.next
comic.: 32
.due.: Weekend.
.pencils & inks.
.assembly & dialogue.
.color & touchup.
.notes.
06.12.06 00:37.
.CST.
God, I frigging well give up. The color's going
so slowly on five very simple, easy panels that
it's like I've forgotten how to use fricking Photoshop--and
right now it's after midnight and I'm still doing
my journalism work (that has to be done by morning
come hell or high water), and I'm already tired
enough to fall over. This'll just have to wait
until tomorrow. I'm at once sorry and not. As
usual, that's just the way things are, and work
comes first. |
Hi there.
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
- 10:03 AM
Adire
Hey. Just checking in real quick for those few of you who still drop by to see what's going on around here, and also to provide a small update.
You know that novel I quit working on the comic to write?
And you know that bad habit I have of never finishing anything that I start?
Finished that, bitch.
Don't get too excited. As evidenced by the crappy cover design slapped together in under two minutes, that's not an officially published novel, but a Lulu.com POD print. That's my second draft of book one in the AE:3017 trilogy, Embers of Elysium. After editing the first draft straight off my printer, I had Lulu print up an author-only copy (avoiding any claims of first publication, y'know) so I could read it in bound format and see if it would change my perspective while doing second-draft edits. After I finish these edits I'm going to print it again, read it through to make sure I didn't screw anything up, and then try to find an agent willing to represent me and try to sell that bitch. Then, maybe, you'll see a ''real'' version of that novel, put out by a major publishing house and not just done as a single print for editing purposes.
It ain't half bad. I've got a circle of beta readers who are going to kill me if I don't start the second book soon, so I guess I'm doing something right. That one was finished at 145,000 words just a few minutes before midnight on January 1st, 2007. I wrote it in just over four months in an insane frenzy of non-stop work. I'm not surprised that the editing takes longer than the writing. It's one thing to churn out a word count. It's another thing to make sure that each of those words is worth reading.
Wish me luck.
In other news, I picked up another paid writing job, and this time I'm actually allowed to tell you little monkeys where I work, unlike on my other writing job. I'm the new GBLTQ blogger for 451 Press, over at PrideandOpinions.com (don't look at me, I didn't pick the domain name). Remember all those rants I used to do? Now I get paid for it, though I do have to tone the vulgarity down a bit. Still. Go. Haunt the blog. Tell your friends about it. Leave comments. Laugh when I occasionally (rarely) manage to be funny. I get paid on Google ad impressions and such, so the more hits, the more I get paid. Hell...I don't care if you click the ads (remember, just clicking them without being interested is fraud - do NOT do that, kids). Just go over there and start up a discussion. You don't even have to behave yourselves that much.
Anyway. I've got a few more chapters to edit before it's back to call-monkey work (yes, I'm still doing that on top of the two paid writing jobs) this afternoon. Catch you kids later - hopefully over on P&O.
I know, I did it again.
Saturday, September 2, 2006
- 1:31 PM
Adire
As usual, I take the site down for a quick server switch, and then vanish for three months. At least the archives are back up now. Before I tell you where I've been and talk about future updates, first the big stuff:
Nihilism Issue One is now on sale from OmegaRoom Comics. Support the damn site and go buy one. It's only $4.50. Buy enough and I may even start drawing again (I'll explain in a minute).
Don't blame me for the lateness that one; the publisher really did just put that up a couple of days ago. I've finally met someone who's slower than I am--but they do fill orders pretty quickly. I got my stack of comics damn fast--and Okori and Cheshire, I still need to send yours, but the forum's still down so I don't have your addresses, so if you could e-mail me, por favor?
Speaking of the forum being down, I'll be honest--that's why I've been stalling on putting the site back up. The database is so large that I can't auto-restore/upload, so it takes hours and hours and hours and hours of pasting tables in manageable chunks, and I hate doing that. So for right now the forum's staying on hold, as I have other things to focus on and I doubt there's anyone left to haunt it anyway.
Though there's another reason that I've been avoiding. I haven't wanted to say this, because one, it's typical, and two, it's just one of those things you dread telling your readers. I won't be working on Nihilism anymore - not right now. It's not a permanent thing, and it has nothing to do with not wanting to. I still love this project, and I still want to one day be able to do it full-time...but there's another ideal that is currently more attainable, and in a shorter amount of time.
