hair and blue, blue eyes. I had brown hair and green eyes. Everyone knew unless you had blond hair and blue eyes, you were no one in Hollywood. Even at age four, I realized it was all about Marilyn Monroe and Barbie. I yelled at my mom for getting the genes wrong.
Before he was two years old, I made plans to murder him. If I locked the door on the bedroom when mama laid him down to sleep, no one would be able to get to him. Eventually, he would starve to death. I could be the only child again. I remember kissing him goodbye forever, right before I locked him in the bedroom. Walking away nonchalant and innocently, accepting the fact in my head that I was soon to become a murderer. I never imagined mama would become so hysterical once she realized the door was locked and her hungry baby was shut in by himself screaming, "Wah! Wah! Wah!"
"Shut up stupid ugly baby and die!" I kept my fingers crossed. Finally, even I had to admit failure once the big, buff neighbor man kicked the bedroom door in, splintering wood, and freeing my baby brother from my attempted murder.
The real problems began as soon as Richie started talking. My mother was a closet lesbian and venomous man hater. To this day, the only two men she'll have anything to do with are the Pope and Rush Limbaugh. Mama always seemed overly silent and generally clumsy when dealing with my brother. She definitely pulled away from him when he was still very young. Once she changed his diapers and realized he had a penis, that did it in for him. She was very distant and far removed from her young son. Affection became too difficult for her to give him.
My father was completely terrified of Richie. How could daddy teach a boy to become a man when daddy was such a sick, ill, alcoholic, pent up, repressed, secretive, crippled, anti social, dysfunctional one? I remember my brother once asking my mom, "why doesn't daddy ever play sports with me like my friends' dads do?" That was one of those questions when the deaf, blind, and mute mom sank in. No answers.
I'd scream inside my head, "why doesn't daddy play sports with you? Because daddy drinks too much whiskey and pees the bed. He even gets so drunk, he pees in the refrigerator thinking it's the toilet. How can a person be that drunk? He can't ever hold a job down for more than three months and we have to move all of the time. Our daddy sits in the unlit corner, chain smoking Raleigh 100's and stinking the air, chain reading Isaac Asimov paperbacks, and nobody better come talk to him. Our daddy bathes once a week, and his teeth are rotting out when he smiles every once in a LONG while. Our daddy needs to go to church, but instead mama makes us go ten times too many, each week. Our daddy is crazy. That is why our daddy won't ever play sports with you."
Rich always got the most licks with the belt, even though he was such a strangely silent kid. He started withdrawing before kindergarten, always reading or quietly drawing pictures in notebooks. Our parents were frustrated by his quiet, speechless, physically emotionless, dead faced nature. One time, I thought they were going to kill him. Mama liked to name some obscene figure of belt licks. "You're going to get 43." It was never just five or ten. She'd like to see the skin peeling and ripping, and the blood slowly sliding. Then, she'd wipe him down with Witch Hazel so he wouldn't bruise as bad and he'd heal faster. My parents took turns. They switched back and forth for over an hour. Really our parents could have ran a highly successful B&D shop. Each time, Rich came out a little more quiet, and with a little bit more steel to his eyes.
When my brother turned thirteen, he refused to leave his room. It just started one day. He no longer went to school. No one was allowed entry to his locked room, and he'd never, never talk to anyone. For four years, he didn't leave the house. Wanna talk about how my family knows firsthand about Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis? My mom started putting a plate of food outside Rich's door once a day. In the beginning she'd tap on his door, but he'd only open it when she went away. I don't think he ever bathed.
I'd get a glimpse of him four or five times a year, I'd kick his door in. Screaming and insisting, "Rich talk to me! What is going on with you?" His hair was long, thick, and tangled. His clothes were hanging off him, and his eyes looked wild and unfocused. I don't think he ever saw me. I could get right in his face and scream, but he wouldn't flinch and never, never was there ever any response.
My dad no longer lived with us, but I'd yell at my mom. "What is wrong with you? This ISN'T HEALTHY! Mom something has got to be done! How on any planet, can you act like this isn't going on? Something is very horribly WRONG! We need to drag him out of his room forcefully, and get him some type of help!"
"Rebecca, I just don't want to talk about IT." I was puzzled because mom always institutionalized me on a second's notice, but once again, she denied and ignored my brother's existence. He was our little secret that we must not ever talk about. The dog we must not talk to. He only needs to be fed and watered once a day. The only way I could deal with the situation was to get my hands on as many illegal drugs as I could. I did any and everything to alter that reality. I don't know how it was that during those four years in his secret room, my brother never killed himself.
Eventually, a miracle happened. Some of my brother's poetry was stolen from his room. A better off relative of ours saw Rich's poetry and convinced my brother (rightfully so) that he was the next Rimbaud. Slowly, my brother started coming out.
The four years inside his room had deeply impacted him. Today, he is twenty one. Serious bouts of deep depression make it impossible for him to leave our apartment for days. He sits on the couch indian style, rocking his upper body back and forth, staring blindly at the walls for hours. Rich has a hard time holding a job.
A year ago, he experienced what he calls a stigmata. He said he was walking in the park, when a bunch of demons attacked him. The demons knocked out one of Rich's front teeth. The demons also put severe scorched burn marks all over my brother's body. It took a long time for those burns to heal. He said he never saw the demons, but he felt their force and multiple hands. A doctor would probably say he is schizophrenic. I'm not sure what to think. I guess it all depends on how a person views the idea of demons and angels. Even a fool can't deny evil at work, no matter what form they feel safe to classify it under. Evil can be defined scientifically as abnormal psychology, or it can be defined spiritually. Any person who doesn't know of demons even metaphorically is sickly sheltered. My brother is a devout atheist, but he started wearing a Saint Christopher medal after that.
One night he told me that when he was a child, on a few occasions he flew up in the sky at night. No one ever knew that he had secret wings and once he had soared. He screamed at me when he saw my hesitancy to believe, "It's true dammit, Rebecca. It's fucking true! I flew! It's not my imagination, it's not a lie. I'm not crazy!" I believe him. I believe him. I believe him. Everyone is insane, but I've known people crazier in worse ways.
Maybe, some people are so soft spoken, precious, and devoutly gentle; they were allowed to fly in secret. The rest of us wouldn't know because we're none of us as decent or tender as my brother. I realize it's very hard for him to live in this rough edged, survival of the fittest world. Really, he doesn't belong walking the ground where people are so cruel. He's been misplaced. The drunk gods zapped him into the wrong realm, this sadistic-to-nice-people earth.
Nowadays he listens to this punk rock song called "Richard hung himself" over and over again on cd. "Richard hung himself just the other day". This creeps me because Richard is my brother's name. Why does he listen to that song so much? We had an uncle Allan. He blew his brains out when he was twenty one. Rich has told me more than once, "Rebecca, I think Allan's identity is mixed up in mine. I feel Allan inside me. I might be Allan's reincarnation." What is a sister supposed to think about hearing that from the baby brother she loves? The baby brother she wants desperately to live. The baby brother that she'll have to try to understand if he decides it's his time to leave.
My brother got a large black inked number 23 tattooed on his bicep. Rich is twenty-one now. He keeps saying that it's all going to happen for him when he's 23. I'm scared to find out what that means. I won't think much about the sound a gun makes when it explodes, and the twisted irony of his very first nickname.

