Well the Emerald City Comic Con was pretty much a bust for me. I have NEVER waited more than about 15-30 minutes in a line to get in to see a show. It took 1-1/2 hours in a line that literally would go around the convention twice if that were the path it took. It was actually more circuitous. And I lucked out that I bought my ticket online a week before. That was a first as well. Turns out Sat and Sun were sold out. Friday tickets were limited. I might not have gotten in if I tried to get a ticket at the door!

At least once inside it didn't seem more packed than usual. Tho' the entire convention center was servicing the 'con this year. I did see Brad Guigar who's comic "Evil Inc" I enjoy reading on the web. I got his "Annual Report No. 7" and he drew a fun sketch of Dr. Muskiday inside. I must draw a sketch of Muskiday sometime. Muskiday had a fun adventure recently.

Else wise I got a copy of "The Adventures of the 19XX" by Paul Martinez. A sort of WWI era adventure that fascinated me because of the era flighing machines I am fond of and a bit of magic in the story line. I don't know much about the artist but his display was the only story and character combo that seemed to interest me other than Brad's comic which I specifically know about. There was a time during the big comics renaissance in the 80's when I could find really wonderful different concepts that interested me. Now much less so.

Many comics seem like the twisted ravings of a sick mind. Horror-ish or standoff-ish cool people having cool adventures. Many copyright infringing artists doing Marvel-DC-Capcom-Pokemon commissions. Muscle man vigilantes. Boom comics had a HUGE display. I don't know much about their stuff and wasn't too interested in what I saw. Dark horse was there but I never made it to their counter. I like to stay in artist alley in general anyway.

"Modest Medusa" was there with Jake Richmond but unfortunately some dude was in front of the display yacking about himself to somebody else and I got distracted and wandered off. Else, I didn't see anyone I knew of from DA or elsewhere! Wow! That's just plain weird! I'm used to seeing loads of DA people you see here and there. Now it seems like it's only the hard core 'con circuit types there. The same kind of people you see at the farmers market in the summer each year. I always thought it would be fun to get a table, but they're way too professional for me to fit in there now. I think I'll have to set up some web offerings at some time if I want to try pushing any swag at some time.

Ran into Jeff at the con with his "Pseudo Comics" display. He had a "SnowBuni" compilation that was fun, also included a short story drawn by Ben Dunn! How about that for only $4.00 and if you ask nicely he'd give you a discount. ^_^

So all in all it wasn't a TOTAL bust but it was somewhat a letdown from previous years. Might be the beginning of the end for me and EEEC. I'll have to check out Sakura-con perhaps.  I haven't been to that one since 2003! But I'll need to be REALLY prepared for long lines on that one. That one can be a mad house as well. So all in all it might be the end of con's for me in general now that they have hit the main stream. Or I'm just getting old and it's not as exciting as it used to be. Which is most likely the case. ^_^;

So I thought I'd just add a quick blurb on Win 8. Given Win 8 is due out in a day or two here's the quick report on my personal impression. I was lucky to have a little box to spare, so I dropped my SUSE Linux from there and popped on the consumer preview of Win 8...

Pluses: Fast!

It felt very smooth. Perhaps fast is not correct. But it was very smooth. I had it on a small solid state drive (you know I love those things) and opening programs and using the tool was wonderful. I particularly enjoyed Media Center even tho' I think it's hopelessly obsolete. I actually love the REMOVAL of Aero which I always thought was useless GPU time wasting fluff.

Minuses: UI (that's User Interface for those of you not into jargon).

Yes, you've heard it. No start button. Weird fancy hand jive required to even shut down the machine. (that is ignoring the power button if your new fangled machine has one!) Now the Metro stuff is fun. I'm sure that it'll be great on some brain dead small screen tablet. But c'mon! This is the one place I spend a little bit of money and that's on my hardware and Win 8 just under utilizes my screen real estate.

Worse is I can't seem to find the window border adjustment in the old desktop world. I can't even customize my desktop anymore! First thing I do when I get a new installation is bump the borders to a fat 5 or 6 whatever the units are. I do not like the standard ONE PIXEL border you guys seem to love. But that's gone. Not only did they remove my start button so I have to have a brain reset when ever I start an app and pop into primary color world to see all the wild array of things I can buy on the start screen. Sigh. That sux. I'll get a replacement start button so I don't have to go there.

