R.I.P. Indy Mogul

I think I mat have mentioned this in passing before, but there is a website I visit regularly called Indy Mogul. It's an instructional and resource site for amateur Film makers. They give instructions on how to build props and equipment you can use both in your film and to make your film. The best part is, most of the stuff they teach you to build is out of junk! Just miscellaneous stuff you can either find around the place or buy really cheaply. All the projects they describe are under $50 bucks US. They also provided quick teaching in certain techniques of film making. Quick, easy lessons to help young or beginning film makers their craft. For over twelve months they regularly updated their videos and their site. I have at least two pieces of equipment I have constructed from their plans. It was one of my favourite sites and I visited it regularly.

You ever hear the Phrase "Jump the Shark"? Well, Indy Mogul has done a double back flip up and over a school of Great Whites. It's been slow, but they have completely dropped off. The quality of shows slowly degraded and they started replaying older episodes. A lot of episodes are relying solely on stuff that fans have sent in. The updates are getting fewer and further between.

As a whole, Indy Mogul is not what it used to be. Which is a real shame, because it used to be great.

Check it out if you like.
http://www.indymogul.com/

God help me, I'm lost

Today was my first day off after Con. And did not know what to do with myself!

I've been this way all week. I keep trying to remind myself that I'm not on deadline anymore, and that I don't have to do anything, but I'm having trouble just . . . turning off. So far this week - and this is mostly just nervous energy - I've cleaned my room, sorted my computer table and drawing bench, I've collected parts and started building props, I've done some storyboarding, I've started plotting out the story for the feature length Monster movie I want to try and make, I've done some more redesigns of the Golden Age characters and completed a page of the short Spider-Duck story I'm doing to pad out the reprint. And that's just since Sunday!

The annoying part is, I can't actually concentrate on any one project. I'm all over the place. The ironic part is that I need to calm down and relax before I can start getting any work done again. At least my sleeping patterns seem to be returning to normal.

The Shooting Spree is coming. . .

What'd I make?

The final tally for the Convention was:

Woodville: 2 Issues sold.
RoboToon 1: 7 Issues sold.

And the big one,

RoboToon 2: 8 Issues sold!!!

That was a pretty good weekend. When you compare it to Armageddon down in Melbourne, where I only sold, I think, 3 issues of Robotoon 1, I had a really good weekend. I'm not too sure how the others did, not too badly I think. A lot of people were buying both issue one and 2 two. I spent most of my time plugging Robotoon, which is why Woodville did so badly. One issue of Woodville I sold for two dollars to a kid who wanted to trade his book for mine. The book was shit - he was a kid, so I'll give him a break - which is why I wouldn't do a straight trade. I plugged like hell with everyone who slowed down around my table. My line about it being "the World's greatest comic about a Superhero Robotic Rabbit" seemed to get people to stop and look a little longer, which let me sell a little harder.

I got accused by Tania at one point of not sending people her way when they were finished at my table, but - quite frankly - that seems fair enough to me. Not meaning to be a shit, but I only had three books one one half of one table. Those were my priority. That's the whole reason I was there. They had two tables full of all their stuff, which was their priority. i directed some people towards them every now and then, but I wanted to sell MY stuff. If people were walking by, it was up to them to entice them in to their table, not me. Minor rant.

I did have one guy walk up to the table, see the display and exclaim rather excitedly "Oh Cool! Robotoon 2!!", which I gotta admit made my day. He already had my other books, and exclaimed how much he was looking forward to the latest issue. That was a really nice feeling.

Vanessa showed up on Sunday. I don't think she knew what she was in for, cause she wound up getting pretty bored. Exhibiting at a Con is a lot of just sitting around and waiting, which can get boring. We would find ways of amusing ourselves - drawing, giving each other shit, taking the piss out of the people in costume - which keeps us going for the two days. But it was a whole new thing for Ness, so I don't think she was quite prepared.

