Luis’ Illustrated Blog

THE SIMPSONS NEWS

The count down has begun the pressure is on to finish our show on time.  It’s the first story reel of the season so we need to start this season off with a bang.  Sheesh!

BLOG/COMIC BOOKS

I’ve heard a lot of complaints, online and off, about comics and how difficult they are to get into.  I don’t see that at all.  I’ve found the opposite is true. Before I begin to explain myself, I will first point you to two online sources that put fourth good arguments against my position. The one that started me thinking about this to begin with is this one:

•  Today’s Mainstream Comic Books: New Reader Friendly?  By Krishna Sadasivam of PC WEENIES fame.

And the second one (which Krishna linked to as well) is:

• The four dollar barrier  from the HIGHWAY 62 Blog.

You should first read these two articles. I think their arguments are very sound, but limited in what they put forth as the way to get into comics.  I left a comment on Krishna’s post but I don’t think I truly answered Krishna’s concern.  I mostly commented on everyone else’s comments to Krishna’s argument.  I recommend you read the comments as well.

Okay, now that you’ve read those articles, I’ll put forth my thoughts on the topic. Before I begin though, I will first tell you what I’m not going to be writing about. I’m not going to argue whether or not the modern superhero genre is catering to a younger audience nor will I write about whether cartoony  comic artwork is better than more photo realistic comic art.

I will use the superhero genre of comics for most of my examples, mainly because they are by far the most complex type of comic to get into and it’s the genre that more quickly comes to mind when we think of modern comics.

What I mean by “mainstream” comics in this article is this: Marvel and DC comics, and to a far lesser extent Dark Horse, Image and Top Cow. I also include, in my definition, all English translated Manga. This might be surprising but most younger readers are more familiar with Manga than with Marvel and DC books. I will also use the word “floppy” to describe what most of us know as a regular flimsy comic, as apposed to a much sturdier trade paperback comic (a.k.a. “graphic novel”).

Okay, so, the topic that concerns us here is how easy is it to get into reading comics. I propose to you, that it’s easier than it’s ever been to get into comics. Comics and information about comics are everywhere. The internet has a ton of free legal comics at your fingertips.  Cartoons and movies are great introductory ways to get you intrigued and curious about reading comics.  Newstands may be dying off but comics are thriving as trade paperback books in all major books chains. Libraries carry comics now and there are even Encyclopedias that explain some superhero comic book universes. There really is, no real reason, why someone who wants to get into comics can’t get into them. If you think it’s too much work, trust me, it’s worth the effort.

As I was growing up in El Salvador (I lived there till I was 6 years old) my grandmother had a bookshelf of comics in her house for us and we used to look through them and read them.  Surprisingly enough, this is not what got me into comics. What got me into comics was, years later, when our family had moved to California. Sometime when I was around 11 or 12, I picked up a copy of Peter Porker, The Spectacular Spider-Ham #15 at the local Circle K convenience store. It cost 75 cents. The same book now would probably cost $4.00 and I would have probably gotten it at Barnes and Nobles or Borders.

I wasn’t interested in “serious” comics at the time.  I just wanted the funny cartoony stuff. Eventually, the book was canceled (I guess I was the only person that bought it) and the Spider-Ham stories where relegated to the back of Marvel Tales featuring Spider-Man.  I bought those for the Spider-Ham stories but eventually, got bored one day and read the “serious” Spider-Man story which I fell in love with.  This lead to my love of the “serious” comics.

I learned real quick that I had no idea what the heck was going on in any of the “serious” comics.  In fact the only reason I knew who anyone was in a Spider-Man comic was because the Spider-Ham comic had spoofed them.  I read the comics anyway.  I thought I’d eventually understand what was going on. This worked some what.  In those days the only way to find out what had gone before in a superhero book was really limited. You either bought back issues or read the “old issue index” comics that gave you a synopsis of the years of comics that had come before.  If you were lucky you collected the comics that had does indexes.

Okay so what’s my point? Why the personal history?  Well, on the one hand I see the point that a floppy comic now a days being $4.00 is a barrier to entry.  I may not have bought my first comic if it was $4.00. But lets say I got a comic somehow.  If it was a cartoony superhero comic like, Billy Batson and the Power of Shazam, it would have a good long story for a good value and it would have appealed to me where I was at, taste wise.  I would have come back for more.  Okay, lets say I wanted to get into a “serious” superhero comic, lets say, Spider-Man. Somehow I got hold of one and read it. Exactly the same thing that happened to me the first time would happen, I would read it, be intrigued and not know who anyone was, but I’d probably come back for more to find out.

You would probably argue,

“See you’re assuming you would read a floppy and get into a comic but comics are $4.00 so how would you even get the chance to read them at all?” Well, I’d read them for free at the Marvel website or download it for free from DC KidsWB. The Marvel website even has books that help you catch up with what’s currently going on.

There are more ways now than any other time, to get into comics and find out who the mainstream characters are. For starters, there are animated cartoons that do a phenomenal job of introducing people to the mainstream characters. I know because, it was through these cartoons that I got introduced to the characters of the DC Universe. Now, I love to read those comics. I’ve also gotten exposed to a lot of great Manga from watching their movies and anime, like the Lone Wolf and Cub manga and the Akira manga to name a few.  My wife learned and became familiar with the X-Men and the JLA from watching their cartoons so when she reads those books, she knows who everyone is. The same goes with my Sister-in-law. She loves reading DC comics because she watched the Cartoon Network Justice League cartoon. My kids know who the Justice League, The Teen Titans, Spider-Man,  Iron Man,  The Legion of Superheroes, and Astroboy are from watching my DVDs of those cartoons. During her nap time, my daughter flips through kids comics of some of those characters before she goes to sleep (they’re all totally trashed, and very well “read”. She’s only three). My kids even ask me to read them comics.

My brother and sister-in-law bought the Marvel Encyclopedia and the DC Encyclopedia in order to get caught up on who’s who in both Universes. If you don’t have the money to spend for one of those, go to a website like Comic Vine. They have up to the minute explanation on what’s going on. Something I wish I had been able to do when I first started collecting superhero comics. The superhero comics I read as a kid in the 80s needed that as much as the current superhero comics do.

If you don’t want to deal with the big history of most superhero comics. Most Manga doesn’t have that problem (some do though) and there is also DC’s Vertigo line. Many of those don’t have as much history to catch up on, if any.

Not only that, but you can’t really argue that current superhero genre comics are too complicated,  too adult or too , whatever you’re prejudice, and that older comics are better. Mainly because those very superhero comics are now collected in omnibus editions. Some of these collections can be found used for as low as $4.00! So if you want to read “better” superhero comics, then nothing is stopping you from reading those and literally starting from the beginning. If you want to make sure that the comics you let your kids read are “kid friendly” why not buy them or encourage them to buy and read those collections.  They still hold up and there’s plenty of them; and when it comes to manga, there are plenty of kid friendly comics there too. Astroboy anyone?

