New Skateboard Heroes Pages!
Looking for some more kickin’ Skateboard Heroes comics? New pages available now at www.SkateboardHeroes.com. Check it out!
NYCC12 Part Two
It’s New York Comic Con 2012. Going on right now through Sunday at Javits. Ohhhhhhhhh yeah!
The Search Is On
Some people spend their time on the Interwebs searching for nutritional information or dirty pictures. Me, I spend my time looking up the bibliographies of Comic creators. Can you guess why? Mostly because I want to find out if I have adequate goodies for signing by those very same creators when we meet up in the real world. So your query might be “panty mice” or “low carb tuna casserole” or “accountant raleigh,” but mine is “Howard Chaykin Black Kiss” or “Klaus Janson Inks.”
Excelsior!
Cosplay
I find cosplay particularly interesting. If you don’t know what that is, I forgive you. While not a new concept in and of itself, the term has really only flowered in the last few years. It’s a sort of butchered compound word – Costume Play. Something like that. And while it may sound a little kinky, that’s not it. At least, kinky is only an aspect. Cosplay is what you call it (nowadays) when people dress up as characters from movies or comics or video games or young adult novels and go to public events like, oh I don’t know… NYCC12. So slap on the ol’ raypak and wig, we got some superhero/Hunger Games/Mario Bros./Walking Dead fun to get on with.
NYCC12
Look at the title of this post. Is it meaningful to you? Give it a moment. It may not just spring to mind… and that’s okay. But really, it shouldn’t take too long. It’s something I’m ridiculously excited about. It’s happening now and through the weekend. Got it yet?
Scouting Again
Another school year means another year of scouting. This year I’ll be running the Wolf Den, second graders ready to be.. well, prepared. I’ve been looking for activities that complement the standard scouting requirements and keep the kids earning badges and pins and belt loops. I still need to avoid wood craft, at least as far as whittling for a while. I think they are allowed to earn their whittling chips this year, and that allows scouts to carry pocket knives into camp and at meetings. There are serious requirements, however, and we’ll be putting that off for a while.
I was thinking about leather craft. There’s so much fun stuff you can do, though the kits aren’t particularly cheap. Then there’s all the tooling and dyeing and such. That’s right. Did you know you can dye leather? I mean, well yeah, I guess that’s obvious once you’ve seen a pair of purple leather pants on an 80s glam rocker. But who would have thought it was a more or less common DIY craft type thing. Maybe you. Certainly not me.
I’ve resolved to do some easier beading stuff in the beginning. I found some great beaded snake key rings for cheap. And I got some paracord kits that show you how to tie those cool knotted paracord bracelets that have become all the rage. The kits even include little plastic buckles, so these kids are going to be seriously styling.
Return of the Heroes
Yes, friends, we got a little side tracked by Mad Science The Card Game, but we wanted to let you know that Skateboard Heroes is back on track. Art is more or less complete on the remainder of the first issue in the new story arc. Layouts are about halfway there and then we just have to do the lettering. There’s a big Dr. Inferno page, and his dialogue always takes a while to letter to a properly menacing degree (and in such a way that it is still legible in black and white) but we should still be ready in the next week or so.
Yeah baby!
Auto Toon
Okay, let me clarify a little. My last post should not indicate to you a total lack of top recording software. In fact, I have a pretty tidy little studio with plenty of appropriate bells and whistles – if not all of contemporary music production’s proposed finery. After all, some of the best recordings ever of some of the greatest tunes conceivable were recorded in a single session with a couple mics. All the pitch correction in the world ain’t gonna make a lousy singer with a hackneyed song worth listening to. In fact, a lot of the excessive tech is responsible for the abhorrent state of contemporary music. If I may be so bold.
Rockin’ It
I’ve been spending a lot of time, when I can find the time, in the good ol’ home studio. Actually, there’s a bit of new music that should be coming down the pike relatively soon. Might even do a digital-only release of a new Laura’s Invention album. Crazy. I know. Right? Totally. I’m considering my options, but the whole Band Camp platform looks rather suitable for my needs, and even without traktor pro 2 or mega mastering, I think I can rock it alright… in this free world, anyway. I know you’d listen… right?
Storage Issues
Yes, I do have storage issues. In my time I have been a bit of a media junkie, accumulating hundreds (probably thousands) of CDs, tapes, records, and DVDs. I dealt with my VHS situation a few years ago and now I’m getting ready to deal with my audio cassettes. But my real killer right now is DVDs. My music collection has stabilized quite a bit, so expansion is not much of an ongoing problem. I believe I have adequate, uh, padding.
Movies, though. They keep coming out. And though Netflix and online services have curtailed a good bit of the buying, there are still selections I like to physically own. So lordie, lordie, my kingdom for a really kickass DVD rack. ‘Nuff said?