So that's it. The last 6 months of my life is done, and it seems to have been worth it. The few people I have spoken to who read issue 2 said they really enjoyed it, which is what justifies all the work I've put into it. All those bad nights and long weekends and stress and shit will all start to fade away in time. But that buzz I get when someone buys my book, and the bigger buzz i get when I hear how much someone enjoyed it - That's the reason i keep doing this.

But I'm done for now! I've finally got some time for my self. I can relax, I play some video games, or hang out with my friends, or watch a movie with my girl. I don't have any deadlines, or pressing projects or anything like that. I can quite happily sit around and do nothing for a while.



. . . where'd I put that camera?

Coming soon to a hand deliverable location near you

Well, I did it.

The printer deliverd the finished books to work tonight. 100 copies plus a promotinal poster. 7 months of my life condensed to 28 pages. Good God I'm stuffed.

The last few days were possibly some of the worst during the whole creation of the book, and that's saying something. I got the artwork finished last saturday, which I honestly thought was the hardest part. We went over to Tania and Owen's to get the pages scanned in and Hangout with Tony for a while. By the time I got Vanessa home and got back here, it was around 10.30. I got stuck into the text, hoping to get the book finished and deliverd Monday mornig.

It took me a while to clean up and prepare the artwork to go in the book. So that was about another hour. I put some of the text I had already completed into the pages and started laying them out in the book. At one point I decided to put all the pages in the layout, just to see how it looked. I got it all done and taken care of, when I realised that Page 16 was blank. No big deal, I thought. I looked in the folder where I saved all the pages. No 16. Must have missed it, I thought. Looked at the disk with all the artwork. Went through every single file. It very slowly dawned on me, mostly because I didn't want to believe it, that I had missed it. One freaking page not scanned! The stupid part was, Tony and I were joking about it earlier on in the day.

And that's a wrap

I'm extraordinarily tired, so this isn't going to get too flowery. I'm done. The book is at the printers right now, so everything is now out of my hands.

7 months later, and I have another completed comic under my belt. That's three in total. Most people quit at one, so I can and do feel quite proud of myself.

There's a few more stories to tell, but not now.

Tired

Done diddily un diddily Mother Fucking DONE!!!!!!!!!!!

I just finished the last page of Robotoon Issue 2! That's it! The art's all done.

I'm taking the pages over to Owen's tomorrow to get them scanned. Spend Sunday night getting the text laid out and the book finished. Hopefully get the artwork files to the printers on Monday.

So, just to reiterate, Robotoon Issue 2 WILL be released at Supanova 2008!

Jesus Christ, I could almost cry.

1. . .

2. . .

And 3. . .

HULK SMASH!!!! . . .FINALLY!

So the beautiful Miss Ness and I went and saw The Incredible Hulk this afternoon, after two of the weirdest days at work I've had for a while. (No sleep + too much Pepsi = thinking dressing up in film offcuts and dancing around the projection room is a good idea!). The Incredible Hulk - now known as TIH - is the second film to come out of the recently formed Marvel Productions, after Iron Man. Marvel is the comic company that owns these characters and has been publishing them since the 40's, so they really care about what happens to their meal tickets. And with these two films, it really shows.

Now, I heard a lot of people asking "Didn't we just see a Hulk movie?" And yeah, several years ago, Ang Lee of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon fame directed a Hulk film, starring Eric Bana as the purple panted road rager. I didn't mind that film. It was beautifully shot, well acted, dealt with some interesting subjects and all in all was quite a good film. The problem was, it wasn't the film everybody wanted to see. When you make a film about a 20 foot green monster that can hurl tanks around, Joe Q Public expects a certain amount of mayhem, which just wasn't delivered in that film. People wanted HULK SMASH! What they got was HULK CONTEMPLATE!

