Drumbeat cadence to the March of Death

2005-12-12T22:21:00.000-08:00

To those who're still wondering, yeah I'm still alive. It's been quite the last few months. I'm not going to go into details because at a certain point it just comes across as whining, and there's always someone who has more work to do than you and that always does it better. People like Warren Ellis and Brian Wood make me feel like I do nothing but fuck off 24-7 AND their stuff is always badass. So, no complaints.

The script for the first comic chapter if Deathmarch is done. The art will be done by end of January, preferably towards the earlier side of the month. There are multiple reasons why it HAS to happen then. Again, details will remain unsaid, but the motivations are fiscally based (in part)

Other news, I'm doing a five-issue miniseries with writer Tony Lee, called Of Vengence. The story is pretty badass and the art is a very different style than any of the comic stuff than I've done before. We're doing the negotiation dance with a publisher right now, and it looks good, full color, painted, would be monthlhy for the five issues and then collected in a Trade Paperback. Hope to have the first issue out by summer. I know that I can't do a monthly book (artwise) because of the deadlines, but The goal is that the is the beginning of having at least one miniseries or graphic novel out every year. The comics side is getting pushed up in importance in a major way.

and Deathmarch becomes a critical part of that.

On the 'day job' side of things, we just got confirmation that the game we're working on will be featured in (what looks like) the march issue of Game Informer. In 11 years of making games, I will say that this is the one that I am the most proud of so far, and will prove that the responsiblity for the train wreck that was MOO3 lay at the feet of the designer, who is no longer at the company. The ship date is June/July and it is already a lot of fun to play. At this point the majority of the 'core' art is done and it's a lot of polish, FX, and doing things like damage detailing. The things that take it from being good to being one of those 'I'll stop playing in just a minute...' kind of games.

hope everyone's holdiay season is going well.

good wishes to you all.

2005-09-14T00:50:00.000-07:00

So... here we are.

there's been a slight delay for two reasons. 1.) I did some benefit art of the Hurricane victims which took a few evenings, and 2.) the re-launch story is turning out to be pretty long, so I'm trying to figure out where to 'break' the chapter, in order that it has the right punch and doesn't leave you going 'ok... so now what?!' it should be done shortly... it's turning out to be really funny (I think).

You'll be meeting Nigel Cubbingsworth, who'll be your host for the first chapter...

2005-09-01T23:25:00.000-07:00

Status

Site redesign is done. Nothing radical, just enough to suit the new format, bring things up to date, and allow for sections that are more detailed in terms of things like Bios, the store, and archives (which I hope to have include the full run of Edge City)

The first 'chapter' in the new format is written, laid out, and I'm doing final linework on it now. I'm really happy with how it's going and think it's pretty funny and a good way to kick all this off. Hope to have it done and posted by the end of the three day weekend. Please, let me know what you think after you read it, I'll be very interested in people's opinions.

(not that it'll affect how I do anything really, but still... ;) )

best to you all and prayers to those in New Orleans and the parts of the south that have been hit by the hurricane.

2005-08-20T00:12:00.000-07:00

Got the new layout for the site done last night. Pretty damn happy with it. it's not all 'bells and whistles, but it's clean and easy to get around and different visually than the current config, so things are chugging along very well.

have a great weekend.

2005-08-19T10:46:00.000-07:00

RE: Big Brother.

After last night's show my wife and I were cackling and laughing like a couple of kids yelling something along the lines of "eat that bitch!" Howie, Janelle and Rachel may go down, but at least they are causing a lot of hell as they go. fucking rock on. I'll still watch for a while ;)

2005-08-18T00:58:00.000-07:00

That's entertainment

There's only one reality show that the wife and I have watched in and out, through good times and bad, and that is Big Brother. But, I gotta say, after the recent events on the show I don't know if I will be able to finish watching the season.

Sure there's been shady deals in the past, people going back on their word, or having clintonian interpetations of what the MEANT when they said something. But swearing ON YOUR LIFE that you are going to do something, and then not only NOT doing that, but fucking the person you made the deal/promise with it just beyond appalling. What's the worst is how fucking hypocritcal they are, saying "I've played this as an honest game" and in the SAME FUCKING EPISODE" saying "yeah i broke my word, I promised on my life, so what?" and making the 'other side' out to be evil... Kaysar's fucking right, they are a bunch of fucking cowards and I find the lot of them appalling and disgusting, and it's ruined the show for me.

which, in a nutshell sucks, because I've looked forward to it every goddamn year.

The other eality show I'm currently watching is RS:INXS. Who do I think will get it? In the ned I am willing to bet it will be down to Mig and JD. Marty doesn't have the force of presence... he comes across as a mix of your girlfriend's nice brother, and Eddie Vedder circa 1993. Jordis... I think she has an incredible talent but i seriously think, for her own good, she needs to fail. She's gotten a lot of glowing attention, and getting to do things like Jam with Camp Freddy (Dave Navarro's 'cover band')... those things combined with the fact that she is so young, if it keeps going in this direction, it's gonna screw her, because there's already been some 'phoned in' performances compared to what she did when she first got there and wasn't getting the attention and was DRIVEN to get it. Her ego with JD is just appalling, because it's like watching a slow motion train wreck.

I will say, while I love the show, the band won't be INXS (to me) INXS is Hutchence, and to replace him is like finding a new singer for the doors.

oh wait... they did that, didn't they

2005-08-07T23:46:00.000-07:00

Progress and Directions

So, thought I'd talk really briefly about what the direction/plan is for Deathmarch. As we all know, I'm busy, and DM suffered for it. So, a lot of time was spent pondering "how do I still do this, because I really want to" while balancing out the "my god man, I must sleep at some point."

The first idea for the new direction was actually inspired by something (I think) Scott Kurtz had said in his blog, when talking about his and Frank Cho's hanging out, talking about the way they did their strips. It got me to thinking about basically having a DM "library of character positions, expressions and poses" which could all be mixed and matched to come up with an conceivable combo so that the characters would look exactly like I needed them to for a strip, in a form that could be seembled inside of 4 hours so I'd be sure of having at least 3 strips a week.

But... the 'artist' part of me felt like this was really punking out on it. Comic strips have (for me) always been more about the timing and writing than the art (hence why Pearls Before Swine is one of my favorite comics), but still... it just seemed like it was cheating.

So, I found I had reached a bit of an impasse. I knew doing a strip 3 times a week if I was drawing everything was unlikely, especially with the wall of projects/stuff I've got going. On the other hand, doing a strip once a week, esp. when it's an involved, continuing storyline, is just lame and will hold no one's attention (except for maybe the truly insane and bored). So, what to do...

The epiphany came to me while reading the new issue of Love and Rockets.

I've always loved L & R. The way the short 4 to 12 page stories wended their way through the issues, later collected into 'albums' was an approach that I've always felt was excellent because they weren't hampered by the 'I've got to fill 24 pages with this storyline a month' problem. The chapters and pace of the story just organically told itself. Something I'd envied, but knew I could never do in a comic because, let's face facts, I'm not anywhere as good as Los Bros Hernandez, so no publisher is going to take a chance with me doing something like that.

However...

With DM, I make the rules. The shape/size/layout of the strip is totally NOT conventional because I could make it different. I didn't have to worry about newspaper requirements or the strictures of how much it costs to print odd sizes. I could just do it, because it was for the web.

So why not have Deathmarch in the form of 'comic book' stories, that range from 4-12 pages a 'chapter, which could then be collected later if demand warranted it? It costs nothing (other than my time) to do the strip and have you folks still out there read it. And from a publisher stance, if someone comes with a completed printable comic, that's pretty attractive.

So...

I'm now in the process of making that shift. (which is not trivial, but is a lot of fun) By Sept 1st, DM v2.0 will be up, with the first chapter in the DM comic. From there on out, I'll try to have new chapters up twice a month (roughly ever two weeks) but I PROMISE that even in the busiest times I will manage one decent-sized story a month.

Will DM still have the same humor? Yeah I pretty much intend the look, tone and feel of the characters and stories to stay the same as the strip. The main difference being that I've got the room to let the stories and characters breathe and I can play out timing for jokes and gags better. It also allows me to give a little deeper look into the idiocy that is the games industry (which trust me, over the next year, is going to go from crazy to downright bughouse nutjob insanity) and have more involved set-ups and stories (which is where I think some of the funniest DM stuff has happened.

I hope everyone will like the new direction. Those of you on the mailing list will be notified automatically when a new comic goes up so you won't have to keep checking back to see if "That lame-ass Rantz has posted a new comic".

Since the most that'll happen is 2 times a month, I figure, that's an acceptable level. If you feel like it isn't, please let me know at rantz@gamespymail.com

best to you all.

