WHERE IS MY LOVE?

I am alive, yes.

But, as Madman says...

Hopefully Mr. Allred will forgive me for leaking this frontispiece from Madman Atomic Comics #7, out in March.

Anyway, point is...if I am quiet, I am working. I have no manga deadlines this week and delivered two of my own scripts to artists yesterday (Tally, Mike Holmes), so that means this week is entirely prose. Utterly prose. Indubitably prose.

Of course, now that I say I will be silent, chances are I'll suddenly have a flurry of posts, and then someone will give me a hard time for posting so much, even though when I don't post I also get a hard time. You people are never happy.

Current Soundtrack: all things Cat Power

Current Mood: ambitious

DEATH IS NOT THE END

Today is not the day I kill myself...but one day. Perchance to dream?

Nah, but, I got this text today. Let me quote it for you:

"U r neglecting ur blog...oh ur soooo busy..."

Yeah, nice command of the language there. It's funny, because if I use one word the wrong way, people are like, "Ohhhh, you're a writer. And you would talk so ingrammatically?" [sic] Then I get texts like that. It's why I hate people.

I kid. Chances are, I'll be drinking with the person who sent that this weekend, and that person was probably drunk when she texted. It was 1:43 in the afternoon, so she was likely up for about half-an-hour or so, and so was likely two drinks into being three sheets to the wind, complaining about my life of leisure. When I see her, I'll remind her how much she pays to read this blog, including the hilarious tales of humiliation I relate from my actual life, and that will be the end of that.

But, yes, I have neglected my blog. I have thought about things to post, but most of those things would be just like this: posting for the sake of posting, which regular Confessors know I try to never do. I actually have been busy, and it's just not the kind of busy that relates to sharing it with the world.

I actually wanted to post on Monday one of my "Current Workload" posts, but the sad truth is that most of the manga I work on hasn't been announced when I am working on it and so I can't tell you the new title I worked on Monday and Tuesday. I was a machine. I worked until 1:30 a.m., went to bed, got up at 8:30 on Tuesday, and was done by 11:00 a.m. But you won't see the fruits of that fruity labor for at least six months. (My deadline isn't even until February 4.)

There are also exciting things happening in my own writing, including something that blows the hell out of Taking Fish Creek to Fun City and a new addition to the comics team, all of which will come in due time.

Until then, at least someone respects me. So, we'll postpone the inevitable at least for a short while. My neighbors need not brace themselves for that stinky corpse smell quite yet.



Current Soundtrack: The Killers, Sawdust

Current Mood: fuck you, and fuck your mother

e-mail = golightly at confessions123.com * Criterion Confessions * Live Journal Syndication * My Corporate-Owned Space * ComicSpace * Last FM * GoodReads * The Blog Roll * DVDTalk reviews * My Books On Amazon

All text (c) 2007 Jamie S. Rich

A WINTER'S DAY, IN A DEEP AND DARK DECEMBER

Busy, busy, busy.

* Yesterday was a 3,000 word day, which is like, super fantastic. Today is less of a word count day, but more like pushing different pieces around. The people taking Fish Creek are getting closer to Fun City, at the very least. (Not sure why I made the tag "chocolate city," but I'm keeping it, like Elliot keeping E.T.)

* Monday I finished proofing Princess at Midnight for Andi Watson. Preorder it. (Glister #3 should be due in a week or two.)

* I'm giving this lady's unpublished novel a read when I can, too.

* Catching up on reviews in the post Seinfeld deluge. Expect many links in a day or two.

* J. Torres and my lovely Udon editor Hye-Young Im have had their baby. I really don't understand this whole "baby" thing, and a world where J. Torres is allowed to spawn is a world where science has gone too far, but congratulations to them all the same! (Particular kudos to Young, who not only is the one to have given birth, but she also managed to give her son a cool name, when I am sure J. wanted to name him something geeky like "Goku" or "Grayson" or "Mike Norton." Lysander is a pretty awesome handle, I must say.)

* Prediction! Best horror movie of 2008 will be...



Somewhere Ian Shaughnesexxxy is wondering just what it is women have down there that is so scary.

Current Soundtrack: Natalie Imbruglia, Glorious: The Singles 97-07

Current Mood: creative

e-mail = golightly at confessions123.com * Criterion Confessions * Live Journal Syndication * My Corporate-Owned Space * ComicSpace * Last FM * GoodReads * The Blog Roll * DVDTalk reviews * My Books On Amazon

All text (c) 2007 Jamie S. Rich

DARLING, WE GO A-DROWNING, DOWN WE GO AWAY

or

GOOD MORNING, COMRADES, THERE'S WORK TO BE DONE

So, I'm not sure if it's a good or a bad thing that I don't update the blog unless I actually have something to say. I'm not a person who sees the value in this new Twitter site, for instance. Celebrating the ephemera of my everyday life seems to me the sort of behavior that will eventually cause one to draw elaborate maps of imaginary nations on the walls of one's apartment with crayons, spaghetti sauce, and feces. While it's a safe bet I'll end up there one day anyway, I don't see the purpose in hurrying it along.

