It Was 30 Years Ago Today

I realized right before I parked my car in our garage that the college perimeter is fairly flat, and the one significant elevation it has would make for good training. Twenty minutes later, I was huffing and puffing on the campus. I ran the perimeter three times and then drove it to measure the distance. It's almost exactly one mile. So I had run three miles or a smidgen under 5k. It was a good day for it -- nice weather, not too bad a breeze -- and the campus is quiet for now. I have my new run route.

If there was any downside to it, it's that I first walked this campus more than 15 years ago. I like my memories of the place, but a creeping sense of stasis bothers me. I never thought I'd be back here, much less living here. I don't get that from being in town; it's changed enough from the early '90s, and Your Sister outweighs any unpleasantness I might feel. Also, I feel like a dirty old man running the same loop at the same time as college girls on the track or soccer teams. Then again, Your Sis is probably teaching their younger brothers and feeling the same thing.

Then I read online that this is the 30th anniversary of Star Wars and, geez louise, can I possibly feel any more decrepit? You know, I can't recall anything I would have considered cool prior to seeing Star Wars, and that was on my sixth birthday. I even remember the TV commercials for that run, and My Mom asking if I wanted to see it. Once I did, it erased everything that came before. I certainly recall all the cool things that came after, however. But my first movie theatre memory is one of fear during the compactor scene.

Aside from momentary lapses into wah-wah, I feel good after the run. I am getting noticeably wiser in pacing myself and pushing myself within limits of muscle sprains and pulls. While watching "Lost" Wednesday night, we saw our first commercial for the third Pirates movie. We had no idea it opened this weekend. The local theatre is playing it too. We might not get to it until the middle of next week though. We have prom and birthday stuff this weekend, and we have to tackle research papers.

Picture of the Day
The Beijing Olympic medals

I Feel 30 Pounds Lighter

The dentists visit was just a consult after all. I was told of the various ways they could sedate me and that my teeth aren't going to be a problem to remove. They are not impacted. I was shaking the entire time, waiting for the soap-opera revelation of Dire Destiny. "Those wisdom teeth have hatched into venomous spiders and tranfsformed your entire head into a ticking time-bomb. Nurse, get me the hatchet." But no. I have an appointment for June 27 to have them yanked and have already secured the day off from work. I also have an entire bottle of Loratab to tide me over 'til then if need be.

We watched the final "Six Feet Under," and it's a whopper of an ending. Deeply satisfying stuff here. Not enough to bring the tears though.

The season finale of "Lost" brought the awesome by the buckets and proved that the first six episodes of this season were an aberration. Great acting, great writing, some resolutions, and a lot of new intrigue. A very satisfying installment to end on. Your Sis did get hit hard by one scene, but I was too distracted by the storytelling.

Also, the comic is 98% done. She found a few typos. Easily fixed.

And with these big events, I feel like I've shaken off some winter coat, like I've accomplished something. I awoke this morning feeling like I had started summer vacation. Despite the baffling absence of bottled caramel frappuccino from all the convenience stores, I had a great commute with some sterling music and I said "fuck it" and bought a frappuccino from the supermarket Starbucks booth.

I feel lighter. Or maybe light-headed. It is a lot of caffeine, you know.

Picture of the Day
Saturday morning on CBS featured live-action superhero and space-action material. This was my favorite:


Although I took, at the time, strange and unknown interest in the Mighty Isis.

Her alter ego was a petite, brunette school teacher. I must have imprinted.

But "Shazam" was the cooler show, and Captain Marvel was my favorite hero, and I think he still is. I do have an action figure of him on my desk at work, the only geek concession I've made at the office. The shows were influenced by the Hulk, Spider-Man and Wonder Woman live-action shows shown in primetime weekdays. And the two bionic shows proved the appeal of sci-fi. It was a cool time for kids to watch TV.

Anticipation of Exhaustion

The teachers had a small gang dinner yesterday, and I joined in with the missus. We finally tried the local Japanese steakhouse, and it's surprisingly good. At first blush, it's a typical Southern diner, but instead of slaw and taters, you get teriyaki steak and shrimp sauce. SHRIMP SAUCE. I haven't had this for years. The school art teacher asked me to talk to some of his cartoon-minded students next week, and I'm up for it. I've got tons of stuff to show them from my paper days, and I've got a handful of local minicomics too. My own may be finished and done; I made the most recent art adjustments last night after we watched the penultimate episode of "Six Feet Under." Tonight is the season finale of "Lost," too. We'll wrap up two series within three days of each other after which we'll melt into brain-drained puddles. I anticipate a good cry from at least one show. If not, I'll demand a refund.

I have a short work day today as I got to the oral surgeon. I don't know what to expect. I've put this off for so long that I may have an emotional breakdown when I leave the office. And if I'm missing the offending teeth, I may not be able to seek solace in ice cream. And I really ought to run again, but I don't see that happening while I'm whacked out on generic Loratab.

