Fetch the Popcorn

This nose/face thing seems to be fading finally. Your Sister is recovering from dental work that will severely limit her eating for about four days.We'll both get thinner.

Here's why I'm really posting: The first trailer for Tarantino's western, Django Unchained, is out. Django was a recurring character in Italian westerns in the '60s. Spaghetti Westerns were huge here during that time, their global heyday. Eastwood's tough cowboy image came from there in director Sergio Leone's "Dollars trilogy." This is another love letter to a film genre for Tarantino, and the cast looks solid.

About Time

Finally, a week after the crash, an insurance appraisers looked at the car. He provided an estimate to Your Sister and recommended a local body shop. I thought the Jim Barkley dealership could do the repairs, but no, they have no body shop. That stuns me. They always advertise as full-service. The estimate will got to the body shop this week, and the car will get there the 19th. Should be fixed in a week. That leaves Your Sister with no car while I'm in Charlotte, but we're covered for rental cars by the insurance.

I'm now putting sketches into my portfolio, hoping they'll sell at the convention. I already pre-sold five sketch cards just yesterday. 

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Ray Bradbury has died. The 20th-century SF prose genre was PACKED with talent. Bradbury, Clarke, Asimov, Heinlein, Niven, Anderson, Herbert, Le Quin. These are the people who inspired the radio dramas and movies and TV series. And Bradbury's body of work is gargantuan. I'm not sad he's gone; I'm too gobsmacked by everything he wrote.

I knew the Electric Grandmother story before I knew who wrote it. The Something Wicked This Way Comes movie scared the crap out of me before I knew who wrote it. I took at least one of his anthologies to the beach house last month.

Picture of the Day
All in a day's work.

The Checklist Is Shrinking

I picked up my comic reprints from OfficeMax this morning. They sat behind their shelves for longer than it took to print them. I got the call Friday afternoon, and I was already back home. It took them just two days to print about 110 comics. I spent Saturday in the workshop organizing my display materials from the previous shows, and I've got a little list to pad them out a tad. The only major expense left is the hotel room. I'm taking a lot of my work from sketchbooks to sell. I discovered I had, between the  Facebook Sketchtember and the theme art on heygregory.com, quite a bit of work that could sell. Most everything else I'll buy will come from a Michael's store.

We had a scare with the deputy last night. He asked to go to bed before supper, and he was flushed. Your Sister found he had a 102 fever, and gave him a warm shower to cool him down, which he did quickly. But he screamed and screamed for a half hour. I think he overheated outside. We should have changed his church shirt before he and I went downtown. He may also have dehydrated after the gelato. This morning he was fine; his temperature was the perfect 98.6.

Your Sister has begun cycling down from work. She spent the evening shopping online for summer clothes, and I approve of her relaxation. She has only a few school days left, and at least one of those is to make up for her missing school last week because I couldn't find a baby seat in town.

Picture of the Day
I need to practice drawing these guys for the convention.