Sketching characters for the next comics. It's been fun! Here's something for dna #2, and Stux #1. I think I'll be putting out the Stux as a regular webcomic "funny", alongside a separate complete issue of original material (which I'm redrawing this month).
Every time I see America's Next Top Model, I start thinking about Not Another Comic Book plots...I thought one girl seemed like a good model for future reference, but in the preview she has a nervous breakdown, looks like! Next...
Listen, I'm still figuring out integr8dsoul.com, but meanwhile, you can do what Jason (and Aimee!) have done. In Jason's case, he sent us $9 at
C. Lue Disharoon 542 6th Ave. San Diego, CA 92101
which was really cool as it covers shipping and handling, at $1.25 each! The issue itself, DNA #1, retails for $3.25.
Meanwhile, our remaining t-shirts are available at Convention Special Price, for $12 each or 2 for $20, plus $3.00 for shipping & handling.
You can do the same over PayPal, at luelyron@gmail.com !!!
AND!! You can use the button provided; the $15 will cover your postage.
or
Listen! We got our first e-mail sale today, from the friend who got me to start this blog two years ago: T J Jones..love ya, man!!! DNA #1 011-1A is on the way. It's the 11th of the original 50 copy printing from Angel Printing.
Inhale shop, a few blocks over in East Village, has two copies on consignment.
Not only is DNA #2 in the works, but the Hellcast t-shirt (as well as Puzzle Girl) will be available, in black (AND in XL, L, M & S) is here!
That's all for now: I've got to rush to the post office to mail comics and shirts! Then, I hope to come back and start on those original stories I've been studying to write...Be chill, Cease ill
I thought I'd return to Celestia, since I'm drawing her comic this spring, Not Another Comic Book. Dawn had already drawn a simply Stuckwayze on the page. I don't know why I like to draw nice things on pages already marked in some way...knowing it's a scratch sketch, suddenly I'm free to experiment (and make it good? Kind of good? :D)
Quick pen sketch at work---Marc
Our meeting tonight will precipitate that news about integr8dsoul.com...
Listen, I'm about to have an exciting announcement on integr8dsoul.com, which is going to be a really deluxe space for you to groove before we're through.
Meanwhile, as we get it all together behind the scenes, let's do some jams this Monday!
Pick your style, try something new, but don't let Monday get you down, it's just the start of better things, believe it. This is Richard Rory, rolling into the week with you on Citrusville's Rock FM!!!
That's the Lovebugs, with the Key...gotta get up, y'all! Rise and shine, as we watch the sun come up on a Florida morning that looks to be cloudy, with clearing skies by noon, high in the low 60s...here's some get up music:
Eminenm, Till I Collapse (with Nate Dogg) Don't Give Up Music!
Monday Morning, Live Fleetwood Mac
Monday, Monday Mamas and the Papas, from 1966, Hollywood Palace
WNRV, Omegaville, Citrusville!!!
Tegan and Sarah, Monday, Monday, Monday
Manic Monday, Live, the bangles! For our pal, Hugh, good energy to you, buddy!
with that said, here's a request from our early morning listener Vita, some new rock to start off your week, from the Brian Jonestown Massacre:
Nice textures in those guitars, freaky vocal...all right! So how about we continue our role with some Grohl? Acoustic Foo Fighters...Citrusville Rock FM...
Here's a request from Stanley Adams, up all night writing a book about love everlasting...nice Beach Boys nuevo here, from Ariel Pink...
This is Richard Rory, churning out the swamp rock for you this Monday Morning...Jammin' Jameson's coming in next, more requests on the way...beat those blues back, bat those lids, open those eyes, it's going to be a beautiful day...thanks for diggin' the graveyard shift with me...more music on the way, with the Strokes, Neon Indian, Gangstarr and Blue Oyster Cult coming up in the hour, on Citrusville's rock FM!!! Live long and prosper....
After attending college in Alabama, Shamilal, scion of a well-off family on an Indian island that daily becomes more socially backwards, joins the French Foreign Legion, rather than return to his family business and all the mind-stultifying tradition of his island country. Shamilal ends up in the company of a soft-in-the-middle class white guy named Plumpo, who comes out to join after college. Plumpo has learned from the ninjitsu dojo where Shamilal introduced him to ninjitsu. Since then, Plumpo has attended seminars by a brash, eccentric Ninja Master who has been divorced four times. This prepared Plumpo for a life of adventure, so after exchanging letters, Plumpo is also now serving in the French Foreign Legion.
Shamilial thinks Plumpo will have some useful connections, but he recognizes he will be a coward when the fire is heavy. Sure enough, he sees with his own eyes not only will Plumpo run, he will leave others behind with no hesitation. Plumpo also likes to stay in your room for hours on end and drink up everything in your refrigerator, so he can discuss schemes and watch science fiction movies.