So, to recap: Comic done, "Six Feet Under" wrapping up, "Lost" takes its Act 3 bow, I fix my teeth. I need a beer.

In the Geek News
Every once in a while, the online geek forum eats itself in heated, breathless blather. This time it made national news, and when I say "national news," I mean "24-hour news networks that need filler." Here's what happened.

Comic illustrator Adam Hughes is renowned for his cheesecake art. This top-rated cover artist draws women that are statuesque, and it made sense to make statues out of them. The comic-fan market has branched out into everything you can imagine: posters, shirts, action figures, dolls, and the statue and mini-statue branch which has particularly taken off in the last ten years. Comic artists will often design a statue, and a sculptor takes over from there. Sometimes the sculptor will create a piece based solely on the style of a famous artist-character combination (a Jack Kirby Fantastic Four, a Frank Miller Batman, etc.) So Hughes drew Mary Jane discovering Peter's costume in the laundry. It looked like this:


This is quintessential Hughes. The style is called "good girl;" it's flirty without being salacious. The statue, however, mangled the statue.

It's loyal to the design, but it loses the flavor. This isn't the scandal, though. No, a number of hand-wringers emerged to complain that it looked like a harlot MJ was doing Peter's laundry, and this was demeaning. Instead of a laundry basket, they see a tub. And they see MJ presenting her ass for what's being smirkingly called "sexual availability." Fox News and MSNBC, for example, picked up on the story. Spidey 3 is a huge film, seen by a varied audience, but because the stigma exists that comics are only for kids, they ignored the angry feminist argument and argued that this is too sexy for the alleged child consumers. Now this statue is $120. A kid can't afford it. You can't find this in toy stores. You either buy it from the company's website or through a comic store. This is priced for the older collector. It's not marketed or produced or priced for kids.

But the online outrage continues. And now the discussion has jumped to the overall perceived dismissal of female consumers in the traditionally superhero comic market. Now obviously the comic market has shifted its focus to the older consumer. Simply put, they have more money to spend than an eight-year-old. Many comic covers are cheesecake pin-ups, and a number are similar to what you'd find inside Maxim. Kids are no longer the major demographic of comics, and the companies are using cheesecake and softcore to catch the eye of the older consumer in a very crowded market. It does go too far. But I don't agree that this kind of presentation automatically insults all women, either as the subjects of the art or the consumers. It goes back to the Frank Miller fiasco of a few months back: Your Sis likes his comics; therefore she's either imaginary or stupid. If she was bothered by this stuff, she'd stay away from comics. She doesn't like going into comic stores, but that's because the clientèle bothers her, not the products.

Into the heat of this debate fell this cover for an upcoming Marvel comic:


Many people went apeshit. Bondage is nothing new in comics (Wonder Woman used to be made powerless if you shackled her wrists, and then there's her magic lasso compelling the truth from the bound). But this image implies a niche of Japanese comics called "tentacle hentai," wherein women are molested by the monstrous. This did nothing to calm down the rhetoric. Neither did the revelation that the cover artist is a Japanese woman. I don't like the art myself. It's muddy and plastic.

But it's utterly in line with decades of horror comic imagery. Does that fact in itself confirm that comics are demeaning toward women? No. Comics are entrenched in their pulp origins and contain those elements, one of which is lurid situations. There's also violence and dark emotions. Now, you don't expect it in Superman or Spider-Man. But a comic featuring leather-clad women with 1970s blackspolitation and kung-fu fashion and attitude? Yeah, it's gonna be trashy. It's supposed to be. And it will be found in the same comic shop as X-Men (which has a history of occasional trashiness, to be honest) and Spider-Man (who used to date a leather-clad Catwoman ripoff with a neckline down to her navel). This is the diversity of the market, and I'd rather have that supply-and-demand dynamic in action then a dull-eyed homogeneity. The first rule of the free market is that you only buy what you want. And the golden rule corollary is that the guy next to you can buy what he wants, and the two of you leave each other alone to mind your own budgets and morals.

But that's not as much fun to say as "omigod, comics hate women." I'm curious to see if this lingers during the comic convention. Hughes will be there, and his prints of various women in various "good girl" images will sell like gold-plated hotcakes. Your Sis, by the way, likes his art. But she hates spin-off sidekick women like Supergirl and Batgirl on principal. BatMAN but BatGIRL? This she finds demeaning.

Heat Run

Even though I waited until it was cooler, Monday's run was escorted by a blasting sun and its best friend, the hot wind. I ran two miles in one shot, aided by perfectly timed intersection walk signs and an overall lack of cars turning right. I wish I knew a trick to expand my lung capacity because I find myself occasionally gasping like an asthmatic. Maybe it's the pollen. Maybe it's the heat. Maybe I have lung flab. I try to adjust my breathing as I go; I do have a breathing rhythm I try to maintain. But I'm getting bored with my route. I need to start running on side roads and perhaps find some straight planes to run instead of all these @&$% hills. The 5k race is less than two months away.

