Erp birp purp

worked on the shopping cart/store stuff today. SO CLOSE. which is exciting for exactly: me.

Recently finished designing some shirts for a friend, for his fitness training business. Probably post the final designs in my deviant art account next week. Seems like a million things are in the pipe. Planning to flesh out the vidHero website extensively to better display all the stuff that is being made. but figured i should sort out the business of being able to sell my products first. being a business and all. yawn.

But for the past 5 minutes i’ve just been staring at a wall, daydreaming about how to make a kickass multiplayer version of Manhunt. I don’t know why i so often obsess over this little game. nobody has played it, and fewer have enjoyed it. (or am i misinformed?). i think it’s a grand socio-psychological experiment, and the scariest /most disturbing series of games i’ve every played. (i beat the first one a couple weeks ago, and am now slowly trudging through the wii-enhanced weirdness of the sequel.). check out the forums at www.pagdig.org if you’d like to discuss. ?

Annnnd… i’m not going to rant on and on about unfinished things.

But i will say: i’m off to the penny arcade expo for the weekend, with girlfriend and 2 pals. It feels really weird to be heading off to 3 days of expo just to attend and have fun. keep telling myself not to sweat any possible business angles and just have fun. but this seems quite impossible. one some strange scary levels.

anywho! more later!

documenting Zine collection

Woof. i mostly blew off today. was going to at least organize my work space and prepare for a real work day tomorrow. but instead i went to a buffet. and saw tropic thunder (AWESOME). and finished watching Sorcerer (INCREDIBLE). and then rewatched the extended cut of the fellowship of the rings with roommates (it’s finally starting to seem like a little bit of a boring movie. maybe it requires a large tv to appreciate the many “spectacle!” shots.).

So. in the interest of posting something. here is a quick list of the zines i acquired at the zine fest (through trading my own work, or because they were free).

  • “Alan Moore : on the intersection of anarchism & fiction (an interview)” [awesome] -$free
  • “Gingerland” [awesome] -$5
  • “Kitties Don’t Know Anything” [cute but small time] – $?
  • “Burn all the things you have to burn” [haven’t read. but points for wrapping it with a large rope] – $?
  • “Levil Uniform the magazine” [skate zine. well printed. but i dislike the metal head art. half read, but really isn’t my thing. interviews with skaters and such] -$?
  • “If i could sing this would be a record label publishing” [haven’t read. Appears funny, but with painfully bad art/design] – $? (i actually paid for this one. Just to offer support, and since he paid for one of mine. $1)
  • “Consumption Issue 6” [haven’t finished reading. cool cartoon style, and well presented jokes. but i’m not digging the heavy politics] – $4
  • “Bum & Alien” [haven’t read. short mini comic. nice art] – $1
  • “No Conversation #1″[won’t be reading. exactly the kind of zine i’m terrified of. extensive personal rant text only] – $?
  • Bad Breath Comics #1 [haven’t read yet. comic] – $1
  • Zombies and Broken Hearts [haven’t read yet. comic] – $2.95
  • Steampunk Magazine [haven’t read yet. but excited] – $?

PDX Zine fest : Officially dead.

Gotta admit I had kind of a horribly depressing lonely time at the PDX zine fest. Not heading back next year. Guess I just don’t “get” the scene.

It’s like this celebration of idiotic business practices and purposefully lame entertainment ideas. What the fuck? Do you really want to read/write hundreds of words about your ass? Do you value some crazy person’s unfunny, half thought out, and poorly drawn political cartoons?  Do you always walk around saying “wowwww. that’s sooo rad. i like totally luvvvvv it. wowwww,” like a stoned moron?

Anywho. this is probably 90% sour grapes. And add a dash of extreme exhaustion. … And jealously that so few of the attendees appreciated what i was offering, or even cared to stop and look at it. I felt like i should be wearing a costume so that i might be taken seriously.

Today. this is all a rant about today. I have dimly fond memories of how the first day went. eep.

Before I rant further in this whiney diary sort of post, i should note two really cool people i’d like to promote. There were other cool and/or friendly people of course, but these two in particular offered the highest quality things for me at the show.:

www.tangledwilderness.org – offered the first zine i’ve EVER truly wanted with a passion, just by looking at the cover. and it was free! Also agreed to trade me for their steampunk magazine thing (the same publication that was at the maker fair? the same people?)
www.gingerlandcomics.blogspot.com – super talented nice guy who sat next to me, and mildly comforted me by just being a good human being. though i felt like his girlfriend was constantly giving me sour looks. maybe i smelled really bad. maybe they were cannibals. i dunno. whatever. this guy is super talented and you should check out his work.

back to whiney diary ranting of no importance.

