Shoggoths in the deep

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I’ve switched around between reading 4 different books today. “How to cheat in Adobe Flash CS3” (praised on amazon as a great honest resource of animation and design tricks), “Learning ActionScript 3.0″ (looked straight forward to me so i bought it to balance out the first book, also purchased earlier tonight at Borders), Penny Arcade 3: The Warsun Prophecies” (rented from the library, a fun collection of old strips and commentaries from 2002. it astonishes me how much MORE i appreciate Penny Arcade – the DEEPER i dig into it. those boys were damned talented even 6 years ago), and HP Lovecraft’s At The Mountains of Madness (also rented from the library. I’ve already read the story several times, but I was eager to read this editions lengthy intro and 70 page extra feature: HP’s essay, “Supernatural Horror in Literature”).

This last book is what disturbed me forth into writing this brief blog. The introduction by China Mieville deeply disturbed me. China beats around the bush a bit, heaps on the praise, and annoys with a variety of excessively obscure words (it seems everyone does this when surrounding some HPL text. but only HPL manages to avoid annoying. HPL seems to be taking the english language very seriously, whil everyone else is just showing off or imitating).

China ends with a focus on what must have been the real purpose. a huge slam on HPL for his racism and elitism. China points out that the whole book (SPOILERS! …?) is about: elitist fears of the uneducated masses. HPL supposedly converteded to socialism as the great depresssion set in, having given up on the Capitalist experiment. But HPL hoped for some small oligarchy of the intelligent and well bred to take control, and thus avoid any messy revolutions. because revolutions generally destroyed culture. and HPL was deathly afraid of the lesser people that surrounded him. thus the cyclopean cities found in the ice are directly symbolic of themes in some social politics HPL was reading/promoting. cities that out grew themselves, sucked everything out of the surround nature (literally a giant black city in a white void). The protagonists see the heights of this civiliation in the art/carvings, but quickly see this art becoming a self parody. and eventually an embarassment. and the Shoggoth slave class that revolted (and are now, quite revolting in appearance), are still in the skummy depths beneath the city. plus, the “tekeli-li” and giant albino penguins are supposedly direct references to an earlier story by Poe.

this intro blew my mind.

it serves to destroy any chance i’ll ever have of respecting HPL as a person (which makes it hard for me to champion his works. he endorsed hitler for chrissakes), and also serves to explain how his well written but seemingly-silly horror story is actually a careful deep social commentary, mixed with subtle literary references to his heroes that might put tarantino to shame, mixed with a subtle psychological symbolism (drilling beneath the surface, to face the monsters within) that he may or may not have even been aware of it.

it lightly boggles my mind.

So i’m playing the “political history” commentary on the 13 Days DVD (also rented from the library, as i’ve been obsessing about the history/politics of the 60’s this week), and trying to relax.

I can’t seem to get my head around all the nuances of “context” surrounding the society of 1959-79, so i won’t claim to understand the context of HPL’s social times. and thus i won’t seek to judge HPL’s apparent psychological/character problems. And i’ll sit here wondering how well i even understand the context of modern day society. hmmf. (depressing).

uh, the short story: I quit cigarettes a little over two weeks ago, and still haven’t gotten back on track. I’m spending a ton of time on everything BUT relevant work.

machines entering deep REM states

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I’m currently cleaning up and organizing: everything.

listening to an interview with the smart guy behind “the design of everyday things” (and a series of related books that i was unaware of. oop)
http://www.core77.com/broadcasts/src/core77_broadcasts_norman.mp3
a lof of good/interesting “big picture” thoughts about humanity’s relationship to technology.

I quit smoking a week ago. then went camping over the weekend. I’m now entering that shakey period where i think i’ve weathered the worst of it, and it’s time to start re-entering my normal activities. Yesterday i got a call in the early morn (well, 9am) asking if i could have storyboards finished by 5pm. And I was like “hello? wha? who is this?” got it done. but it was yet another curveball.

so now, to get back on track. i’m cleaning up everything. organizing each individual piece of paper in the three separate 10 inch stacks that have been on the floor at the foot of my bed for months. downloaded and ran CCleaner and SpyBotS&D to try and speed up my computer. the first cleaned out 8 gigs of wasted space. the second found nothing. sooo. hmm.

anywho. the only thing i really wanted to post was this: three random ideas from recent camping trip (which will no doubt be lost for years, in my drawers of random story ideas):

1-surfing haunted waves.
2-short film about “never turn your back on the ocean” warning sign. father plays with son, and keeps eying the ocean nervously. it seems that tiny sneaking waves are the worst of his troubles. until a giant tree washes up at 60 mph, and totally gores him to death.
3-i’d like to see a short “sciNow” movie about resolving a traffic skirmish with tech. ie, reckless driver cuts off our hero on some winding country roads. Our hero’s passenger takes series of flashy photos, sends them to cops. blares warnings of impending legal over loud speakers atop hero car. reckless driver goes from living life like a soulless video game, to seriously fearing for the repurcussions of his actions.

ra.

life: grow up

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Just a quick update on life stuffs.