If you want a complete comic story (old or new, adult friendly or kid friendly), you can pick up a trade paperback. There are many of these which are good introductions to a hero or universe. You can find all these and more at you’re local book store (here in the U.S.) or even *GASP!* at the library. Something unheard of in the 80s when I started reading comics.  I would have LOVED to have that opportunity.  I went to the library all the time as a kid.

Okay, having said all that, I want to argue that the price of floppies is too much for the value you get. $4.00 seems too much.  Yet, a Magic the Gathering Booster pack, (same target audience) is about $4.00 for fifteen cards. A Yu-Gi-Oh! booster pack is $5.00 for nine cards. A Playstation 2 game averages $35.00 (double the price of most trade paperbacks). Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 games are about $60.00. The target audience of today’s comics are pretty used to forking over a lot for a little.  I don’t like it at all but the price seems about average. Whether you get $4.00 worth of entertainment out it, that depends on the comic you buy and how it’s written. This is especially true for floppies since many (but not all) of them can be read in about 15 minutes.

Still, in the end, I don’t think floppies are as important as they used to be. Don’t get me wrong, they still have a valuable role to play, but they aren’t the only way in anymore. In fact, I will go so far as to say, floppies are not the  way to get into most American superhero comics. Floppies are mostly written for comic geeks, trade paperbacks are for everyone else.   Times have changed.

“But wait,” you say. “Encyclopedias? Looking up characters on the net? Watching cartoons and movies? That’s an awful lot of work. I want everything spoon fed to me”. Sorry, I can’t help you. Reading comics is a hobby.  Every hobby has a bit of a learning curve. In knitting you have to first learn to knit. In putting together model kits, you have to first learn the best supplies to use and the best methods of assembling. In wargaming, you learn the rules and then learn tactics and strategies. The same goes for board gaming. If you golf, you learn and practice your technique. If you’d never played a video game before, how steep would  the learning curve be to play a game like Halo 3? Most people that play video games spend hours looking up games and reviews to see what games are coming out that they’ll like to play next, as if researching for a school report. That’s a lot of work.   Most hobbies require some level of work on your part. Work that you enjoy doing because it’s fun, enjoyable work and you find the reward from the hobby worth the effort. Comics are worth the effort.

After looking at everything that is available, I don’t think that mainstream comics are difficult to get into at all.  It’s easier than it was when I started. I only had superhero comics to choose from. There’s more variety out there than there ever was.  If you want to get into them and you’re finding it difficult, you must be working pretty hard to not succeed.

MY WEB COMIC

To read all 11 pages of this comic CLICK HERE

The end

For more comic and stories written by me, CLICK HERE.

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THE SIMPSONS NEWS

I work with the kindest people.  Tuesday night I received flowers in regards to the birth of my baby boy (more on that below, after the comic). Thank you so much everyone.

It was difficult to concentrate at work this week. That said, I think I got quite a lot done.

BOOKS

I wrote about Paul Nowak’s new book THE MICROCAPILIST MANIFESTO a few weeks back. Well, it turns out that Paul has decided to release the book for FREE.

Yup, so if you’re interested in the book, I recommend to click the link below and get yourself a copy:

THE MICROCAPITALIST MANIFESTO by Paul Eward Nowak free pdf

MY WEB COMIC

For the earlier part of this story, CLICK HERE.

To be continued…

FAMILY

A ton has happened since my last post.

On April 15th my son Ambrose Mikayel Escobar was born.  He’s named after St. Ambrose and Michael the Archangel.

I woke up at my usual time Thursday and started getting ready for work. Alesha wasn’t in bed so I thought she was just up early and couldn’t sleep. When I went down stairs I found her pacing around the living room. It seems she’d been having contractions for quite some time and she was checking to see if they stopped.  They didn’t. She was going into labor. She and I got the kids ready as soon I we could. My cousin Carolina did us the enormous favor of taking care of the kids at her house while I drove Alesha to the hospital. By 7:45 am Ambrose had been born by way of C-section.  He was in breach position, just like his older brother had been and not only that but his umbilical cord had been rapped around his neck. The anesthesiologist had an iPod with him in the surgery room and had been playing music through out the surgery.  As my son was born, the song Baby Boy played in the background. I didn’t even notice. I was told this later by a medical student that was there to learn and help out.

I held Ambrose soon after and Alesha got to see him and kiss him. It was a very odd and difficult moment for me. On the one hand, there was the baby in my arms, perfectly healthy and happy.  Not even crying, just like it was with his sister. His eyes were open and he was looking around. On the other hand, there was my wife, here belly wide open, the skin folded over itself over her rib cage looking like a gutted pumpkin. Seeing her like that made me very sad and very worried.

Afterward, Alesha went into the recovery room to sleep. I went to see Ambrose at the nursery and then went out to the waiting room to meet up with my father-in-law who was waiting out there. We went to see the baby and when he was satisfied that everything was okay, he went home. He planned to come back later with my mother-in-law once Alesha was in a room and awake.

I went to have breakfast and sketched a bit but I wasn’t really in the mood to draw. When I returned, Alesha had been moved into a room and I went in to visit and help out. She really didn’t need me there though. She just needed to sleep.  Also, the baby wasn’t going to show up for a few hours. They needed to make sure he was okay.

I was left with nothing to do.  I couldn’t pick up the kids because they were having a fantastic time some 30 miles away. I was useless to my wife who was sleeping and I didn’t know what to do with myself for the next two hours. Since work was only 20 minutes away,  I thought I’d go there, so I did.

I got quite a mixed reaction from people at work for the fact that I had showed up.  I was only planning to be there for two hours. I discovered that my section was given out to other people so I couldn’t do what I had planned to very easily.  The Director gave me one of my scenes back and I did as much of it as I could before going back to the hospital.  Time flew.

I got back a just a few minutes before Ambrose was wheeled into Alesha’s room for the first time. Just then my parents showed up and saw their new grandson. It was a very happy moment.

My parents left soon after to pick up my other kids and take them home with them.  We were told the kids where having a fantastic time with my cousin. I stayed with Alesha and helped out as much as I could.  My in-laws came by later that evening to see their new grandson and they were very happy to see him. Alesha was very tired that night and had trouble keeping any food down.

I left the hospital around 8:30 pm to pick up the kids from my parent’s house.  When I got there around 9pm, they were still awake (but running on “fumes”). I heard about their adventures and took them home. Those kids went into hibernation mode or something because they didn’t wake up til 10:30am the next day.  VERY unusual for these kids who usually wake up at 8am at the latest.

The kids woke up overwhelmingly happy. We ate breakfast and soon got ready to go to the hospital to see Mommy and Baby Ambrose.

