A Weekend Gift

The replacement for sadtrombone.com is here.

You're welcome.

Picture of the Day
This is what it's like in Chez Ass Smack lately.

Grr.

I left work early yesterday when Your Sis called me for help. She locked the keys in her car, and she was hosting a teacher committee immediately. In the car were the committee materials. Off I went. I knew about the meeting well in advance, and the original plan was for me to come home from work at the normal time and hide in the workshop. Now, I was going to be in there for hours. And I was.

The teachers were hashing out senior-project proposals. The meeting was supposed to end around 6. They left at eight, and they were getting sparky as the night rolled on. It became too late for me to start supper, and we snacked instead on meeting leftovers. And as we cleaned up, Your Sis tried to laugh off the calamity by telling me she didn't need those items in the car after all. I almost exploded. Yesterday was the kind of day filled with all the things normal days aren't.

Picture of the Day
Death to everyone. Die die die.

Done.

I just emailed the comic to the publishers. I checked it at home last night and this morning and made small adjustments to the file properties. I'm five days ahead of my deadline, and I have time to make edits if they ask. Except for the last few pieces of dialogue. They stay. The comic doesn't work without them.

I awoke to find my tub drain was broken, and I suspected the pull rod had rotted away. I cleaned the plug and didn't see any jagged edges. If it was a break, it was clean. I then checked the drain to find the suspected rod (assuming tub drains work like sink drains). I couldn't see it, but the drain was clogged with hair. It might be underneath all that. I used tweezers to remove the gunk -- much like playing Operation on a Wookie -- and still couldn't find a rod. I jimmied the plug into the drain gasket and realized in my morning stupor that the drain doesn't plug via a faucet nob. And then I realized that the plug had slipped off the gasket because I emptied the remnant of a shampoo bottle yesterday morning. I screwed the plug back in and tested it. Worked just fine.

Picture of the Day
The Apollo 10 crew adopted Snoopy as a mascot. Here, they pet their good-luck charm as they head toward the rocket.

Finish Line

I tweaked some text in the comic yesterday. Bolding certain words for emphasis, really. I shaded in two panel backgrounds and one more look at the comic told me I'm at the end. I don't see what significant adjustments I can make at this stage, and I'll probably send it off to the publisher tomorrow. I have that torso-encompassing feeling that the work is over. I want to keep the groove going with a few one-page stories and images to keep these drawing muscles from atrophying.

Your Sis finds herself in a barrage of committees and efforts outside the classroom. She's wild-haired and crazy-eyed.

We dusted off the Bullock telescope to do some star gazing. We saw a planet we think was Venus. We couldn't see rings, but we could see our breath, and the cold drove us inside quickly.

Picture of the Day
An actual product: A little ring pillow to help you nap in the office. Pilopilo.com.

Heart Attacks and Elbow Drops

My idea for this weekend was to let the comic sit for two days before I picked it up and read it fresh. That was the idea.

Then I thought, for fun, I'd check the anthology website, just to see if they had any notes encouraging submitters to tidy up the stories and send them in. Nothing seemed to have changed since I first saw the site in January. And then I noticed the technical specs. Originally it read "200 dpi," the resolution for the final images. I had made the comic to that setting. It now read "300 dpi." Because I had scanned the art at 200 dpi, panic set in. I had to digitally assemble the comic once again. The "final" files I made late last week were worthless. After a quick lunch to build up my reserves, I sat down and recolored and re-lettered the comic at the higher resolution. It took a few hours and plumb wore me out. Before this I spent all of Saturday morning cleaning and reorganizing my workshop. Once I found the mistake, all that had to stop, and now my room is a slop of paper stacks.

It's simply bad form to not notify folks when you change the art specs. Only my neurosis allowed me to salvage the comic.

I printed the comic again and put it aside. Your Sister hadn't read it. I kept it away from her so she can have a clean read when she finally got to see it. That was on Sunday. I left the room. I killed some time and returned to find her crying. While I don't want to make the missus cry, it is the reaction I was hoping for. The comic has wallop, at least for her. Mission accomplished.