2005-07-31T22:51:00.000-07:00

Busy busy busy... but what else in new?

Balls are whizzing about in the air, hurtling by in juggling arcs as I try to hit multiple deadlines on multiple projects all at once. I think I've actually got a schedule worked out for all of it now.

As noted, the FTP is letting me upload stuff, which is wonderful... when i started on redoing the site, I didn't really think about how many little pieces there are to this, because it is a pretty simple, clean style (thanks to Irene's initial layout), but the mood of the strip is about to change, and the v2.0 needs a look to signify it, so prgress continues on it, working side by side with getting the new strips lined up to roll.

Had a nice lunch with Steve from The Panic Channel on Friday, played catch up on some things and also talked about where we were going on project:VBM . We've got a really good plan in place and we are committed to making it happen, but there are a bazillion things that can happen to make it go awry, so we'll just keep pushing...

Project:VBM is indicative of what I find myself doing more and more of... being Mr. Business finangler. Figuring out how to logisitcally make projects happen, get deals in place, make money etc. These are the kinds of things that I specifically became an artist to avoid, but now find myslef hip deep in it all. The alternative, however, is that you are at the whim and mercy of someone else having projects for you, or coming up with cool shit on their own and figuring out the logistics. From experience, those are few and far between and really, "there is no fate but that which we make for ourselves." So, as they say, there you have it.

The DS/PSP deal is signed, just some final legal hoops to jump through, so that is a very good thing indeed.

and on the Winter's Homecming front, been talking with various publishers, and reaction seems strong, if somewhat cautious. One spoke of the very real danger of it being "unrelentingly bleak". Which I thought was funny and the perfect pull quote for the back of the book.

I don't think WH is bleak... at least not unrelentingly so. There's a lot of black humor, a lot of sarcasm, and there are moments of real human 'gray areas' throughout it. It's easy to demonize someone who has done wrong by you. Even easier in fiction to do. Reduce human's to archetypes and call it a day. But to me, that's kinda... boring. So, hopefully the book will have balance to it, that whole Ying/Yang, light/dark thing. Can't really measure one without the other.

ok, off to bed.

2005-07-22T23:37:00.000-07:00

Rectified...

so, it seems there were some general config issues with the FTP that precluded me doing the DM tests for the new design. Said issues are now dealt with and I'm able to, once again, upload files so this weekend will be filled with a lot of DM "look and feel" tests.

To hold you over until the new DM stuff goes up, and just because some of you may be curious, here's the 'test page' of the first page of Winter's Homecoming'> As my friend Rob stated, "seems pretty dark"

Yeah, one could say that... This is light by comparison in terms of the tone. There's plenty of black comedy to take the edge off though...

2005-07-19T09:22:00.000-07:00

So....
tried to do testing on the new Deathmarch layout last night (Serious changes, new color scheme, layout, etc) in order to get ready for the re-launch of the site and the strip and...

I can't get into the server.

Or, more accurately I CAN get into the server, but I can't get to the Deathmarch directory. Which, makes it a little hard to test things out, much less put anything up. Now, normally, I would fire an email off to Kevin or whoever is in charge over at Gamespy, or call my friend John "warrior" Keefer over there and say 'um, hello? Can't update the site...'

except my HD at work went down on the friday before last and took EVERYTHING with it.

email addys, phone numbers, email logs everything for the last 4 years.

which, if that didn't suck enough, the battery in my Palm Pilot (where I keep my backup address book) went dead at tabout the same time

Which sucks a huge nation of ass.

As soon as I can figure all this out, I'll let you guys know what is going on, and when you can expect the changes to go up.

2005-07-17T23:24:00.000-07:00

Back From Comicon

Back today... very very very very very very tired. Good show, reception to Winter's Homecoming went better than expected... Must sleep now, great show, will post details tomorrow...

2005-06-19T23:54:00.000-07:00

Father's Day

So, here's how I spent Father's day. It's the 3rd day of a week-long vacation with the family. Lots of fun and activities in the sun during the day, working on comics and movie scripts after the sun goes down and it cools off a bit.

So, what script did I work on tonight, on Father's Day? Winter's Homecoming, which can only be described as the anti-good-father graphic novel. Bit of irony there.

As noted on the front page... it's coming... you'll know it when the entire color scheme changes...

back to the hard work of being on vacation.

2005-06-09T15:28:00.000-07:00

Progress, as it were...

Been hitting a pretty even mix of work and free time. Weird that, even on nights where I'm not doing any art or anything I find it pretty much impossible to get to sleep before midnight. Happens occasionally, but rarely. The funny thing is, my nights pretty much used to end every single night at 3-4am, and now that they don't when I have the occasional night where the kids are sick or something and I don't get to bed until 3 or 4... well... I'm fucking thrashed.

heh.

So, work then...

Quicksilver (the day job) has found a publisher for the 'War Dogs' game, (which will be renamed) for XBox and PC. Can't announce the publisher yet, but the game itself should be pretty cool. This is a really character driven game... we want to give the player the experience of being in the trenches with his mates, not just in the combat sense, but in the sense that these are living breathing people with hopes fears and personalities. The intention is to have a game with the dynamic impact, and richness of the Band of Brothers miniseries for HBO. It won't be set in WWII (way too many games in that field) *or* in the middle east (see reasons for not-being-a-WWII-game pkus the fact that the middle east is a borning environment both visually and gameplay wise). I can say it will take 15-20 years in the future and will have elements that are a common thing in times of war, but have never been depicted in a game up to this point. So, more on that when I can announce it...

...and, as I write this, we are about 3-4 days away from signing a PSP/DS deal for a huge franchise that will feel a much needed gap in the handheld gaming market. This was supposed to be dealt with, and announced by E3, but negotiations between the publisher and the franchise holder took a bit longer than anticipated, because this is a big deal. So, things are certainly 'on the move' as it were, which is a damn sight better than doing military sims. (Which are fine and dandy and they pay the bills, but I got in this biz to make games, not Army or Mil Sim trainers) We have 3 more DS/PSP projects and a MMORTS that are 'in discussion' with various publishers as well, so things could get real nutty real quick.

In news that you, the 3 fans of Deathmarch who are probably left after my laggin ass schedule, care about is that I've started doing all the prep work for launching DM again. It likely will not be until July 1st, but it is on its way.

Promise

best to everyone

2005-05-25T15:53:00.000-07:00

Lo and behold, he lives. Yes, shocking but true.

"So Rantz, where the fuck have you been?"

"Ummmm..."

"I'm mean come ON dude, DeathMarch hasn't been updated in eons, and you haven't posted here in MONTHS!"

Ok, so here's the deal.

1.) I have been very very very busy. At the 'day job' we've wrapped our current slate of projects and are doing the contract phase with the next round which is, to put it mildly, a very stressful time. Add to that equation prepping for meetings with publishers (wearing a suit, no less), Game Developer's Conference, E3 and such and the day job alone has been an armful of kittens on methadrine.

I've also been working with Steve and Dave from the Panic Channel on what I can only describe at "Project VBM". This is going to be a long process. I pitched the idea to the band in Feb. and they liked it, so now it's getting a.) the logistics figured out (non trivial) and b.) doing all of the work involved to get it done (WAY non trivial)

Additionally I've been working on "Winter's Homecoming" my big graphic novel project. The script is coming together well, but it needs serious serious editing. I cannot have this be a 200+ page book or it will never get done.

Add to that, there are two movie scripts I'm working on, and you can see where life starts to jam up really quickly.

So... that's the 'work' side of things...

2.) I've been doing some kind of 'life house cleaning' lately. My sweet, dear wife pointed out that for a 2+ year span, I *never* got to bed before 2am. *EVER*. Thinking about it, I realized that she was right in that, and emotionally I had felt like I was burning the candle down to the stump as it were. Getting to bed at 2-4am, getting up at 6-7am doing the full day, and starting all over again. I have four lovely wonderful daughters, and maybe, just maybe, it would be better to concentrate a bit more energy there. And frankly, I was feeling just emotionally burned out. I've always been a person of extremes (although not as much as I was) and my big 'life goal' right now is to enact some moderation. Some balance as it were.

It's not easy.

Everything in me either has 'complete fuck around, be lazy" mode or "Work like a lunatic" mode. finding a happy middle ground is taking more time and effort than I thought.

What does that mean for Deathmarch?

I still want to do the strip and have a lot of them written, but I have to come up with a way to do the strip more efficiently so it does not become a chore, burden or something I resent. (which is where it was headed) I have some (what I think are) good ideas on how to do this, it's just the process of doing all the prep work for it now, which will take some time because it is a LOT of upfront content.