The reaction to the baby was much better than I had anticipated.  I thought Munchkin was going to be a bit freaked out by the baby, but she wasn’t. I think she had been mulling the idea of a baby brother over in her head on the way to the hospital.  At one point, as we walked through the hospital parking lot to see Mommy for the first time, she said,

“Daddy, I like my new baby brother.” She hadn’t even met him yet. I took that to mean that she liked the idea of having a new baby brother. Elizabeth was very good with him once she got to meet him. One of the first things she did was give him a little kiss on his head.

Dante, on the other hand, wasn’t positive nor negative about the whole thing.  He saw the baby and just sorta ignored him after that.  Well, at least he wasn’t angry or afraid or something.

I was supposed to meet my parents there after my mom got off work. I was counting on them showing up around 2pm or so but it didn’t turn out that way.  Mom had to go shopping since they had just recently come back from a trip and had no food in the house.  I was stuck with the kids in the hospital for about four hours and attempted to keep them entertained as best as I could.

When my parents finally showed up, we ate, visited Alesha and Ambrose, and then the kids were off to have fun with my parents. I stayed and helped out Alesha till 9pm before I went and picked up the kids.

The next day (Saturday) we had planned to have my in-laws take care of the kids while I, once again, helped Alesha out as best as I could.  Turns out that Alesha’s friend Rosetta showed up and beat me to it. She stayed with Alesha all day and all night so I actually stayed with the kids that day.  In the afternoon, Munchkin and I played TRAVEL BLOKUS. She picked up the rules real well and we had fun. In the evening, I tried to get Dante and Munchkin to play it together, but the rules went out the window pretty quick after the attempt. They had fun anyway. We then played with my INGENIOUS board game for a while. It was a good fun evening.

Sunday after Mass and lunch, the kids and I went to my parent’s house and I dropped them off.  They were going to go to the park down by their house that has a lake. My brother and Deborah (his wife) were going to be there with little Paolo (my nephew, their son) and I think they were mostly there to celebrate Deborah’s birthday, which was Monday.  I went to the hospital and spent the day with Alesha and Ambrose.

Alesha had been doing a lot of bonding with Ambrose the last few days. By this point, she was basically taking care of him all by herself. She had been able to get out of bed the day after the C-section. I was very impressed with how fast she was recovering.  She was changing him and feeding him mostly without help for the last three days.

I headed home around 8pm that night, picked up the kids, who had a great time at the park, and went home because I started work again on Monday.

The next day I woke up, got the kids ready for daycare, dropped them off, went to work and waited to be told when I was going to need to pick up Alesha and Ambrose so they could come home. After a bit of confusion, Alesha told me 5:30pm. One of the problems she was having was that her doctor got called out of town for some family emergency.  Alesha was waiting for another doctor to see her so she could be dismissed.

I picked up the kids and got to the hospital around 5pm. I took them to get something to eat while we waited. After finishing out food and getting kicked out of the cafeteria, because the kids were too loud, I went back to the room to wait with Alesha. Two and a half excruciating hours later, the doctor finally came by and dismissed her. Everyone but Ambrose was worn out by that point.

Alesha was overwhelmed with exhaustion and emotion all the way home. I was wishing we could be home faster.  Once home though, Alesha calmed down and began to relax.  I put the kids to bed and they past out pretty quick.  Little Ambrose was but in his bassinet and fell asleep in that squished frog pose newborns get into when you lay them down.

I told Alesha about how I fixed the squeak on our bedroom door only to have it close itself  all the time now and she cracked a smile and laughed. She felt and looked better.

So after all that, the baby was home. Alesha was home.  Everything was almost finished.  There were a few things still to take care of but, I least they were finally home.

For more comic and stories written by me, CLICK HERE.

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Comments are appreciated as well.

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Writing this blog is almost a part time job for me. Tips are most welcome.

THE SIMPSONS NEWS

The new season has officially started for me.  I’m now working on season one of the new season.  I was helping out on a show doing layout last week and earlier this week.  I actually find that it helps to switch between the two jobs.  In one job I get to draw a bit tighter and have a bit more control over the scenes I’m working on.  In the other job I find the drawings are more loose and less on model but there is a very satisfying feeling of creating the initial look the show will take on later.

In more exciting work related news, I was called in to the producer’s office Tuesday night and was asked if I would be interested in taking over the revisionist spot that had just recently been vacated.  It seems a few people had brought my name up for the job.  I was very glad to have been asked and so I accepted.

Next month they’re going to try me out for the spot.  If things don’t work out, I’ll go back to doing story reel work.  Otherwise, I’d have a new official position on the show.  I’m very excited.  It’s really tough to get a board position on this show.  There are some really good board artists here that do an incredible job.

MY WEB COMIC

For the earlier parts of the story CLICK HERE.

To be continued next week…. 

VIDEO

This is AWESOME! I love this little video about a “gold digger” princess:

For more comic and stories written by me, CLICK HERE.

If you like what you read, please consider signing up to my rss feed.

Comments are appreciated as well.

I also have a store. Click Here and check it out.

If you would like to have a text ad on my site, click on the red BUY LINKS button under the Archives list.

And while you’re at it, please Digg me too.

Writing this blog is almost a part time job for me. Tips are most welcome.

THE SIMPSONS NEWS

I after finishing up the last of the scenes on the show I was working on, I began helping out on another show. I’ll begin working on the first show of next season sometime next week.

FAMILY

Happy Easter! I’m so glad that Easter finally came.  Lent is always a tough time to live through.

For Easter, we got together with the family at an Easter party at my aunt’s house. The kids had a great time, looking for eggs and eating candy.

I had a good time because there was some very yummy food.

He is risen!

MY WEB COMIC

I’m almost done so I’m posting up the first three pages and will continue to post the rest of it in the next three weeks. I hope you like it:

To be continued next week…

What have I learned from this so far? Quite a bit actually, but the biggest thing I’ve learned so far is that coloring a comic is really tedious and time consuming. It’s very doubtful that I’ll do another one in color any time soon.  I’ll leave it in black and white.

VIDEOS/ART
These videos by Mike McDonnell on Warm Up Sketching are really helpful. I’m going to try putting the advise into practice when I go into figure drawing for now on. Check them out:

VIDEOS

Reading comics on the iPad? What’s that look like? Here’s a review of the Marvel Comic reader app for the iPad:

Now I just have to figure out how to put my comic up on the iPad.

BLOGS

You will notice that I now have a new page up on my blog called, “My Stories and Comics“. From now on, whenever I complete a comic, story, or drawings with a theme, I’m going to be creating a special page for those things so you can read them all in one sitting instead of having to search through the blog looking for all the parts.

I will be working on it to try to make it look nicer than what I have now.  For now, it’s just functional. Take a look and let me know what you think.

VIDEO 

Yet another funny review. This time it’s a video review of STAR WARS: ATTACK OF THE CLONES

Warning, the video is very funny but has some bad language:

If you like what you read, please consider signing up to my rss feed.