ARCsp!nANA

It is verifiably official, meaning I gets to share the good word.
...!!!
As acknowledged publicly first via the blog of Erik Hendrix, my friend who also Editor In Chiefs SP! Nexus megazine as well as co-runs Carpet Bomb Comics, Arcana Publishing's own megazine will now be managed and produced by members of our circle. We are not jumping ship, only expanding our reach and aim. I am just equal parts honored and grateful to have been invited along for the mad ride to follow.
SP! Nexus will absolutely continue as a monthly digital rag with free downloads, although we will be trimming down the content a wee bit just to make all of this realistically feasible. The direction of SP!N will continue to be an ongoing examination and commentary on the world of popular culture through the eyes of those of us with comic book sensibilities. Because of our roots, extra love is clearly given to the medium of funny books, and to self-publishers especially. But we get into films and music and DIY a lot too. Entertaining and informative. We are currently putting together issue number 5, for April.
The Arcana mag will also be a digital monthly with free downloads, but will include as well a quarterly kingsize print collection, containing the finer examples from the webzine (notably interviews) along with new and exclusive content. Before you cry foul on the notion of a publisher bankrolling a comic book culture zine, consider how Avatar handles BleedingCool- by no means intrusive when you consider the names working on Avatar books, of course they deserve notice. Unlike the more secretive but inherent arrangements existing between Marvel and DC to Newsarama and CBR, Arcana will play for us the role of non-biased figurehead, allowing our staff to fill a certain void that has lacked from overall comic book media since the early years of Wizard. Only much more cerebral. Generally independent and small press coverage, though willing to hit above and below too. Certainly more comic book-centric in voice, but with some big plans already in store for up the road aways. Our reign begins with issue two.
As Arcana is currently the largest comic book publisher in Canada, owned and operated by some pretty decent guys and gals, I am excited about this whole deal. Erik and his Carpet Bomb Comics partner in crime Michael Nelson are like me in that we all tend to work ahead of ourselves. These two megazines will be very different from one another, in very good ways for each. It will be an agreeable increase in regular workload for me however, especially considering my continuing work with the boys of A.N.A. Comics (look for a new interview posted thereabouts after the weekend).
All said, these are all good teams for me to be aligning myself with, as they each are as mature and learned as they are creative and imaginative. We are hereby claiming the future, wait and see.

All because I am such a fucking failure.

musical interlude

Honestly, there has never been a fictional character that I have identified with more than Max.

With the possible exception of James Fenimore Cooper's Hawkeye...and maybe Eeyore. And yet those three characters are nothing alike. Random post, moreso than usual, but I find myself in an exceptionally random frame of mind on this Able Fools day.