So, Plumpo has offered that he knows some things, and in between jobs, he’s showed Shamilal some of his goods. But when things go sour sorely, Plumpo offers a way out of the fortress, where officers are going insane, men are deserting, and pay is late. Well, Shamilal gives up his solitude, to follow Plumpo to the next job. Plumpo’s mercenary friend, a chick, takes them to work for Khaddam Kablui.
Khaddam Kablui’s palace is supposed to be a cushy job: everything fine’s in Yibali. In fact, there’s even a number written by O. Shin Puffish, which the people employed at the compound break into, occasionally, perhaps even on schedule, and always, ready at cue to do this, and also, to give their lives for the beloved the leader, the father of the country. Everyone answers to whatever name he calls, whatever he wants, all of which is constantly mixed up. He has at least three names for Shamilal, for example.
Plumpo thinks he’s got a love line on going with one or two or three of Kaddam’s female body guards. Shamilal, meanwhile, observes. He overhears men in the streets, making exaggerated boasts before women and children about what they’d like to do to the tinhorn dictator who has his fingers in every pie in Yibali.
Well, Yibali has unrest on its hands, upon further inspection. In fact, while it’s accepted wisdom that the protests will play out on a given day, the people have many resentments. Plumpo is getting into the Secret Police, which he considers a promotion from being a mercenary. He shines his medals and stays on parade, in a manner much the opposite of which one might imagine secret police to operate.
Khaddam defiantly shakes his fists from beneath the umbrella in a white van (driven by Plumpo and Shamilal at his orders) in the rain, as he announces in one breath he has not fled the country he loves, and in the next mentions the torture available for rebels. By this point, Shamilal has had his wake-up call and begun concealing items for the looting. He believes he can make it across rebel lines and surrender. He hopes he can negotiate a way to be taken to America. Perhaps his crazy ex-wife will even come back to their broken deal.
Meanwhile, they’re still receiving orders. The other mercenaries are brutish overall, the smartest among them rather mad. Shamilal and Plumpo have to give a stirring speech to inspire the troops forward, despite warnings of possible international involvement. Upon this attack, Shamilal hopes to sneak his valuables along and defect as soon as possible. Plumpo, meanwhile, plans to use his newfound officer status to give orders, while continuing to serve as defense coordinator from the palace, five hundred miles across the desert from the rebels. He believes he’s suckered Shamilal into going with the mercenaries to attack, behind an air strike.
He commends Shamilal’s bravery and they exchange farewells. At this point, Plumpo slips closer and closer into the inner circle of Khaddam Kablui---somewhat confused, but ruled by eccentric habits involving rose gardens, parades, and banishings. Meanwhile, the air forces of the free world converge by the shores of Tiripol, stronghold of tyranny. What does Shamilal decide to do in the still of the night? We’ll visit his conscience, before the climax of the plot...not to be given away.
My exposure of late to the news has taken my attention considerably. The only response is to focus on two finite cycles of writing for the rest of the month. One is set to tie together the common element of disaster with separate characters, while the other is the establishing story for a new character of my own, who's been waiting for the stirrings of real world revolutions.
After posting an abbreviated version of my integr8dfix.blogspot.com column over on the thread I have on IMWAN for Steve Gerber comics, I came across a comment by my pal Monk, who was asking broadly about, what kind of series would you like to read? Not by who, just, what concept?
Monk wrote: This isn't a creative teams thread, just certain characters or takes on characters that I'd like to see more of.
I'd like to read an ongoing low-tech Batman book where he's the only superhero in his world.
He's right that would be great. What I've been on fire for this morning is this:
I want to do a female character like that, only swap Gotham for the Middle East, at the stirrings of a revolution. The detective part would involve both criminals and secret police. She will need some serious help as she is an outsider...and a vet, not a trained detective.
He mentioned James Bond and Superman (in a similar, only-hero vein), too
I really liked these, so I wrote back:
I love these heroes pared of their multiversal encumberments, too, Monk. Get back to what actually makes the character cool, instead of just saying he's cool cause we're hypnotized to think so.
So, the point I recognized as similar was, Sheer=Zan is the only hero, in a world where, if anyone has any powers, they are not showing up to help the poor neighborhoods that are caught between gangs and police of varying quality. The secret police are the factor that really complicates Sheer-Zan's vigilante activities. I must admit, Steve Gerber only got two real issues to spotlight Red Guardian, and I know in my heart he thought her Soviet adventures would've been breath taking and thought provoking. Thirty five years later, the revolution's alive in Sheer-Zan: One.