So, in this new film, they didn't waste their time with any of that shit. very time Banner, played very convincingly by Ed Norton this time around, HULKS out, shit gets Broke! And Burned. And blown up. And thrown about. And knocked down. And . . , well you get the picture. General Thunderbolt Ross is back, still trying to stuff Banner into a test tube and mass produce him. This time we get a whole new treat, in the form of Emil Blonsky AKA the Abomination. Imagine if the Hulk fucked a Tyrannosaur, what the off spring would be. That's what this big sucker looks like. The last ten minutes of the film is the two beating the living shit out of each other in down town New York, which doesn't leave a hell of a lot standing. I had a blast all through out this film. And, as any one who stayed till the end of Iron Man would know, they are working their way up to doing an Avengers movie, so there were a few References towards that end - Blonsky's transformation was a result of a combination of Hulk blood and Captain America Super Solider Serum, which seems to have gone a bit off after sitting in the fridge since WWII - and there was also the big fanboy moment of Robert Downey JR appearing as Tony Stark, mentioning them putting a 'team' together.


Ok, so that was the good stuff. The one downside of this movie was the CGI. It looked like CGI. The Hulk himself, abomination, any sort of vehicle or background that was done digitally in this movie wasn't fully realised. The animation of the characters was great, don't get me wrong. But they didn't look like they belonged with the rest of the world they were interacting with. One shot of the Hulk walking in a shallow stream in the rain comes to mind, where his feet didn't look at all like he was stepping in the water. And the Scientist guy towards the end was so over the top, it looked like he was coming back down the other side.

Other than that, The Incredible Hulk was fantastic. Well acted, well made, exciting - everything you want out of a Superhero movie.

I can see the light.

I got another three pages completed today. That's 22 in total. 3 left.

Admittedly, I still have to get all the lettering done and the book laid out, but I did that all in one night last year. It was a very LONG night, but one night none the less.

7 days left to get it to the printer. 12 days till Con.

Nearly there.

I got Carried away!

I never thought I would say this, but God bless Sex and the City!

We're having special late showings of SATC at work this week. A 10.30 showing to try an accommodate some of the demand. So far, the only thing I've really gotten out of that film is an overwhelming feeling of love and appreciation towards my girlfriend for the fact that she's NOT one of the stupid women who go and see this film. Relax Amie, that's not a dig at you.

Tonight, however, was different. Because of the late showing, i was rostered on till 1.30, instead of the usual midnight or around. You get double pay after midnight. Add to that it was a public holiday. So that's double, public holiday pay. Yay.

Also, after about 9.30 or so at work, if you plan it right and get everything done by then, you've got a couple hours of down time, where there isn't much to do, and there aren't any new sessions starting. I usually take advantage of this time to get a bit of work done. Thanks to tonight, with the extra hour and a half, I got quite a bit done. Including yet another page finished! So that's 19 done, 6 to go. With 8 days to go. And I have tomorrow off. With a bot of luck - ah, luck hell. I can get at least two done tomorrow just piss farting about. If I push myself, I should be able to get four more pages completed tomorrow. That gives me a few days to get those last two pages done, which I'm gonna need. There not as complete as the others. Who am I trying to kid? One's loosely sketched, the other hasn't even been draw yet! But things are progressing so well, that I'm really not too concerned.

It's funny when I think back a month, how despondent I was. I was completely convinced that there was no way I could get this book finished in time for Con. Now, I feel like I'm actually going to have a few days off before the con starts. It's amazing how things can turn around so completely in so little time.

I don't have a clever sign off tonight. I'm tired, it's late, and I can comfortably go to bed, knowing that I accomplished something tonight. That will do me.

Less and Less

I just finished another page, being the second page I completed today. I think that brings the tally down to 7 left, with about 11 days to go.