I don't like how MS thinks that they've somehow finished with the desktop and it's time to move on to fleecing the wallets of every customer with a app store!

Perhaps this will encourage the development of a healthy third party desktop apps again. I can tell you they'd better damn well offer those goodies in their gilded app store! >_< I remember when I used to buy Norton goodies to spruce up my machine. All that stuff got killed. Who knows. Perhaps it's the beginning of a new age?

But then again. If Adobe bothered to offer Photoshop for Linux, I'd be all over that! And then goodbye Windows! I'm close. I've been using SUSE but I find it a bit cranky. Tho' now that Attachmate owns them I might give them a try again. I have a co-worker who swears by Gentoo. And of course Ubuntu is always the one they say grandma can use. Else, maybe I can roll my own version of GIMP! Ah the things I could do if I had time.

Buying a tablet? Now that's a whole different story! I recently bought a iPad as a gift. But I still haven't used one. So I still don't know much about that. The Nexus 7 looks interesting, but in the same way as a Kindle Fire. Those machines want to fleece you in an the a$$, erm, that is, app store. Win RT is like that too. There's nothing inherently wrong with a different instruction set of the ARM processor. But there's no backward compatibility there in a gilded cage world. I don't want to put myself into a cage.


Summery: My recommendation is...

1) Upgrade/Desktop - NO! You'll be happier with win 7. I'm from the old age. Win 8 is NOT FOR ME! It's not built for me! I like to create when I sit down at my super duper machine. Win 8 is about consumption. Buying things making MS richer and me poorer. Both in my pocket book and in my brain! But I do have one small caveat coming up...

2) Tablet - C'mon, the safe choice is Apple. I still can't see much use for a tablet and so I'm going to say no-recommendation. I'm just not vested enough.

3) Laptop - YES! Hey, you didn't think I had it in me did you? I have used a laptop this year on a contract. The tiny screen IF coupled with touch (on the screen) AND a real keyboard seems like a really nice fit for Win-8. I typically would be running one of TWO apps I would switch between: Terminal server and Notepad. It's gonna be expensive. But for the working -mobility- scenario, this seems like a sweet spot. And heaven knows it's all about mobility these days. My prediction is that Win 8 will do well here!

I've made my prediction. Let's see what happens!

Starwars IV, V, VI for $49.95 Blue Ray, nothing fancy... FINALLY!

Daisy, daisy...

I just read an article about how the brain shrinks as you get older. I always hate those articles: I'm getting older, I can't seem to stop it! >_< But what it really means, is that as one gets older, the odds one can pick up anything new keep going down and down! Here at DA it's easy to find essays on self improvement and being the best (artist) you can be. I don't see as many articles about being able to keep up with the crowd in the first place!

Art - life - art. Naturally, it's a recuring theme around here. I certainly think about it all the time. Some of my most unread posts are about it! But this post is not about pouring tears into my beer mug! No, as I write this missive on my own text editor, I can say this post is about an interesting article I came across while surfing the web recently... [link] "How to be Creative" by Hugh MacLeod.

At first, it wasn't quite the article that it's title would leave me to believe. It is not an article about "how" to be creative. More so, it is an article on how to support your creativity! Hugh MacLeod seems to touch upon most every topic I've pondered about from time to time. However, Hugh does it in a far more lucid and interesting way!

My favorite topics:

1) Are you hiding behind a pillar?
2) Making money requires compromise.

The first is a favorite topic of mine! Are you buying that equipment because you need it or do you think it will impart the super powers you need to be terrific? I have this bad habit of wanting to buy a bit more than I need. Somehow when I was younger I didn't have a problem with this because I didn't have any money! Now, when I'm older, I find rapid technological advance keeps me from buying too soon at too high a price! I am not an early adopter.

When I bought my first Intuos tablet I was a little worried I was buying boots way too big for my feet! But it turns out a tablet does make some things possible that were harder to do with a mouse. Now, I'm sure I could have made due with a "Bamboo/Graphire" style tablet. But that pillar impulse drew me to the pricier version. Fortunately, I kept that tablet many years. I only recently upgraded because of the touch wheel gadget that the Intuos 4 had seemed like it would really speed things up.

And it did! But one lucky bonus happened at the same time. The tablet is twice the resolution as the previous. Suddenly I can trace my art and thus digitally ink! I simply could not manage it before! Not sure why. Some Pillar stories have a happy ending.