On Sunday we caught rasslin' in Asheville, and we rooted against the other's favorites. I also baffled the kids sitting in front of me who couldn't understand why anyone would cheer for the bad guy. They'll learn.

The Oscars was a fun show last night, and Hugh Jackman is a total showman.

Picture of the Day
Work, work, work.

Almost There

I printed out my latest proof this morning, and I won't even look at it until Sunday. I'm taking a mental break. I changed up a piece of dialogue -- really an entire scene -- and I need that to marinade before I read it again. My deadline is a week from today. I think I'm in good shape.

I added the comic procedural to Facebook.

Picture of the Day
An actual Watchmen product.

Retooling.

One reason I attacked my comic so intensively early on was so I could have plenty of time to fix it before my deadline. The inking was done this past weekend, and now I have the time to let the comic marinade. I can dissect it and see what horrors catch my eye.,

For instance, the most worrisome panel of the comic stemmed from an image I envisioned very early on: a mass of population taking to the skies. This is my money shot. I worked on this panel in increments between other panels in the comic. If I tackled it all at one time, I would have deflated. This way seemed to work OK. And I was happy with the results.

Three days later I took another look at it, and what seemed sufficiently big in scope seemed paltry. There just wasn't enough people. When I got home yesterday, I went back to the workshop and filled in the background. Now I'm happy with it. I'm glad I went back too. See the largest guy at the top? There's a circular outline on his left shoulder with an X in it. The X is an art shorthand for filling in an area with black. Pencilers do it when they hand a page to an inker. I add them when I plan to add blacks later. I clearly missed it when I originally inked the page. That's not something you want going to a printer. On the right image, you'll see that I filled it in.


I also decided to rewrite the dialogue for the scene that makes the story happen, and I redrew some body parts in various panels. I don't have to redraw the entire panel; I can trace the outlines on another sheet, draw the new part over it, scan that part, and place it digitally on the panel in my computer. Again, I have a week left before I turn this in. And this relaxed window of retooling is exactly what I need.

Last night's Lost offers us a chance to return to the classic Lost formula of flashbacks to reveal character motivations, and I'm surprisingly excited by this return to format.

Your Sister is making contingency plans in case she can't go to this weekend's wrestling show in Asheville. It would be more fun for her to go, but I've recently renewed my intimate understanding of deadlines. I'm going, no matter what.

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Blogger is acting up today.

Three-Day Weekend

The LA Theatre Works is a nationally touring company that does staged readings of plays. Because it stems from LA, big-name actors are often involved. Last year we saw a drama on the Pentagon Papers. This year they are touring in The Tennessee Monkey Trial. Both shows rely heavily if not exclusively on trial transcripts.

You might remember last summer when I read scripts for the local theatre. I advocated Inherit the Wind, also based on the monkey trial, and I suggested we work around the limited repertory and stage resources this way:

... I suggest the theatre do this as a staged reading with double casting. We can go with simple props and scripts and old-time radio microphones. The stage action is insignificant; the dialogue is everything. If we focus on that, we can abstract the set to the black-box level.

... I phrased it as "We could do it this way and this way. It would be cheap! We won't have to memorize! We could rehearse in half the time!" I still think a bare-bones staged reading of the play with seven people playing all 30 characters (including the monkey) could work. Scrap the spectacle, get to the text. That will make people connect with the script without being distracted by the yokel caricatures.

The idea was kibboshed. And what did I see on Friday?

A staged reading in a virtual black box setting with doubled roles. Thirteen people played about 25 roles. Stage mics. Simple costumes. This is a national show with celebrity actors. I feel utterly vindicated. I strike the Caesar pose.

We did have celebs. The play was led by Ed Asner, and the man was a fucking lion. I have never seen a dramatic performance this good. He owned. He ruled. He should have struck the Caesar pose. Funnily enough, almost all the actors listed a performance on Law and Order.

