Post-Traumatic Tech Disorder

Yay! I can finally update my site again (minor technical issues).

This last weekend, I had a table at the Lone Star Comic Show and met a lot of great people. For Free Comic Book Day at the con, I gave out copies of Digital Webbing Presents #8 with my 5-page Dungeon Bears: An 80s Parody story inside. I spent a lot of time talking with some local creators from the Houston area, reviewing some portfolios, and chatting with the people from Half-Ass Publishing that were pushing their first book, Some Big Lumberjack. Overall, a fun little show…I’m gonna try to get to the one in September (so, WizardWorld Chicago in August, Lone Star Show in September, the Austin Film Festival in October, and WizardWorld Texas in November…looks like it’ll be a busy end of the year).

And one last note…if you notice anything odd with the web pages over the next few weeks…well, I’m trying to redo sections of the site (so it’s probably just me screwing things up). ^_^

Headed up to the Dallas Comicon 2.0 this weekend just to meet people. George over at Herorealm.com helped hook me up with a guest pass and so far the con’s been a lot of fun. I’ll work on writing up a more in-depth coverage on the con when I get home tomorrow.

Also, I’ve seen some great work from some artists that have used my 3x3x3 scripts for their portfolios. Scott Story who did a great job on the Arazel & Xarenia story in Digital Webbing Presents #6 tackled my Iron Man script…you can see the great job he did on it here under the Iron Man test plot. Also, Sengkry Chhour did some nice work on the Spider-Man script. You can see those pages here. Now I mentioned to Sengkry that I’d get some CrossGen 3x3x3 scripts up on the site, so I’m going to work on getting those updated to the site this week (along with a few others).

And tomorrow, I’ll probably catch up on getting archived articles from my Breaking Out! column loaded into the database.

Well, Digital Webbing Presents #6 made it onto the comic store shelves this week…at least it made it out to some of them. Looks like the shipping got messed up on them, so a lot of places won’t get the book until next Thursday. But if you did manage to get a copy of it this week, there’s a 6 page story written by me and illustrated by Scott Story called Arazel & Xarenia. I’m also involved with a few other stories that have been accepted for the anthology (including a second Arazel & Xarenia story in June with artwork by Deon Nuckols), so keep an eye out for them. Also keep an eye on Digital Webbing Press as they prepare to release a bunch of creator-owned titles under their imprint next year. Yay small press!

Well, time for an update. I managed to get up to Mid-Ohio Con last weekend, and that turned out to be a lot of fun. I met lots of great people (indy/small press creators, professional creators, and fans), helped out at the Digital Webbing table and even got my “Breaking Out!” newsletter into the hands of a few aspiring creators (a newsletter on submitting to companies and getting your name out there…it also has a list of 32 small press/indy publishers that accept submissions from creators). The Laughing Ogre pre-con party was great…food, drinks, live music, and lots of great company and it led perfectly into a weekend that was exciting and (aside from some hangovers) charged with enthusiasm and energy. Even though it’s not quite as big as the other cons, it was well worth the experience.

As for the site, I had planned on finishing up the coding for my new comic script pages while I was up there, but I wound up not having internet access…but I did get it finished today (so check it out). As I get more features coded into it, you’ll see more stuff added (like the characters, synopsis, and all the extra sections), but for now, it’s functional and you can read some of my sample scripts (more of which will be added soon).

Well, last weekend I attended the Austin Film Festival and Screenwriters Conference, and it was a blast. One of the more interesting things I overheard there was a group of people sitting at a table one night in the Driskill Hotel brainstorming on which comic book character would make a great movie (and discussing comic book movies in the works or already out there). It was fun to listen to…especially since they were pretty damn knowledgeable in comics (it was apparent that most of them read comics regularly). I chatted with a bunch of people at the festival and when they asked what I do, everyone seemed to perk up when I mentioned that I do some comic book writing (that was kind of neat…some even showed some interest in seeing DWP #6 when it comes out). There were tons of people from L.A. out here for this, and I was amazed at how friendly and encouraging everyone was.

 And there was lots of fun stuff at the screenwriter’s conference portion of it…went to a science fiction movie writing panel and met Robert Gordon (writer for Galaxy Quest), Bill Broyles (writer for Apollo 13, Castaway, Planet of the Apes), and Lem Dobbs (writer for Dark City). Also attended a roundtable discussion with Adam Beechen (freelance writer for X-Men: Evolution, Jackie Chan Adventures, Static Shock, and the upcoming Teen Titans cartoon). Also got to attend a craft session on dialogue presented by Scott Rosenberg (Things to Do in Denver When You’re Dead, Beautiful Girls, Con Air, Gone in 60 Seconds, High Fidelity) and moderated by Chad Oman (president of production for Jerry Bruckheimer Films)–this was both informative and entertaining (lots of good laughs during that session). I also got to attend a panel on comedic writing with Robert Gordon, Jessica Beddinger (Bring it On, Sex & the City), and Ed Solomon (Men in Black, Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, Garry Shandling show and Laverne and Shirley), an informal meet and greet with Shane Black (Lethal Weapon, The Last Boy Scout, The Long Kiss Goodnight) and John Lee Hancock (Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, The Rookie[director]), and a great panel on finding an agent. Overall, I learned a lot and met some great people…and hopefully, I’ll have some screenwriting samples to put up on the site in the future.

Well, a preview of Digital Webbing Presents #6 is available. It will be listed in the Previews guide that comes out on September 25th and will show up on the shelves in December (alongside another good book featuring Gutwallow, that cute little gingerbread man fantasy adventurer). I have a six page story called Arazel & Xarenia with artwork by the talented Scott Story. My Arazel & Xarenia stories (yes, plural…there will be more) are based on a common theme–one part fantasy adventure mixed with three parts Murphy’s Law. Artist Deon Nuckols recently finished the pencils on a second story with the two Elven girls, and he’s also working on another of my short stories called Bob the Battleship.

Well, over at iUniverse, the Grimoire de Solace is showing up as being available for ordering. My short story, Staelwierthe Souls, lies amongst those pages as well as stories from 14 other writers…including Chris Kirby’s story, Extinction.

Chris and Steven O’Connell (that great letterer I’ve mentioned before) had stories featured in the comic book anthology, Digital Webbing Presents #3, this month (and you can check out Steven’s lettering in Chaos! Comics, Lady Death, Re-Imagined that also hit the shelves this month).

Keep an eye out for those two…hopefully, you’ll be seeing some more stuff from them in the future.