Some of you know that I write. Some of you don't. I've toyed with the idea of finishing a novel and finding an agent, becoming a professional fiction novelist, but it's always been a playful thing that I did on the side. Write a chapter here and there when I'm not working on the comic, etc.
For the past three months I've been writing seriously. Gestalt was my pet project and in a way still is, but 52,000 words in I've had to put that down and accept that it's just not workable at the moment, and definitely not the best idea for a first novel to ''break into the market''. It's too thick, overcomplicated, not enough of a character voice, though the voice of the 'world' is very strong. I'm working on a more character-driven project called AE: 3017 right now (that's right, a novelization of the comic concept that never saw the light of day), a planned trilogy starting with book one, BioGen. In the past two weeks I've written 28,000 words on BioGen; several people are currently following it via my Livejournal and my professional writing blog, where I write somewhat dry (it's supposed to be professional, so I avoid cursing and venting) posts on the topic of the struggles of finishing a novel almost daily, and post the rough drafts of the new chapters every few days. If you're interested in reading them and keeping up with this struggle (especially when I start looking for an agent who won't tell me I'm absolute crap), you're welcome to come hang out on Zenunlimited.com. I don't have a forum there, but each blog post has comments enabled - and hell, I could install a forum, if there's any interest expressed.
So that's it. Nihilism isn't dead - it's just been put on hold for another, more attainable dream. I'm a good artist, but I'm a better writer; I can finish a novel in less time than I can finish a comic issue, and if I'm published....maybe make enough money that I'm no longer working on an hourly schedule, but working on my own schedule...still writing, but with enough of my life to myself that I can both write and draw for a living. Who knows. I sure as hell don't. But if you want to be there when or if I find out, then you know where to find me.
Somnambulist.
Monday, May 29, 2006
- 4:47 PM
Adire
Shinji likes inflicting pain. Vex likes receiving it. If Shinji wasn't so pissed and if there weren't...you know....hordes of undead streaming out of the subway tunnels, this scene could have had a very...interesting outcome.
That's all.
...what, did you expect me to say more?
Skittles.
Tuesday, May 23, 2006
- 8:45 PM
Adire
Yes. Well. That last panel? That would be Shinji's ''I am ten different shades of pissed and you really don't want to taste this rainbow'' voice. ...though I doubt he'd ever phrase it exactly that way.
Now that the style is settling and the events in the comic are fairly self-evident and
don't need explaining, I don't think we need much in the way of comic-related notes. So I'm
just going to say three quick things:
I don't think this comic came out as smooth as the last one in the terms of
color/blending, but it still works all right. Vex's hair came out better, though, as I get
the hang of how I want to shade it--as white hair without dark lines is kind of difficult to
do--as is Shinji's. I especially like how his hair came out in the second panel where he's
wiping blood from his mouth, though I think only I could see it well enough to have a reason
for liking it since I was working with the full-size version.
Yes, Vex said ''ook''. Not a stretched-out ''okay'' abbreviated to the annoying ''ok''
(pet peeve of mine); you pronounce it just as you read it. ooooh-kuh.
....only sounding a bit more like a monkey, I'd think.
Oh, and no, Vex didn't summon the undead zombine/construct/green thingus. That's not
within the realm of his powers. It is, however, within someone else's.
It's going to be the weekend before I have time to do any serious work on the next comic.
I have a full work week this week, and while last week I could skip out a lot because
things were slow, this week I have to make up for it or my next paycheck is going to suck.
On top of it, I've got some paid commission artwork to do for someone, and I promised them
by the end of May, so I should probably get started on it during the week and save the
weekend for the comic.
Update on the availability of the first print issue: OmegaRoom sent me my proof of the comic, and I'm okay with it save for some small issues that we're working some kinks out on. Shouldn't be too much longer now. The comic will cost $4.50 for a full-size (6.625''x10.25''), full-color issue, 26 pages of comic content plus a few additional pages for a quick story synopsis, a character list, the winner of the fanart contest, and some artist notes. Shipping will be a little over a dollar....altogether, less than the cost of a single issue printed through Lulu. I'll post a link once it's up in the OmegaRoom store.
Moving on, I want to have a bit of a talk with you about why it took me six days to
finish this comic. It wasn't work. It wasn't illness. It wasn't an exploding computer.
It was something much worse.