The show was from the trial transcripts. Small-town Tennessee school board folk wanted to challenge the state's new Butler Act, which forbade teaching evolution as a contrary theory to Creationism. The official state biology textbook, which predated the act by two decades, did just that. The board remembered that the school football coach also substituted as a biology teacher, and he affirmed that he might have read the evolution passage from the biology textbook. The board found their poster-boy, and Scopes found the sheriff to turn himself in. The media were informed of his arrest, and the town, as planned, became the national hot spot and was soon wallowing in money.

Clarence Darrow, who just successfully defended Leopold and Loeb, joined a three-man team to defend Scopes. Former Secretary of State William Jennings Bryant, who has since become a fundamentalist lecturer, was recruited to argue against Darrow alongside the state attorney general. This was spectacle by design.

Darrow's team targeted the Butler Act while the prosecution targeted the affirmed legal transgression. Bryant was eventually called to the stand himself as a Biblical scholar. He deflected Darrow's attacks on the Bible (where did Cain's wife come from, how long was a Genesis day, how were there three mornings before the sun was created), but Darrow's point was made and broadcast to the world. Political pressure nudged the judge to go light on Scopes. Darrow didn't care what the verdict here was; he always planned to take it to the Supreme Court.

But the judge scuttled the case. Because the jury refused to set the fine, the judge did so, and he surpassed the legally allowed amount. The State Supreme Court ruled quickly that this negated the conviction, and the trial progressed no further. Darrow couldn't appeal, and the Supreme Court avoided the case.

It's a different story than Inherit the Wind, better in many ways. The acting was superb. The cast took the stage after the play for a QnA session, and I happened to close the night with my question: Did they discuss the nuances between conveying a transcript and performing a script? They didn't know how to respond at first, but they did mention how the narrator frames the recreation into a storyline instead of conversation, and I was happy with that.

Great show.

I've since spent time refining the comic script and lettering the comic on the computer. I adjusted some art gaffes and now have more than a week to add spot colors. I'm very, very close to finishing and uploading the procedural on Facebook.

All that workshop hunching drove me to run Sunday, and I got enough a groove going to run four miles. If I can extend that two more miles, I can attempt a 10k run. I think I'd like to try that this summer.

For Valentine's Day, we watched the Fiddler on the Roof and the DVD's documentaries on the actors and production. It's such a weepie.

Picture of the Day
Another Lost wallpaper.

Vee Dee

Your Sister has demanded in a most demanding way that we do nothing for Valentine's Day. I bought her nothing, I have nothing planned. I almost, almost bought her greeting card with an audio chip playing Lucy Van pelt complaining about Snoopy's post-kiss dog germs. But it would have violated the "anything" clause of her demands. I passed. This was at the Asheville Mall's B. Dalton store which closes tomorrow.

I did buy a book there called Watching the Watchmen by series artist Dave Gibbons. it's a coffee-table collection of preliminary designs and page thumbnails detailing the construction of the comic. Because the store is closing, they're holding a half-off clearance sale, and it was a bargain. Series writer Alan Moore is resolute that he will no nothing to help studios adapt his works, but he encourages the artists to cash in. Gibbons has done this and has been involved in the movie from the ground floor. I plan for this to be my last related purchase. I won't crack open any of the books or the toy until the comic is done.

And I'm close. I have 1/4 a page left to ink, some small black areas to fill, and some mistakes to fix with paint. Then I'll scan it, letter it, and apply spot grays.

Picture of the Day
If What's-His-Head is still being a doofus, please accept my Valentine's gift:


Happy Valentine's Day, Sis.

Being Nice Only Leads to Defeat

I thought I'd be a nice son and send my Mom a bouquet for Valentine's Day. I wanted to surprise her. I found a decent online flower service, and it offers a nice gift basket. Thought she'd dig it. She works at the hospital, and I know that it could be complicated to send the package to the correct mailbox/receptionist. I found the address online.

I then rechecked the flower service and realized it was a national service with ties to a shop I know from my hometown. I called that shop, hoping to save some service charges and maybe get the order delivered quicker and correctly. The store told me the bouquet I wanted was only available through the online service. They were no help. Pout.