I finally made an appointment with the oral surgeon to yank out my wisdom teeth. My first appointment is only a consultation, even though I have a referral for the procedure from the dentist last November. The surgeon is only available twice a month.

Picture of the Day
The Cats Eye Nebula, somewhere up there.


In The News
Nobody liked the immigration bill. Both sides decry its lack of significant security measures, its merit system for entry, and its seemingly naive call for hefty fines from people working crap jobs. The right-wing media is apoplectic, saying it's the death of the GOP with some even calling for Bush's impeachment. And these are his party folk. The left-wing people say the bill encourages a serf class that splits families. The local radio people claim North Carolina is especially targeted by illegal immigrants for our lax law enforcement and numerous labor jobs. But these rabid talkers also claim our state is the front line on illegals and thus terrorism, because its just a matter of time, evidently, before Al Qaeda come through the Texas border. They've claimed this for six years now, and it hasn't happened yet. But this makes for a great distraction from the Gonzales and Iraq news.

Sunday Was a Week Long

The first version of the minicomic is done, and I'll proof it later today. I spent some time Saturday and Sunday penciling and inking the spot illustrations. I scanned them in and polished off their respective pages, all while listening to a commentary track on the new Re-Animator DVD. It has a brand-new making-of documentary proving what the earlier commentary track established: this is a fun buncha folks who struck gold with a tiny horror movie.

We were at Kathy and Travis' house Saturday night for a cookout and fire-sitting. We learned their exchange student is returning for a two-week visit, just in time for prom. She may not be going. We definitely are. I even took my suit to the dry cleaners. We're supposed to chaperone, but I'm not sure how much deputy power we'll have.

Sunday started early as I worked on the comic art. We watched the Preakness on TiVo, suffering through the sappy packaging of a Cajun jokey while doing nothing to inform us what kind of skill a jokey must possess. We noticed that all the jockeys and trainers and owners said the same thing on-camera: the horse will run his race. But watching a race, you can clearly see the jockeys whipping and steering. So why not focus on that? Why passively anthropomorphize the horse? The locker room interviews showed the top three jockeys crashed on the couch watching the TV coverage just a half hour before the race. This doesn't suggest any level of pre-race tension or preparation. After more than an hour of presenting the Kentucky Derby winner and one other jockey, neither won. We fetched groceries after a rare cup for coffee from me. Your Sis worked on school material while I finished the comic art and moved to the PlayStation for Guitar Hero. The death metal songs are aptly named as they murder your fingers. We had a small dinner and watched three episodes of "Six Feet Under." Only three more left. My Sunday felt languorous; I think she's exhausted from moving so slowly to the end of the semester.

Picture of the Day
Apparently the official Joker image from the new Batman movie. I like it. The new film franchise takes a grounded approach, and this style of Joker seems to fit right in. Geeks will be torn; the image is cool, but he's not smiling. A good chunk of comic fans will decry the lack of a cheesy grin, and, when I was younger, I would have been one of them. Joker's face is frozen in a smile, they'd say. But not only is this an impractical condition, but it limits the ability of an artist to express anything through the character. Also, he'd drool all over himself. The character, not the artist. No, Joker has to have muscle control to help him mock and mimic his enemies. Even though this image is of Heath Ledger, a total Brad Pitt vibe exudes. The first movie continues to grow in stature the more comic movies I see, and I have high hopes for the next one.

Accolades

The publisher seems fine with my schedule for getting him the minicomic next week. I laid it out in a horizontal format without doing much at all to alter the original comic. The original ran in vertical form, a little smaller than 8.5 x 11. The new format will be horizontal at 4.25 x 2.5, smaller than a dollar bill. But the comic fits just fine. I take two panels and make them a page, and take the next two panels, make them a page. Since the original comic was set up with two panels a tier, this creates no problem. Even when I have my two long page-wide panels, they aren't broken up in the layout. Unfortunately, this makes for a thin comic: 12 pages and four cover pages. But I can add eight more pages of related filler in the back for a nice 24-page comic, covers included. I've sent off the proposal and the new layout to the publisher for his comments. He hasn't seen the comic before, but I can't imagine he'd veto it.

Your Sis and I attended the annual school ceremony for recognition of students and teachers. This is, I think, the fifth consecutive year she's received an award from a student for her work. I'm not surprised. We ate finger food before the fairly short ceremony. I also got to see the student newspaper editor received a scholarship and congratulate her on her academic career. And then we were home for snacks and "Lost." This season ends next week, and we'll finish "Six Feet Under" before the end of June. We'll be exploding with free time just as summer vacation begins.