Comments are appreciated as well.

I also have a store. Click Here and check it out.

If you would like to have a text ad on my site, click on the red BUY LINKS button under the Archives list.

And while you’re at it, please Digg me too.

Writing this blog is almost a part time job for me. Tips are most welcome.

THE SIMPSONS NEWS

Finished with the last show I’m going to be doing Story Reel work on. I have now officially been moved to doing layout.  I was so rusty I didn’t really know where to start and how to do it. Fortunately I started remembering it all and things started moving faster as I went.  Now I just have to be able to get the scenes out on time.

ART

So before I had created my blog, but after I had done the Trip to Italy sketch diary, hired to draw some pages for a small The Krusty Book.  The best thing about one of the assignments I had gotten was that I was asked to draw a comic strip of Krusty the Clown only small called Li’l Krusty (ala. Peanuts or Little Lulu). I couldn’t believe it. I was going to get paid to draw Krusty cute. I jumped on the opportunity to draw Krusty in the cute style I like to use.  Which is the style I use on my blog and in my Italy trip journal.

I don’t have a copy of the finished pages, just the roughs.  So here are my rough pages of the strips I did. Oh, and I didn’t actually write the gags for these cartoons. I just drew them.

Lot’s of tracing back drawings in these.

Had fun drawing does big eyes.

In the final pass, they had me round out the eyes more when Krusty was in profile and they had me take off the clown shoes.

Chibi Sideshow Bobby was fun.

There came a point with the Sideshow Bobby strips, where the set up no longer needed new artwork so I just photo copied the first few panels and drew the punchline as new art.

In the final art, they also had me shrink Krusty’s ears.

As you can see below, the last panel on the strip above, was changed a bit to end with the monkey more centered:

I never received an actual copy of the book so I don’t even know how the comics turned out.  I DID look in Amazon and found that their preview of the book actually featured a strip.

VIDEOS

Growing up, in order to get my brother and I from spending all our time in front of the TV, my parents only allowed us one hour of TV a day. This meant that I had  to make the difficult decision of choosing a show to watch.  I wasn’t allowed to watch G.I. Joe because, even though my mom never watched it, she thought it was too violent.  So I watched another show, Robotech.  A show that appealed to me much more anyway and ironically, was far more violent than G.I. Joe ever was.

In G.I. Joe the Joes and Cobra used to shoot at each other with laser guns and never actually hit each other, EVER. In Robotech the protagonists where at war with an alien race and quite a few of them died horrible on screen deaths. One of the main characters even bled to death after a battle.  It was a very powerful very dramatic show. It influenced me quite a bit. As a kid, it actually forced me to deal with death and loss. It also showed by example, the difference between infatuation and sacrificial  romantic love. I grew up with and matured with Rick Hunter/Hikaru. It was one of the four Japanese shows I watched in my early years that ruined me to the watered down preachy cartoon shows of the 80s.  Shows I found annoying because I felt talked down to.

Hulu has recently released Super Dimension Fortress Macross (a.k.a. Robotech). Macross is the original version of Robotech as it was shown on Japanese TV.  The version on Hulu is a new dubbed version of the show. It’s great to see the show this way. The new dub is pretty good and actually makes it less cheesy than the original dub.

I highly recommend this show. Though I remember that the art quality starts getting worse as the show goes along. I’m not sure why.

PODCASTS

The Cartoonistas have a podcast now.  Cartoonista Radio.  Find out the inside scoop on all the Cartoonistas.

Visit:  Cartoonista Radio

MY WEB COMIC

I’ve started inking my comic finally.  I really screwed up page 4 the other day. I had to do a patch job on some panels and on a character.  I’ve also decided that I’m going to use computer fonts since my writing and sound effects came out looking really awful.I’m learning a lot and enjoying myself though.  I’ve learned that I’m NOT good at drawing with a brush. It’s much better to have a drawing better worked out before I start inking it.  Maybe someday I’ll be able to, but not yet.  I’ve also learned that I should be watching anything new on a monitor or on DVD while I work.  I get too distracted and I don’t pay enough attention to my inking and it all comes out looking lousy.

Once I’m done inking the pages I’ll scan them all in, re-letter them all and begin coloring it.

CLICK HERE to buy an Uncle Chestnut T-shirt with my art on it.

If you like what you read, please consider signing up to my rss feed.

Comments are appreciated as well.

I also have a store. Click Here and check it out.

If you would like to have a text ad on my site, click on the red BUY LINKS button under the Archives list.

And while you’re at it, please Digg me too.

Writing this blog is almost a part time job for me. Tips are most welcome.

THE SIMPSONS NEWS

Working on getting the show done.  It’s going well so far.  I’m doing well so far.

Late Thursday of last week, we discovered that this show is the 64th or 65th Simpsons show (I forgot which) the director I’m working with has directed. That’s a TON of shows.  Most TV shows don’t ever even get to do that many shows done much less have have one guys actually direct that many.  Wow. No other director on this show has directed so many.

FAMILY

Happy Birthday to my little boy Dante.  He turned two this weekend on the 31st of January.  For his birthday, we took him to a restaurant located in the Disneyland Hotel called Goofy’s Kitchen.

We weren’t sure what it was going to be like and we kinda made the arrangements late Thursday. We realized we had to make a reservation and we weren’t sure if we would get it on the day and time we wanted. It was late enough in the night that we didn’t want to spend the next couple of hours calling people to see if they could make it.  We were going to go only the four of us but at the last minute decided that maybe my parents might be able to go. We didn’t want it to be a party thing. We thought we would invite people over to our house instead and make the restaurant thing something small.

My parents said they could make it and I quickly made reservations for 11:30 am.

Next day we made our way to Anaheim. We got free Valet parking and made our way to the restaurant.  My parents showed up a few minutes after I payed and we all got seated but not before we got our picture taken with Chip from Chip and Dale.  The thing that made me want to bring Dante to the restaurant was  the fact that  Disney characters walked around and hung out with you as you ate.

Dante and Munchkin LOVED it. Goofy, Pluto, Chip, Baloo the bear and even Princess Jasmine, walked by and said hello to them.  They loved the food too, which was buffet style.  Dante didn’t stop smiling the whole time.  At one point during Munchkin got up and danced along with Goofy with all the other kids. It was great fun.

I couldn’t afford another trip to Disneyland but I still wanted to give Dante a little bit of that experience.  This restaurant was the next best thing.

Later in the day, we had family and friends come over for his “official” birthday party.  There were so many kids running around our house, we barely saw Dante.  He was having so much fun playing with his cousins and friends.  We can truly say from the perpetual smile on his face:

ART

Next week, I’m going to be putting up some of my clean up pencils, of one of my favorite projects to have worked on, in the for the Simpson comics. I drew it years ago. Here’s a preview of what you can expect.

