I know I've been going on and on about my New Zealand trip, and I swear this will be my last blog about it. I put together a 3-4 minute video and have put it on my vacation photos link to the right or you can see the video, as well as my still photos, HERE.  To see the photos, click on the words Photo, Photos 2 or 3. For the video, click on New Zealand April. I hope you enjoy them.

Labels: New Zealand Video

This is to give everyone a head's up. I've written an episode for the new Speed Racer, The Next Generation TV show now on the air and my episode, entitled "Be Cruel To Your School" airs this coming Friday, May 16th, on Nicktoons. Check your local listing for time and channel number.

Labels: Speed Racer The Next Generation

As I'm sure many of you know by now, artist Gene Colan is ill. I worked with Gene for many years, starting with a story for Tower of Shadows, then Tomb of Dracula, Night Force, Curse of Dracula, Goofy (yes, Goofy!) and most recently a story for The Simpsons. Every job Gene did was not only wonderfully illustrated, but brilliantly told. Gene is a master craftsman.

But then I knew that long before Gene and I worked together. I was a fan of his when he was drawing at Warren Magazines, then a fan of this Iron Man artist I never heard of whose credit was Adam Austin, because Gene, who was working at DC, wasn't supposed to be working at Marvel, too. Gene just drew better than anyone else and his unique style popped off the page.

Gene's art has always been singular in comics. You see hundreds of Kirby imitators, lots of Buscema clones, those who try to mimic Jim Lee or name an artist, but nobody has ever tried to copy Gene's work, because it's truly unique in so many, many ways. You can always tell when Gene draws a page. His characters have personality, emotion, and somehow when you look at them, you feel they have a past as well. They are people who have lived. Who have weight and gravitas. His work on Tomb of Dracula among others is filled with human emotion. His characters appear to be photographic, but what makes Gene special is they aren't. They are so real but at the same time they are a pure artist's vision. I've talked in the past about a scene I remember reading when I was just a fan of Gene's before we worked together. I can't tell you which book it was in, but the drawings has always stuck in my mind. Gene did a photo-realistic version of a car speeding through the city. At least it looked photo-realistic until you truly analyzed it. To give the car a sense of speed, the car was not only driving off the pavement but the metal of the car was actually bent in a way that made it seem it was speeding faster than you can imagine. Yet, again, when you looked at it it seemed like a piece of beautiful advertising illustration. Gene is an illustrator as well as a cartoonist. He is an artist who made you feel that what you saw was 100% real, but to achieve that effect he bent physics to his whim.

Every month when we worked together on Tomb of Dracula or later Night Force or Curse of Dracula, or whatever, Gene would call me after he received the plot or script and ask questions about the story. He was involved and he cared about making the story work as best he could. The wonder of Gene's magic is that every time I did a story with him, it looked so much better than I ever could have imagined.

As an artist Gene has always been truly special. But even more importantly, Gene is a great person, humble, and open to everyone who comes by his convention table. Behind the scenes Gene is the same. As I said above, we spoke all the time whenever we worked together, and Gene's friendship as well as his commitment to his work is unparalleled.

Gene has enriched all our lives with his incredible body of work, now let's return the favor and give him all our very best wishes.

Labels: Gene Colan

My sphincter tightened so hard my eyeballs got sucked in.

Labels: A Walk An The Park

Barack Obama has been on an amazing trajectory for someone who was barely known two years ago. I voted for him in the California primaries basically because although his policies and Hillary's were pretty much identical I didn't care for Hillary's nasty campaign tactics. I've been hoping for a candidate to take the high road for decades now, and for the most part Obama seems to have done so. But this blog isn't about him. It's about his campaign.

The Clintons have been in politics for decades. I voted twice for Bill and would do so again if it were legal to do so. They have perfected a great machine, as all politicians have to do in order to get nominated let alone elected. What I'd like to know is how Obama created his machine. How did a relative unknown junior Senator put together such a strong and focused group that could work so successfully on a National election with such finesse. Back in the past we used to have books after each Presidential election which were titled, "The Making of the Presidency, (add year)". I would be fascinated to read about this campaign. In this day where the internet rules, where you need millions to even think of declaring yourself a candidate, where every moment of your life is instantly put on the net for all to see your mistakes, where the 24/7 news cycle takes apart every clause of every sentence you utter, how did Obama make it over the seasoned politicians with decades of campaign successes? Giving a message of hope isn't enough. There needs to be expert backdoor politics going on, and I'd love to learn about that. To me that would be a fascinating story to read, and I hope someone with some inside knowledge does it.