Now I'm still sorely tempted to spring for a Cintiq. Even the touch pad Intous 5 is alluring! But I feel those are pillars. I'd best just keep chugging away on my old home brew AMD Phenom computer and Intous 4 for a while longer.

The take away: if you really like doing what you do. You probably can get by with a minimum of gear!

The second topic I found particularly interesting was that if you love doing something, getting paid for it will involve much compromise. The greater the compromise for more of the money! This was a large part of Hugh's treatise and I think you should read his words directly. But my take-a-way on this, is that, it might be best, in the long run, if you keep your hobby a hobby. No compromise, no need to please anybody! As a matter of fact, the best road for you might be a long and solitary path, but it'll be better than the alternatives. And that is great food for thought.

His article seemed to touch on many considerations I've given thought to as I try to keep a roof over my head while at the same time feeding my creative side. Hugh MacLeod gives it a thorough examination and provides some useful insights. A highly recommended read from me.

Check it out!

At last, aaaallllmost there! Be the 70K viewer and get a sketch!

And thanks for visiting!

I don't know if any of you watched "Robots". But the theme of that animation was that the robots couldn't get spare parts because the evil robots running the metal smelter were trying to make it too expensive to fix yourself up. The only way to get fixed up was expensive "upgrades". Well, I'm not sure the difference between spare parts and upgrades, but I just recently upgraded my system!

Last time I messed with this machine (other than the SSD I stuck in there not too long ago) was back in 2009 when I bought it. But I was looking at a friend's computer and noticed that some of my art looked better over there! >_< So I decided that my integrated graphics was just not cutting it any more. It's a Nvidia with 8 cuda cores. It was ok, but sometimes I like to play a game and then it was pretty bad. So I finally went out and got a video card. It's no big deal. An EVGA GT-520. But it's pretty nice. It has 48 cuda cores. My screen is actually clearer and it's all digital as it is. Plus the colors are deeper. It's like being in a whole new world! Money can buy happiness... for a while at least. ^_^;

I also updated the heat sink on the CPU! That's a first for me. But I didn't want to pay the $35 dollar install fee. So if I get a blue screen of death, I'll know I didn't do a good job with the heat grease! But the stuff that was on my CPU was all dried out and I understand that is not as heat efficient as it should be anyway. And the fan was getting pretty noisy. The new one isn't much better but it looks pretty fabulous, like a giant portobello mushroom on my CPU.

Who knows, maybe next mother board I'll put the CPU on the socket myself! Adventurous! >_< I always let the computer shop do that since if they break it they buy it! And they always install it for me on the spot when I get a new MOBO.

I love fixing up my computer. I wish they had computer shows like the car shows so I could show off my ride!

Next up is my home server. Time for WHS 2011 and a new hard drive. The old one has been in there for 3 years and that's getting to middle age for a hard drive. I just had a very big server I manage go belly up because of both the controller and drives started to fail at the same time! Wow. The raid was crap and replacing the controller did no good. It's too bad that I didn't see the SMART disk warnings sooner. I noticed the machine was acting odd, but I thought it was because the page file was too large for the partition it was set up with before I got there. I fixed it and it really started acting happier and then it started keeling over! That machine was only 3 years old too.

I think 3 years is getting into the transition zone. And 5 years is old.

I've been in a real spring cleaning mood! I fixed up the sprinkler system on the lawn. Threw away a ton of junk in the garage. Carted away bunches of old electronics. Totally re-arranged my media room. I bought one of those wire shelves and now everything is orderly. And lastly I can see the bottom of my desk now! Wow, Memorial day is just next week. I think that would be a good time to upgrade my server.

But it's getting late today. I think I'd like to go have a glass of wine and watch a movie. Or perhaps I'll scan up some test sketches of Xaratron that I drew up for my midweek comic. I don't have a firm idea of what her adventure is going to be yet. But she's fun to draw in her "Tron" suit. >_<

Take care all!

So in this age of over driven MP3 micro-processed sounds squeezed through minuscule ear buds, sometimes I like to  saunter over to my hulk of a 5 channel "stereo" system and listen the old fashioned way: 45's!