MY WEB COMIC

I really don’t mean to get in on the band wagon. I’ve been thinking a lot about my next personal project, after I’m done with my comic (which is coming along great). What I want to do is a Jim Lujan inspired “Ghettomated” cartoon.  In other words, a colored animatic. The thing is, I’m not going to use my  Black Terror Kid character. I was going to try out something else.

What I was in the mood for was a comedic “Pulp” action hero. I’m really somewhat into pulps right now.  I think it’s because just about everyone else in the world seems to be into them too.  Alan Moore has been writing them for a few years now, I’ve been reading Robert E. Howard’s Conan, the very popular tabletop role-playing game Spirit of the Century let’s you create and play out a pulp character, I’ve also owned the tabletop role-playing game Pulp Hero book for years now,  Star Wars The Clone Wars (TV Series) is basically a sci fi pulp show, the new Immortal Iron Fist, comics read like a pulp story, DC is now coming out with their new pulp heroes universe called “First Wave“…etc. You get the idea.  I think all this stuff has gotten into my brain and made me want to do one too. Even though I didn’t think I was getting influenced by them as much as I have.

So here I am, thinking I was being original, coming up with a spoof on pulps when EVERYONE is writing pulps. So I’m just going to be a “me too”.  But then again, my comic is about a superhero so it’s not like that’s very original either.

I think my take will be a fun one though.  I also have a Swords and Sorcery style story that I’m going to be working on as well since I like Conan so much. I think my take on it will be unique so I’m looking forward to working on it.

I’ve been thinking a lot about these things.  I’m very excited.  I’m planning on writing VERY short stories for all these things.  Snippets of stories. That way I can get them out of my system without them getting tedious.

VIDEOS

Time for some videos.

This first one is J.J. Abrams (director of the new Star Trek movie, and creator of Lost, among other things) talking about storytelling and the “Mystery Box”:

These next two are some new comic book animated movies that are out or will be out soon that I’m really interested in watching:

And last, I’m putting a link here for a site that has some great video of John Romita Sr., Joe Kubert, John Busceman, Bill Sienkiewicz, Dave Gibbons and Travis Charest DRAWING:

http://www.fanboy.com/2008/03/comic-book-artists-in-action.html

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THE SIMPSONS NEWS

Survived another deadline week.  We’ve moved on to yet another crew to help out for a week before moving on to my long term crew. Worked overtime last week so I’m looking forward to my paycheck.  I thinks it’s going to help us out quite a bit.

ART

Here’s my new Superhero Versus Superhero drawing (click on the numbers to see what I’m taking about: 1,2,3,4,5,6).  Well…not exactly superheroes but comic book archetypes never the less:

Betty and Veronica (Archie Comics) Versus Mary Jane Watson and Gwen Stacy (Marvel Comics).  They fight because they’re the same archetype.  Betty and Veronica are rivals for Archie’s affections while Mary Jane and Gwen Stacy were once rivals for Peter Parker’s (a.k.a Spider-man) affections. 

This was a really fun drawing to do, but it was a difficult one to come up with.  I learned a lot about how badly I draw. I also learned a lot about how great Dan Decarlo’s early Archie drawings were.  It was tricky to draw Mary Jane and Gwen Stacy and have them “read” as Mary Jane and Gwen Stacy because they aren’t superheroes and they don’t have a “costumes”.  In the end, I chose the closest thing they have to an iconic look. I doubt anyone but comic book geeks will know who they are  just by looking at the picture.

The thing I learned the most from drawing this, by far, is that I need to do more figure drawing. That and drawing in the Archie style is really, really fun.

ART

The ANIMATION GETDOWN happened this weekend.  The  ANIMATION GETDOWN was an independent animation film festival created by fellow  Cartoonista, Jim Lujan. Both Raul Aguirre and Jim Lujan worked hard to put it all together.  It took place at Geeks, a comic books store in Whittier, California. It was an enormous success. Over a hundred people showed up to watch the indy cartoons that were presented there.

For the full story (or as close as you’re going to get to it) and a lot of pictures from the event (including some with me in them), go to Jim Lujan’s blog (Jan. 17 2010).  Also, if you want to listen to some audio interviews recorded live at the event, listen to the Ghettomation podcast episode #5 (I’m in that too).

Unfortunately while I was there, I felt like a zombie.  I had been working on my comic earlier that day and my head was still on the job (more on that below).  The fact that it all took place in a comic book store, didn’t help either. All I wanted to do was look through the comics for more inspiration.  I also wanted to buy a bunch of them since I saw a lot that I thought looked great.

Still, it was great to be there, even though I was not totally there.

MY WEB COMIC

I’ve been spending a lot of my free time working on my comic.  It’s going to be eleven pages long and I’m enjoying myself immensely.  It’s been a long time since I’ve drawn a comic.  In a way, it’s a very familiar process, on the other hand I’m doing things I’ve never truly done before.  Like putting in word balloons and sound effects. I’m also using 2 ply smooth Bristol paper to draw on, which is also new to me.  Because of this, I’ve had to reinvent my process. There is a few things I really wanted to do that is different than what I usually do.  Usually I plot out a page, then draw a tight rough on another piece of paper, then I get yet another piece of paper and clean it all up.

I will be showing this process perhaps next week.

This time around, I wanted to stream line the process so it all happens on ONE sheet of paper. Trying to figure out if I can do it is the hard part.

When I was growing up, I used to do my own comic strips. Beginning from when I was in 5th grade up until I graduated High School.  I had developed a method on how I approached doing them that worked well for me over all those years.  Later I started doing Simpsons comics and my method changed a bit since I didn’t have to “do it all” the way I had to in a comic strip.  That, and the fact that a comic page is a different “animal” than a comic strip. Now that I’m doing my OWN comic book story, I’ve found that I’ve got to marry what I used to do in my comic strips and what I learned to do when doing comic book pages.

For example, when doing a comic book page, I never truly worried as much about word balloons as I should have. Mainly because they were the last things put onto the page and it was done by someone else. While, when doing the comic strips, the word balloons where almost the most important thing for me.

Working on my personal comic, I tried to approach it in the same way as I did the Simpsons comic pages, only I’ve discovered, as I go along, that the word balloons almost need to come first in a similar way to how I used to do comic strips. Not exactly the same way, but similar.  Especially since I’ve made up my mind to NOT use digital word balloons.  I have chosen to make the word balloons, part of the original art; since they ARE. I’m making a comic book after all. I’m going to attempt to hand letter the words in the balloons, but I have awful writing, so if doesn’t look good, I’ll use digital letters.  That said, I still need to know how big the balloons should be to accommodate the words.  This means writing the dialogue out  so I can see how it will read.  It’s a time consuming part of the process I didn’t anticipate, and I’ve found myself, to my great surprise, enjoying it.

