Thursday, August 25, 2005

Gods and Monsters

The mythology of Xrox is bursting out my skull, fully clothed and screaming hungry for vengeance. I haven't been able to work on anything else for two weeks now. Which is okay. Rob has the script for Xrox three and has started layouts. I do owe James three pages of layouts, but he isn't exactly bugging me for them. I was going to start my slashdotpops next. I guess it's only fair to give myself a week or so to acclimated to my new schedule. So far it's kicking my ass.
This mythology is fantastic! It's so many levels of the story in one simple form. That's what I love about archetypal theory in the first place. I'm giving a taste of a culture first hand, the attempt to express the Mystery of being alive in a living world through the particulars of a cultural aesthetic. At the same time I'm giving a meta narrative to the story itself, which is something I wind up doing with all my work. The main story takes place within the greater context of these fantastic and powerful beings, who are but characters themselves. I'm also exploring how myths and legends come into being and grow. And it's helping me sort out a symbolic language based on my own ideas of archetypal forces and concepts (masculinity, feminity, the cycle of nature) that's built on the stories that I've loved since the fourth grade. The flavor is, as I mentioned, an approximation of Anglo-European and popularized notions of Celtic culture. I don't claim any of it is historical, just ideal and personal. I mean, there's a huge heaping cup of Gygax sprinkled on the top!
I have the idea of doing a mythic tales book, story book illustrations, digest sized. I'm envisioning it as Artesia meets Sandman illustrated by Windsor McCay or Mucha. Well see.

Monday, August 22, 2005

Schoolhouse Schlock

Today is the first day of a new semester of school. For the most part I love the academic process, I love to learn, and I love that school, no matter why you are enrolled, is about getting something that you want. For me, it's about living a dream, about manifesting my skills and abilities in the best way I can, about challenging myself and making sacrifices to get what I want. On the other hand, part of me thinks this is about challenging myself and making sacrifices and that part of me is saying "What the fuck am I doing?!?" I feel too old for this some days, certainly being surrounded by so much youth is a bit much at times. At the same time, I feel a bit pampered by all this. I'm not working, I'm getting to learn things, have huge breaks in my day, spend most of my summer not working, and not deal with a boss or a time clock. It's the Protestant in me. I keep saying to myself "Maybe I should work more hours, then I'd feel better."
Fortunately, my Inner Artist and Inner Student can kick my Inner Protestants corn fed ass.

Saturday, August 20, 2005

Strange magic

One of my neices is staying with us this weekend. She's three, almost four. It's fantastic! Everything is so real to her. If I say there's magic in a bowl she wants to know why she can't see it. If i tell her the magic came from a house elf she wants to meet him. It's wonderful for me to have this! It's the feeling I get when I write and draw only this is more immediate. It isn't filtered through a story or structure. It just is. And she is so open, she just accepts what I say and do unconditionally. I don't ever feel like that with grownups. I don't mind being an adult, in fact I do prefer it to being a child, but this quality of childhood I wish to have with me every day, every where. James, you have SO much to look forward to!

Friday, August 19, 2005

Rollicous

Started working up the primary deities for Xrox. I used to do this all the time when we were role playing. I was the only one who seemed to think religion was essential to a fantasy campaign. I still think it is. There are, of course, ways around it. I just love polytheism! I had a blast creating naked fertility gods and primal gods of the sea and light. The shit was just rolling off my fingers, the character creating themselves. See, these are personifications of qualities and ideas. I am sort of painting using concepts, symbols, values. It's the archetypes, only I get to decide what is important to a culture and then define the archetypes for them. Of course, these are based on the archetypes as I know them, so the whole thing is like my ideal for a Western European, basically Anglo, pagan religion.
I really dig how it's put me in a zone. I've been working for two hours tonight, from 11:00 pm to 1:00 am. It's been AGES since I've done that.
Makes those shit layouts I sent to James seem even more than half assed.
I don't think much about the fantasy genre these days, prefering to work in something mostly like sci fi, or at least a modern setting. However, the elements of fantasy are so primordial, they just get my blood flowing! And Xrox is shaping into a...what's the phrase? A Secondary World? That's really nice.
Going to bed. More later.
Woo hoo!

Thursday, August 18, 2005

Annexnation

I am happy to announce that John Hagan's book "Aho & and the Great Ahum Ahum Ahum" will be published by Fandom Empire under the slasdotpop imprint. You may be wondering what the slashdotpop imprint is, as no books have appeared under that imprint. slashdotpop is bite sized, single serving books. They are mini books, self contained, that are fun to read and fun to collect. They are the Pop end of the comics spectrum, the ephemeral and whimsical nature of the iconic language. John's book, is not a comic. It is a book of poetry. But not just any poetry. It is lean, concentrated, meditations on the day to day and our strange ways. John captures the essence of humanity, the humor, the angst, the ennui, the whimsical, the profound, with a quick wit and deft turn of phrase. I am very excited about his work and wish to use what powers I have to get it into the publics hands. When he told me he wanted to produce the book as a mini, I saw then that it was perfect for the Empire so I swooped in and annexed his creation. We have yet to set a publishing date, I'm shooting for October. Right now it's in the hands of the Treasurer General who is garumping and gwafing and muttering something about coffers and pillage and what not. Stay tuned to this site for further details.

Wednesday, August 17, 2005

Now a word from our sponsor

I love comics. I love comics in a way that is frightening. It is frightening because I love comics more than I love anything else. Comics are a passion for me the way sports is a passion for many other men, the way music is a passion for some, and they way religion or politics is a passion for others. Discovering a new comic or finding a new way to look at or related to comics gets me so excited I tremble.
I am endlessly curious and voracious about new comics and new forms of comics. I am curious about Japanese comics, Francophone comics, British comics. I love comics of all sizes and shapes and all subject matters. I enjoy funny books, action books, sexy books, wordless books, ugly books, pretty books. I spend more time and energy thinking about and talking about and reading comics than I do anything else, even school. I have loved comics, as I said, since I can remember, and my love grows stronger every day. It shows no sign of diminishing. I seek to understand comics the way a scientist might seek to understand fusion or an painter might seek to understand texture or technique. It is, quite simply, an obsession and a fetish. It's a powerful force in my life, so powerful I feel overwhelmed by it at times, compelled by it. It feels as if I'm not under my own control sometimes. It's scary, but I like it. The fact that most of my life, especially during the formative years of adolescence, I was strongly conditioned to think of comics as juvenile fare to be maligned and embarrassed of. I have only very recently in my adult life gotten over this. Say, the last three or four years. So, here I have this powerful obsession that I am embarrassed or ashamed of and seek to keep marginalized in my life. The whole time, it is the very center of life. I'm glad I've gotten over that. I have much more room to revel in my love affair with a magical art form. A rebel art from, in its own way.
Recently I have finally made accommodation in my consciousness for the Art of Comics. This is a phrase I have embraced for years but only recently have I opened my thinking up to accept the Art of Comics. I think now of the physical form of words and pictures, of books and bindings, of pages and pigments, as one might think of canvas and pastels, of ink and paper, or lumps of clay to be shaped in infinite variety and form.
I feel as if I'm on the verge of a great chasm. Hanging just above my head is a precious, succulent fruit. I can reach it, I can taste it, if I stand on the very edge of this vast abyss, on my tip toes, and reach my arm out as far as I can over the black, bottomless gorge.