More soon on all of this, details on projects, and new art soon. Promise.

2005-02-26T01:44:00.000-08:00

I think I suffer from some form of creative ADD. in some interview I read, Dave Navarro talked about how if he didn't have a band he was in, he wouldn't play guitar as much because there are too many other things to do. I tend to be the same way. One of the reasons I think i take on too many projects... to impart that sense of crisis and urgency. I know when I was drawing my own comics for a living back in the late 80s, I had a really hard time motivating myself to do the work. I'd play guitar, write short stories, all kinds of things, but with stuff that I was doing 'for me' that a publisher *might* publish when it was done... well, there wasn't the external pressure, and stuff just didn't fucking get done. (Of course, I was pretty steadily 'altered' at that point, so I'm sure that could have something to do with it...)

So, I've got all these projects going, and I'm feeling the urgency, now I'm working on actual time management. And not just time management in terms of getting all the work done... but also time management in the sense of taking time to do things I enjoy like play games, watch movies, draw pics for my kids, take my wife to dinner.

In other words, a full and well rounded life. We'll see how it goes...

As part of that, watched the new Appleseed movie tonight. Loved the story... I've never read any of the manga or seen the original Anime, but I think the CG/Animation stuff looks consistently better in Wonderful Days. There are moments the characters in Appleseed look a little too much like the MTV CG Spiderman series. Mind you, I still love it... there are just astounding sequences that leave me twitching and sobbing.

In unrelated (kinda) news, read through a ton of Sinfest strips... makes me feel like shit about a.) the frequency (or lack thereof) of DM and b.) the quality. Inspired me to do something about it....

and I'll be at GDC the second week in March and Wizard World LA the 3rd week of March. Busy times...

2005-02-24T14:02:00.000-08:00

been working for about 4 weeks... 2 weeks HARD on a presentation for the boys over at the Panic Channel. Did the presentation yesterday, and it went, I think, pretty well. the guys seemed to like it and seem interested in doing it. One of the things I really like about TPC is that they are no BS, no games kind of guys so I do think they were happy with it when they say they were. However, there's still all the project hoops that have to be jumped through and I know what the music biz is like, so I have guarded optimism on it.

Heard two of the new songs, Left to Lose and Said You'd Be. Very fucking cool, very tight, really hard driving music.

Was very very thankful the rain here cleared up for the drive. Tuesday it was still monsoon season and I kept thinking about what a nightmare it was going to be to drive up North of LA in it.

Working on a bunch of Nintendo DS proposals and getting ready for GDC. Need to have the strip back up by then.

2005-02-06T23:24:00.000-08:00

Too little time...

I still live, believe it or not, and I really wish I could say the cause of a lack of DM strips is that I've been fucking around.

Money got tight, so I decided that I'd take a work-for-hire gig, and write a chapter about 3D cameras, composition and movement in games for a college textbook.

This, is by far, one of the dumber ideas I've had in my life.

There are two types of sideline work I do as some of you know. Projects I do because I love it, or am challenged by it, regardless of how much (if at all) it pays. These are indugences and things that keep me artistically sane... the masturbation type of art.

Then there's 'Ho' work.. This kind of work is done strictly for the cash. The rule of thumb being, the amount it pays is directly proportional to how much of a pain in the ass, or how much work it will really be, because there is nothing enjoyable about it. The textbook goes into that category. Now the texbook was due in DECEMBER...

It's just NOW off my plate.

When I start calc'ing the rate that breaks down to, dividing what I'm getting paid, by how many hours I've spent on this... Well, it's below minimum wage. They like the work I did, and it came back with the least amount of editorial changes of any writing I hae ever done, passing the independant verification group with flying colors... but this was work. Like homework without the kegger party waiting for you saturday night to even it all out. Never again.

Deathmarch is now back in production and I hope to have strips back up soon. All I can tell you is, I'm sorry, the cause of the abscence hurt me more than the lack of strips hurt you.

hope everyone is well, and I hope your new year is full of exciting prospects and fun.

2005-01-11T01:00:00.000-08:00

Long time comin'...

Yeah yeah yeah I know, I'm a lazy shit. Actually I overcommitted myself and bit off more thanI could chew in the form of thinking I could easily write a chapter for a college textbook on CG.

No, I really don't know what the fuck I was thinking, but thanks for asking.

It's almost done, and then it's back to DM, and doing the occasional smaller side project I know I can easily handle in addition to work. Like the stuff for the Panic Channel. Steve Dave and the boys have been nice enough to ask me to paint a desktop for them, so I'm doing that sometime after I get the final edit of the textbook chapter out of my hair which has to happen by Wed or I will lose my fucking mind.

Yes, yes, I know funny man. I mean more than I already have.

I have a new production method that I want to try for DM... I think it'll go a lot faster and look a lot cleaner/more consistant. Gonna take some experimenting to see how it'll work, but I'm pretty hopeful about it.

My holdiays were relatively good. Took 2 weeks off actually, got to spend a lot fo time with the wife and kids which was fun, had a nice new year's eve. Got a Nintendo DS, HL2, and Battle for Middle Earth for my birthday from my wife and a new acoustic telecaster guitar, so I can subject the members of our household to my generally trite and not-altogether-competent songwriting skills.

Other than that, the 3-inch deep (and growing by the hour)lake in our backyard is making this whole rain thing a bit OLD. Roof is springing leaks, It's looking like Seattle here, and picking up my eldest from school today, the street looked like class 4 rapids.

Enough already, we've got enough rain that there will not be a drought, now can we get ON with it?!

hope everyone had a great holiday.

2004-12-20T01:04:00.000-08:00

So then...

On the good side of things, the meeting with Activision last Wed. for War Dogs went very well. Tomorrow, there's a couple meetings in SF with Capcom and Eidos as well, and the roadshow/pitch continues apace. If you want to get an idea of what made sure that I only got 4 hours of sleep in two days here's a couple shots of the demo character that we're using to show what War Dogs will look like with Morph Targets, Normal Mapping, Hybrid Shaders, and Specular Channel support.

The game is really coming together, and like all periods when you're out selling a game to publishers, it's a bit nerve-wracking and frazzling, but I'm a pessimist by experience, and I'm feeling pretty positive about how all of this is developing. We've got a really unique gameplay mechanic, and one that's actually a lot of fun to play. Combine that with a really dramatic overarching story-centric campaign and I really think this is something that *I* would buy. To me, that's always a sign that you're on the right track. If you;ve lost mosterous amount of sleep and sanity for months on end working on something and are still excited about getting it done so you can PLAY the damn thing.

On the "gee this sucks" side of things, The textbook chapter is coming together, but still isn't done. it has to be done by Wed. because the family is going out of town for almost a week for the holiday and I don't have a laptop and I'm not about to use my mother in law's crappy comp and dial-up connection to be working on it. Besides, who the fuck wants to WORK when you're on XMas vacation?! This seemed like a good idea at the time (doing the chapter) and while I'll be glad to have it under my belt and have it done, it has made me very aware that I need to really think about accepting "prostitution" freelance.

Aside: All art, to me, breaks down in to either Masturbation or Prositution. Either you are doing it for someone else in order to get paid, or you;re doing it to give yourself pleasure and satisfaction. In regards to the question "well what about those people who end up getting rich from doing just what they want to do?" Well, to that I say a.)there's always sick bastards who like to watch, and b.)you must put on a hell of a show jacking off ;)

Any art that gets done over the holdiay is going to be Masturbation. The stuff for Steve and Dave over at the Panic Channel? Masturbation. The 'homecoming' graphic novel? Masturbation. Getting ahead on DeathMarch? ...That's like Catholic Schoolboy guilt Masturbation...lol

And here I am... it's 1:21 am as I write this, and I'm officially 37. Damn. I need to go to bed. best to all of you and if I don't write any more before XMas, may all of you and yours find happiness and joy this season, and may this upcoming year be a damn sight better than the last one.

-R

2004-12-10T23:57:00.000-08:00

I'm supposed to have the first draft of the chapter I'm doing for a textbook on camerawork in games done monday, plus I have to do high rez textures, with normal maps for an upcoming game demo. Add to that the millions of other things that happen this time of year... well, I am sorry but DM gets delayed. One day if I ever get paid for it, then I won't have to hustle like a hooker cruising Sunset at 2am on a Saturday trying to make money. Until that time, the sidestuff that brings money in, and the family take priority.

In other news, I'm freaking out because come December 20th, I will be 37. Now, to me that just sounds OLD. I mean you cannot even pretend you are in your mid 30s at that point. You can see 40 hurtling towards you like a locomotive from hell.