There is much more to think about, besides that and I’ve gotten lost in thought about the process for hours. Which means I become even LESS social than I usually am. I’m so absorbed in this stuff right now. It’s really fun, I can’t wait to finish. I might write about this some more, later.

VIDEO/WRITING

Chris Oatley linked to this on Twitter sometime last week (Follow me on Twitter). I thought it was great tips on writing stories so I thought I’d share it.

You gotta love someone who has to refute relativism in order to teach storytelling.

VIDEO

And now for some random silliness. Here is Hitler’s reactions to some bad news about what Marvel Comics up to. Warning: There is some bad language in this but it’s darn funny.

Hitler really takes his comic seriously:

…and from Hitler to Star Trek as the A-team:

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THE SIMPSONS NEWS

With the help of quite a few extra people, we managed to finish the show on time and in good shape.  Such good shape that some of us had a small break during the day to relax after we finished our last scenes.  Those are the best days.

Now I’ve moved on to help another crew. Back to the grind stone.

FAMILY

This is a bit embarrassing.  Especially since I’ve known about this for the last five months but I’ve forgotten to mention it on this blog. I think it’s about time I let everyone know that Alesha is pregnant.  We just found out this week that it’s going to be a BOY! I’ve been so excited about this new baby since I found out she was pregnant.  To be completely honest, this is the first time I’ve been excited about having a baby.  The first two times I had a difficult time being excited because I was too busy being worried about it.  I didn’t know how we would handle a baby or what it would be like and all that.  This time around, I don’t have any of those worries. I’m very excited. Yay!

MOVIES

(This is a spoiler free review)

I went on a “date” with Munchkin this weekend and watched The Princess and the Frog. It was her first time at the movies.  She behaved incredibly well.  She got tired of being in the theater about half way through the movie but she didn’t complain.  She was a bit fidgety but she stuck it out.  It would be nice if there were intermissions on kids movies, so the kids can stretch their legs.

What did I think of the movie?

Overall I thought it was entertaining.  It felt good to see a 2D movie again. It felt very much like snuggling up with a warm blanket on a cold day for me.  I liked the main character in the movie very much.  My favorite character was the villain. He was done very well.  I like that he wasn’t super powerful. That his power came at a price. The setting was great and I loved the backgrounds in the movie.  It had really well composed shots.  There were lots of great moments in the movie and I didn’t even mind the singing.  In fact, I kinda wanted them to sing more for some reason.  I almost felt that the movie need more musical numbers.  The first song of the movie went off into a different art style and it looked fantastic.  I wished they had done that with all the musical numbers.  2D features, should take advantage of the fact that they’re in 2D and that they can get away with that sort of thing.

However, the movie did have some problems that bothered me a bit.

The main one is basically this: After a five year hiatus from 2D animation, the best Disney can come up with is more of the same?  Isn’t this the thing the got everyone tired of 2D Disney movies to begin with?

Also, from the start, BEFORE I even watched the movie,  I didn’t like the way the much touted “first Disney black princess” was being shoved down our throats only to spend most of the movie looking like a frog. Watching the movie, my fears where confirmed.  I didn’t like that at all.  ESPECIALLY since she’s so darn charismatic and likeable as a human.

I also had absolutely no idea what ethnicity the Prince in the movie had.  I still don’t.

And speaking of the other characters, there where WAY too many of them.  A lot of them could have been done without.  Especially Louie the alligator.  The firefly in the movie was the REAL secondary character of the movie. He actually moved the story along and had some of the most touching scenes in the movie.

My taste in animation has changed over the years, I thought this movie was WAY over animated.  The characters moved WAY too much.  It bothered me. Just about every scene was overly hammed up. There was very few, truly natural looking acting in the movie. I thought the main bad guy had the best animation in the movie.

As far as the story goes, I thought it was trying to say too much.  There was too much going on with too many characters and each character seemed to have two motivations for everything they did and they each learned two lessons if not three.  I was talking to a friend of mine at work and we couldn’t quite pinpoint what the message of the movie was.

But, I think the thing that bothered me the most was the whole frog thing.  I mean, I know that that’s what the movie is about, but I couldn’t help but think that there was another way for the character to have learned her lesson.  It seemed to me that, they started out with the idea of The Princess and the Frog.  Then, they thought it would be cool to turn it on it’s head as well as make it take place in New Orleans, which is fine.  Then they decided to flesh out the main character and her background. But once they did that, the character kinda took on a life of her own.  Suddenly they had this character that could really drive a story, a character who needed to “take over” the story.  She needed a specific story that was catered specially for her…only…they had this frog thing that they had started out with.  Instead of just letting the lead go her own way, they forced her to be in this frog story that they had originally created her to be in and it felt forced somehow.

Perhaps they over wrote the character.  I can’t help but compare this character to the one in Hayao Miyazaki’s Howl’s Moving Castle.  Both characters were enchanted into becoming something else, and through that enchantment, discovered what they lacked and changed to become better rounded people.  But in Howl’s Moving Castle the main character wasn’t charismatic or driven from the get go, so she grew into that role as the movie went on.  Meanwhile the lead in The Princess and the Frog, had all kinds of good qualities to begin with, it was overkill to have her learn the lesson she learned by becoming a frog.

I seem very critical about the movie. And I am.  I enjoyed myself never the less. It’s not a bad movie. I still recommend the movie because I know most people won’t even begin to think about the movie in the term I just laid out.  It’s an entertaining movie to watch and has a lot a really great moments.

Munchkin said she liked it.  Isn’t that enough?

ART

I finished the color pass on my sister’s logo. Here’s the final color:

My sister had specific colors she wanted. I was thinking of something a little different and it was interesting to have to get out of my “color comfort zone”.  I tend to use the same colors, over and over again.  It was a nice change for me.

MY WEB COMIC

For those of you who are missing my cartoons, I just thought I’d let you know that once I’m done with the logo designs, I’ll try to start them up again.  You also might be happy to know that I’m already on my way to producing an eleven page short gag comic starring The Black Terror Kid.  Once I start getting the pages finished I’ll start posting them here on the blog in their own page.

The writing is done, the thumbnails are finished and the pages are under construction.

Here’s a sneak peek at the rough version of the first page:

…and speaking of web comics…

VIDEO

I came by this the other day on Twitter (Follow me on Twitter).

When I look at this device, all I can think about is how I could apply it to comics or animation.  It would be so easy for people to read online comics this way.  As well as the way that the machine may revolutionize comic strips.  I think perhaps comic strips might go from being static images to animated images.  Instead of comic strips, imagine you get a Ghettomated cartoon like Jim Lujan’s.  If he can crank one out in a month, he can have it ready for a digital magazine no problem.

