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The Young Ones Go see what Kody and I ripped off.
Quote of the Week
"We are not retreating - we are advancing in another direction."-Douglas MacArthur
38 Years Ago Today…
The government pretended we went to the moon and we believed them. Suckers.
My Desk
My Desk,
originally uploaded by Joshua Hale Fialkov.
For the Flickr Deskset Group started by Matt Fraction. That's my 20" iMac with my 22" Samsung external playing the Daily Show. My TV with PS2 in the background. Wall art from clockwise from top left, Elk's Run Release Party banner, Hung Up production poster, Nate Bellegarde Hector Plasm, Postcards postcard, Scott Mills Martian Manhunter, Poorly Drawn Animals buttons, Pop Gun War print by Farel Dalrymple, Western Tales of Terror cover by Tony Moore, a Two Fisted Tales cover, a production still from my movie, some PDA art, and my favorite, a Stan Sankai Usagi print.
Joshua Watched the First Season of Jericho
Well, is watching, actually, but that doesn't fit the song as well. I'm on the fourth episode right now. The show's an interesting little drama thus far. I'm really impressed with how quickly and thoroughly they fleshed out all of the characters. The drama has a tendency to fall closer to melodrama, but, due to the high stakes of the world of the show, I think it actually works. There's also a knack for final images. Some really haunting and delicate images tend to fill the final seconds of every episodes, and really manages to draw you back in to see what's going to happen next. The acting is solid enough, with Skeet Ulrich not quite reaching his Miracle level of awesome, but, he's still much better than he usually get credit for.
From what I've read there's a big change 2/3rds of the way through the season, so I'm looking forward to that. iTunes has the pilot up for free online. I'd recommend checking it out.
San DiegoComic-Con Appearances
No booth this year, but, I have quite a few appearances scheduled. They are, thus far, as follows. Thursday July 26th
- Villard/Random House Panel - Room 10 - 5pm
Friday July 27th
- Random House Books Signing - Booth 1131 - 1pm
Saturday July 28th
- Random House Books Signing - Booth 1131 - 4pm
- Postcards Comic Relief Signing - Booth 1514 - 5pm
There's also the following two panels where stuff I've worked on will be discussed, and who knows, I might even show up.
- Thursday - Tripwire Panel (Punks?!?) - Room 10 - 4pm
- Friday - Top Cow - Pilot Season Panel - Room 1AB - 5:30pm
Press Release: Cyblade Pilot Season #1
TOP COW ANNOUNCES CYBLADE: PILOT SEASON #1 - NEWSARAMA
Press Release The second of six “pilot issues”, Cyblade: Pilot Season #1 continues the excitement of Pilot Season 2007 with espionage and style. Pilot Season 2007 is a series of six self contained one shot specials, each featuring a different established Top Cow character currently without a regular series. After all six issues are released fans will be given the opportunity to vote online to determine which two characters receive a series in 2008.Hot on the heels of August’s Ripclaw: Pilot Season #1 by Eisner nominee Jason Aaron (Scalped, The Other Side) and Jorge Lucas (Incredible Hulk, Annihiliation: Ronan), Cyblade: Pilot Season #1 takes readers into a cerebral action thriller by Harvey Award winner Joshua Hale Fialkov (Elk’s Run, Punks: The Comic) and kinetic artist Rick Mays (Kabuki, Zatana). In this latest Pilot Season special, Fialkov and Mays explore the true origin of elite super-spy and Cyberforce’s electromagnetic assassin, Cyblade.
“Getting a chance to rework a character with such a strong fan base into something that both honors the past, and hopefully, gives her some new life for the future has been a real blast,” commented writer Joshua Hale Fialkov, “I just hope y'all vote for the book so I get to keep on doing it.”.
"A lot of the earlier concepts at Top Cow were a lot of fun, but they didn’t always properly establish characters. With Pilot Season, and bringing in a writer like Joshua, we’re really able to change that by taking a look at who these characters are and what makes them tick," added Rob Levin, VP of Editorial for Top Cow. “Doesn’t hurt that we also wrote a story tailor made for Rick Mays and he agreed to draw it either.”