Picture of the Day

It's All Gravy

I ran yesterday for about two miles. It was the farthest I've run since the Halloween race, and I'm sure I'll be able to get up to the 5k distance before the July event. Adjusting my work on the comic will help; I won't have to sacrifice running to slap together a comic for the mid-June deadline. I'm feeling the run today. The legs are tight and surly. I also tried running without my iPod, and it made a difference. While I was a bit distracted by my breathing, the time went by much quicker. I think I get stuck in songs, figuring out when they end and how far I should run before then. It's an extra timing pressure I don't need right now. It's a big relief in general. It was going to be impractical if not impossible to do with any level of quality. I realized this morning just how little I would be able to do had I remained in the Shakespeare production. I still want another shot at it though.

After the run I made fried chicken and improvised on gravy for the mashed potatoes. I mixed the left over grease with milk, flour, and chicken broth. Your Sister seemed to like it. Because I ran so well, I treated myself to a bottle of Coke. A small glass one, not a two-litter. I treat soda as a reward now, as opposed to my halcyon days of yore when I was practically breathing soda.

Pictures of the Day
Lucasfilm and Disney-MGM are teaming up for exclusive knick-knacks at their Orlando location this summer. To promote it, they have a series of posters of the Star Wars gang in airports.

Short Work

As the comic unfolds, I don't think it's possible to get it done before the HeroesCon, but I do want to finish it as best I can. I think I'll offer the publisher my dream comic from a few years back. Even though it ran in another title, I own it. And it's not bad for a story originally set to 4 pages. I may be able to rework it with small panel edits as a 16-pager. Maybe add some sketches to pad it to 20 pages and a cover. If not, the publisher still has two of my stories in as many anthologies to sell at this year's show.

I started the new panel layouts and realized that I limited myself to a confined area of the spaceship when, logically and thematically, we need to see more of it. So that will be the next tweak. And then I'll stop fidgeting with it and start drawing the damn thing.

The potatoes are growing at a potato's pace, unfortunately. We are just six episodes from finishing "Six Feet Under." Your Sis made stir-fry.

Moving Picture of the Day
I'm very curious to see this. I enjoyed the graphic novel and its sequel, and I believe we donated the books to the school library.

Comic Notes

As I expand the story -- and new facets emerge from the Divine Facet Factory -- I'm encountering a trouble that I wanted to avoid: the story is getting bloated. I've written myself away from the original tidy ending, and now I have a nicely layered tale with no conclusion. Not that it needs a bold note to end on; I'd like to have a significant bon mot to leave the reader, but now I can't sculpt one based on the last scene. Something has to change, and it needn't be the plot structure. The dialogue can even be rejiggered to work with the panel construction (although the panels will change as I add more pages).

I just need a way to avoid three things:
1) Cliched dialogue
2) Stiff dialogue
3) Predictable dialogue.

I feel the story is safe; the more I consider it, the more I like it. It's a perfect mini-comic structure. If it never continues past this one issue, the cheese stands alone. But I pride myself on turns of phrase and clear communication, and I can't stand the thought of writing the reader toward a blah exit.

I'm getting closer to the time at which I shall lock myself in the work room to slap this comic together. I talked to the publisher and discovered he'll print the thing for me. But I realistically may not get this out before the June convention. And that's OK ultimately. I'd rather have the story done right than done sloppily.

Picture of the Day
Your Sister loves this song.



News of the Day
Rat bastard Jerry Falwell died today. While he is known mostly for creating the Moral Majority into a massive lobbying entity, he fell to inexcusable notoriety by blaming 9/11 on pagans, abortionists, feminists, and gays. In doing so, he displayed the same pigheaded religious intolerance that made a worldwide impact on 9/11. And because of this, I hold no remorse for my glee that I shall never have to hear fresh idiocy from his mouth again. He was joined in this horseshit by Pat Robertson, and I hope Falwell is preparing a pair of asbestos pajamas for him as we speak.

Mother's Taters

We planted seed potatoes Saturday morning, our first try at growing food. We made two rows, planting about 40 pieces of quartered Kennebuc potatoes. We'll add fertilizer and mulch as they sprout. If they sprout. Really, all the hard work is done. we've prepared the ground for the food. Now we just inspect, water, and weed as necessary. A late lunch followed, and I began the page layouts for the comic.

I finished a full script draft Saturday morning, writing dialogue as the story unfolded in my head and breaking the exchanges down into manageable panels. I know the dimensions of the comic will be small (4 x 5.5 inches at most) so panels can only hold so much information. If you start a new scene, you need an establishing shot (and of course my first page breaks this rule as I'm starting with a dream sequence, and withholding that info adds to the mood). If you have a conversation, the amount of words per panel limits the amount of art in that same panel.

I've found it much easier to write and then draw, but I tend to see the scenes moving like a movie. I make mental snapshots of each crucial movement or phrase, and then I tailor those snapshots into a coherent panel sequence. But sometimes, the mind presents a full developed location, and I find myself trying to write within it.

