MonkeySee

Quote of the Day:
(from The Basement Tapes, a weekly column by Joe Casey and Matt Fraction)

Watching the awkward attempts to tap into that girl market with ill-conceived American comic book "equivalents" is like watching a virgin fumbling with a bra clasp. Chalk another one up to American greed. "If they can do it so well, shouldn't we be able to do it ten times better...?" ...that's the biggest failing in the American monkeysee manga trend, honestly. It's not just the format, dummy. It's not just the art. Big eyes on Mary Jane or 300 black and white pages of ROBIN in a 7x5 format would be like wearing a beret and striped shirt and expecting to be embraced as a native Parisian-- it's shallow, superficial, and most of all, crass and naive. Medium and message; form and content. Same old narrow thinking as always.

Amen.

Countdown...

Work on Mr. Majestic is nearly complete! I'm in the home stretch of the fourth and final issue, which will mark my first finished miniseries (apologies to Iceman fans around the world) and my longest stretch of continuous work to date.

THE GOOD: In four more days, it'll all be over. I can finally get some guilt-free sleep and watch some guilt-free movies and have some guilt-free drinks!

THE BAD: I have nine pages left to do! The book gets shipped to the printer next Monday, and the remaining pages still have to be lettered, coloured, proof-read and approved. (Laugh along with me.)

THE UGLY: I've torn most of the flesh from my face with my own fingernails.
Pretty much everything about this situation is ugly except for the actual pages, which, somehow, are turning out quite well despite the stress involved in finishing them. And if I could hug my editor I would, because he's been impossibly calm and encouraging through all of this.

So I'll be getting back to it now. I'll let you all know how it turned out.

medical note: if you phone my apartment any time in the next few days and I don't answer, it's likely that my heart has stopped and I'm prone on the floor of my office. please alert the paramedics.

Track of the Day: fuck off.

B.Gone

From The Mac News Network:

A Mac retailer in Montreal, CA may soon be forced out of business due to a declining user base and "plunging popularity" of Macs, according to an article in Montreal's The Gazette. B.Mac Le Magasin Inc. has closed three of its four stores in the Montreal area and laid off 37 of 52 employees. The fourth store may be forced to close next month--or face the prospect of bankruptcy, according to one reader. "The newspaper blames poor worldwide Mac sales and a low percentage of the overall PC market but doesn't provide information about Montreal's market where there is an apparently thriving design community that mainly uses Macintosh systems."

Well, this is a bit of a downer for me, as I'm prone to lust-filled visits when I'm feeling blue (it's my substitute for ice cream), but I can't say as it comes as much of a surprise. The Gazette's reporting here, however, is just plain faulty. Macs are selling better than they have in years, and if anything is to blame for B.Mac's poor sales, it's the fact that they had incredibly inconvenient store locations. Their main showroom was in an industrial park in the middle of nowhere, and their only downtown location was on the third floor of a church (?!) on rue St. Catharine. It took me forever just to find the front door, and when I went inside, I was greeted with a photocopied piece of paper that said B.Mac: Le Supermagasin Apple, with a little arrow pointing up.
Super, indeed.

There's a surprising amount of reader feedback following this article, mostly from Montréal and Ottawa locals. Here's one from a former employee:

I was an employee there and this information is hilarious. First of all, B.Mac had 2 stores in montreal, 1 in laval and 1 in Ottawa. Laval closed long ago and Ottawa a few months ago. The two stores in Montreal are now closed and one will briefly reopen for liquidation. There are other mac stores in Montreal like INSO MicroBoutique that have sold macs for 21 years now, and honestly, do it much better thank you! The truth is that B.Mac was a terrible place to work at and the big boss didn't care about employees. Hundreds of employees were rotated through its existence. The problem has nothing to do with the MAC but rather because the store was a terrible store. INSO has gained unsatisfied B.Mac clients and is seeing a big wave of walkins since the B.Mac doors are locked. Ask anyone who has worked there, the boss did a personal mental bankrupty and wanted everyone else to feel as miserable as he did. I now work for apple and believe me when I tell you that the online apple store in canada is doing great!

The magic word, in case you missed it, was liquidation...

Another Interview

Another interview, with Neal Bailey of The Superman HomePage. I visit this site a lot - it's got a staggering amount of Superman reference spanning the years of publication as well as appearances in other media. When I need to know some obscure bit of information regarding the Man of Steel (or his sprawling supporting cast), this is where I go first.
The interview itself was my favourite, to date. Questions for the sake of curiosity rather than a quick news headline. I think the best interviews are as valuable to the interviewee as they are to the reader in that both parties end up discovering things they didn't know about themselves.
You can read it here.

Step Forward

I'm too lazy to paraphrase, but this WIRED article got me really excited.

Other reports are accurate in referring to this product as the software version of a rosetta stone. If this thing actually works (and actually exists, for that matter), I'd finally be able to run PC games, among other things, on my mac with full hardware acceleration!
One more excuse for not switching platforms... QUASHED!

Majestic #2 Press

Comicon Pulse has posted the interview I did with Jen Contino, complete with preview images from Majestic #2 (which has already shipped by now, so you're better off just downloading it for the whole preview).
I thought this was going to run in advance of the first issue, but I guess they decided to hold off until now. Anyway, you can read it here.
Enjoy!

The Future is Here

D20 Future, the latest book in Wizards of the Coast's D20 roleplaying line is at last out, which means I get to at last post all the artwork I've produced for it. Check 'em out, now topping my gallery

The line began with the D20 Modern book, as of a week or two ago it's joined by D20 Future, and I'm right at this very moment working on breakdowns for D20 Past, which when released sometime next year will complete a nice little trilogy of Products.

Karl and I tag-teamed on all the chapter openers for D20 Future, and I have to say, despite nightmarish tides of drama assaulting my life while working on this book, it's probably the body of RPG artwork I'm most proud of to date.

Unfortunately, my favorite piece, which was to open the final chapter got cut (along with the whole chapter) due to space. But fear not! The fine people at WOTC have created a snazzy desktop featuring said illo, you can find it here, along with two more, one featuring the bust-ass cover art by the lovely and talented Dave Johnson, and another featuring two more of my pieces that managed to stay in the book and one of Karl's. Pretty up your desktops with some fresh horhaus art!

Karl Interjects!: Hi all! I've followed Kalman's lead and posted all of my D20 Future pieces in my gallery, too. His are better, though, if you'll allow one man his opinion... ...end transmission...

Also, all my original line art illustrations produced for D20 Future are now available for sale at Comic Art Links along with several pieces from Serpent Kingdoms and Ebberon as well.

Enjoy, and feel free to post or email your thoughts.

Track of the Day: Jardin de Cecile - Juno Reactor