I go back to the national website and prepare to enter the right address. I use the hospital site to find a number, and I call the front desk. I ask to talk to someone in my mom's department: neonatal ICU. It's a huge branch. Dozens of people. I knew that they would all know mom and could be trusted to keep this a secret until the order arrived in a few days.

So of course the operator patches me straight through to Mom's phone. And she answers. And I'm busted. Total happenstance. The operator had no idea who I was or why I was calling. Of all the hundreds of people I could have been routed to, it's Mom. So I tell her the truth. I even let her choose what type of arrangement she'd prefer. She picks the chocolate basket. We share a laugh. I just talked to her last night, and we're already caught up. Phone call over. Surprise ruined.

Fuck.

Picture of the Day
Dharma wallpaper. Lost is on tonight.

Who Draws the Drawmen?

We attended a "Celtic" concert on Saturday night. It was the Scottish group Tannahill Weavers, a group I swear we saw five years back. They've performed for about 40 years, and it was a quick, lively show. Your Sis got her first copy of their music in her senior year of college, but lost it. She bought a new CD of it after the show and had it autographed by the band.

The inking is flying by, and I'm practically half-way done. In one weekend. Granted, I shackled myself to the drawing board to motor through it all. I listened to NPR and horror-movie commentaries all weekend. I drew a few hours Saturday morning, ran against a bad wind, ate lunch, and drew some more. Then came the concert. Sunday was all inking.

I'll slog through a page and put it aside after a disappointed appraisal. I won't look at it for a few hours, and when I do, I find myself slightly delighted with it. It's not professional quality, but it's not bad for amateur work.

I am treading into dangerous geek territory over the Watchmen film. I picked up an enlarged, recolored copy of the original trade, and I found a toy.

Imagine if Lucas didn't produce toys until 25 years after the first film. That's what it feels like to see and hold a Rorschach toy on Friday. Now I don't want Watchmen towels or toothbrushes, but a souvenir like this is just tasteful enough. I don't need any other of the figures. As noted comic writer Grant Morrison said recently, and I'm paraphrasing, everyone likes Rorschach despite his insanity and violence because he is the lone undaunted hero. He gets the job done.

Picture of the Day
Here's a before and after for page three:


I'm documenting the progress for a Facebook album similar to my painting prodecural.

Progress

From this week's Lost:Remember the water bottle from the canoe? It was from Ajira Air. ABC has already put up a fake website for the airline. Also, I realized yesterday that the Oceanic Six have recreated their circumstances from before their crash on the island. Sayid is fighting shadowy agents, Hugo is locked up and bedeviled, Jack is a drunk with a body in tow, Kate is on the lam even though she's doing the right thing, Aaron is headed to where he shouldn't go, and Sun has a secret. Maybe they have to relive their original destinies.

After eating raw fish Wednesday, I went the other route and burned dinner last night. My fried chicken was charred black. I'm still learning my skillet-fu.

I may have finished the major pencils for the comic. I can start inking tomorrow.

Picture of the Day
Here's the poster for the convention where the comic anthology will be unveiled.

A Pattern Emerges

Wake, draw, drive, work, drive, draw, eat, TV, sleep. God willing, I'll start inking this weekend.

Picture of the Day
We used to order our robots from the Christmas Sears catalog.

The Magnetism of the Stage

Your Sis met me in Asheville on Friday, and we attended the first of a two-night stint by the Aquila Theatre. This night, they performed The Iliad. That's what the brochures, posters, and tickets said anyway. The Iliad. So I expected the entire Trojan war, obviously distilled into one night. Paris and the Golden Apple leading to the bribe of Helen and Cassandra the prophet and the Trojan Horse and Achilles dying from an arrow to the ankle. All the stuff that makes the Trojan War a fun story.

We find out right before the curtain goes up that this is The Iliad: Book One. That's Book One out of 24 books that make up the Greek classic. What we see, instead of all the fun stuff, is a stand-off between Achilles and King Agamemnon over the rights to seized booty. The whole play is less than 80 minutes long. We do get some Greek Gods, but mostly this is a series of conversations about why war is a bummer. This is not what I expected. It was OK, and I appreciated elements that suggested a style of theatre from the days of Homer. It was black-box theatre with multipurpose props and creative lighting and sound. But I wanted a horsey.