An example looks like this. I already have the established location, but this bit of script doesn't say how the heads will be located in the frames or which will be the dominant image. That will be figured out in the layout process. But, again, sometimes, I know exactly how the panel should look, and I'll note the details so I don't forget. Artist Me will sometimes forget what Writer Me was talking about.

PANEL
DR: Your rang?
CAP: Evening. Or afternoon. Whatever it is.
DR: It's evening.

PANEL, show more of Doc
CAP: How's Carter?
DR: I’ll run a scan on Carter once he wakes up and eats something.
CAP: You think he’s getting worse?

PANEL
Carter asleep, strapped to the bed, with the machine in his room. Maybe an attendant with machine.
DR: I think he wants off this ship and away from us.
CAP: Smart man.

I need to figure out names for my characters, but nothing depends on that information right now. Too often, writers will come up with a snazzy name and gimmick and construct a flimsy plot around it. I'm working from the opposite direction. Some folks have names. Some don't. I'm writing a situation, not a narrative.

With the script done, I returned to the comic after lunch and started sketching the panels. I made a page template at half the size of the mini-comic dimensions. The rule of comic design is that if looks good small, it will look good big. Also, sketching small restricts the temptation to draw in detail. At this point, I'm just trying to ensure eye flow and composition. This grid works out to nine panels per page with sketch and note space beside the grid. There is no standard way to do this. This is how the templates fit in my sketch book. As I look at the script, I see how many panels could conceivably and legibly fit on one page, and how the panels can accentuate dramatic tension. As I draw each panel, I check it off the script. And if a panel flow changes how the dialogue will play out, I'll note that on my script printout.

See how the third panel is crossed out and next to it is a replacement panel. I changed the perspective to allow more information. Currently, my script hits 15 pages -- pretty short. I now have the luxury of adding pages to pad out the story. Some pages are a little tight with panels, and I can space those frames out to let the pages breathe. And that's where I am now.

Sunday, we visited my parents, fed them dinner, and strolled Lowe's to talk gardening. I'm thinking we'll try corn next. We know we'll get tomatoes from the compost bin. This was my Parent's first time seeing the new car and Your Sister's new haircut. They liked both a lot.

This morning I checked a local printer to see how much it would cost to produce 100 copies of the comic. The estimate hit $230. That's not practical. So I'll print the comics at home. That may not leave me enough time to make and print the comics for the June convention, but I can still send my publisher the finished product for shows later this year. Still, I'd like to sell a few copies at my nearby show.

Moving Picture of the Day
An old scene amended for current movie audiences.

Sunstroke of Genius

I spent much of yesterday in a blur of creativity, pounding out conversations, panel sketches, and a story skeleton for the mini-comic. My Stupid Sense isn't tingling yet. Your Sis agrees the idea may have potential, but she chided me for writing an origin story. She knows I hate origin stories. I wish the majority of comic-book films would present their character origins in a five-minute montage and get on with the story. Except Batman Begins, which was incredibly well done.

We caught a school soccer playoff game after work. Our girls won 3-1. A strong sun blasted us, and I awoke this morning feeling weak. I only had one beer with last night's fajitarittos. I know I'm not hungover. I'm sipping Gatorade to stave off nausea.

Picture of the Day
Approximately 18,000 folks posed nude in Mexico City for artist Spencer Tunick.

The Idea Blooms

I had the notion of a publishing title for years now and considered it for a name of the mini-comic. It was a light-hearted, goofy turn of phrase. But as I started to compile story ideas, I brainstormed on building a tale around the title itself, and suddenly I have a Very Big Idea that can be a series of stories, all stemming from a once-throwaway joke name. And it would be darker, less screwball. I'm being vague, I know, but I'm still swimming in the happy ether of a thought explosion, and this is a temporary euphoria that could appear as pathetic delusion once my brain settles down. I might trash the whole idea. Or not. At this point, I have to pursue something to make the comic (or maybe comics) before the convention. So I'll work with this for now. The first issue of this would be all introduction with later stories to follow.

I have a handful of mini-comics from other guys working with the publisher so I have templates to follow in size and presentation.

We had a teacher pal over for dinner as part of our planned open-house events. We want to throw parties this summer, and a small dinner is akin to cracking our knuckles before getting to work. Your Sis made stir-fry, and many school matters were discussed. I contributed the geek topics.

Picture of the Day
Here's how far I got with the screwball idea before my mind turned a corner. This was going to be my cover art. The Podunk story did the exact same thing. It was to be a parody of 1950 atomic monster movies, and then it became a statement on simmering racism. It lost the fun but became something more substantial. This threatens to do the same, just without, so far, the social commentary.

I am so fucking jazzed right now. It's like I drank seven crackuccinos.