Cyblade: Pilot Season #1 is a 32 page full color comic with a suggested retail price of $2.99. Additional information regarding Pilot Season can be found at www.topcow.com.
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Library Journal on Elk’s Run
Graphic Novels - 7/15/2007 - Library Journal
Fialkov, Joshua Hale (text) & Noel Tuazon & Scott A. Keating (illus.). Elk's Run. Villard: Random. 2007. ISBN 978-0-345-49511-2. pap. $19.95. FFor a group of disillusioned Vietnam vets, isolationist utopia in a hidden West Virginia valley is "like heaven"—for a time. But small problems grow larger as the valley children mature and dreams dissolve into violence and flames. When a man tries to escape from the valley to join his estranged wife, he accidentally kills a town teen and is horribly executed by tough-ass leader John for violating the town's isolationist "agreement." Then two state troopers show up, and John kills them also. In a cat-and-mouse game in the underground mine, it's John's son, young John, who leads the other teens to escape and bring help for the rest of the town when the mine starts burning. This thriller combines dark and edgy psychodrama infusing the coming-of-age theme with a blurring of the usual good vs. evil clichés. There are no bad guys—only good intentions gone terribly over the edge. The sketchy art and ocher-crimson coloring evoke a lifestyle badly frayed and heading for disaster. The underpinnings of teens vs. parents and idealism vs. ethics make the title a good bet for classroom use. Strong language; recommended for older teens up in public and academic libraries.—M.C.
Douglas Adams Hyperland
Douglas Adams was a genius. Truly a man before his time. Case in point, Hyperland. A documentary discussing the idea of Hypertext (y'know, that whole internet thing) from 1990, that more or less explains exactly how the internet ended up evolving in a startalingly accurate vision. The idea of literary hypertext is certainly a part of the zeitgeist, especially amongst us comic folks, with our production blogs, soundtrack listings, podcasts, commentaries, and so on. It's pretty damn cool to see nearly twenty years ago is good ol' Mr. Adams explaining it all in simple, understandable, and suprisingly not dated language. It's cut up into four parts, but here's the first to get you started.
My Favorite Corner
7/14/07 in the AM
Times-Express Interview
Joshua Hale Fialkov went to Los Angeles six years ago to break into the motion picture industry.Although he had some jobs in the field, including a television pilot that didn't make it, the former Monroeville resident found it "next to impossible" to prove himself in a place where it's not what you know, but who you know.Exhausted after spending 20 hours a day, seven days a week, for a month working on a reality television show, the 27-year-old decided to turn his writing and directing talents in a different direction.
That's my hometown newspaper. Local boy makes good, eh?
Tony Isabella on Elk’s Run
World Famous Comics >> Tony's Online Tips - Tony Isabella, Jul 10, 2007
Elk's RunMounting dread is the signature mood of the opening scenes of Elk's Run by Joshua Hale Failkov with artists Noel Tuazon and Scott A. Keating [Villard; $19.95] as we are introduced to the title "star" and quickly made aware things aren't quite right in that secluded hamlet. The war-scarred veterans who found it were looking to create an old-fashioned haven from the corrupt world without, but, through the manipulation of their fears and the betrayals of their leader, their dream has become a nightmare. Fittingly, it's a small group of teens - children, really - who embark upon a rite of passage that will change the town and their lives forever.
Fialkov eases us into the disturbing world of Elk's Run, but the first instances of violence in this 200-page graphic novel are relatively tame: a mother slapping a disrespectful son and an awful but not uncommon traffic fatality. It's in the second chapter that the magnitude of the town's wrongness is revealed. From there on in, the terror grows and doesn't stop until the story reaches its satisfying conclusion. With so many extended comics epics proving themselves unable to close the deal, it's great to come across one that finishes as strong as it begins.
Artists Tuazon and Keating hold up their end of the deal. The storytelling is solid throughout the GN. Their visuals convey the drama and emotion journey of the characters and the situations with which they are forced to deal. If this trio of creators have more books in them, I want to read them.
Ignore the puerile intro by Charlie Huston. It's an exercise, a mercifully brief exercise, in dropping the F-bomb for no reason. I accept such coarseness when it's part and parcel of a character in a story. I see small need for it outside the bounds of fiction, especially when one is the opening act for an exceptional work like Elk's Run.