I'm also not sure I should be breaking this string of posts full of links and whatnot just to say, "I've got nothing to say, but I feel guilty giving you nothing but links and reviews and commercials, so I'm going to let you know it's nothing personal." It's either ironic, or the whole apology is disingenuous, I'm not sure which. Can we just leave it at "I've been thinking about you" and not worry too much about what that means?

The thing is, I have been working. Over the last couple of weeks I finished up two manga volumes, wrote a longer outline for something I've been pitching, and started the early stages of a couple of other ideas, putting some stuff on paper (or screen) to see how the chips fell. Taking Fish Creek to Fun City is turning into something surreal, almost dadaist, and I don't know that I like it, but it makes for a nice counterbalance to the very straightforward part of my brain that I have to use to ferret out review venues for Have You Seen the Horizon Lately?--which I now sit back and patiently wait to see what percentage of the people who we've sent the book to actually say something about it. Good or bad.

The result of this is that I've been in a pretty interior place. My days are spent thinking, staring, scribbling, and everything that is in my brainspace ends up in these things, and thus, no outside trains of thought to load into this station.

Never fear, though, as life ebbs and flows, and things will change.

Unless you prefer it when I shut up. In which case, enjoy it while it lasts.

Current Soundtrack: Manic Street Preachers, "Autumnsong" B-sides

Current Mood: creating

e-mail = golightly at confessions123.com * The Website * Live Journal Syndication * My Corporate-Owned Space * ComicSpace * Last FM * GoodReads * The Blog Roll * DVDTalk reviews * My Books On Amazon

All text (c) 2007 Jamie S. Rich

I'LL NEVER BE THAT OLD AND FLABBY

After the Platform Festival the previous week, my social battery wasn't sufficiently recharged for a party to say farewell to Scott McCloud and the karaoke event on Tuesday, much less the release party for Douglas Wolk's new book, Reading Comics, and Jeremy Tinder's new comic, Black Ghost Apple Factory at Floating World on Thursday, which lead into too much drinking and a very late night. I did them anyway, I just did them on fumes. This meant I was looking to the very awesome barbecue at Matt Wagner's house Friday night to be the capper to two weeks of being active, being out, being about.

Of course, silly me, what does this mean I spend a lot of Saturday and Sunday doing? Working! And not just working, but instead of writing the proposal for an original comic book series I am pitching to Ben Abernathy at Wildstorm, I go ahead and write the first issue instead and only then do I write the actual proposal. Quel backwards! I'm just a bit nuts that way, but I had fun doing it. I would tell you the title, but it's just a provisional one right now, and it's a not very good pun. Joëlle co-created it, and I don't want the lame name haunting her even more than I want it haunting me. Even so, the book could be pretty fun.

Anyway, that's gotten pretty well squared, and I've also been working on notes for the next prose novel--a very strange thing called Taking Fish Creek to Fun City, a title taken from a Texas billboard, and I can't even begin to describe the book, but the title accurately expresses just how off-base it is. We shall see.

KARAOKE WATCH!

Mason called late in the evening and invited me to an impromptu karaoke session at the Green Room, which Jacquelene Cohen, formerly of Top Shelf and now at Dark Horse, was also to be attending. I decided that despite the fact that I swore I would not go out (and my wallet begged me not to), I would pop in for this. And so I did.

For those keeping score, Jacq did Patsy Cline's "Crazy," while Mason performed an encore of "Cuban Pete" alongside "All That Jazz" from Chicago. The pub's awesome bartender, Trixie, also showed everyone how it was done, belting out Aerosmith's "Dream On," high-pitched screaming and all, while still pouring beers. Nice.

For my part, I finally did an Everlasting anthem, "Half Heaven-Half Heartache," as immortalized by Gene Pitney. I think I like crooning the Pitney tunes, and his style suits me.

Much shakier was my long dreamed-of take on "Don't Marry Her" by the Beautiful South. It was as fun to sing as I imagined--you can't go wrong with a chorus like "don't marry her, fuck me"--but the backing track made it hard. The shift in melody and key in the bridges kept messing me up, because I couldn't hear the music and so I would lose the plot completely.

Still, a few more workouts with it, and it could be a regular. I'm thinking it might be time to dig into the back catalogue, though. I haven't done any Pulp or Christina Aguilera in a while.

The whole night was worth it, though, for when the KJ twisted Jacq's name to something so wrong, it will go down in infamy. She completely freaked out at the prospect of my telling it to you here, so I will withhold this info for now. Buy me a drink, though, and this pearl of information is yours. Or I may tell Scott Morse, which is the easiest way to make sure a nickname spreads. Jacq had better be nice to me. Stop calling me creepy!

Current Soundtrack: The Indelicates, "New Art for the People/The Last Significant Statement To Be Made In Rock'n'Roll/We Hate the Kids;" Jarvis Cocker, "Don't Let Him Waste Your Time;" Ennio Morricone, "Come Giulietta e Romeo (La Cosa Buffa);" Peter, Bjorn & John, "Objects of My Affection;" Nico Fidenco, "Arabian Evasion Theme (Emanuelle In Bangkok);" Serge Gainsbourg, "Cargo Culte"

Current Mood: done

e-mail = golightly at confessions123.com * The Website * Live Journal Syndication * My Corporate-Owned Space * ComicSpace * Last FM * The Blog Roll * DVDTalk reviews * My Books On Amazon

All text (c) 2007 Jamie S. Rich