You know, it ain't that bad. The drumming isn't that retarded sort of "skubbaddaplunkkataduggada" type of nonsense that a lot of prog drummers get off on and there isn't any one lyric that'll make you go "That is the worst ever, why do you write music, you should die", which is a first for a Dream Theater album. If I was asked to smoke a blunt to this album, I think I could do it. And when it comes to progressive metal that's by and large the best you can ask for.

Oh and also here's the first colored page for my comic.



Click to enlarge. Is that shit slick or is that shit SLICK?

Also, I have my first interviews with comic book industry people(three in one day!) on Monday.

Also, I completely nailed the shit out of my World Affairs test.

Also, life is pretty much great at this juncture.


EDITED TO ADD: Also, that album art is totally sweet, it probably clouds my judgment of the actual quality of the music a little.
Totally sweet album art actually biases my opinion a lot more than it should, I'm not even making that up.

HERE IS THAT GODDIDDLYDAMNED COVER



Click to enlarge.

This is a fancy and wonderful development. Hoping to get the first color samples soon, too! A good day for this.

...but, that stated, is it a character sketch?



By Christ, that looks to be the case!

That sumbitch should be arriving in about a week, from my estimation.

Alright, so you know how I posted earlier that I was working for Lance Briggs' comic website? Well, a few days ago I got an email that said they'd like me to do a weekly column. So that's pretty cool, right? I write back, answer a few of their questions, so on and so forth. I'm happy, but I'm not what I'd call excited.

Then, I read this in the next email they send to me:


"Why don't we come up with a schedule of articles for the next couple weeks that would be interesting for you to write?  We thought if you can provide us with a “wish list” of:

1. Comic book writers
2. Comic book creators/artists
3. Upcoming comic books

that you would like to interview, preview or review for these upcoming LCW articles, we can collectively build a contact database and begin outreach, so you can have the resources you need before anyone else to do these articles."

Resources I need. To do these articles.

BEFORE ANYONE ELSE?!?!?

Dudes, that is no small potatoes. I'm about to be a serious comic book journalist AND a serious comic book creator.

That is crazy and rad as FUCK.

I'm expecting the revised cover sometime tonight or tomorrow. If I get it tonight then you can expect to see another post within the next few hours.

Control. It's a movie about Joy Division singer Ian Curtis and how...well, basically how he destroys everything he touches. It's an incredibly fascinating look into a really narcissistic, simple-minded, yet creatively genius person and how he slowly and steadily breaks himself over the course of the movie. Even if you don't care about Ian Curtis, Joy Division or post-punk in general, you will by the end of the movie, trust me. Very sad and incredibly unsettling. I'm still kinda wrecked from this movie.

I now have a letterer and a colorist for my latest comic venture, which means I have an entire creative team lined up. I also just got back from the super-fun wedding of a family friend.

These are all things that make it next to impossible to care about doing my homework. Especially while stoner metal is playing.

I just realized that I didn't say a word to anyone from about 12:30 to 5: 30 today.

I don't really talk anymore. That is so fucked up and awful that it defies words.

Played California Dreamin' by Eddie Hazel and just fucking lost it. I haven't cried this hard in a dog's age.

Somebody help me.

Dan McDaid, the artist for a comic called Jersey Gods, sent me this email a couple hours ago:

"Hey Chris - I just wanted to drop you a line to say I read your review of Jersey Gods 6 the other day, and it made me laugh. Seriously, one of the best - and smartest - reviews I've read of our book. So... thanks!

Cheers,

Dan McDaid"

Hee!

Almost makes me not feel bad that I'm totally going to flunk my World Affairs test tomorrow...

I've written a five page short comic for British sci-fi magazine 2000AD with the intent for them to publish it. I have also started working on my novel, which, I'm sad to say, seems like less of a good idea each time I look at it. I kind of hate my prose, even though I know in the back of my mind it's actually kind of good. That'll be hard to move forward with.

Going to try to hit on hot Italian girl in World Affairs study group. Have not heard from J.C in some time and am growing anxious. And now I review comics for a website run by NFL Bears player Lance Briggs. Bizarre, right? Still, exposure is exposure. Check them out here.

Goddamnit, I love this song so much.

So I hate for this to be the thing that makes me return to being a Mopeingston, but at this juncture: College fucking sucks.

Chances are slim and getting slimmer that I'm going to have a full schedule, which means no financial aid and no housing. The commute is starting to wear on me-a lot of people commute a lot farther and longer, I know, but 100 minutes of wasted time a day is still way too much for me and the monotony is something I'm between getting used to and truly understanding how fucking terrible the world's transport system is structured-a couple weeks ago the BART broke down for two hours total, once before it got to my station and then for another hour at the Powell St. Station.

Things that compound this is that I still have an embarassingly large problem with approaching girls I have an interest in-I usually hang out in the general area for a few minutes, then chicken out or fabricate some reason to leave and by the time I come back, she's gone. It makes me feel like a fucking creep and a child and it's one of the things I most hate about myself.