Would you kiss your mother with that mouth?
Skip the introduction, but do read Elk's Run at your earliest opportunity. It earns the full five Tonys.
I believe that's printed in the current issue of Comic Buyer's Guide, which I decree you should go out and support. They've been very supportive of my work over the years, and it's a pretty in depth look at comics today, written by some of the best and brightest in the business.
Thursday at Comic-Con
Come see me talk about Postcards and Elk's Run at Comic Con on Thursday. I might even be wearing a new cowboy shirt. There's also signings at their booth all weekend. I'll let you know when shortly.
5:00-6:00 Random House: Flight/Postcards�Meet some of the most creative minds in graphic novels today, including Joshua Hale Fialkov (Elk�s Run), Kazu Kibuishi (Flight), Mike Knapp (Out of Picture), Vincent Nguyen (Out of Picture), Jason Rodriguez (Postcards: True Stories That Never Happened), as well as Villard editors Chris Schluep and Dallas Middaugh. Villard, an imprint that has positioned itself on the leading edge of popular culture, is quickly expanding its graphic novel offering with critically acclaimed anthologies and original content. Join these creators for a Q&A session and also hear the latest news from Villard. Room 10
Punks in Antigravity Magazine
Long form feature interview with Kody about Punks over at www.antigravitymagazine.com (and in the print mag as well.) Download the PDF here: http://www.antigravitymagazine.com/antigravity_vol4_issue9.pdf
Blog@Newsarama on Elk’s Run
Blog@Newsarama » Fringe Benefits: Non-DC/Marvel Solicits for July 2007
Digital WebbingPunks: The Summer Comics Special: Josh Fialkov Kody Chamberlain a skull-headed dude, Abe Lincoln, and a dog-faced boy = the Awesome.
Kill Your Television
I did it. The impossible dream. I don't have cable for the first time since age 6. While this is no grand acheivement for you normal folks out there, the Television has served a key part in my life and my entertainment while slaving away over my keyboard for 8 or 9 hours a day. We only have one option for cable in our neighborhood, and because of building rules, we can't have a Satellite dish.
From the time we moved into our little two story palace in Glendale, the cable modem and television have been sub-par at best. The internet was crapping out every 7 or 8 minutes, and the HiDef and Digital Cable Channels would do the same. Even the basic cable picture quality was horrendous. It got to a point where we just download or Netflix everything instead, because watching anything over the service was so fucking irritating.
So, what are we going to do now? Well, there's a couple of things we've used to replace it thus far, and I think our shift to full-on time shifters is complete.
First, the basic stuff. We have Netflix and Blockbuster Online accounts. This allows us to have a non-stop stream of movies and tv shows coming in and out. Blockbuster are a little bit incompetent (I've received the wrong disc at least 4 times over the past two months), but being able to walk over to the Blockbuster on the corner and rent Mansquito for free is a big plus.
Secondly, the interweb. I've been using the Netflix Streaming service for the past few weeks now, and really enjoy it. It manages to not slow down my machine too much, while providing some good background noise (like today's viewing of Across 110th Street). The selection's not great, but, there's a suprising number of things I'm interested in and like watching, so, hooray.
I also bit-torrent or stream many BBC shows (Doctor Who, Jekyll, Life On Mars, etc.) so, that's stuff that Cable or no, I'd be doing anyways.
Which leads me to the number three... we're about 80% in to get AppleTV. I'm concerned about the lack of HiDef signal (what's the point of having a HiDef TV without any HiDef inputs.) But, my theory is that we can buy the box, and download season passes to all of the shows I watch on a regular basis for about the price of four months of cable service. Considering it would take eight months of cable service to watch those self-same seasons, it seems to be a savings. The picture quality on those big giant TV's at the Apple store seems to be pretty good, but, who knows what that translates to practically. Now, if I could find a way to import my BBC downloads into AppleTV format and not have it do that irritating shitty framerate, I'd be sold.
And so, the mighty experiment begins. Three days without TV and counting. Now if you'll excuse me, I got Yaphet Kotto to watch.