I didn’t get to sleep much last night. I sleep with my windows open when it’s hot. And around midnight some crazy whore started screaming “don’t touch me! I can’t believe you left me there!” over and over, in the parking lot outside my window. that is, about 30 feet from head. I woke up with a start, 20 minutes after going to bed, thinking there was an emergency. Someone needs help!  Then i looked out and saw some drunk moron sitting on the pavement yelling at two nearby people who were trying to walk up to them. over and over. the screaming and the attempted approaches. kept repeating.

Then I remembered i live in a shitty apartment complex full of selfish scum. Weirdly wide awake, I wandered around for a while. Talked to my roommates. eventually figured it was safe to try and go back to sleep.

But these three fuckers were now standingaround on the balcony across from my window, drinking beer and talking shrilly in some other language. it’s about 2am by now, but these bastards don’t care. It’s time for them to get drunk and screech at each other. One guy in particular had an amazingly loud high pitched voice. of hellish pain. I tossed and turned. I yelled out random phrases. Out of my mind with anger. I fantasized about owning a gun so i could muster the courage to walk out and ask them politely if they could please be a little less drunk. I turned on my radio, full blast (playing Michael Jackson’s “Beat It”. which i decided might actually have been strangely appreciated). I turned my radio down (thinking of my roommates, and other neighbors who might now want to kill me.) and switched to a classical music station. I have this theory that drunk people don’t like classical music. SHOT DOWN! I went out and smoked. I paced. I sat and stared at them for minutes on end, hoping they might notice and be creeped out. And just go back inside their damned apartment. christ.

Nothing worked.

around 4:30am I closed my window and sweated myself to sleep. They were less loud as well, admittedly (perhaps the classical had some effect).

and then it was up at 8:30 for a shitty day at the zine fest. Nobody bought anything. Except an old friend who stopped by and quickly left, leaving me more depressed that I’d ever suggested he might like it. Tons of hipsters, pretty girls, obese people, and freaks walked by. Many said “hi” if i made eye contact. but less than 5 out of hundreds stopped to look for more than a nanosecond. most seemed to look at me rather than what was on the table, and move along with their nose in the air. where are my people?

Anywho. the dude next to me was suprisingly cool, and some friendly gothics/punks in one booth were giving away a free transcription of a telephone interview they scored with Alan Moore – which was the highlight of the show for me.

This is probably too much information, and far from professional. but fuck it. soooo tired and angry.

Check back for the official show report at http://www.solidfuelstudios.com ! Yay!
With even more dirt and details! woo hoo!!!

PDX Zine Fest : Still Happening…

Woof. So I ended up enjoying very little sleep. But the fest has proven sort of fascinating so far. So many strange and interesting people. Not sure they’re my people. most seem to take one look at me and move on. most others take a look at my comics and move on. it is strangely depressing. BUT, around a dozen people actually wanted one of the two comics. And this proved immensely gratifying. wee.

What i should be doing right now is busting ass to get the website(s) up to snuff. but. buttttt. soooo tired. Was psychotically exhausted when i first got home. like babbling incoherently. that form of exhausted. now i’m in more of a slow moving zen state of waking meditation. I keep thinking of alternate forms of humorous signage to make for the booth. so strange. Anywho.

instead of sleeping when i got home, i cranked out two pencil pages for this blue line art board contest. I’d been meaning to (dying to) work on this all week, because some industry luminaries have agreed to judge the entries. and there are very few entries. and the deadline is tonight at midnight!!! So i buckled down, put on a NIN tour HD-DVD, and cranked out two pages. they are embarassingly rough. but hopefully the layout ideas came through. They were further muddied by a crash course in how to use my new all-in-one printer for scanning. yuck.

anywho. here are the two pages:

http://www.warrenblyth.com/remote/scan-pg8b.jpg
http://www.warrenblyth.com/remote/scan-pg9b.jpg

and here is the contest (where you can see other (far more polished) entries, and the script:
http://bloodandroses.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1284

sleepy time… Tomorrow is another day! ANOTHER DAY OF INANE BABBLING WITH CRAZY PEOPLE (whom I would like money from)… it is fascinating how, if nothing else, this fest experience has taught me a lot (a ton!) about how to summarize and pitch my work(s). super important. yay. i am suddenly overwhelmed with joy. 🙂

PDX Zine Fest : Happening Now!

Sorry for late notice.

I will be at the PDX Zine Symposium today and tomorrow, running a table for SolidFuelStudios. I’ll be selling the brand-new first issue of VidHero, VidHero t-shirts, and left-field mini comic about dreams (“Chimera Chic”). If you’re in the Portland area and would like to stop by, check here for more info: http://www.pdxzines.com/

I’m kicking myself for not budgeting prep time to get the websites updated. kick ick. erk.