Quick Comic Work

I'm going to the local annual comic convention in Charlotte next month. My anthology publisher will have a table, and I'm going to whip together a mini-comic for sale. I won't make a profit here. I'll print maybe 50 copies and sell them for a buck each. I luckily have notes for a smorgasbord comic -- a mini-anthology by itself -- and I can produce it before the convention weekend, I'm sure. I have an extended story in the works, a few actually, but will need much more time to flesh it out. The trick for the immediate project is to not worry about making a classic, just get ideas on paper and get my name out there. There's an anthology title I worship called Dork! produced by Evan Dorkin, and it will be my template for this very sudden project.

I may sit behind the con booth and sketch for passers-by, a notion that gives me the holy-shit giggles. Me, sitting alongside pros and other indie guys, hawking my spindly brain gunk. I guess I'll need personal business cards too. I've been to this con before, a few times as a reporter for the daily paper. Most professionals there are quite nice to talk to. Lou Ferrigno, the TV Hulk, was not. An utter jerk. But there are a few regular attendees who have drawn comics forever, since before even Your Sister was born.

Now that I think of the usual attendance of 20,000 people, maybe I'll print 100 copies.

Picture of the Day
No idea where this is from.

Spidey Luau

I got home early enough on Friday that we zoomed to the local stadium-seat theatre to watch Spider-Man 3. I won't spoil anything for you, but it's a big, fat Spidey movie that will appeal to longtime comic fans more than casual moviegoers. The movie reviews seem to concur as critics are hitting the film hard for being dark and weighty. But that's what we loved about the Spidey comics in the '70s. I knew the reviews wouldn't keep audiences away, and the film made almost $150 million in three days. We scarfed Krispy Kreme doughnuts while we debated the film. There was quite a bit Your Sis felt she needed to know about how the film compared to the comics.

I ran at the gym on Saturday and outlasted all the poorly dressed seniors who flocked to the treadmills once I arrived. I don't know if my stamina or my funky doughnut sweat intimidated them, but they did ultimately peel away, leaving me along to run my 5k. We spent much of the weekend again poring over research papers, but we did catch the four hours of Kentucky Derby coverage. That night, we attended a retirement luau for local teachers. Good food, good atmosphere. We wore garish tropical shirts. We picked up a Smirnoff Green Apple 6-pack on the way, and man is that good hooch.

On Sunday, we worked over more papers, and I watched some playoff basketball. She tried a pork soup dish at the local Mexican restaurant, and we believe they used the entire pig for the dish. The bowl was huge, and it had various sizes of pig chunks within. We went to Pizza Hut for dinner, a place we haven't been to in ages, and made a run to the grocery store for cookies for her. No, she's not pregnant. I also had my very first Twinkie. No, I'm not pregnant. It's good. I expected a bland, muddy snack, but the cake is so tasty and light, you don't need the creme filling.

Picture of the Day
Neptune and its moon Triton.




In the News
You can download the anthology comic here.

+ + +

The photos from Greensburg, Kansas, are similar to images from The Day After.

+ + +

ABC announced that "Lost" will end in 2010 after three more seasons of 16 episodes each. The shows will run in uninterrupted blocks each year. I'm OK with that and relieved to hear the show will end on TV and not on the movie screen as rumored.

Nuttin'

Between research papers and eating, not much is going on at Chez Debacle. I watched this week's "Lost" with Your Sis last night, and the show is barreling toward the season finale with much greatness.

The Eats anthology is officially released tomorrow. Go to an area comic book store (Comicopia near the Fenway Citgo sign or Newberry Comics at Harvard Square, and I can't believe I know where the comic stores are in Boston) and you'll get a stack of free comics.

Draw'ring of the Day
My website needed dusting off, so I redid the text for the art section, streamlined the photo section and changed the frontpage picture to a drawing. Here's what I slapped together in Illustrator. It'll go on the front page Monday. I should probably do a self-portrait once a year like the great painters did.



In the News
Spider-Man 3 hits domestic theatres today. The reviews are mixed, but that won't stop it from becoming the second hit of the year after 300, another comic film. I'm boggled that there's a third Spidey film. My geek brain can't grasp the idea or the fact that the franchise has made so much money and the character has become even more popular. It's like everyone is catching up to what we all knew 20 years ago. Even my dad admitted to seeing why I bought so many comics month after month, when he would drive me to the local convenience store, after seeing the first film. We're seeing it this weekend. No matter what.

And in honor of such geekiness, Entertainment Weekly has posted their top 25 scifi moments of the last 25 years, and it's a damn good list.

Deep Breath

Monday was fairly quiet. I started another level on "Guitar Hero" and discovered that extended metal songs are designed to kill fingers or us mere mortals. They're songs designed purely to one-up the guitarists in other bands. Artistry has nothing to do with it. It's technique porn.