But that, you'll see discussed over on integr8dfix.blogspot.com
Meanwhile, here I am beginning to develop the first two or three tsunami stories for my relief benefit book. I really don't worry much about you reading it, so long as you have donated to Red Cross and keep Japan (and Haiti) in your thoughts. Heck, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and more were hard hit by tsunamis not too many years ago; having a friend from there connected my empathy with their plight. It's true, there's always another disaster, there's always another need, and times are tight. I will give up some of my time and creative energy to do some little bit that might help, as well as to help understanding of a situation that is nearly incomprehensible in its constant presence, in the wet, miserable lives of displaced Japanese citizens even today.
Two dogs' loyal bond inspires one story.
50 brave nuclear factory workers inspire another.
I consider elderly people surviving this days on out to be impressive and interesting.
There was also a baby torn from her mother's arms that is based on a true story, as are all of these.
Anna May Wong, star of Shanghai
But there's one aspect I found today, and how this becomes tied to my fifth choice of story is still mysterious to me. The idea will be based around a Chinese film legend who broke the barrier in Hollywood, while suffering its racial confusion (only to be forgotten in China for decades). The story of Anna May resonates with other tragic Hollywood tales, and leaves me with an idea. I am consulting my Hollywood starlet experts while gleaning my details for this one. It seems appropriate today, as Elizabeth Taylor has passed away.
My tragedy expert number one wrote back with an idea of the story to revolve around sisters. I'll surprise you with the details, but my co-writer excited me greatly. I replied:
never used the word "haunting" above, but you must have ESP.
I was struck by the fact that Elizabeth Taylor survived emotional storms, herself.
Sisters is good because it gets into the idea of people with a similar status in life at the beginning and the choices that differentiate them. It's feminist to me because it addresses how one woman is measured by another, and keeps the spotlight on female characters. The modernization question's been rocking Japan for some time.
I then pitched the story of a Japanese friend who married an American, only to feel obligated to a more traditional, sublimated role, herself, even as a grown woman in America. She really did yearn to be free to be creative and have friends, even *gasp* a guy as a friend. Hand in hand with this however came an alcoholic husband. Modernization brings pain, tradition brings pain---which way will our characters choose to go, and how will they feel about one another as they live their choices? There are, after all, more subtle storms which wreck lives nonetheless, if you will pardon my facile words.
So I wonder if I should reach back 90 years ago to set the stage for how much things have changed? The absence of today's progress, I think, in depiction, strengthens our appreciation for it. yes, this is a great start.
We should do other tragic starlet inspired stories, that's actually something a lot of people would read. A LOT.
I honestly don't know which of these will appear here, first. It may simply be, you will play host to a long discussion of stories that could be written. Actually, I invite you to join me in the odyssey dawn. There will be no bombs, only great stories. We will find them in the process, which I will share as tranparently as possible. I hope it lends an extra layer of meaning to the creative process. I beleive very much in the richness of the creative process, too, in the person reading, echoing words with images and forms uniquely their own.
The refugees will be on my mind, and I don't mind sacrificing my time spent here in relative comfort attempting to fathom the situations of people not myself, but born, like me, and you, and their travels beside the waters of mortality.
First, AngelPrinting's producing the first run in Oceanside. How's $3 for a jumping on price, gang?
Here's a couple of commissions. This was requested as an iron-on shirt, so I'll ink it, too. I was asked to come up with something to represent a recovery anniversary. I frankly saw a painting related to Recovery and adapted a sketch of my own.
We generally do portraits like this, two people, pencils, for $20. Inks are $30. Backgrounds and colors we do for just a bit more ($50 would get you a very pretty piece.)
The world's a complex place. Scott Disick might start a trend because of ironic hipsters embracing his walking stick trend to mock it. Let's not even get into Libya here (ask me, I'll tell no lies). Some things, however, have a seeming eternal simplicity. Even with the recent shift in the Earth's axis, once a year the minutes of darkness grow longer than those of light...and today, as my friend the Magician put it, "the Light begins to have the upper hand for a while in the cosmic game of on and off!"
Let me share another thought involving balance. If you want to compliment someone, you don't have to tear down anyone else in comparison; let it be what it is. You know---to make for the other outright complaints, if nothing else. When you do a good thing to feel good and make others feel good, let it be what it is. You don't have to equivocate it. There's enough wrong in the world. If you put some thought into giving positivity to your friends or even random strangers that pop into your life, you may not always get it back immediately, but you always feel better later as a person for it.
If at all possible, enjoy some outdoors time today. It's really cloudy here, but I know the sun's on the other side of those clouds, and, the perils of pollen season put aside, lots of beautiful things are beginning to take form, where the smell of soil and rain bear their cradle.
So pour your libations, light your candles, and whatever your inclination, may you find a balance today that will support your way! Balance makes more things possible in life, so make those things what you value. Sow your seeds---spring is on the way.