Fuck, I don't want to turn 37. I take consolation that I've aged better than most 37-year-olds that I know... I remind myself that people like Dave Navarro are actually my age... still, it's a bit maddening.

And on the maddening thing, RIP Dimebag Darrell. What a complete and utter waste. Mankind really does sicken me sometimes, and as an artist, it's a scary fucking thought that if you don't create what some nutjob thinks you should create, well then old son your life may become forfeit. I mean, WTF?!? When did those rules get applied?!

I'm actually going to go to bed at this point. Feel the edge of a cold coming on and I want to avoid it if at all possible. Esp. since tomorrow and Sunday are going to be late nights.

blessings to all of you, hold the ones you love tight.

2004-12-06T01:34:00.000-08:00

Bit of an explanation (but no excuses).

My free time all of a sudden has gotten crunched. Hard. We have another round of meetings with publishers RE: War Dogs, and there's so pretty high detail work that has to be done for that very soon. Within the same time frame, I have to have the first draft of my chapter that I'm doing for a college textbook on the subject of CG canera work in videosgames. Combine that with a couple of other things, not the least of which is worjing on 'Project P' with Steve Isaacs for the Panic Channel, and all fo a sudden, finding sleep becomes rare enough in and of itself. In times like this, non-critical work is the first thing to get sacrificed, and I hate to put DM in that category, but it's the truth.

more later

2004-11-29T01:40:00.000-08:00

Back from Turkey day at the inlaws house in the mountains of Julian. I really love it up there. Beautiful woods, nice quaint village with the best apple pie, candy store, and used/rare book store you can find. Being able to see every star in the sky at night... Top it off with the fact that it's the only place I know of in California that you can buy Huckleberry jam and syrup... well that's the kicker.

Even with the kids being complete hooligans at times, it was good. Thought for sure we were going to wake up Sunday morning to a couple feet of snow, but it didn't happen. Thank god. Our Mazda mini-van is ill-equipped to handle a drive back down twisty roads covered with snow and icy and a sheer drop-off on one side!

Did some sketching, read books, played video games with the older kids. All in all nothing productive, which was just fine :). Only downside was I realized when we were halfway there I had left my ambien at home, so getting to sleep was a challenge.

Well, no... not the only downside. The real downside was that my father-in-law wasn't with us. Last Thanksgiving, we had all of my wife's side of the family together, which was a lot of fun and really enjoyable because we don't get to see her brother, his wife and their kidsas often as we'd like.

The monday after thanksgiving, my father in-law choked on a piece of steak while at lunch, and went without oxygen long enough to cause significant brain damage. While he came out of the coma and could occasionally have conversations, we knew what was coming. When he died this spring, it wasn't a surprise but it was heartbreaking nonetheless. Spending our first big family holiday hurt, and you couldn't help but feel his abscence.

Well, now that I've turned this into a dour blog entry... I hope everyone had a good holiday with their loved ones and that you had much to be thankful for this year. Best to you all.

2004-11-22T01:29:00.000-08:00

Woke up Saturday morning with the most horrific headache I can ever remember having. Reduced me to a whimpering, vomiting mess. It was bad enough that my wife actually thought about calling 911 for fear i'd had an aneurysm. Felt fine, if weak, by the end of the day, and was ok Sunday but damn... I do hope I never have that experience again.

In regards to my 'chicken little' assessment of the games biz, I'll try and post that sometime soon. Got some other things that have to get done first.

I will be out from Wed night through Sunday, so no strip on Friday due to the holiday.

ok, falling asleep at the keyboard here.

Have a good week with your families and loved ones.

2004-11-19T01:27:00.000-08:00

My lovely wife was feeling like crap Sunday night, and Monday during the day, so I was a little worred about us going up to see The Panic Channel on Tuesday. Esp. considering how miserable she was Monday. However, come Tuesday, even though she's not feeling 100%, we make the trek to Hollywood, see the show, and get back into OC around 2am. That's still kinda early for me. I usually get to bed around 3-4am. Chris, however, goes to bed at around 9-10pm. So combine that with not feeling well, and let cook.

End result, last night she was REALLY sick. Fever, massive body aches, chills, the works, and I felt like crap for hauling her out in the world while she was sick. But does she complain to me about it? Bitch about "If we hadn't gone...", or anything like that?

No she doesn't.

My wife, in a word, rocks.

On an unrelated topic, I'm going to write up my predictions for the game industry over the next 2 years and why I think a lot of us will find ourselves out of work.

On that cheerful note, I'm off to bed. early, for a change. Have a good weekend everyone.

2004-11-17T15:59:00.000-08:00

Yeah yeah yeah, I know there's no strip today. I have a very good reason however. The wife and I had to drive up to Hollywood to see The Panic Channel at the Dragonfly.

As evidence of this I give you Dave Navarro's blog- and Steve Isaacs (the vocalist) - who were both kind enough to give me shout-outs. Look at the entries from the 17th. Thanks guys.

TPC is flat out fucking great. Last night's show was well worth the hell-drive from OC to hollywood and back. They will be playing at the Key Club on Sunset in Hollywood on Dec 2nd. I highly suggest if you are in the greater LA area that you check them out. This is musical history in the making, and getting to see them in venues this size, with music this good... you don't get opportunities like this very often.

Aise from their originals, their cover of Led Zepplin's Dazed and Confused completely owned all comers. Just transcendant.

DM strip on Friday, I'm gonna try and sleep tonight.

2004-11-15T11:12:00.000-08:00

Took a couple days off last week to spend time at home since my mom was in town visiting. Went bowling with the kids, saw the Incredibles (fucking astoundingly good), spent the time just trying to mentally recharge my creative batteries. Over the last month, I really felt like I 'hit the wall', creatively running on autopilot. I could still draw, make models, do digital work, etc, but didn't feel that all-consuming fire that compells me to make stuff. The drive that overrides things like sleep and hunger.

Worked through some of it, got some work done on comic and movie scripts, tried to distance myself creatively from making any visual art, just to see if that sparks things and it seems to have helped.

Couple of upcoming possible projects have helped free up the creative logjam as well... One thing I've discovered is that I do better when I have too many things going. My time management gets better because it has to. I don't have the luxury of just fucking around.

Creatively, they also seem to feed off each other. If I'm doing some happy kids comic, then my paintings get darker, more bold, or my CG work gets more experimental. Seems to be a kind of creative yin and yang pressure cooker kind of thing.

ok, so... THAT was a shabby analogy.

Have a good week everyone.

2004-11-08T01:35:00.000-08:00

Interesting purchases this weekend...

Went to Costco and resisted buying a bunch of stuff I really wanted to, but could not justify the expense considering I was there with the fam to buy groceries.

However...

They had The Creature from the Black Lagoon on DVD. This release is part of Universal's 'Monster' series, which now includes the Invisible Man and the Mummy as well. Creature is my fave old school horror film.. Just love the shots, the lighting for the underwater sequences, the overall vibe. Tried to get it a while back, but it was out of print on DVD and the cost on ebay was like 70 bucks. I like it, but not THAT much. Glad I waited... the transfer on this is clean (sadly not letterbox :( ) and it has both sequels included as part of the 'extras'. Rock!

At Target today, as I'm in the checkout line, I see these odd looking 2-liter bottles labelled Holiday Spice Pepsi Cola. Now, I drink a LOT of Diet Pepsi and love DP Vanilla and Wild Cherry so I figure what the hell I'll pick it up and try it. I love this stuff! Cloves, cinnamon and nutmeg cola... yum. Considering I smoke cloves, this seems like it was made for me. Except for the fact that it's seasonal and it's not in diet :/.

And everyone... go out right now and buy the Complete Peanuts Volume 2. Fucking amazing, brilliant stuff. Even moreso when you think of the fact that this stuff was coming out in 1952-3.

On the bad side of things, Steve Isaacs (singer for The Panic Channel) had his house robbed. They didn't get his guitars, but got his comps. fucking assholes. Steve's an inspiration in his dealing with this in an astoundingly positive way. Me, I hope Karma impacts them like a runaway freighter. But, I'm kinda unevolved that way ;)

Hope everyone has a good week and I want to give a big HAPPY BIRTHDAY shout to my lovely wife :) She is absolutely the best! :D

2004-11-05T15:30:00.000-08:00

Evidence the world is fucking crazy, Part I

Small piece of background: I have a degenerative nerve disorder of some kind that Dr.s really can't figger out. Result is that over the last four years I've gone from very occasionally having pain in my left foot to currently having my lower left leg and foot in constant pain, even with painkillers. So, as part of my treatment, I have a pain management Dr. that I have to go through. ok, background bit done, let's see what bearing this has in the world being completely wholesale, costco-sized, ten-for-a-dollar nuts.