Flew up to seattle on Monday to meet the team (of dudes i’m making storyboards for). I’ve been highly stressed for days, leading up to this meet. Now i am left a little down, brain dead, and eager to attack projects.

Feels like i’ve been spending all my free time on everything EXCEPT what i need to be focusing on: VidHero.

So i’m sitting down tonight to lock the script and roughs for issue two of vidHero. I’ll be doing it in a word document table, because i’m still in this corporate-storyboard mindset. Excited to put this bitch to bed, and move on to fresher stories. Though i should probably endeavor to make this bitch fresh again… Just not sure how. hmm.

Anywho. Also need to get the &#%!ing shopping cart up. although it seems pointless, because i can’t see anyone actually visiting this site and deciding to buy something. must do it anyway. because i gots shits to sells. and maybe 10 to 20 friends will buy things. and it’ll be a good learning experience. … i am writing all this down to try and talk myself into doing it. urgh.

anywho. Not much else to report. Not sure what i’ve already reported. which is a sign that not much has changed in the last week or two. sooo, i’ll leave off. sign off. shove off. for now.

review: Kick Ass – a comic book you should go buy right now

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Hey there fellow crits,

I just read through the first few issues of “Kick Ass” and was totally blown away. I cannot recommend this comic book highly enough. go buy it right now.

– Written by Mark Millar, who is supposedly well known (meh?). I don’t know the guy’s work, but the dialogue, situations, humor, and pacing all remind me heavily of the old Preacher comics (which is high praise). It’s like something garth ennis would write if he could drop the scotchirish obsession, and focus in on modern teen drama. The first issue perfectly sets up the dream (for a modern person, based in our reality, to decide to put on a costume and try to fight crime. Just because it sounds bad ass). In the first couple pages it shows you why you wouldn’t want to do this with two loveably gross examples, then it settles back into establishing the character. It’s possible i’m too easy, and these examples are a little too pop culture (the “that’s not me” trick seems a lot like something out of Powers. The “this is me. suffering… but i’m getting ahead of myself” trick feels like KissKissBangBang, or FightClub.). mayyyybe. But even if the snooty connoisueueueurr wants to call the writer out on these story telling tricks, they efficiently serve to ground the comic in a certain style. that i happen to adore.
I’m digging the writing mostly because: having read 4 issues, it occurs to me that i’ve really just spent a lot of time watching a kid have some teen problems. But i didn’t notice this while reading. nor was i bored. because the ultraviolence that punctuated each issue was so plausible. And i didn’t have to read a lot of text to feel like i’d spent a lot of time with the characters. And because it felt like a great indie movie, except with characters who really stood out from the cliches i’m used to.

– Drawn by the legendary John Romita Jr. Need i say more? he’s a personal hero (drew a lot of the x-men comics that hooked me hard as a kid). And it’s heart warming to see just how polished and amazing his style has become. I read some spider man comics a couple years back, thinking initially “aw shucks this guy is still working?” but was ultimately left thinking “Holy shit, this guy has become better than any other artist i’ve seen in years. wow.” and that spiderman run was mostly just people sitting around talking and having dramazzzz.

– Kick Ass is also mostly about small time reality probs in high school. drama (a four letter word for me. it sounds like the name of a drug when i read it).

But it’s paced punchy, and littered with pop culture (youtube, new york’s gay prostitutes, blah blah). And then each issue squirts in an excessive amount of blood and gore, for loveable shock value. I love how RomitaJr draws blood thick, like play-doh. I love how an eight year old girl can show up and be disturbingly dangerous (delivering some grotesque violence while calling her victims cunts).

it’s just very alive.

In many ways, it’s everything i want to be doing with storytelling. so i’m very excited.
(and terrified about all the ways i’ll need to change the direction of my own comic, and step up my game, so I won’t be seen as a bad rip off).

hmm. anywho. Apparantly it’s very indie, despite some of the big names involved. And supposedly a movie deal has been signed? fuck. (the whole thing overwhelms me with envy. It’s a triumph. right down to the excellent name).