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THE SIMPSONS NEWS

Looks like we’re beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel on show 8. All the scenes have been handed out and everyone that finished the scenes they are working on, help others finish the scenes that they haven’t got to yet. I ended up doing exactly that this week. The scene I got is really fun and very funny (or at least I hope it will be after I’m done with it). It’s one of the last scenes of the show and I’m having a good time being silly with Bart and Homer in the kitchen.

MY WEEK

So I spent the beginning of the week working on my web comic (more on that below) and before I knew it, it was almost time to post my blog and I hadn’t even started writing or drawing anything for it. I’m almost always thinking about what I should write on it and always trying to find something worth writing about. That way whoever reads it will at least, hopefully, be entertained. I know sometimes I fail miserably but I try. Well this time I procrastinated a bit too long because I got so caught up in the story I’m trying to write.

The thing that takes the most time about my blog is the drawing part. The drawings I post every week take, at the very least, an hour to do and that is mostly because of the coloring process. The more characters in the drawing, the longer it takes to color. Once I have a drawing done though, the rest is pretty easy. I just type.

Sometimes I get an idea for the drawing before I start typing and sometimes after. Well this time I knew what I was going to write about. This weekend my cousin, my wife, my wife’s best friend and I played a game of Nexus Ops. Nexus Ops is a light science fiction wargame that plays a little like Axis and Allies, a little like The Settlers of Catan and a little like Starcraft the video game. I lost the game miserably and my wife didn’t like it much. Although my cousin loved it but that’s only because he won.

Well, anyway, I was going to write about that and then draw a picture of my cousin on top of the table, kicking board games pieces everywhere, rubbing it in our faces that he won (which he practically did) while we sit by and look stupidly up at him. Well, the thing is, lately I’ve just been drawing the blog drawings on a piece of paper, I scan them in, and I then color and letter them. It’s faster for me that way. If I use the Wacom tablet to draw directly on the computer I find it takes me longer to do. Usually I scan the drawing in at work. This time I didn’t get a chance to draw anything anywhere. My scanner at home is still packed up somewhere, my desktop isn’t working correctly and I just don’t have the time to take care of all these things right now. I was able to go home at a normal time this week. I thought I’d take advantage of the situation and draw the blog drawing at home but since I wasn’t going to be able to scan it in at home, that presented a problem. I didn’t want to stick around at work because I wanted to go home so badly so I thought I’d try drawing directly into the computer again. This time, though, I was going to try something new. I was going to paint the drawing. I thought that maybe, if I used shapes of color instead of lines I could actually get a more accurate and controlled drawing. Since it usually takes me a long time to color the drawings anyway I’d be losing a step of the process.

So I set out to execute my plan once I got home and low and behold it seemed to be working. I was trying to invent for myself the process as I went so it was taking me a bit longer to do it but I was doing it. I was getting really into it. While I was doing this, my wife called on the phone (she hadn’t come home yet) and I spoke to her for a bit. Afterwards I went back to the computer and began working on the drawing again.

Then, that’s when it happened… Photoshop froze on me a second and then crashed. This usually isn’t a big deal except that I had been so caught up in trying to invent for myself a new method of working on Photoshop that I hadn’t even saved the drawing I was working on at all. Not even once. In other words. I lost all my work. I was crushed. I didn’t want to start over. Emotionally I didn’t have it in me anymore. I went on Facebook and put a sad face “how I’m feeling” icon there and sat there staring at the computer. I didn’t do anything else on my blog for the rest of the day.

Next day, when I got into work, I used pencil and paper and drew this instead:

At least I got a drawing done.

MY WEB COMIC

So the story I was trying to write went bye bye. No matter what I did I couldn’t make it work. It was mostly because the story lost focus. It didn’t have a central theme. It didn’t have a point. Every time I tried to give it a point, it became something else. It just wasn’t the story I set out to write. So instead of fighting with the story and trying to force it to go where I wanted it to go, I thought that maybe I’ll go in the direction that these themes took the story. This actually worked a lot better. I’ve actually got a beginning, middle and end to the thing written out in a rough outline. I told the story to my wife and she really likes it, except for the final act climax which I fully admit is really cheesy and it needs work. That’s okay because what I have of this story is a whole lot more than I had with the other story.

I’m actually very excited about it now, even though it wasn’t what I wanted to write. I was trying to write a story about a fourteen year old boy named Joseph before. Now I’m writing about a man named Guy. The stories have the same “inciting incident”, namely the inheritance of money, both stories take place in the modern world and both stories even have a dragon in them yet they couldn’t be more different. If I can make the other story work I’ll still do it but for now I’ll stick to the one that’s working for me.

As soon as I can figure out a really good non cheesy climax to the story, I’ll be ready to start writing.

BOARD GAMES

So I’m not going to write about the game of Nexus Ops I played this weekend because I’ve already mentioned it above. Instead I’m going to call attention to a comment that was left under my About Me page. Imagine my surprise when I read this:

Dear Luis,
Very interesting and thoughtful blog. If you are interested in Catholicism and boardgames you might appreciate “Vatican” the boardgame I designed. It has been selling worldwide and we have gotten very favorable comments

Sincerely,
Stephen Haliczer Ph.D.
Distinguished Research Professor
Product Designer
The College of DuPage Press

First I’d like to thank Stephen Haliczer Ph.D. for bringing the game to my attention. I appreciate it greatly.

So I checked out the game’s site and read about the game. I also tried reading about it on Board Game Geek (BGG) to see if I could learn a bit more. I found a small forum about the game there where people got a chance to ask Dr. Haliczer questions about the game. When asked how the game is played and how competitive it was Dr. Haliczer answered this:

Dear Doug,

Thank you for your interest. I designed “Vatican” primarily as a simulation/game in order to give players an experience of the process whereby a pope is elected. It is based on a deep study of the careers of the most important cardinals especially those who are considered “papabile” that is those who are considered papal material. Of course this is only a minority of the 115 voting cardinals. That being the case, the simulation/game had to bring the players through the process whereby cardinals gain the requisite influence to become prominent. This is essentially the first part of the game: Life and Career especially the acquisition of key offices. Some offices are more valuable than others hence a competition to aquire the most valuable offices. At the end of phase I all players have acquired the minimum number of offices that makes them “papabile” but they have different scores.

The second part of the game takes place after the pope dies (Papacy Ends cards) and takes players through the critical period between his death and the opening of the conclave where his successor is elected. Here the players must make a series of critical choices. As in real life during this period they must take positions on a variety of issues confronting the church and must guess which positions would prove the most attractive to the other voting cardinals. Players compete to figure out which positions would be most attractive but this is not always easy.

The third part of the game is the conclave itself. This is designed to be brief with just a few votes-as in reality. The last conclave was decided by only 3-4 votes in two days.