Compound that with the fact that I haven't seen any new art coming from my comic in going on a month, and I think the real problem is that I just feel fucking useless. There's nothing I'm working towards-two out of my three classes are ones I enjoy, but it's two parts of what should be a four part whole and until it becomes complete the whole venture just feels like I'm twiddling my thumbs. I come home too tired to write most days and speaking of too tired and no time, I miss my friends. Stuart and Aisha are on the East Coast and Hilary's going to be going a million miles south by Saturday, and we probably won't have an opportunity to see each other again before that. Jack is already in SoCal. All my younger friends are busy with high school on the weekends and since I suck at making new friends in a large setting, I'm starting to feel like my ipod and my books are the only things I have to keep me sane these days, which in turn makes me feel like a fucking tool.

It's been a momentously shitty past few weeks. I can only pray that they get better. But only a jackass says "things can't get any worse".

Something by Steven King that wasn't terrible:



This sumbitch is LONG, if you read the "Uncut and Expanded" edition, but it's actually pretty wonderful. King himself describes it as "The Lord of the Rings but with an American setting", but I don't know that that's quite accurate. The overall feel of the book is a bit more Narnia-esque, in the way it hits you over the head with Christian overtones(at least near the end). Essentially, it starts out as a biological horror novel and turns into Christian fantasy at the end. It's DECENT Christian Fantasy, to be sure, but it's not quite as gripping as it was at the beginning and middle.

Still, the real strength of the book lies more in the characters, not so much the plot. It's a very classic "good versus evil" kind of book, and the way each character gains dimensions and personality as the book trucks along-and the book DOES truck along, at nearly 1200 pages-really makes it so that you become invested in what happens to them...making it so that when inevitably terrible things happen to the good guys, and even sometimes the bad guys, it affects you that much more, since at the end of this longass book, you kind of feel like you've made the journey with them.

Essentially, the book is about a biologically manufactured disease called Captain Trips that kills the vast, vast majority of the human population. The story tracks the tales of the scattered survivors who become...decidedly LESS scattered as the book goes on. And I won't spoil any more. If you have a billion free years to read it, I'd recommend it pretty highly-it's a great time waster and you might even find yourself feeling something by the time it's done.

It's good. Good as hell. It's a great adventure book with moments of sadness that knock you over the head. Wonderful, memorable characters and the language of the writing is just fantastic. It's long as balls-about 950 pages-but it goes by really, really fast. You should read this.

THIS IS TOO SAD

Got the finalized hi-res art from my artist for my project.

...I can't post them here because they're apparently not in a supported format or somesuch crap, but just trust me, they look really fucking good. Now all I need to do is pay the man. I will have no problem doing this.

*both of us putting a George Foreman grill away, having trouble*

MOM: I love you, George, but you're just too big.

ME: That's what she said!

BOTH: OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

A+.

I would like something to happen, very much so.

I finished scripting Issue #2 of Project Codename Bear, so that was something. I did meet up with my awesome Walnut Creek friend for the first time in a bazillion years a few days ago, and she's still a bundle of fun.

As for right now, I'm listening to a song by a band called Sleep. The name of this song is "Dopesmoker". It is 64 minutes long, is largely the same guitar riff repeated over and over, and chronicles the exodus of "the Weedian people" to "the riff-filled land". There's something in here about Zion, Israel, the river Jordan, a Marijuanat, and something called "the creed of the Hasheeshian". I'm 40 minutes into the damn thing. It's epically retarded and I honestly kind of love it.

Wish there was more to report.

“I don’t care about geeks, you know? Geeks shouldn’t be given power. When geeks get power, you get Hitler. There’s a lot of weird and angry geeks out there. But what (a comic book movie) does is it opens up comics as a medium. It stops being geekish. There’s comic books for everyone. There’s comic books for women, there’s comic books for kids, there’s comic books for teenage Goths. That is the important thing that movies are doing.”

-Grant Morrison

Walked around Berkeley with Hilary for a while. Was fun/a decent way to get out of the house and kill a few hours. An old lady on the street started making fun of the way I talk. I promptly flipped her the bird. Giving the middle finger to an elderly woman is something that everyone should try at LEAST once.

Just listened/am listening to "Sabbath Bloody Sabbath" by Black Sabbath(of course). Interesting-not sure how I feel about it yet. The pianos, horns and strings were a new thing for them, and they almost strike me as being intrusive, sometimes. Still, they work really well for a lot of the songs, including the title track and "A National Acrobat" for what little time they show up in. Also, it's a CD that was reprinted in the early '90s, so you have to turn it up WAY loud to make it even listenable, which is always kind of obnoxious.

One thing I'm NOT on the fence about is the cover art, which is just completely gorgeous.



Snaps!

These inks are not finished yet.

However:




Something worth mentioning: I didn't even ASK for the pipe to be included on that snooty old dude. In retrospect, a snooty old guy and a pipe fit together incredibly well. 

I'm pretty much jazzed as fucking CRAP.