So i hope you’ll support it, either for the “support indie” angle, or for the “get in on this hip shit before everyone else” angle.

more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kick-Ass

hmmm. where is the track

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Soooo. what did i do today? um. bought some comics. picked up some cash to hold me over until my new check card arrives (i cancelled my current card during PAX, when i thought i’d lost my wallet). spent all this cash on groceries. cleaned up parts of the kitchen. i’d swear i did some actual work work in the morning, but can’t remember for the life of me.

in the afternoon, just before bundling up our comcast modem and taking over to a friend’s house (since he moved out last week and needed the modem to setup his new internets), i blew a bunch of time reformatting my initial storyboards into a word doc that could be edited by my employers. looks great in open office, so i hope they can actually edit it in the word97 export. hmm.

just now i spent a couple hours sorting a big backlog of emails that have been hovering for months. (reducing my hotmail inbox from 190 to 30).

it seems like there is much to do. but I’ve only just come out of the haze of last week’s insanity, and haven’t regained the trains of thought that were piled up before.

occurs to me i need to refine at least 5 story boards, which were basically sloppy stick figures. shouldn’t wait for the employers to call me on them. hmm. but i’ve been kind of mystified by their lack of communication so far. hmm.

also need to work on the “fun funeral” flash game, so i’ll have something to show at the next meeting. came up with an idea on how to circumvent the over-long intro animation (for now). hmm.

but really, i feel like i should be working on vidHero #2. because i’d planned to have it finished by september, and here we are. EEK. i keep thinking about it. at least 3 different times during every day, for a week or three now. many strange conflicting thoughts about goals (dumbed down. action packed. reinventing the flashback. obsessively true to downtown portland building layouts), and arbitrary rules (beginning and ending each flashback with words that cover the transition. handling each moment of violence with at least 3 buildup and 2 aftermath frames, to improve the pacing/reader-thrill. working in more bullet holes that show last and next page artwork).

and part of me recalls jotting down many different specific notes in text files and on artwork and binder paper, while i was cranking out the first issue. i’m kind of dreading the process of digging all of these up and seeing how they all work together (or conflict). In general, the whole idea was just to make the second issue tell the story of a climactic violent fight, and fuck around with flashbacks to work in more “boring/funny” scenes that i cut from the first issue. It doesnt’ do much to sum up my thoughts on joey shoemocker though. which became the point. at some point. hmm.

anywho. that is where i am today. just thought i should post for posterity.

the insanity will continue until morale improves

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SUPER INSANE-O-PANTS!

sooo, i’m out of my mind with busy. Monday a friend suggested his team might need me to do some story boards for some videos they’re handling for a big corporation. I worked hard all day tuesday to deliver some flash mock ups for the local video game making project. then wednesday i sat down and cranked out a sample storyboard sequence to try and land the job. I got the job. then thursday i sat around mostly fretting over how not to make an ass of myself (while also doing my finances, and spitballing various concepts to convey the video’s proposed message), and then got a call to head downtown and discuss the first video in detail. Today, er, yesterday- friday – I spent alllll day cranking out the first official boards. then i realized i was out of time, (the guy wanted them asap, to show the client), so i skipped polishing them and made up a sequence with the raw pencils.

a questionable move. hoping i didn’t make a mistake there. ehhhh.

but now i find myself beyond exhausted. too many hours without enough breaks. if you figure i made 20 drawings on wednesday, and 59 today, that’s like making 3 pages of a comic book in one day, spending the next day feeling sick with nervous idiocy, then making 10 pages the following day. 10 fucking pages is insane. I usually feel great if i can manage one page in a day. INSANE! not to mention all the focus/stress of trying to juggle concepts and storytelling/editing and vectors in your head. there is no room left in my head. i can’t remember what i was going to do this week for vidHero. ugh. though i do feel like i’m battering myself into a faster working methodologgygygygyg

ANd in theory, i should sit down first thing tomorrow morning and start polishing the drawings, for max professionalitytytytytyt,y.

but. geez. i dunno. i’m lightly hoping they’ll be thrilled with the raw pencils. though they seem embarassing to me. though i’ve underestimated people’s enjoyment of my rough work before. though. ugh.

anywho. it’s late. time for sleep. just noting the news.

Erp birp purp

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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

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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.

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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…

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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. 🙂