A broader and more general answer to the question of competition is as follows: You cannot in real life plan to become pope. There are too many chance factors and variables that you cannot control. Age would be an excellent example. A cardinal of 58 might be very attractive at a certain period of time. The previous pope might have been too old and died very quickly after election so the cardinals would be inclined to vote for someone young. On the other hand, if you were 58 after a pope had reigned for 25 years, your age would count against you since the cardinals would not want such a long serving pope again so soon.

As a designer of a simulation/game, I could not build in elements of competition that would distort reality. I had to build in the chance factors that really impact the election.

I hope that this discussion was helpful and gave you some insight into my thought processes.

The game must be ordered online and will probably not be in stores for some time-but shipping is free.

Thanks again,
Stephen Haliczer

This sounds really interesting. Unfortunately, when asked about the “roll and move” mechanic (roll the dice, move the number of spaces on the dice) of the game Dr. Haliczer was silent. The game sounds great but I’m iffy about the game being a “roll and move game.” Paul Sauberer asked exactly the question I wanted answered at BGG:

Does the game primarily consist of rolling the dice, moving a marker, perhaps drawing an event card, and then seeing what happens from that? Or do the players direct where their pieces go and what actions they take and then see how those choices determine how likely they are to eventually be elected pope?

I wish there were more reviews of this game at the official site (there are only two). BGG has no reviews of the game at all. I’m very cautious of the board games I buy and I like to read as much about the game as I can before I spend any money on them to make sure I would really like them. Sometimes I even find free digital versions of games online and decide from playing them, if I want to buy them.

I’d be more likely to buy this game if I could read the rules for it or at least see a sample of play. Never the less I’ve put it on my BGG Wishlist. If “roll and move” mechanics are not a big deal to you, then maybe you ought to get it. If you do, tell me what you think of it. I’m really interested.

ANSWERING COMMENTS

T Melnick, thank you for sharing your position on the comments section of “What in the world is a ‘traditional Catholic’?“. I just wish to clarify something you said. In the post you wrote:

I am a traditional Catholic, and there are many more groups and views than the Society of St. Pius X. For me, the change in the Ordination Rite of Bishops which no longer gives them the power to ordain priests, the unscriptural change in the words of consecration, and the promotion of false ecumenism (JPII having worshipped with every religion on the face of the earth, which is forbidden by Church Law and Holy Scripture, making him an apostate from the Church founded by Jesus Christ) were the main clinchers.

What you wrote above is basically what the Society of St. Pius X also says on their site. So my question is, what do you think of the Society?

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THE SIMPSONS NEWS

I took Monday off this week for reasons I explain below. This put me behind. This is our last week to ship the show. It doesn’t look good at all. I think we’re gonna be late with it. I managed to finish what I had Tuesday morning and I was given more things to do. Since we only have this week to finish, every scene we get this week feels like a great burden. Mostly because you know it has to be done by the end of the week. It’s worse when the revision is a new scene you have to begin from scratch. Turns out, fifty percent of Act III is brand new that way. To make matters worse, one day I needed Lance (the Director) to approve some shots I’d set up and he wasn’t there because he was at Fox doing a DVD commentary. That stuff really gets in the way sometimes.

I worked twelve hours Tuesday, Thursday, and on Friday I will do the same. I hope that will help me get things done.

MY WEEK

My pregnant wife was in a car accident this Sunday. It wasn’t a very happy day. She was at the hospital getting checked out during the whole day. I was taking care of our daughter that day so she wasn’t in the car. My wife was found to be okay at the hospital and the baby in her womb was okay too. She was released around five o’clock PM. She’s been sore since.

On Monday she and I took the day off work in order to take care of the car which was in a tow truck lot in LA. A very insecure one as we found out to our dismay. Some one stole my wife’s iPod from the car. We took the babies things from the car and left it so that the insurance could take care of taking it to a mechanic. We then had to go get a rental car. If they find that the other person is at fault (which she is) we won’t have to pay for the rental.

Wednesday we found out that car was totaled. There is no way to fix it. We really don’t have the money to be buying a new car. Well…I suppose we do. We have some ‘emergency’ money saved up in case things like this happen but of course that would mean that the money would no longer be there after we use it and it’s going to be really difficult to replace it. My wife and I aren’t as worried as maybe we should be. God’s Will be done. If he wants to make things easier, so much the better. I’m sure he has a plan, we just need to wait and see what it is. I’ve learned from experience that it’s times like these that we really grow.

But a person needs new experiences. They draw something deep inside, allowing them to grow. Without change, something sleeps inside us and seldom awakens. The sleeper must awaken.

Duke Leto Atreides (Dune the movie)

We are very thankful to God that the accident, though bad, was not worse. We are very inconvenienced by it but I’d rather be inconvenienced than be grieving, for my wife or my unborn son.

ANSWERING COMMENTS

Boy, I received a lot of comments for my last post. I’m glad everyone liked the drawing. It was great seeing you all.

Greg, I was really hoping to get the reaction from you that I got. It’s funny but I really did feel like that when we greeted. That’s were the idea came from.

Rob, I listened to your last two podcasts. Sounds like you had one heck of a good time at the Expo. It’s great to hear your perspective on the Expo. I liked the chats you had with the different podcasters you met. Thanks for mentioning me. Tell your wife that she doesn’t need to like The Simpsons. I’m not offended. (SOB!)

Scott, I remember you. Yes, you were one of the first people who said something to me when I showed up. Thanks for the link to the picture. Sorry I forgot to draw you. I don’t always remember everyone or everything.

Capt. Jeff, Sorry I haven’t gotten back to you about the shirt idea. I will as soon as I can. I’ve actually gotten another one since, so now I have two ideas.

Fr. Jay, I’ve been listening to your podcast. It’s great. I highly recommend people to go listen to it.

Sr. Anne, Thank you for the compliment. Rome was so cool. I’m jealous that you got to live there for a while. I’m glad it brought you memories of the place. Boy was that rush hour train ride crazy though. WOW!

Your blog rocks!

I love the book reviews video from Sr. Julia you put up on your site! It’s great for people looking for Catholic books to read.

Dr. Paul Camarata, I’m glad you like the Italy trip journal. Wow, that’s so cool that you’ll be going back next summer. Wish I had the time and money to go back (sigh). Dude, that guy at the Coliseum was super annoying. He almost ruined it for me.

Bill, I’m going to have to wait a week more before answering your question. I know the answer to the question but I would need to double check all my sources just to be accurate. I want to be fair and just in representing “traditionalist’s” concerns.

MY WEB COMIC

Went to watch a movie Saturday night that made me rethink my webcomic story. I’ve decided to throw out everything I’ve written so far and start over. There’s going to be a major change in the direction I was going with the story. I’m going to be getting rid of some characters and I’m going to be making up new ones. I’m also gonna be changing the main character’s motivation. It’s a big pain. Hopefully it will come together much better with these changes. I showed my wife act I and II of my story as it was written and she said it stunk. It had a lot of problems so that means back to the drawing board.

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