The following night, they performed Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors and knocked it out of the park. I can't imagine how they could wring one more drop of entertainment from the script. Six people performed all the parts, and they all did the heavy lifting. Brilliant theatre. I can never keep Shakespeare's comedies straight, and I thought I perhaps had seen this before. it wasn't until the play was half and hour from the ending that I remembered seeing the Montford Park Players do the same show and how mild their version was in comparison.

This night's comedy made me remember why I love performing comedy and how I could maybe possibly perhaps do the sex comedy after all. I got a call Friday night from another actor asking me to audition, and again I explained I couldn't. I told him about the comic, and, frankly, I suspect he didn't believe me. Watching Saturday's play got me itching to do the show, but I couldn't forget the pitfalls of the last show. By coincidence -- maybe -- I ran into the theatre president Sunday, and he made the sales pitch for me to audition. Turns out the Saturday audition garnered no male actors. None. Again I considered doing the show by juggling my comic schedule. They were desperate. I could write my own check here. They could work around me this time. I was torn for a good hour until I looked again at the performance dates and my penciled pages.

I chose the comic. And that's my final decision. I've had four -- FOUR -- appeals for me to do the play, and I'm tired of trying to shoehorn it in. Unless the dates of the play change, I can't do it. And let us keep in mind that this theatre can't find three other men to do a comedy. Even if I jumped aboard, who would play the other roles? What did they do before I moved here?

The comic continues to bubble along. I had an epiphany yesterday that lead me to the kind of thematic detail that my high-school student brain never believed was accidental. But this one was utterly unconscious. It appeared before my eyes, without my manipulation, and I'm shocked by the workings of the subterranean mindwaves. I can't claim credit for it in any way.

In other news, my Steelers won a close game.

As I look out the window, it's pouring snow.

Picture of the Day
I loved these things when I was in middle school.

I Do Not Run to the Rescue

Cast your mind back to Tuesday, when I was asked if I would direct the upcoming sex play. Now, return with me to yesterday when I received another farce call. An actress (the accused from the 2007 courtroom play) called to give me the sales pitch for auditioning. She tried to describe the play, and I interrupted to inform her I helped pick it last year. I told her I had championed it against the other farces we read. I did not say how much I wanted to do this play nor did I say exactly why I couldn't do the play. But I did pass on it, and she asked me to think of and alert other youngish actors to try out for the play. Hence the Facebook notice.

She didn't know why the original director bowed out. I told her. She told me the new directors were a husband/wife team, half of which played Scrooge just last month. That makes the idea of tackling the play intriguing for lots of reasons, but I still can't commit to the play. One wonders who they'll corral if they don't get the young actors they need. Can you do a sex farce with 60-year-olds? Do we want to see that?

Again, I feel like I'm abandoning this group when they need help the most. But I look at this comic in progress, and that's what I want to do now. So there you go.

Speaking of plays, my college buddy with whom I had lunch Wednesday thought I was a lawyer because she saw my courtroom photos on Facebook.

Picture of the Day
Bling bling beep boop wah-WAH.

Lost and Found

Via Facebook, I'm talking to lots of folks I haven't seen in years and years. I had lunch yesterday with an alum of my first college. A gal I hadn't seen this century. It was a great lunch. Asheville now has a breakfast bar that stays open after lunch. It's called the Over Easy Cafe, and it's a few doors down from mellow Mushroom. Hot cakes for lunch is bueno. She looks great. Turns out she's dating a guy who now plays for a band we listened to in college.

We're trying to get a Super Bowl party, but it doesn't seem feasible. Either people live too far away, are busy with a new baby, or don't care for football. We now own a party TV. It must be stared at.

There was one line on Lost last night that almost collapsed me into a ball of tears. Another solid episode.

Picture of the Day
This is me doing the comic right now. I'm now drawing the comic every day. I'm getting up and drawing for about half an hour before work and hitting the drawing table for at least an hour when I get home. It's strong progress so far, but I dread the inking process.