Yup, I still have my Onkyo Direct Drive turn table from long ago. The integrated amp and speakers are new. Well comparatively in the last decade. But I'd give anything to have something tube driven. That's pricey sound. Yet, I understand tubes. I could bias a tube type multi-stage super-heterodyne tube radio when I was a kid. And a phonograph is easy to understand. I've even made my own stylus when I was a kid with a safety pin. Not to mention my own telegraph and electric motor! Ah! Those were the days when the world seemed so understandable and I was ready to contribute big things!

These days as I work the 8 to 5 shift I'm thinking my chances of making any real impact is quickly passing in the rear view mirror as I blitz down the road of life. The good news is that it looks like all the bills are going to get paid on time, I have a roof over my head, and I had some extra cash to replace my 15 year old clunker. She was an old faithful, but one too many services recommendations made me decide it's time to move on.

I must apologize, I always get somewhat nostalgic when I listen to those old tunes:

David and David "Welcome to the Boomtown"
The Art of Noise "Peter Gunn"
Bobby Pickett "Monster Mash"
Jive Bunny and the MasterMixers "Glenn Miller Medley"
Level 42 "Something About You"
Journey "Don't Stop Believin'"
Steve Martin and the Toot Uncommons "King Tut"

Quite an "assorted mishmash" to paraphrase Douglas Adams. Just stuff I collected over the years. Most of it from thrift stores. What a trove of memories those places can be! Most of my LP's are gone. I just kept the really special ones. But I still have my 45's and any others I come across from time to time. It's just great to kick back in the Stereo Center and listen to those old tunes 3 to 4 minutes of bliss one at a time.

I expect I'll eventually digitize all those old tunes, pops, clicks, hiss, and all. So when I'm really old and in wheel chair in some corner staring nowhere, the attendant can cue up my favorites from the central computer and what's left of my plaque ridden brain can pull back those last shreds of my humanity out from background noise.

It's always bliss!

One thing I love about Netflix on demand is that you can just watch something when you want. Sort of a synecdoche I admit. But I mean there's a lot of stuff there that you wouldn't bother with if you had to put -any- effort into it to see otherwise.

For example: last year I watched all the "Dracula" films including Nosferatu ala Netflix. Yes, yes, I know most of you canceled your subscriptions but I kept mine. But that's not what I wanted to write about here. What I wanted to mention for a moment was "Mars Needs Moms" (2011) distributed by Disney. [link]. I'll write MnM for sort.

MnM was a box office bomb. Checking the all knowing wikipedia, it was "one of the 12th worse openings in all time and the biggest box-office bomb in film history unadjusted for inflation!" I watched it all of the way thru and I can vouch for the crowds, it was bad. But I mean there's bad and then really bad. "Catwoman," now that was so bad in my opinion that I couldn't even bring myself to watch it! Or bad like in "The War in Space" by Toho 1977 [link]. Now there's a stinker! I made it all the way through that movie. No, MnM was bad but not -that- bad.

Actually I thought MnM was quite watchable: Mom gets kidnapped to program child rearing robots. Child of said mom, chases ship and ends up being whisked to mars. He befriends the child who's mom was kidnapped last. They befriend a renegade Martian and save the day from an oppressive "1984" like bureaucrat. 'Tis the stuff of great 'B' grade Science Fiction if you ask me. Heck, every Dracula movie was 'B' grade if you ask me again. Eminently watchable. I enjoyed it as I did the Dracula shows and Netflix gets to keep my subscription another month.

Lots of big people were involved in this box office bomb. Robert Zemeckis, yeah you know him from "The Polar Express" (2004 Warner Brothers) or "A Christmas Carol" (2009 Disney). Disney distributed MnM. Berkeley Breathed of "Bloom county" fame wrote the original book.

So what happened? I say it's one thing, wikipedia mentions it down in the "critical response" section... the "uncanny valley". [link]. Computer craphics and robotics engineers have been trying to do this from day one. Mimic the expressions of a real human being. But there's a problem. The "uncanny valley" is the notion that the more you try to make something artificial look human the more repulsed and grossed out real humans get! It turns out we hume's are pretty good at recognizing something wrong in another hume just by looking them in the face! Poor Robert Zemeckis. He's been trying to break the fourth wall now for quite some time! It's too bad because Milo and family mess up what could have been a nice little film otherwise. Let's expand on this a moment...