Truth told it's probably a good thing that I didn't finish the comic any sooner, because
in the mood I've been in the comic's notes would have turned into one of the vitriolic rants
from the older days. (Actually, it quite puzzles me that everyone continues to refer to my
''rants'' when I don't rant anymore...) Seems like my luck has a two-week cycle, and at
this point I really don't want to know what's going to happen next Friday--
considering that a few weeks back my computer blew up, and then this past Friday...
...I found out that my checking account had been hijacked, the night before.
Yeah. Not quite identity theft, but someone in Canada managed to get their hands
on my debit card number, although I'm anal retentive about my card and my account. Police
think it's most likely that it was a bit of roulette with a random card number generator,
and they stumbled across mine by sheer luck (good on theirs, bad on mine).
Luckily I'm neurotic about my checking account and caught it less than 24 hours
after it started to happen--swiftly enough that the purchases (at a gas station, of all
places, from the point-of-sale notes on the bank's records) were still pending posting, and
my bank could reverse them (and several new ones that showed up the next day), put a block
on the account, and restore all my funds. But that doesn't change the fact that it was an
unnerving and frightening experience; just like that, some total stranger hundreds of miles
away could have ruined me and left me over a thousand dollars in debt to the bank, as they
worked their way through my available funds, then all of my overdraft protection, and then
added on penalty charges for each overdraft.
I'm going to be fine. I'm a little inconvenienced and have limited access to my funds
right now, but my money is safe and it will still be there once the last of the knots are
straightened out, and I'm good on the bills and food and such so I don't need to access much
of it right now, and if it gets down to it the bank is just a few miles away and I can bus
it down there to yank out some cash (because temporary checks suck and no one takes them).
I was lucky and it was pretty obvious that I hadn't made the charges, as the card number was
used in a physical location in Canada and there was no way that I could be in two places at
once--especially two places so far away from each other. The bank had no reason to doubt
that I'd been a victim of theft/fraud, and was wonderfully willing to help me. (The police
were much less willing. I have enough information that all they would need is the security
tapes at the gas station and they could catch whoever did this to me and no doubt many other
people, and they aren't at all interested.)
But that's not the point of posting this. The point of posting this is to set an
example, I suppose. A warning. If you think it can't happen to you--it can. If you think
it won't happen to you--it will. It doesn't matter how careful you are, honestly. I've
never lost my debit card; there's only one copy of it; no one knows the number but me. I
don't even use the card directly online; it's hardly ever been keyed in anywhere, and I
won't even give the number over the phone to anyone that calls me--it has to be someone that
I call for that specific purpose, to pay bills, etc. Even though I rarely use the card
number online, I still check my machine routinely with antivirus and anti-spyware/malware
software to make sure there aren't any keyloggers/data transmitters, and monitor the
outgoing connections on my firewall to make sure there's nothing transmitting data without
my authorization. I check my balance at least three times a week, and if there's a charge
on there that I don't recognize, I call my bank to get them to identify it. When I use the
card in restaurants, stores, etc. I never let it out of my sight, and don't give anyone a
chance to write the number down. I don't make much money, so I'm paranoid about that little
bit of plastic that makes it so very easy to spend it. And yet my card number was still
stolen, by a means that I had no control over and a person that I have never had a single
hint of contact with.
Imagine what could happen if you're not so careful. Imagine if you carelessly fling your
debit/credit card number around online; imagine if you've got a keylogger on your machine
recording everything that you type in, but you think ''nah, not me'' so you don't bother
scanning for one. Imagine someone calls you claiming to be from your bank, or from some
service that you subscribe to, and you just give them your card number without verifying--
because hey, they know your name and phone number, they must be from ________ and are
authorized to ask you for that information, right?
Wrong. And being that naive is just as stupid as clicking on those phishing e-mails that
tell you to log into eBay and update your credit card information, or log into your PayPal
account and update your billing...when each of those links leads to a mimic of the site in
question, that exists for no other reason than to collect your login data and use it for
fraudulent purposes.
Be careful with your information. And even if you already are careful, keep tabs on your
finances. Gods know that despite all my precautions and wariness, the only thing that saved
me was the fact that I routinely monitor my account. Make sure you know how much you've
spent, and how much you should have.
It's very easy to be a victim of debit/credit card fraud. It's a lot harder to fix it if
you've been careless.
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