Drama!

I walked in the door yesterday, and the phone rang. It was my spring director, preparing me for a great big request. The director of the upcoming play was just ordered by her doctor to avoid stress for two months. The auditions are Thursday. She can't direct. Would I direct the sex farce?

This makes the second time I've been asked to direct since summer. Again, I turned it down. I can't commit to it now. Also, the previous objections remain. No one knows me. I've done three plays. Why would any well-acquainted repertory listen to me? No matter what, this play is going to have issues. It's a wordy script. Lots of back-and-forth and repetition for humor. Whoever directs it has missed out on weeks if not months of preparation. A director shouldn't approach the script as cold as the auditioning actors. They need guidance.

Let me be the diva for a second: They really need me in this play, and I can't do it. I don't know who they can corral into it, and I bet they don't know either. The possibility exists that they will bump this play back to the summer, and use this new downtime to renovate the theatre further. This is probably best for all involved. They could also start the next show's rehearsals earlier and get that play nailed down tight.

I got more details about the Sunday play screw-up. The two onstage actors jumped ahead to the next act and didn't realize it. Two other actors walked onstage -- without cues -- to right the ship. The original actors not only didn't recognize what was happening, but they managed to get the new actors offstage. Somehow they later realized what was happening and returned to the Act One material. The replacement director for this play was brought in to rehearsals with only three weeks til curtain, and she discovered the original director -- wracked by leukemia -- was too distracted to have blocked anything. He was removed from the play after two rehearsals where he passed out multiple times. Like you, I'm much more curious to see a train wreck, and I might go on Sunday.

I did agree to join the spring director's artistic committee to act as a secondary theatre board. It sounds like a small commitment that can build the momentum the theatre needs to get its head together.

Picture of the Day
The secret to House.

Noses to the Grindstone

I met my personal deadline for the comic this weekend. I wanted to have the comic completely thumbnailed. I wanted to design my superheroes. I wanted to design my space ship. And I wanted to make the panel grids on the full-size art boards. They all got did. I plan on making a Facebook photo album documenting the whole process. I now have five weeks to complete a six-page comic, and I feel good about where I am.

Your Sis spent the entire weekend reading books for her new semester classes. She went through, I think, four version of Beowulf, and an Elie Wiesel anthology. Her brain is numb. We spent spare moments vegging in front of the TV and then would break the huddle to get back to work.

I ran into members of the current play and learned they had a similar onstage disaster. Somehow they jumped ahead to Act Two before finishing Act One. The original director became too sick to complete rehearsals, and a last-second replacement turned the noir thriller into a comedy. I can see that actually, but that changes timing and delivery. I wish I had the initiative to attend the show, but I'm so disheartened by the recent theatre troubles that I don't have the inclination. And I feel like I'm abandoning those putting forth all their efforts. The only performance we could catch is next Sunday, the same day as the Super Bowl.

Picture of the Day
Your Sister after studying all weekend.

The Curtain is Risen.

Let me share with you a secret. A shocking revelation that will no doubt reshape your perception of the universe. You will be changed. You shan't ever go back to the innocence you enjoyed until this very significant moment. Gird yourself. Scrunch up your face to dilute the white-hot flash from the mushroom cloud of the truth bomb.

Ready?

Attend: Your Sister is prone to fretting.

Don't stone the prophet. I burden you with reality to prepare you for the divulged dimension we shall now inhabit together.

The new semester includes her first attempt at teaching seniors. And she was unnerved. Actually she was doubly nerved. Her nerves had nerves. Then she realized she had taught most of these kids before, and they regarded her fondly. So, no, Mrs. Crabapple, you're not teaching Dangerous Minds. Chillax. She celebrated the easing of tensions with some TV and hot chocolate.

I continued to delineate my short comic. Literally. I'm thumbnailing my story to fit six pages, and I have to cut scenes I had great hopes for. The plot is shifting, but I know how it should start and end. The middle, where the protagonist must be convinced to act, is the trick.


Picture of the Day
The view from above. Click to embiggen.