I have had no less than three motivations to plunge into what remains of our history here on this blog and as Integr8d Soul, creatively-speaking.
One: When now-new Mom Mo Medina, as President of the Rome Art Coterie, invited me to be their speaker on the topic Making Comics, I began compiling a slide show revisiting the greatest influences in the history of American and Japanese comics, and the ingredients behind our own genesis as creators, featuring Danger Bot and the world of Sunstrike, two of our biggest front burner projects, one in comics (our first Manga) and one in prose (our first science fiction novel). Once I figure out how best to achieve the voice overs for the middle section, my seventy minute DVD will be ready for limited distribution, and I hope it can become a presentation at future conventions.
Two: When TJ died, I spent a lot of time reflecting in the spirit of the man, and realized this was a sign to collect the first volume of these writings, as requested before by those who want a nice, pulpy book instead of columns on a screen. Now I could dedicate the book to the one reader for whom I began writing these, and also, dedicate it to a new life beginning, my friends Mo and Hai's baby girl Penelope. Dedication to the rich history and the future wide open still ahead.
Three: Eager for the trial by fire of making their own movie, while brainstorming for a strong hook, our friends here in Rome discussed how much fun Angela and I have brought to their friends' lives by simply showing all you need is the love of what you make (and when you can imagine for whom it's made, the energy's always there), so they should let nothing paralyze the rich inner lives they, too, foster. At worst, you're gonna die, anyway, and you don't really know when! Why ridicule your own need to create, when you can always find out why do it at all as you go along. So, they got a project in mind, figuring it would remain inspirational enough to them to see it clearly from its end and speak to every one of us who want to create our own pieces of culture, no matter what cares the world. The announcement of that project can be found here for the first time publicly at the end of my final page for Be Chill Volume One. I hear it's a cool engagement you can make with the reader, to show them a little of the cat behind the doing of this thing.
SO:
About the Author
Cecil Disharoon, Jr. freelanced for the Crimson & White campus newspaper while on Presidential Scholarship to the University of Alabama. As Creative Director of Tuscaloosa's Planet Weekly under Sean Johnson, Cecil began writing in his personable style for feature articles, including the humorous science column, Ask Dr. Chickenhead. His wife Angela's poems inspired him to write songs again, and the next several years went towards writing mostly songs, several complete chapters, and short stories. He probably graduated, too.
In 2005, the Disharoons took a chance on a shoestring budget and two Greyhound tickets. They made a new life for themselves in San Diego, California, where the duo performed and recorded as Integr8d Soul. In 2012, they began playing parties as Soul Rocket Ba-Doom, first an Elton John cover project, which later focused on Anime theme songs, in an atttempt to perform for cosplay and comics conventions anywhere. Integr8dsoul can be found on Reverbnation.com and Bandcamp.com, as well as Facebook, Google Sites, and live Internet broadcasts.
After years of home made coloring book stories and mini-comics, Cecil's youthful love of comic books awakened in new efforts. Their first Not Another Comic Book was drawn and presented to kind creative professionals in 2007, leading to self-printed, locally sold mini-comics and a full-sized Not Another Comic Book in 2008, inspired by the city's famous International Comic Con, hosted in their downtown neighborhood. Cecil decided to somehow progress, albeit more slowly, with music, comics, and more writing. The blog he began for his childhood friends focused on life in California from a very personal inner perspective, his creative projects, the local artists and occasions he and Angela attended. Integr8d Fix was his concurrent blog with several pastiche stories intended to work out aspects of his unfinished novel Tranz, and finally write full stories with many of his childhood favorite characters. This evolved into reviews of interesting runs of American comics and a brief retrospective on some of Japanese animation's monuments. He also shared their beginner drawing struggles & tips, and the progress of Integr8dsoul.
In 2009 the Disharoons created Happy Surprise and the Search For Complete Disappearland, a surreal and inventive children's story featuring characters from Mysti Hazel's Garden, a recurrent setting in their broader fictional universe. In 2012 they assembled the first volume of Kat's Electric Thieves, a collection of eighteen erotic short stories, later expanded with new material and a frame narrative that gives each story an individual character author, writing for the other two. Before leaving their adopted city, in the summer of 2013, Cecil finally achieved the novel he'd wanted to write for eighteen years with I'd Go Anywhere With You, based on the feelings and times at the beginning of his relationship with Angela, as an indie-film style romance novel, published May 5, 2014, the anniversary of their arrival in California.
At the time of this fourth book, while re-visiting Georgia, the Disharoons became the subject of a film documentary, Anywhere With You, directed by Jeremy Justice and Mary de Mesquita.
The Facebook page for the movie:
https://www.facebook.com/Anywhere-With-You-1505369263117482/
Bridge painting on our cover created by Mario Torero, pictured above on the right, and is featured in Chicano Park, San Diego, California.
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