Over the last two weeks I've had massive pain spikes. the kind that prohibit sleeping, period. So, rather than exceed my pain med prescription (because if I do that, they will not refill early as part of the 'non-abuse contract' that you have to sign prior to treatment) I call and make an emergency appointment to see about getting a cortizone injection, or SOMETHING to help with this. The office is cool and gets me in the next day.

So, next day, get in to the examining room and the Dr. comes in. First thing he says 'so did your guys win?' and I sit there baffled, thinking he's talking sports (which I don't pay attention to) and say 'excuse me?' He responds with 'the election, did your guys win?'

Now, in the back of my head a red light goes off thinking this is innappropriate to be asking me prior to treatment, but I ignore it and say 'well the presidental is a red devil, blue devil equation that due to the electoral system I have little to no control over, so I was more concerned on the state initiatives and how those did.' He presses me for whether I was 'happy' with the outcomes, and I say 'yeah some of them... I was happy the stem cell one went through'

He stiffens up and says "well, you shouldn't be!" He then starts talking about the 'real' financial cost of the proposition, and the fact that better results come out of VC-funded research, that there's no checks and balances or public accountibility in the measure... and I'm listening, very interested because he's a Dr. and I'm interested in what a member of the medical community has to say.

Until...

He segues from the financial aspect of it into the "well, you know what the initative is actually FOR, right?" and proceeds to tell me that my perceptions are completely wrong. That the proposition is actually for human cloning (which it specifically says in the proposition that it is NOT for) and that they are going to create embryonic clones, which they will then place in 'host' women, which will carry the babies to almost full term, at which point the babies will be removed prematurely and their kidney, for example, will be removed and transplated into an adult, killing the baby.

Now...

at this point, I'm flipping out.

2 reasons. One this guy is giving me medical treatment. giving me medications to use off-label, such as epilepsy meds, because it 'may help' the nerve issue. He's recommending these kind of things and yet is spouting the kind of removed-from-reality extreme xtian fundie boogeyman scenarios that you associate with Jimmy Swaggert, not a medical professional who is supposed to be guided by science. Second, due to the 'non-abuse contract' this guy is my SOLE source for pain meds. If he doesn't auth my refill, I have NO pain meds and can't get any more. At lease not without changing every Dr. I have which is not a quick and/or easy prospect. So, I've got this frozen smile on my face, nodding politely, freaking out internally. I say "ok, well I'm experiencing a lot of pain beyond normal" and he finally gets on to the treatment thing, but his disposition to me has notablly changed.

So we're going through things and he's getting on me saying that I've been on pain meds too long (which I agree with) and that I need to get off them (which I also agree with). I tell him this and say "look we have a short term issue and long term issue. Short term, I'm in massive pain, long term we need to find the cause of this, and I need YOUR help getting written referrals that I can give my insurance company so I can fight with them to get authorization for a new neuro and othro Dr."

His reaction is to blow this off saying I don't need him to do that, that I can fight the insurance company and they will eventually cave in. Now, having had too much experience with insurance companies in trauma treatment experiences I'm thinking "you are fucking WRONG asshole" but keep my mouth shut, because, again, if I piss him off I have no meds.

He then launches back on the pain med abuse tirade and how hydrocodone is the most abused drug in america (I'm on Norco, which is like Vicodin's big angry cousin with a steel pipe and a bad temper) and I say I know this, and that's how you end up with situations like Courtney Love and Rush Limbaugh.

He FREEZES and starts saying "well Rush had REAL PAIN he needed to deal with, the only thing he did wrong was choose to treat himself rather than go through a Dr. He has to do that show day in and day out, no matter what! So, that's why he did what he did!"

And, pain meds or no, I can't keep my mouth shut. I say "Ummm, look... I'm in charge of the entire creative department at my company, I work 12-14 hours a day, and I have four kids that I am a very active parent with and spend any time I am not working with THEM. I get four hours sleep a night MAX, so sorry I don't buy that Rush with his 3 hour radio show a day NEEDED to do, or was right in doing what he did."

Things got very uncomfortably silent and the Dr. told me "Look you have until Dec. 30th to show me that you are getting some kind of medical progress on this issue, or I'm not going to treat you (read: give pain meds) anymore" What that translates to? *I* have to find a new ortho and neuro and I have to get my insurance, an HMO, to agree to cover it or I pay out of pocket. HE will not write referrals or help in this matter at all because it is 'not his place'.

I finally got the refill, so I'm good for 20 days, and am now calling my insurance company to report this guy and start the long process of getting auth'd for another pain treament group.

I honestly was freaked and in shock for the entire day. I still cannot believe it actually happened. It was like a bad satire of the boogyman that everyone holds uyp as the worst aspects of the right, incarnate as a living being, and HE'S my Dr.

jesus fucking christ on a pogo stick.

So, that's why there's no strip today. I'll try and make up for it over the weekend.

2004-11-02T23:21:00.000-08:00

Comic will be delayed until tomorrow. compiling some stuff on my system and I need every CPU cycle I can get so as not to have it keep me up all night as I wait to see if it'll crash (not unlike the waiting to see the results of the election, come to think of it).

Brief bit on the election... when it was announced that Orange County CA (where I live) was going 'electronic' for the next elections, I felt a shudder of fear snake down my spine. Not because I'm a luddite or anything... I mean I develop software for a living for god's sake... however, because I develop software i know how buggy technology can be and more to the point, is likely to be in its early incarnations.

So, I go to vote, and make my selections on the ballot, and as I get the 'review' page at the end I notice something very disturbing. Three of the choices/selections are not the ones I made. This wasn't a matter of user error, I input the correct thing. It simply chose to change my seection. I stepped back through the process two times before it "took".

Now, I know you have to look at these things, but I immediately thought of all the technophobes and old fogies out there who wouldn't do so, and would unwittingly cast an incorrect vote. I brought this up with the polling location supervisor and his reaction was 'well, the right selection was cast in the end, right?' not getting my point. He didn't see the need in telling people as they approached the booths to double-check their results prior to hitting the red 'cast ballot' button.

Afterwards, I reported this to the state elections board, the news outlets etc, and found that, hey, guess what? This is happening quite a bit.

But this is a much better way to go, right guys?

*sigh*

2004-11-01T02:05:00.000-08:00

So, survived Halloween in one piece. Really just wanted to go to bed tonight, but figgered I owed everyone staying awake and getting a strip done. For those of you who are curious, here's my eldest daughter in the costume that I spent approx 28 hours straight working on...

Finished Navarro's "don't try this at home" today, started it yesterday. Good read, but disturbing. If I get a chance or free moment I'll go into greater details on my thoughts on it. Started The Complete Peanuts Vol. 2 tonight. 'Bout halfway through it and I just have to say... He was a genius back in the 50s. The strip is biting, almost caustic at times and really gives you an insight into why it went from being a comic strip to being a worldwide icon (to the detriment of the writing and art, IMNECTHO).

More later. Have a ton of shit to do tomorrow and it's already 2am.

2004-10-31T01:55:00.000-08:00

I gotta say, 36 (almost 37) years on this ball of mud hurtling through space and you think that I'd be able to figure a thing or to out. Nope. no such luck. I just can't figure out people for the life of me.

I know blogs are s'pposed to be full of soul-baring revalation but frankly I can't even muster the energy for it. Took advantage of of TrU's 'buy 2 get 1 free' sale, bought six games, some old some new. Four of them are still in shrink wrap. I guess I can take consolation in that when and if I find the time/energy/will/interest in playing them, they'll be there waiting for me. Pimin 2 and Paper Mario look very nice. Turned the older kids onto Parappa and Um Jammer Lammy this weekend. Humor abound watching your six and five year old rock out with a videogame.

Reading Dave Navarro's book. Interesting read. Bought that and the second volume of the Complete Peanuts today. What the hell does that say about me? Bought the Latest Sophie Kinsella book for my wife at the same time. Sure I baffled the fuck out of the cashier with that purchase.

Time for a cig, then bed.

2004-10-28T22:56:00.000-07:00

Remind me never to willingly make a halloween costume again. While the previously mentioned Wonder Woman costume truned out really well, I started sewing on it at 6pm on Tuesday and finished at 9pm on Wednesday. With only 2 hours sleep. No food. Only breaks were to use the bathroom and grab more caffeine. I didn't even have a cig during the entire time.

Seriously.

So, forgive me but i am thoroughly brunt out. I had a school Halloween party that my wife and I were in charge of today, a birthday part to throw for my 5 year old, another birthday party to attend on Saturday, followed by halloween on Sunday.