More later! Soon even!

Review: The Clone Wars

I took my girlfriend to see The Clone Wars last night. It was thrilling.
A theatre half filled with aging geeks like me, amidst mewling children out to “have a good time”.

My takeaway : critics should be put to death.

The film was a ton of fun. I had a blast. When the story stopped to do something cute, or opaquely confusing, there was always astonishing eye candy to fall back on. I can’t recommend it highly enough as a triumphant continuation of the excellent Star Wars IP. Apparantly it was directed by some guy who directed some of the Airbender cartoons. I was impressed, and am now (finally) eager to watch that series. So should you be.

But really, critics should be put to death. i read all the bullshit reviews posted on aint it cool news and was overwhelmed with a blood lust. Just this messy morass of “please stop making star wars movies that aren’t offering what i want” and “This new standalone addition to the universe of star wars doesn’t measure up to the originals”. die. I can’t believe a critic would dare to mention disliking how the fox logo wasn’t used. wtf. They also attack the movie for using slang and being approachable for children. hatethemsomuch.

and the worst drivel there was (by far) some freak’s endless rant about refusing to cover star wars anymore because: lucasfilm has it in for him legally. because he stole their script for episode 2 and posted it long before they wanted anyone to ruin their multimillion dollar project. boo hoo. because he was asked not to run his review before opening day, and this agreement was enforced arbitrarily in his opinion. what an asshole. He dares to tease that he was the only fanboy critic there who had positive things to say about the clone wars, but now he won’t say it. this is the definition of modern whino-matic criticism, where some idiot puts himself ahead of his function as a critic. So many critics feel a need to sell themselves rather than dissect the art they’ve been presented with – and this guy takes it one step further by trying to hold the creators repsonsible for his lack of interest in doing his job. christ. and i’m slipping into some niche by critiquing the critics. but oh well: hell.

I guess i feel I’ve already said the movie was great, and you should see it. There’s little reason to go into details, because: you should see it. The only thing that stands out in my mind as a flaw was the way the whole military campaign is impossible to follow. Without understanding the big picture, it’s frightfully difficult to gauge how important their goals are. ie, (spoiler?) they need to secure some outer rim hyperspace routes. wha? how important is this really? how are inner rim hyperspace routes being controlled exactly? I just felt this strong gut feeling that if they would show the galaxy and point to clusteres needing to get from here to there, it would make the “war” more real. It seems a common war movie need. But maybe thought that just saying “this is important” would be enough for the kids. ok. fair enough. cool with me.

As for the kiddie elements, and the cutesy slang: so be it. Annoying star wars geeks like to claim Empire was the pinnacle of the series, and then poopoo the endless supply of movies that aren’t remotely trying to be like Empire. These critics are failing you, the audience (the culture?) because they are failing to identify the author’s goals. They’re critiquing some other movie (the one in their day dreams and twisted memories) instead of paying attention to what george lucas is trying to acheive. they can’t let it go, and are this quite blind and useless.

I read an excellent ranting dissertation on this recently, which pointed out the lack of “emotion subtext” in all star wars products which followed the first two. This argument does not keep in mind that star wars is trying to offer a new generation the same popcorn thrills of old serials. The new movies take this (expertly crafted) superficial thrill to an interesting place by slipping in intellectual subtext. But the tribute to serials is the point. Listen closely, would-be critics: who among you would dare critique the old pulp serials for lacking the emotional depth of The Empire Strikes Back?  Could you really? if so: please go watch some other flicks and leave the enjoyment of these peculiar works of entertainment art to those of us to are willing to enjoy what lucas is actually striving to achieve.

Multimillionaire or not, he is still an artist. Let him do what he wants. Let the artist be.

Dream Girls

Prepping to run another table at another small fest (the pdxzine fest, http://www.pdxzines.com/). This week i’m cranking out a quick mini comic called “Dream Girls,” based on a dream my girlfriend had many years ago. (she kept a dream journal, and I asked her to select a couple dreams she wouldn’t mind me interpretting) I’d love to keep on making endless minicomics that concern the strange dream logic states of girls. weee.

The idea is to make one of these so-called “personal diary” kind of comics, that the indie comics crowd seems to gravitate towards. While i think vidHero is embarassingly personal, they seem to view it as a super hero bullshit (not even pompous criticism bullshit, which i intended people to mistake it for). blah blah.

anywho. millions of things afoot. But a roommate is asking for a ride to the MAX. sooo, more later.

review: Radioland Murders

Well, it’s almost 4am. so this will be brief.