Labels: 2008, The Making Of The Presidency

A quick note to remind everyone that DC Special: RAVEN 3 is on sale this week. I am extremely pleased with the story and would love to get some feedback on it.

Labels: Raven #3

Well, Iron Man the movie is breaking box office records in many ways and destroying all the pundits who swore it would do no more than 40 mil, proving once more that William Goldman was right, nobody knows anything. Robert Downy Jr. is the movie in every possible way and every moment he's on screen it comes alive. The direction is near perfect and the script is wonderful. I do have severe problems with the final fight scene - it is reduced to a senseless battle that has no set up or logic attached - but aside from that, and it's actually a fairly small thing - the movie is really good. Some have said it's the best super-hero comics movie yet, but I think that still goes to a tie between Spider-Man 2 and Batman Begins. Still, Iron Man is very, very close to the top of the list.

I've been catching up with all the TV I missed while in New Zealand. My Slingbox was working so I could have watched everything I TiVoed from there, but the internet rates in one of my hotels was, no joke - $2.50 a minute. And NZ's internet speed isn't up to snuff, either, so there was little buffering which resulted in a choppy look. But ultimately it wasn't worth that much to catch up on that night's Daily Show. I used my Treo to get my email and I went to internet cafes which were only $3.00 for an hour for my regular internet surfing, so I kept up on friend's blogs as well as the news. At any rate I'm mostly caught up.

Now I'm fully back to work and cutting my New Zealand video on iMovie in my spare time. I've always said wonderful things about Apple, and their inclusion of iMovie in their OS is one of them, but now I can actually say something bad about them, too. I've upgraded my OS to whatever the animal of the day is and also picked up their new iLife 2008 which upgrades my iWeb, iPhoto, iMovie and my iDon'trememberwhatelse software. But the new iMovie, although it looks better than the old one I used, is actually inferior in most ways. What's worse is that in this paid version Apple actually took away some of the best features that they gave you free before. In the previous iMovie, which cost nothing, they had an entire video effects suite of programs that let you do all manner of things with special EFX, including reversing the video, speeding it up or slowing it down, etc. That's gone. They also had something called themes which let you create a special look to the opening of your movie. That's gone, too.

At first I thought I just couldn't find it, but I went on Apple's iMovie board and asked where it was hiding. Within minutes I was told everything I had been looking for was removed. But I couldn't believe it so I went to my local Apple store and said, say it ain't so, Joe. But, sadly, it was. Why would they remove programs from their paid version when they already had them in their free one? So as I edit my video I am using my old iMovie, but I'm grumbling that in this case at least Apple made a big, big mistake.

Labels: Apples, etc., Iron Man

While I put together my video, I've been trying to figure out how to put up on the web all the really cool pictures I took in New Zealand then I realized my Mac already can do that. When you buy something called .Mac you get a load of goodies. One of them is iWeb which gives you a website I've never needed to use because I have this one. Another is the ability to create slideshows on that website. So I've now uploaded all the photos to my iWeb site (to save bandwidth on this one). I had to split up the photos over three pages, but you can easily navigate through them (ease is something Mac does better than anyone). To see my photo slideshow CLICK HERE. Then when you have time go to page two and page three. The photos last on screen about five seconds. As far as I know I can't speed them up any faster. If you prefer, however, you can double-click on the small photos and they will get large enough for you to see. I hope you enjoy them. Let me know, okay?

Labels: New Zealand Photos

I'm home, jetlagged and tired. Soon as I can open my eyes for more than a few hours, I'll blog again. You've been warned.

Labels: Home

With Wellington behind and me safely ensconced in my hotel, I met with Jason Brice of Comics Bulletin for a great tour of the city as well the surrounding hillside and down and around a lovely volcano. We stopped at a very nice restaurant situated atop the volcano allowing most incredible views, and we both had a meat pie lunch, an inexpensive but tasty (and very fattening, I'm told) delicacy I first came across in Australia and really came to like. They are sort of like very small pot pies but are made with all manner of different meats, veggies, etc.

Labels: Christchurch