You know who else knows about this phenomenon? Pixar and John Lasseter! Yup! John knew there was no way he could make a film with psuedo-humans pass muster with an audience. So what did he do? He side stepped the whole tangled mess and cartoonized his way around it. We humans are incredibly easy to please with caricatures. Heck, cartoonists have been doing it for centuries! John never went for "realism" per se. I mean they pour tons of effort into that but in the right places. "Bug's Life". He used hard shelled insects as the actors. As time went on and computers got better he went on with "Toy Story" and eventually "The Incredibles". And that's just the short list. John Cameron pulled off the same stunt in "Avatar". Don't go with humans. Go almost there!

So just like my last journal where I lambast Lucas and the "Star Wars" franchise, you might think I'm down on Zemeckis. But I'm not! He's not taking perfectly good films and mucking them up with "gee wiz" future tech. Nope. Zemeckis is actually trying to push the envelope making the movie the first time! You've got to respect that, even if you decide not to part with your hard earned dollars to participate in that! I hate to say it, but I would like a remake on this one. De-engineer the movie! Make Milo a cartoon! Not just some kid but a caricature of a kid. Like the dudes in "Dragon Hunters" [link] make it fun! Why did they go for realism in the kid when he lands on a world of goofy martians that are clearly "caricatures" of sexy women. They got it all messed up half and half! Like they couldn't make up their minds!

And that's why "The Polar Express" in 2004 succeeded where "Mars needs Moms" did not in 2011. In "TPE" they didn't didn't mix metaphors. No humans and martians. Just humans and mostly humans or complete animals like reindeer. And they stuck to a very emotional thing like Christmas. It's more believable if you can believe me!

So, if you're sentimental and don't need a bunch of explosions and macho man action to please you, go out and give "Mars needs Moms" a watch. It's a fun little film and tear jerker if you don't set yourself up with grand expectations. And while you're giving box office flops a second chance, why not get another beer and check the only other movie that messed up as bad as "Mars needs Moms". Yes... you should be able to name it now... "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians" (1964)!

Over and out!

All I can say is thank goodness! I just couldn't STAND how he kept tweaking and tweaking those films. You never knew what you were going to get every time you watched those damn films.

Think about it... Do I want to see Kermit the frog computerized and re-animated so his eyes blink? NO! Dang it, I want to see the same film I saw 30 years ago! Not some bastardized re-make.

The LEAST he could do is release the old unbastardized films, in some special box set. But is he going to do that nooooo. Stubborn mule. I still watch Star Wars on my Laser Disk. It's the only way to see the Star Wars I enjoyed as a kid.

And remember HAN SHOT FIRST!

Well I suppose it was inevitable. But 70,000 is right after 66,666. How did I get there so soon? Probably because I've been drawing like a mad dog lately. Am I crazy? Am I nuts? Am I offering a 70K Kiriban! Yes, I'm mad, maaaad! But there are a few provisos, a couple of quid pro quo's..

1) You can't have gotten a Kiriban from me before!
2) You know what I can draw so don't get too freaky on me!

The holiday's are coming on full speed so I'm likely to take forever on your sketch. But I'll get to it eventually. In any event, work hard, continually educate yourself, good luck and have a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

.edit Not so fast! How funny I was thinking I was 69K not 67K. I'm WAY off! >_< Anyway, offer still stands at 70K but I think it'll take a good many months before that comes along!!! Thanks for viewing anyway!

Capture 66,666 on my page and get a sketch! It's pretty clear what I'm better at, so don't ask for anything unusual from me! >_<

.edit

We have two winners! Did one cheat? I can't say! But I'm going to give a sketch to both and ! Thanks for capturing the magic number!

So I was updating my drive with a solid state drive... Did I unplug my old data drive? Did I take care not to delete any partitions before I knew my new one was in place? Did I loose all the comics I've been working on for the last 5 years?

No,
No,
Yes!

Yes, I blasted the partition on the old drive and not the new drive and almost lost all my Dragonaur comics in the last 5 years. Note: I had properly archived the years previous and so they were safe! Fortunately I found a tool called Partition Wizard that could recover a partition! Saved! But that was a close one.

Lessons to remember?

1) Microsoft's Home Server sux and it's so called backup of my drive gave me back three precisely empty files! Oh yes, very impressive display.

2 ) The best back up is a back up that you can see. Just make a copy of the files! I don't know how many backups have gotten garbled and useless for me over the years. Duplicity is your friend.