I watched the 1994 film Radioland Murders earlier tonight, and managed to enjoy it on several levels. though overall, I couldn’t recommend it to anyone genuinely hoping to enjoy the time it would take to sit and stare.

Robert Altman’s “A Prairie Home Companion” did a much better job of capturing the crazy atmosphere of a large group struggling to put on a live radio act. Ben Stiller’s “The Cable Guy” did a fine job of stealing the whole climax and updating it to relate to our more current obsession with bad television (instead of arguably-bad radio), by focusing much more on the revealed villian as a fleshed out character (so he is less preachy in the final reel). But wow, theCableGuy ripped off this movie’s ending HARD. Like shot for shot. weird (er… cool? Hip ahead of it’s time?).

LE SPOILERS MAY FOLLOW:

All in all, the idea of a phantom of the opera twist on a goofy fun radio broadcast event was pretty neat. nifty even. Too bad the jokes almost all fall flat. eek. I’m not sure if it was the actors, or the editing, or the directing. but. yikes.

I found myself thinking “this would be much better as a bugs bunny cartoon” (due to the strange brief characters and the slapstick idiocy). And then the main character popped up in a total Carmen Miranda suit. …! (With the whole fruit bowl balanced on a scantily clad tropical woman’s head). This was used to great effect in a classic bugs bunny cartoon. sooo. I’m probably not alone in wishing the movie was animated. Chalk it up to yet another filmmaking failure to emulate the elasticity of cartoonery.

Ra. And i’m too tired to dig deeper for broad movie making perspectives. and i’m not sure it deserves much more thought. The idea of the show’s best writer being the prime murder suspect, and slipping last minute script page revisions in to oust the true villian in a live performance, which leads to villian delivering the lines the writer wrote and then accidentally turning on a mic and being broadcast live as the evil character the actors were just portraying on stage- was totally delightful. And his rant on technology and patents hinted towards interesting broader commentary.

But in the end i just hated the guy playing the lead (writer), and couldn’t enjoy the movie. yeargh. I’d only recommend it for “completist” Lucas fans. Many interesting ideas, and a very sweet nod to the zany great radio show stylings of a forgotten time in entertainment. But poorly paced, full of groans, and hard to endure.

Rating: a million stars (out of infinite).

(I plan to pop out more random movie reviews like this. Try sorting by category if you’d like to just read reviews)

Woof wuf Gong Sons

I really need to get into the habit of posting daily about the endless “goings ons”. Its 3am. so maybe today is a loss.

but here’s a quick attempt: Polished the colors for the third (final?) bit of movie concept art i’ve been fretting over for a local filmmaker. Will post in my Deviant Art Account when they’re all done. Next up is polishing t-shirt logos for Waldow. Possibly some tattoo “angel wings” art for another friend.

But this will be the week of Jedi6 space sequence end-gaming. Next week is Carrie’s dream comic, and the following week is board game polishing. These are uber tasks i’m laying down to ensure they get finished well before hell freezes over. Sooo, today i went out and bought a variety of things for the jedi sequence. Some toys that looked vaguely like alan and jeff (just spent an hour painting the mace window to have hair and be wearing the proper red-lapeled coat. Painting Mutt’s tshirt black was a cinch. hopefully post photos in here once I snoop out a miniUSB cable). I had to use some wire cutters to remove their legs so they could both fit in the cockpit of the jedi starfighter toy i bought last month. wee!

Also shopped for some things i thought would be key to the “ultimate weapon”. Ended up blowing around 30 bucks on trash cans and tubing and toys. Fred meyer’s didn’t have the trashcan lid i wanted so i had to hit home depot. When i reviewed the current animatic a few hours ago, it seemed clear that i was spending way too much time and money on this thing. hmm. no offense. ugh. erg.

Earlier today i finally sat down and painted the two planetoids i crafted out of paper mache. the red and blue paints were fun, but carrie offered some black paint… and i may have gotten carried away. In the crazy bright sun, they look awesome. but inside, they just look black (until you get very close up). Anywho. done.

And i guess that’s it. Less you count staying up way late last night working on Vitreous Humor. Re-watched kill bill vol.2 with carrie (her first time). started to re-watch mad max earlier in the day, but as usual i got tired after the awesomeness of the opening sequence. blah blah. I’m not sure how much personal bullshit to throw in. hmm.

Might be worth noting some exciting developments for the vidHero movie (plot pretty much nailed down during recent trip to Seattle), and theCommercialMovie (figured out Kshawn’s stand up political comedy act, and how to rework the ever expanding plot as a tv series). but. eh. hopefully these details will show up soon enough. … more later. sleep time.