Yesterday, on whim, I ran. First, I did not run down to the main road as before, and that solved my shin problems. But it was wildly hot and windy. A tailwind may have helped me run a nine-minute mile uphill. Or it may have been the inspirational power of "Disco Inferno." One can't diminish it's cosmic force. I alternated running and walking for an hour and eventually made myself run up both giant hills, the one downtown and the one near our house. I would walk for a few minutes, telling myself, "OK, that's enough. You don't have to do anymore." After a few minutes of walking, I'd hear myself say, "Well, this is a manageable stretch to run" or "I bet you can't run up that hill." And off I'd go like a moron. I think this worked best for my cardio as I still feel like I grew a third lung even this morning. This may be trick to prepare for the race in two months.

Your Sis made a great pork and potatoes dish last night, and she claims you gave her the idea for roasting the side items. If so, thank you. The apples and onions and potatoes were fuhntaztik.

I'll be able to post a link to the Eats comic anthology this weekend. The preview copy I saw looks solid. Apparently it will be printed in some fashion.

Picture of the Day
Here's the garden as it stands now. The right side is the one I dug up and leveled off. I researched potatoes and found that we can probably start planting within a week. And then we'll boil 'em, mash'em, put 'em in a stew.


In the News
This is cool. Tobey Maguire spoke to kids with a spider scientist at the American Museum of Natural History. In the alternate dimension where I was the right age and look to play Spider-man in a movie, I'm not sure this field trip would be worth the money and fame. Some of these spiders on display are huge.

Eye-Yi-Yi

We enjoyed the suddenly great weather with an outdoor Mexican dinner Friday night. I got up early Saturday to work on the garden. I chopped up a good quarter of it while listening to the NPR lineup (Morning Edition, Car Talk, Wait Wait). I hit dirt after days of chopping through clay. I found wood planks, no doubt used as a border for an herb patch or maybe composting. I also found chunks of concrete which looked like parts of an old driveway. I bet this was from the first homeowners before the drive was paved. But why bury it here?

We grabbed pub lunch and started talking through various marital matters, and unfortunately this led to an hourlong Serious Talk about things that were percolating between us. I'll take the heat for this one. There were comments I should have made earlier, and I didn't deal with them well. But we cleared the air and realized we had interpreted things distinctly, and then gave mutual apologies and that was that. Then we worked on school papers for the majority of the day. Your Sis had the hungers for pizza, and we grabbed two movies as well.

The Devil Wears Prada is a film I wanted to see when it first came out. It looked snarky and quick, and I worship at the feet of Meryl Streep. I was worried that it would be a teen girl's film, but while it wisely holds off on the language and sex, it isn't hollow. It is light. It's almost confectionery, but it's not stupid. I enjoyed it. I didn't buy Anna Hathaway as the former editor-in-chief of a major university daily newspaper, but she doesn't have much heavy lifting here. She doesn't have to act, just react. Streep gets exactly the right amount of screen time for her role. I wouldn't own the film, but I'm glad to have seen it.

A Scanner Darkly is the second animated Richard Linkletter film after Waking Life. It's a nifty small scifi film built mostly on scenes of people who sound like they're improvising their dialogue, and that degree of affecting performance goes a long, long way. I like Robert Downey Jr. as an actor, but if he were onscreen any longer in the film, I'd want to strangle him. Keanu Reeves does well as does Winona Ryder, but Woody Harrelson almost steals the film with some sharp comedy work. The animation is done on top of filmed performances, and it does add to the feel of the film. It also looks a lot like my cover work during the Greenville days (except I didn't outline in black). This is good, heady stuff.


I unfortunately woke up early Sunday morning (at 4:44, oddly) with what felt like a wisdom tooth in my eye. It took half an hour to get it out from my upper eyelid, despite using water, contact lenses, contact solution, a Q-tip, and my fingers. I don't know what it was. I couldn't get back to sleep, and I killed time until 7, when I went to finish my tilling.

We decided to only dig up half the garden. I finished my half a little before 9. Almost two hours of digging left a 29 x 6 foot mound that stretched at least 8 inches down. I raked all that back down to level the dirt. Once again, gardening builds muscles. Seeing development on an anatomy model is one thing, finding it on yourself is another. Also, I am sore as hell. We lunched on leftover, and I bought groceries while Your Sis tackled more school stuff. Later in the day, I mowed and weeded the yard. I am beat as beat can be, even this morning. We bought seed potatoes to plant maybe this week. We also got chicken wire to lay down around the garden. Supposedly cats won't walk on it. I also want to plant catnip away from the garden to distract them.

I killed time playing more "Guitar Hero," including a Rage Against the Machine song that I forgot about. I love this game. I'm convinced I can move almost laterally to playing real guitar when I finish this.

I filled up the gas tank today for only the second time. I got 440 miles on less than 13 gallons. Also got my crackuccino.