So, forgive me, no strip until monday. It's been a long time since I needed sleep this badly. Lesson learned, I'm staying away from the sewing machine.

2004-10-26T10:47:00.000-07:00

So, Halloween's coming up and my eldest daughter decides (being the lover of comic books and all things geeky that she is) that she HAS to go as Wonder Woman. No two ways about it, that is what she must be.

Looking at the WW costumes out there, and the price of them I come up with the genius idea that 'Hey we'll just make one!' Now, that would be all fine and good except that Wed. is my second child's birthday, Thursday is the Kindergarten Halloween part, Friday is the b-day girl's party, Saturday is a friend of her's party (they have b-days on the same day) and then Sunday is Halloween.

So, last night I was up until 3am working on the patterns for a WonderWoman costume. Sometimes, I really need to kick myself in the head. Learn to say no, Rantz. Learn to say no.

Spent a lot of the weekend working on the script for 'Homecoming' . Currently it's about 34 pages of straight text, so doubling that for page pacing we're lookin' at about 70 pages so far. I expect that number to not quite double, so at this point I'm guessing the book will clock in around 100 - 130 pages. Once again, I wonder what the hell I am thinking sometimes.

2004-10-25T01:13:00.000-07:00

Fucking Ashlee Simpson...

HAHAHAHAHAHA

The sad thing is, not that it points out that most pop is manufactured crap... Not that it shows the complete void of talent in people like her and her sister...

no, the sad thing is the kids that (idiotically) actually looked up to her, thinking she was some talented bad-ass role model. Yeah she's about as bad-ass as Avril... which is to say, not at all. She about as talented as Anna Nicole Smith, which is to say, maybe in some ways that lead to her being over-exposed, but not in the way that she touts. Poor, disillusioned kids.

Welcome to the real world ya little fuckers ;).

Usually a good rule of thumb... if the performance sounds really really good, "Just like the record" it *is* the record. Crap like this just makes me feel old.

2004-10-21T23:41:00.000-07:00

Long day, got up early so I could actually shave and look presentable, headed up to LA in the morning and we were there until 6:30. The drive reminded me that I am really really really happy my commute to work is only 10 minutes and it's on surface streets in OC. Los Angeles traffic just flat out sucks. Drains you like a vampiric lamprey. Meetings went well though.

2004-10-21T01:40:00.000-07:00

Spent most of the day prepping for meeting with THQ and Activision RE: War Dogs, the new game Quicksilver is in process of developing/pitching/selling. This is the first of many such meetings and god knows in the ten years i've been in the games biz I've been through these types of meetings dozens of times with every major company in the business, excpet the dominant japanese ones (Konami, Namco, Square, etc).

Nonetheless,it still works a number on my nerves and I'll be glad when we have all the bids in and we can decide who to go with. I much prefer actually making art to doing any of the management-level business. Whether that's deal-making or working out production schedules. Not that I'm bitching. I realize that if you want to be in this business, that's part and parcel of it. There are, however, always areas of a job that are your 'less-than-favorite' bits and being a 'company' guy, rates up there for me.

Need sleep, should have been asleep hours hour. Going to bed now.

2004-10-19T01:01:00.000-07:00

was asked to do an 'essay' for the Fiddler's Green convention (The Sandman/Neil Gaiman con In Minn MN), so I just turned that in. FG is a benefit limited con (500 guests) for the Comic Book Legal Defense fund, so I feel Karmically between that and the RAINN calendar, I've done more than most years for good causes.

It was weird however, trying to write an 'essay' about someone who is a friend, but also famous, and that in his circle of fans, you are known for introducing them and another famous person.

Life is very very odd at times.

RE: DM, yes the last couple strips have been not-exactly-comedic. Trust me, there'll be a payoff for the ste-up. Honest.

2004-10-17T22:48:00.000-07:00

So, the News link now takes you here to the blog. I'll try to have something of semi-interest to say here on a semi-regular basis now.

So, I have a gigantic slew of comics at the office, both in regular comic book form, and in collected editions or 'graphic novel format' the combined mass of them takes up three large bookcases. They are at the office because with four kids, a.) I do not want them to get trashed by children who think that anything that looks like a comic book is theirs by birthright, and b.) with four kids, there's no damn room for them.

So, anyways...

Recently I'm been going through different comic series, re-reading them. Went through the entire run of Grendel last week, went through all of Joe Matt and Bernie Mireault's individual works this week... Part of it is to have something different to read while smoking (when I do ALL of my reading, hence why it's gonna be hard to quit.), part of it is inspiration, mentally chargin batteries and ramping myself to tackle the very large task of laying out and painting 'homecoming' the graphic novel project I'm working on.

Also recently read Bill Sienkiewicz's Stray Toasters and his ill-fated collab with Alan Moore, Big Numbers, which to me is probably the biggest inspiration and I lament it's lack of completion because the timing, the cadance, the characterization that they capture in two books is fucking astounding. I can only imagine what it would've been like had it been completed. If I can do half as well on homecoming as they did on those two issues of Big Numbers... well, I'll be happy man.

2004-09-08T01:35:00.000-07:00

Much delayed, but damn close, DM is creaking and groaning its way back into existence. I have a few strips done, and want to get a few more 'in the can', because frankly after this idiotic delay I've put everyone through, once we get going again, I want to maintain the momentum. (Momentum of the strip coming out again, not of putting people through idiotic delays. Just to be clear there.)

As noted on the forum, there's been some serious changes to the DM world in the last few months. I've always frelt that time should exist IRL for comic characters (one of my many hangups/issues/neurosis) and that the characters i found most interesting were the ones that, like Lynn Johnston's work, or the Herndandez Bros characters, aged, grew older, moved, had kids, midlife crisis, ups and downs. That there was no such thing as chronological stasis. So, in the same way that the characters who were in Edge City, that now attend the world of DM, they went from being college aged goofballs, to goofballs in their late 20s early 30s trying to avoid appearances and shackles of adulthood.

Like many of the people in the game dev business.

More on the changes to the world of DM very soon...

2004-05-26T00:36:00.000-07:00

Had a couple of schedule conflicts that preclude an update in the form of a strip today. in process of doing some different things to a.) help speed up the generation of the strip and b.) improve the standardization of characters so that they are 'on model' all the time. this is a process that is taking a bit to work the kinks out of but once dealt with there's actually the possiblity that DM might not just be back to 3x a week, but might actually make it to a daily (work week, 5 strips a week) strip. The preliminary results look promising and I will keep everyone informed as it progresses. All art dealing with a technical aspect has a tendancy to bite you on the ass when you aren't looking though... Case in point: Games.

2004-05-24T10:33:00.000-07:00

I SWEAR a new strip is done. Finished it last night and for some reason have not been able to upload to the FTP site. I'm investigating and hopefully will have an answer by end of day today. In the words of Han Solo "It's not my fault, they said they fixed it! It's not my fault!"

2004-05-13T22:16:00.000-07:00

E3 thoughts and fallout.

I've just completed my second all-day jaunt at E3, and were I a good commentator on the social and business state of affairs in the game industry, i'd do a strip on it. However, as I write this it's early (10:15pm, which *is* early by my standards) but I'm completely fucking exhausted. I started pitch meetings for the game we're currently trying to get signed at 10am, which means I was up at 7am (which is early for me) and making the hell-drive up the I-5 to downtown Los Angeles. The meetings ranged the gamut from "well, that was a complete waste of time" to "Wow, I think we have something here." Regardless, last meeting finished at 6:20PM, and I had to make my way back home to Orange county through Rush hour traffic. Not bitching about my lot in life because, really, a bad day making games is a far better day than the best day working in a 'real' job.

So, I'm sitting here, trying to come up with an E3 appropriate strip and frankly, there's nothing that I can come up with in my exhausted state that doesn't feel 'phoned in'. So, instead, I thought I'd write some of my thoughts and impressions about E3.

1.) PSP flat-out kicks fucking ass. Prior to the show I had *zero* interest in buying one and thought Sony was out of their mind taking on the world of handhelds owned by the big 'N'. After seeing it in action, I ca tell you I'm buying one the day it comes out. Ridge racer, Wipeout, Metal Gear Solid, Gran Turismo.... dear GOD they look amazing. Combine that with the best industrial design I've seen in the games industry and a razor sharp widescreen... My only fear is "what will the battery life be like?"

2.) The Nintendo DS is just weird. A GBA/PDA hybrid looking thingy that kinda looks like it'd be half-way interesting to own after it's been out for a year or so and there is a huge catalog of software, combined with a reduced price-point. I'll give Nintendo props for doing something different, but will anyone actually *want it*? Who knows... and frankly the video demo of the pre-teen kids flirting ala-scribbled wi-fi messages in between playing games just seemed a little forced in terms of how people will actually use these things.