I wanted to get at least one more page finished tonight, but my boss rang today and I need to start at 7 tomorrow. That's in the AM. I usually work nights, which means I've had nights where I didn't go to bed till then, especially while I've been working on this book. Last time I had an early start - which was only recently - I decided to just stay up and not sleep, go to work straight through. That, in a word, was REALLY FUCKING DUMB!!!!!!! I had my worst day at work I've had since I started because of that! So no, no the plan at all.

On a different note, continuing my obsession with all things Transformers, I finally found the last piece of the Puzzle today. The only character from the movie I didn't own. Scorponok. Remember the big, metal scorpion from the movie? That guy. And yeah, I splurged. No where near as expensive as Megatron, so I don't feel like I've totally wasted my money. However, it has cemented my opinion about Beast Machines.

Quick lesson in Transformer history. There have been many different incarnations of the TF, all with their own back stories and of course, all with their own toys. My personal favourite, simply cause I grew up with them, is Generation 1, or G1. They were all the planes and cars and vehicles. All the names and characters that your average, non geek type person would recognise are from G1. Round about the late nineties sometime, the came up with the brilliant idea of having Transformers change into animals. Henceforth, Beast Machines was born.

I HATE Beast Machines. For one simple reason. With the G1 characters, they all transform into things that are disguises. You don't look at a truck or car and think there's a robot in there, so the transformations are always pretty cool. But with Beast Machines, the changes are really stupid and obvious. You've got a gorilla that changes into a robot. It doesn't change, IT JUST STANDS UP! Also, and this is just petty, but I hate the concept of something inorganic turning into something organic. Just doesn't work in my head.

Of course, all this would have more weight if I didn't just spend 25 bucks on one of the things.

Sex and the wretched hive of scum and villiany.

If you've been living under a rock - which would really hurt after a while, if you stop and think about it - you may not have noticed that the Big Screen version of Sex and the City started today. The cinema I work at has already gone completely insane because of this freaking movie. However, standing off to the side, watching the huge number of women coming in to see this movie, I happened to notice something. A lot of the women coming to see this film are getting really dressed up. They put on their hippest outfit they can, they get all dolled up, get the matching handbag, the shoes, the works. They all seem to be trying to replicate the "New York Chic" the girls in the film have. When they arrive, they get their hands on glasses of champagne, or those Manhattan Cocktails from the film, and in they go. I'm watching all of this when it dawned on me.

Sex and the City is the hip chicks Star Wars.

Think about it. At all the Star Wars films, you had lunatics dressing up in costumes, bringing Lightsabers, doing all that shit, all in a vain attempt to replicate the characters in the film. That's exactly what all these women are doing! I would lay money that everyone in line for SATC laughed or mocked all those geek fanboys with their attempts to integrate themselves into star wars culture, yet now they are all doing the exact same thing, except now it's hip!

Makes me laugh.

Still cranking them out

I haven't blogged in a while, cause I've been . . . well, tired, busy, sick. A whole bunch of things. I'm still at nine pages to go. I'm coughing and choking like nobodies business cause I've somehow managed to get sick again. That's 6 times so far this season! And it's not even winter yet!

The first of June came and went. I wasn't wrong. I couldn't get this book finished by then. If the Con was this weekend, I would have been screwed. As it stands, I'm pushing it. 9 pages in 15 days sounds pretty good, but those days are slipping away quite quickly. To tell the truth - I was going to say I don't care about being done by con, but that's horseshit. I DO care. tremendously. I mean, I haven't been slogging my ass off just for some random date. This has been really important to get it done for this one event. But I have reached a point where I will finish this issue whether it's for con or not. I just want it done. I really want to think about other things for a while. I realised the other day, I haven't had a conversation with anyone for a while that didn't involve the words "Pages, Con, Comic or Drawing" in weeks. I've been so single minded, I'm boring. Even when I'm hanging out with my girl, I sometimes start thinking that this is time not spent working. And that's no a nice thing to think.

I just want to be finished. I'm so tired. Being sick doesn't help at all, and that doesn't seem to want to go away. God knows when I'll do issue three.