Last Night

So, yeah, I was in bed when you called but not fully asleep. I may have sounded odd when I answered because I thought three things all at the same time:
1) It's another prank call.
2) It's bad family news.
3) Your Sister, who sleeps next to the phone, isn't moving. The girl can apparently sleep through explosions.

Don't hesitate to call us when you wish. It was just the rare early night for both of us. Usually, yeah, I'm awake.

There are no grand plans for the weekend. She has to compile school information, and I find myself curiously, um, curious about the NFL Draft. That will last approximately 34 days starting tomorrow. I will also till the garden some more.

Picture/Geek Babble of the Day
Yet another comic-book movie is in the works. Robert Downey Jr. plays Iron Man, and these are the first decent pics we've seen from the set. The story from the comics is industrialist playboy Tony Stark was captured by guerrilla forces (originally Korean, then Vietnamese, now maybe Al Qaeda) to make high-tech weapons. In the capture, his heart was damaged, and he made a supertech pacemaker. Then he built a suit of armor around the gadget, fought the captors, escaped the wilderness, and returned home to run his billionaire empire and fight crime.


Here's what I spy with my geeky eye. First, Downey looks the part. Stark always had some type of facial hair, and his got the right age and complexion. Second, the boy is cut. I don't think I've ever seen him in such good shape. Third, that pacemaker design is nifty. I like that he can't fully disguise the device, unlike in comics where its subcutaneous. This makes him an obvious "iron man" even outside the armor. Iron Man is, essentially, Batman in armor. He's a sex mo-sheen with more money than God. Unfortunately, he drinks like a fish, and he gave up his armor to a sidekick while he dried out. But he's smart without being a geek, and he saves the world from such threats as the Mandarin (A Chinese tyrant with ten power rings), Crimson Dynamo (the Soviet/Russian Iron man), and a slew of c-level thugs with gadget-powered evil schemes. I loved the book when I was young but haven't picked up an issue in decades. The writers always seemed to overthink the premise, and it wasn't fun or engaging.

This appears to be the film version of the classic Iron Man armor. The design has radically changed over the years, but it started off in the early 1960s as what you see above: a bulky, gray boiler with limbs. He's an old-school Marvel character, working alongside Captain America and the Hulk.

Digging for Mud

Working in the garden right now is a simple task. I'm just moving the soil. The upper row is the driest, and digging through that took some time. As I move closer to the compost bin, the soil is looser. And down the slight hill, the soil is fine. I used a shovel to churn the soil when I got home. Just me and the iPod and the shovel. I'm still finding a surprising amount of rocks. For a garden that appeared well tended when we bought the house, it should be clear of the quartz I'm finding. I found one rock, close to the surface that was almost two feet wide and 10 pounds heavy. How did they plant anything on top of that? It's not a decorative chunk, either, although I did find what appears to be a stake yesterday. It's developing into backyard archeology.

Your Sister pointed out that we have accidentally grown asparagus. I turned around, and there were the stalks, about a foot tall from the dirt. We'll let it grow a bit taller. When I finished, I had a 4 x 7 foot gouge in the ground, with fresh, moist clay piled atop of the pinkish topsoil. It looked like I just buried a body. I expect to do this to varying degrees in our delineated patch, but I can save some time by simply watering the dirt. I expected rain this week, but we've gotten nothing so far.

After that, I washed up, made dinner, and helped her look over school papers. Unfortunately, the digging had strained my wrist and I couldn't grasp the pen with my thumb. I hope she can read my notes.

Picture of the Day
This is a billboard for The Economist. It has a motion sensor, and when someone walks underneath it, the bulb lights up.

Space Veto

Did some floor exercises when I got home. Today, I plan to work the garden soil for a while to aerate it and work various muscles. Gardening is not a passive activity, I'm finding. Your Sister made a fantastic curry sirloin dish, and we threw back some wine with it. The end of the school semester is driving her crazy. Short deadlines, papers to grade, exams to prepare for -- this is the roughest patch of work this school year. I want to take her hiking, but I'm not sure we can spare the time. As it is, I'll be looking at papers with her tonight before "Lost" comes on.

Picture of the Day
Factory for WW2 bomber nose cones. If we were serious about waging a war, we'd ration resources and employ the citizenry in such activities.



In the News
This is the reason you don't have a presidential line item veto: Bush will either accept a withdrawal timeline or reject generous Iraq funding. The Democrats say they can outvote the veto, which will make the bill into law. That's pretty rare, but then Bush himself has rarely used his veto power.

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The news that a possible inhabitable planet has been discovered means very little to me. I support deep-space exploration, but we're not employing enough development or budgets to consider it seriously. And by the time we're able to look at this second earth with any reliable technology, we'll see something that throws our theories into chaos. It's inevitable with space research. We're still learning about the sun, and it's literally 1 million times closer to us than the new planet. Our sun is 8 light minutes away; the planet is 20 light years distant. It would take you 20 years to get there if you traveled at the speed of light.