3 ) Don't mess with your original drive until you've copied it's contents or really don't need it's contents! Keep it safe. Power it down until you're ready to look at it.

BUT now that all that evil is over, my new drive is a fire breathing dragon of incredibleness! I use it for my swap files and system files and it flies! All my normal data goes on my old drive. But backed up to my server periodically. By hand! I mean really, you should have two drives anyway. But having one be a solid state drive is just an incredible thing. I can boot from shut off in the same time that my system used to come up from sleep mode! Is that killer or what?

Plus, I added a new case fan because the old one was bolted on the side like a Frankenstein because it was actually too big for the case!

I was thinking of getting a new Core i5 processor MoBo, but this will keep my quad core Phenom system a contender for a few more years. I mean really, solid state drives are the future. Hopefully the'll just integrate them into the system via PCI-2 or something instead of slower SATA. That would just be killer!

So this weekend almost was a total bummer but turned out totally fantastic! My ride may be a beater, but my computer is a tuned sports car! >_<

January thru April. I just can't abide those months. The weather doesn't bug be too much but the lack of Holidays does! Well Memorial day is right around the corner now. And that means BBQ time!

"Listen to them. Children of the night. What music they make!"

So, Waaaayy back in September, October time frame I started reading Bram Stokers Dracula, since it was free on my Nook reader. I've tried reading the book before but it starts out very boring. But after 20 pages or so I started getting into it. It was really cool. So I decided to go back and start watching all the Vampire movies I've missed over the years. Starting first with...

"Nosferatu" (1922): This film was supposedly a copyright infringer of it's day. But you know it's not bad. For it's time it was pretty good.

"Dracula" (1931): This is of course the version with Bela Lugosi. I didn't like this one as much as Nosferatu! I mean it's OK, nice to see people act like in real life versus like they are on a stage, but they changed the story around a bit. And I didn't like the fellow who played Renfield at all! Talk about hamming it up! And the end, it's like it just stopped. Van Helsing ... "Just a moment I'll be along" ... and then it ends!

"Bram Stoker's Dracula" : This is of course the version from Francis Ford Coppola. Now this one has the production values, but yetch what they did to the film! They ruined it. But it was fun to see Gary Oldman, Keanu Reeves, Winona Ryder, and Anthony Hopkins ruin a film. And at least 3 of them are good actors!

So by Halloween I was throughly up to date on my Vampires. But I still keep an eye out for interesting things and that's when I came across...

"Dracula - Dead and loving it!" : with Leslie Nielson. I can't believe it but Mel Brooks did a great job! Now the story was like the 1931 version but it works well enough and the story and gags rolled along nicely.

So there it is. I know more about Vampires than I ever expected I would. And all in all it made for a fun Halloween 2010!

So last week I was minding my own business when Jay Bradley aka Artdude2002 over on Drunk Duck sends an invitation for an interview on Roy Duncan's podcast "Villainland". From what I can tell, it's got nothing to do with villains but it it was fun to ramble on with Roy and Jay. If you'd like to listen here's the link below. Alas, I'm not sure if you can listen unless you have a talkshoe account...

[link]

Both Roy and Jay have well drawn comics, it was a pleasure to talk to them and I got a few tips for my comic efforts. It turns out that Jay sez he has been a reader for quite some time. You know some times I think I just do the comic for my own reasons, but it really makes my day to hear from readers. Especially when they're not telling me how bad my comic is! ^_^;

Anyway, drop the MP3 on your iPod and listen next time you're going to work.

It finally occurred to me to go through and re-organize my galleries. It's about time, I've got a lot more piled up around here than I originally expected. Anybody new isn't going to be able to sort out heads from tails!

But alas, it's slow. The AJAX on the page doesn't remember what it was doing if you click away to the next picture too fast! So this will probably take a few days.

I'll add an edit here when I'm through. Then maybe you can find something old you might have liked!

.ps I'm pretty much done. Now I just need to get in the habit of moving the old stuff into the sub-galleries.

It's my favorite time of the year. And it's pretty cool this year. Usually by August it's getting pretty hot.

Tagged by

Post these rules
• Each tagged person must post 10 things about themselves on their journal.
• At the end, you have to choose and tag 10 people and post their icons on the same journal.
• Go to their pages and send a message saying you tagged them.