3.) Phantom. How is it that so many intelligent people from the games industry who actually have good track records have gone over to drink the Infinium Labs Kool-aid?!? By their own confession they aren't after the gamer market per se' they are after the 'family' market. That is a mythical beast created by marketing folks. Ain't no such thing. I'm 36, I have 4 kids, I'm married, my two eldest daughters LOVE video games and all things geeky such as comics, cartoons and sci fi, but I can tell you now, paying 30 bucks a month for two years for a huge piece of hardware (which admittedly looks nice... if you couldn't kill someone by accidentally dropping it on them) for mediocre non-new games,and paying additional amounts for 'top tier' games which won't run well because the PC hardware contained in it is already dated?! I mean, the demo they showed was UT2k4 without all bells and whistles turned on... NOT connected to anyone else, just a solo game and it did NOT maintain 30FPS. what the hell is gonna happen when it's hooked up to the net?! HL2? Doom3? good fucking luck. But again, this is by their own words 'not their target market.' It's flashbacks of working at Philips on CD-i titles all over again...

4.) World of Warcraft intro/teaser movie is the single best game cinematic I've ever seen. Just phenomenal.

5.) Starcraft Ghost, while not bad as a game, the intro movie/trailer for *it* was sorely dissapointing. especially when shown back-to-back with WoW. The male human faces just look..*off*. Mouths too wide, eyes set too far apart... *sigh* well at least the game itself looks nice. Hopefully the control scheme will get refined because the 3rd person aiming shit is a bit difficult in the not-meant-to-be-a-gameplay element way.

which leads to...

6.) 3rd person shooters. In this day and age I would have thought every dev and publisher would have figured out that in a 3rd person shooter, not having a snap-to-target function for your aiming reticle is a detah knell. And yet, there are a fucking TON of games coming out without it. Notably dissapointing: The new Ghost in the Shell game, which a couple of us were REALLY excited about... until we tried to play it. The aiming bordered on impossible, which was very frustrating considering the GitS game for the original PS was VERY playable and very original and fun. Other games are violating this all over the place, and I fear that marketing a year and a half from now will look at the numbers and say "3rd person shooters don't sell" and it'll not be because people haven't wanted to buy them, but because they were damn=near ipossible to play. That kind of thing ends up in you having genres dies off or get seriously stunted (witness the state of adventure games)

which leads to...

7.) FPS games on console. With a few notable exceptions, FPS games do NOT work on consoles. Just try to pitch one to a publisher, they'll tell you as much flat out. And yet there were a fucking TON of console FPS games, none of which addressed the control/aiming issue as well as Goldeneye. That is a sad, sad state of affairs. Battlefield on PS2?! choppy and hard to control. I guess they see it a liscence to print money but I just look and it and whimper.

however...

8.) UT:Championship2 for XBox is a step in the right direction. The words "It's not a port" have never been more true.

9.) Rumble Roses. Dear lord, and we wonder why people look at the game industry as a bunch of hormonally-challenged goobers who can't even talk to members of the opposite sex? At least the Playboy Mansion tycoon game has the good grace to make any pretense that it is about anything BUT T and A.

however...

10.) isn't the ostensible appeal of the Playboy franchise and a 'Sim Hef' game the idea that you get to be around really hot women and control them to some degree or another?> Looking like the ugly cousins of the Sims kinda negates that appeal. Unless you of course are trying to appeal to the she-male fetishists everywhere. ::rolls eyes::

11.) On a more 'wholesome front' Paper Mario and Pikmin 2 are lovely and a lot of fun. but Donkey Conga, with it's bongo drum controller is either brilliant or the dumbest idea ever concocted by Nintendo since the Virtua Boy. Which side of the fence it falls on likely depends on the amount of liquor or illicit substances consumed prior to assessing it.

12.) Bawls energy drink (great stuff, if the cause of many juvenile Beavis and Butthead kinds of jokes) was giving away free energy drinks outside the show. I consumed 3-4 per day and hence saved myself 10 bucks a day that I would normally spend on energy drinks. It really *is* the little things that make all the difference.

13.) there were no fewer than 17 Military themed games for PC and consoles... take from that what you will.

14.) 100 Bullets, published by Akklaim based on the comic book from Vertigo will make every parent think GTA is completely acceptable by comparison. There's shit there that is just so over-the-top in terms of it's violence (graphically shooting people point blank in the head, shoving folks out a high-rise window, etc) that it's almost assured to be a rallying cry for Lieberman and his cronies. especially these days.

15.) the more time that passes without its release, the less impressive Doom 3 seems.

16.) there are a giant assload of MMORPGs coming out. Most of which suck complete and utter ass. NCSoft, from what I can tell, has figured out how to avoid it. The real question now is, what will the market bear in terms of numbers of actual users.

Ok, that's enough for tonight. I may write more tomorrow on this.

In other news, the Graphic novel was approved by the publisher so I am 100% officially done with it. (yea) HOWEVER, thery are PRINTING it in Decemeber for release in January. Yes, those dates are correct. Mind-boggling, I know.

2004-04-28T14:21:00.000-07:00

There will not be any strips for the rest of this week. My father-in-law died on Monday, and obviously that takes priority over the strip. Sorry.

2004-04-16T14:31:00.000-07:00

A few folks have sent me mail pointing out that (re: today's strip) there are good versions and implementations of Bit Torrent. Yes, I'm aware of that. However, it doesn't change the fact that the current implementation of it in WoW,in a word, bites. Final download time for me on the new version? 14 hours and some change. Yikes.

2004-04-16T00:02:00.000-07:00

Am I exaggerating in today's strip? Not by much. I have high speed cable at home, and I've been downloading the new version ofWoW since I got home at 6pm. It's 11:50 as I write this and it (no lie) says i have 19 hour (sic) 54 min 40 sec of download left. So far, the download times and the implementation of bit torrent is the only complaint I really have re: WoW. I'm just antsy, because I really do want to play the Horde characters already, evil bastard that I am.

In other news, I broke down and bought and Eluminx lighted keyboard yesterday becdause it's hard as hell to do quick key commands in the dark when you don't know how to type. My friend Ross says this is just because I wanted to pimp out my comp, but really, I don't want to keep my wife awake late at night by having a lamp on, and I seriously do not know how to type. (I do this mutant version of typing with four fingers, looking at the keyboard the whole time.). The layout of the keys is a bit weird... I keep hitting the directional arrows when i mean to hit control and the spacebar is too narrow at first attack but i like the feel of the keys and it's a nice shade of glowing blue. I got it at MicroCenter as a discounted returned item, and honestly i don't know as i would have paid the full retail price for it, but as it is, it was a pretty good deal.

Now if WoW will finish downloading so i can actually try it out in a practical setting...

2004-04-14T09:42:00.000-07:00

Holy Crap. I seriously did not realize today was Wed. I took Monday off because of easter/Family trip and so when I went back on Tuesday, I got completely messed up in terms of what day it is. Dear lord, how lame is that?

2004-03-22T13:47:00.000-08:00

Here's the link to register for the classes I'm teaching at GDC.

2004-03-21T23:27:00.000-08:00

Totally, beyond all sanity, swamped with prep for GDC. Sorry, but between prepping materials for the class, and making sure that everything is taken care of at the office and the various projects we're working on won't get held up in my abscence... well, it's been crazy. I'm looking forward to the convention despite the frantic prep. John Gaeta (the guy behind the Matrix FX) is the art keynote speaker, so that will be enlightening... That and Carmack speaking should have my head reeling for a few days.

Now if I can just get these lesson files done...

2004-03-17T01:39:00.000-08:00

GDC is just around the corner, and as usual, I'll attending. However, a slight difference is that I'll be teaching two classes on Friday of the Conference. The course is titled "painting yourself out of polygonal corner" parts 1 & 2. I'll post the url for preregistration, and details in the next day or so, in case anyone is interested.

And in other news, congrats to Dave Sim for making it to 300. Despite what you may think Dave, there are those of us who stuck with you for the duration of the trip and enjoyed it. Now, get some rest. After doing Cerebus for 25 years, you deserve it.

2004-03-05T02:04:00.000-08:00

Had a family medical emergency today which necessitated me being in the emergency room of the local hospital for 5 hours. In other words, my whole night. The good news is, everyone's ok, and it's nothing to be oncerned about.

The bad news is that there's no strip today as a result. I got back at 12:30am-sh and after spending the entire night in the ER, I just can't muster the energy. Sorry folks, I really am.

2004-03-02T23:45:00.000-08:00

As noted on the main DM page, this is the 100th DeathMarch strip. AND it's been one year since I started the strip. In some ways, it seems like it's been going for a lot longer, this year has been... *challenging* we will say, and leave it at that. Here's hoping that the second year of DM's life is smoother in all aspects. Thank you to everyone who has supported the strip and its "insider" meanderings.

I've actually been looking into the possiblity of doing a collection (in actual paper/printed form) of the strips, with some new, created-just-for-the-collection short stories that'd be longer than just the four-panel stuff. Would anyone out there actually BUY such a thing though? Since *I* would likely be the one footing the bill to get it printed and distributed, I don't feel like having it done and then having my house filled with box upon box of DM collections. What do you folks think? *Would* you actually buy such a thing if it was reasonable in price?

2004-02-29T23:12:00.000-08:00

Ok, I am truly a geek. The real excitement of my weekend. Playing pokemon pinball and getting over 1 BILLION in the high score rankings (1,595,805,138 to be exact). To put this in relative perpective, I manage to get around 200 - 300 million per game. A real sign that I spend WAY too much time playing this game. In an effort to maintain sanity, I'm actually scheduling out two nights (at least) a week that I'll go to bed when the rest of the family hits the sack instead of staying up until 2-3am. DM will NOT be affected by this, but I'm gonna *try* to get a more reasonable schedule back into order.

Saw Neil won the 'final jusgement' in the ongoing legal wrangling RE: the spawn characters he created. Nice. One can only hope this means that Miracleman will show up again. The death of that series, Sweeney Todd (Gaiman's project with Zulli), Big Numbers, and Puma Blues I consider the great comic losses over the last decade or so.

Hope everyone has a great week.

2004-02-26T23:46:00.000-08:00

In the 'slightly-related' category, Some of you may have seen article in a recent Computer Games magazine involving a game being developed by Pandemic called Full Spectrum Warrior. FSW is a squad-based 'realistic' military game that was originally developed as a squad leader training sim for the US ARMY. Quicksilver (the company I work for as Creative Director in my 'real job') was hired to do the Company Commander training sim companion title for the Army titled Full Spectrum Command. We're also now working (for the ARMY) on Full Spectrum Leader, which is the Platoon leader training Sim.

What does this have to do with the price of beans? Well, we're ALSO in the process of adapting FSC/FSL into a commercial game. What we're doing with it is REALLY exciting, and something that hasn't been done before in games. There's been FPS 'real' games, and some squad level ones, but there's never been a story-driven, action-oriented title with this number of forces in a campaign/scenario mode that has units that have actual *smart* AI (read: that you can trust to not fuck up orders).

It's being designed as being very accesible, with a control scheme that is very responsive and intuitive and will work on either the PC *or* on console. We're currently talking with various publishers about the title, so stayed tuned for more news as it comes about. In addition, if you're a publisher, and you want a action-oriented military title that will stand out from the slew of mil games out there, drop us (or me) a line. We'd love to talk with you.

2004-02-25T01:23:00.000-08:00

Don't everyone die of shock, but today marks two strips in a row. Up on the actual days they are supposed to go up. Wonders never cease... In addition, in case you haven't seen it, here's some humor on the main Gamespy site for you...

2004-02-22T23:38:00.000-08:00

no real exciting news. There's a new strip up. We're (I think) about halfway throught the 'Seeds of your Distraction' story arc. It may run longer, it may go shorter. The notes I have on the gags relating to the storyline indicate there's about six or seven more strips until this wraps, but they are just notes, and you never know until you're actually working on the four-panel timing how many will actually result. Sometimes an idea that seemed good in the beginning, turns out to be as lame as the resurgence of 80s-influenced fashion. Other times a whole seperate string of jokes inserts itself into the scenario.

There's serious questions on whether I'll get to all the things on my DM 'to do' list. I still think I'll be able to get the strip back in a steady roll now that things are clearing out in my schedule, and I *have* to get the shop up and running again by the end of the month with new designs, but the DM1.5 thing is just gonna have to wait. Reconstructing the design of the website is a pretty significant time investment, and with Irene having stepped down a while back as the 'webkeeper', I'm doing all the webwork on my own. I'm not a web guru, so while I *can* do it, it takes time, and I have two scripts I want to get done in the next month or so.

Have a good week everyone.

2004-02-15T22:59:00.000-08:00

For anyone who's tried to send comments to the Deathmarch email addy, be aware that Gamespy has put a clamp on all mail until the current spate of viruses gets under control.

Pokemon Pinball has consumed whatever spare moments I have... the damn thing is addictive as all hell. Great pinball game regarless of whether or not you love pokemon, or think they are the incarnation of evil consumerism. Great table design, cool bonus levels and that ineffable 'one more game' feeling. Highly recommended.

Aside from that, recently started two new projects at the 'real' job, so things are very busy there... that and getting ready for GDC, E3 and so on...

2004-02-11T11:53:00.000-08:00

So, I gotta say, I was doubtful about the whole 'Till Death do Us Part: Carmen & Dave" series, but I'm really enjoying it. Partly because I think Dave is such a nice guy and he's had a hell of a life, so to see him actually be clean, happy and coming into his own is really wonderful. I had the good fortune of meeting Dave backstage in 94 at one of NIN's shows. He was very cool and gracious and we chatted for a long time, which was pretty amazing in hindsight because I'm pretty sure I was babbling like an idiot. Still, Dave was extremely nice and polite during the entire conversation and genuinely seemed to be interested in what I had to say. If he could manage THAT feat (of being able to be polite enough to listen to me ramble) then he's a saint as far as I''m concerned. (Hell, putting up with my rambling has made my wife into a minor deity as far as I'm concerned.)

But, anyways, it's a fun show and really great to see Dave happy. It's also nice to see Jane's Addiction acting like they did in the 'club days' (minus the drugs), palling around and enjoying each other's company. Now, if they can just be sure to get a producer besides Bob Ezrin for the next album...

2004-02-08T23:31:00.000-08:00

While things have certainly been less hectic in the last few days since finishing the calendar piece, and the graphic novel (minus final touch-ups, publisher changes and approvals) the dust is still settling. Because of a family medical crisis that's been going on since just after Thanksgiving, every weekend has been spent away from home. This matters not a whit to any of you except for the fact that I am just too tired to do a strip tonight.

This, as the phrase goes, is saying something.

I rarely get to bed prior to 2am because of 'work obsession'. In a nutshell, projects take over and I freak about there being too little time in each day, and so I stay up all hours and work on stuff. Whether it's projects for the 'day job' at Quicksilver, or side projects such as the calendar and comic stuff, if there's work to be done I'm usually losing sleep in order to do it.

I'm not bringing this up to play martyr or do a 'woe is me' stance. I know my sleep deprivation is self-induced, and i thank the makers of energy drinks that I have 'fuel' to make it mostly a non-issue. I bring it up simply to point out that me getting to bed prior to midnight due to exhaustion is a rare thing indeed.

As far as Deathmarch goes, here's my plan, in order of priority. All things which I would like to be fact by end of February:

1.) Get the strip back on schedule and actually get a bunch of strips 'in the can' so in the case of nights like tonight, a strip still shows up.
2.) Get the 'shop' back up and running with new merch so there's time to get orders in prior to GDC and E3.
3.)Do a version '1.5' of the DM site with links to the Blog, updated/revised sketchbook area, things like the energy drink round-up and so on.

There are other things I'd like to tackle as well, but I'd like to be semi-realistic here and considering the two projects that just got signed at QS, the 'new Graphpic novel' project, and the script I'm working on, I do know that my time won't exclusively be available to DM. So, now that I've publically stated it, I'll feel guilty if I don't do so. Guilt, as they say, is a great motivator.

In completely unrelated news, I got the 299th issue of Cerebus a week ago while taking my eldest to get Pokemon stuff at the comic shop. My massive comic consumption has pretty much gone by the wayside due to time and money, but I've maaged to get every issue since I started picking it up in the 80s. Dave is brilliant. Some say he's a loon, some say he's a misogynist. Some say he's completely removed from reality. I say he's one of the few geniuses the comics industry has. His personal views are always interesting, regardless of whether I agree with them or not, and the writing ability and craft he has put in for 300 issues to the complete story arc is an amazing feat. The pace of the last few issues I thought for certain it would end a 'soft death' quietly (story-wise) with heavy ruminations.

Well, issue 299 was shocking and a perfect example of why I think Dave is simply amazing. Can't wait for the final issue next month and will be very very sorry to see it all come to an end.

2004-02-03T13:08:00.000-08:00

Ok, so in an effort to minimize the amount of time I have to spend on things, here's the start of DeathMarch's 'Blog'