1) I'm not an artist. I've loved drawing since I could pick up a pencil but never got good enough to even dream of trying to make a living at it.
2) I am programmer. One reason my art isn't as good as it could be as an artist is that I tend to program on my spare time when I can. I love text processing and have been fascinated with text and computer languages since about 8th grade. Plus, it's a steady job!
3) I tend to draw original art. My own characters.
4) It takes me approximately 6 hours to make one colored comic page. I keep the my art style simple in the manner of animation art as a stylistic preference and since it makes it quicker to draw the page!
5) I prefer sequential art. You really have no idea of how hard it is to tell a story visually until you actually attempt it. It's a huge disservice to collectors when a publisher gets some rock star to draw the cover of a comic and then put junk between the pages!
6) I draw two comics per week. I would like do drop one but I like the creativity that the mix provides me.
7) Not much of a video game player. The visuals (graphics) and game possibilities have fascinated me but attempting to play some game tuned for some dude who spends his whole day gaming is not my idea of fun. It seems too much of a time sink that doesn't provide much payback. At least, when I program for leisure I learn new things which I can apply towards my work and thus improve myself and my employ-ability.
8) I have multiple repetitive stress injuries in my arms and shoulders. Seems to be the on the job hazard of programming and drawing for that matter! Exercising keeps this under control but underscores the importance of finding a good paying job for your efforts because at some point you (me for sure) won't be able to draw or write for any serious amount of time. Think massive pay cut!
9) I've been collecting comics and manga since before you were born! But I don't collect as much as I used to. It seems science fiction isn't as popular as it used to be. Horror, monsters and harem comics are in. The last American comic I collected regularly is "Gold Digger" from Fred Perry but I let my subscription lapse last year and haven't gotten around to renewing it. I didn't like how the story was going around color 100 and I'm not sure I want to pay the bucks to see if it turns around.
10) I don't own a cellphone! Or a notebook computer. Wireless fees are a huge waste of money! Save for your future, it's approaching faster than you think!

No tags for anyone else. No one I know puts up with that! >_<

Wow, looking at my journal I really don't post much. Only 3 posts ago I was talking about ECCC 9! Well, as titled, I went to ECCC 10 today. It really wasn't  on my mind this year but I made a post over at snowbuni forum just last week and he asked me if I was going! So I went! Took the bus and everything. I'll tell you 5th & Jackson in Seattle is pretty rough at 8pm. I had to get a rent a cop to go chase off some kids bugging some poor transient. Seriously if you need to hassle a bum to make yourself feel better about yourself you're really a loser.

Anyway, at the 'con I saw and his friend Mike Sagara were there with some fun swag at their tables. Apparently Jason got Bob Strang, aka and a number of other artists together for a book called Pulp Girls. I have no clue as to why the title, but I thought it would be cool to get some art by Bob. Tho' looking over the book, it's blood gore and violence, all the stuff of standard comic fare these days. Jason is always quite friendly so I bought the version of the book that includes a sketch he draws right there.

On the lighter side I saw James Dean Smith, the creator/artist of "Boris the Bear" who I have a link to his site from my site. He had a new book I don't remember seeing last year. So I got two titles from him this time. Disney was there with their "Boom Kids" stuff. They've got a number of Muppet comics there that look quite good. I got "Muppet King Arthur". And lo' who's the artist: Dave Alvarez . Lastly, I got an interesting comic called "Ellie Connely and the Eye of the Vortex"from Indigo Keleigh. He researched the style to make it look alot like "Tin Tin".

I didn't go see Stan Lee, Leonard Nimoy, or Erin Gray, those lines looked crazy. Lou Ferrigno was there too. There were loads of great costumed fan goer's. There was one Star Wars sandman who looked quite real! And a few killer Psylock costumed girls. ^_^

So all in all it was loads of fun and I was there much longer than I expected. Even if it was only Saturday. One of these day's I've got to make a comic for the con and get a table. Probably not next year. But who knows, maybe the next?

Summery: Cowboys and Indians in space. One thumb up.

Much to do about nothing much. BUT it HAS been awhile since there's been some block buster Sci-Fi out there. It was a fun film. But wow, the animation was spot on. It's all in the eyes, I always say, and those characters eyes were properly animated. The eyes followed targets and were expressive. The CG totally worked for me and I'm usually quite fussy about my 3D animation.

Previous winners: Up, Incredibles. Previous losers: Final Fantasy. Previous honorable mentions: Apple Seed.