Sfying

033106_09241.jpg Originally uploaded by Joshua Hale Fialkov.

Fying a Full Year

Fossen’s seen Punks…

Friend and Blogger Mark Fossen had this, and more to say about the first 12 pages of Punks which we casually sent his way as part of our 'feedback phase.'

"Punks is the kind of thing you find when you wake up passed out on a friends couch with a splitting hangover. It's crumpled under your head, and as you come to consciousness, you read Punks and say : 'Dude. What the FUCK is this?? Where are the rest?' .... And then you spend the rest of the day calling your buddy 'Noisy McNoise-Noisenstein', and quoting lines from the book."

So, go read, get excited.

Or else.

Ego, Super Ego, Id, and Counter Ego

or, How I Over-Analyze Punks, a comic about four guys setting each other on fire and punching each other in the nuts.

I had a long intellectual conversation with my manager about Punks today. He has a great knack for finding a greater depth to what I do then I ever really touch on. He’s also a real ball breaker in negotiations, but that’s beside the point.

So, one of the things he gave me to chew over was the idea of Ego, Super Ego, and Id. This pretty successfully covers three of the four main characters of the book, (and for that matter, just about every sitcom character structure there’s ever been.) But, we have one piece that doesn’t fit.

Ego, is that rational middle ground, trying to balance pleasure with survival, rationality with living a satisfied life. In Punks, that’s Abe. He’s the emotional center of the book, his whole thing is chewing over the right and wrong, the real and unreal, and while not necessarily always deciding properly, his decisions come from a place that is at the very least balanced. For those unfamiliar, using Seinfeld, he's the Jerry.

Super Ego is Dog, the self-doubting, self-hating, angry young man. He serves as that voice in the back of your head saying “You’re not good enough, and everybody’s on to you.” Again, to Seinfeld, he's the George.

Id is Skull. Skull is pure sensation. The pleasure in violence, the lack of interest in anyone other himself, and a temper that’s only matched by his need to feel in a very guttural sense. He is what he appears, and does what you’d expect (although, the uses he finds for duct tape are pretty remarkable, if I do say so myself.) So, now, and maybe this is a stretch, in Seinfeldian, he's the Elaine.

So, that’s all your Freudian labels applied, and yet we’re left with Fist (or, our Kramer). He’s the guy in the Mentos ads. He’s not particularly interested in where he’s going or what’s happening around him, and because of that, he tends to always come out, if not on top, at least better off than the rest. So, for the sake of this conversation, I’m looking at him as the Counter Ego. He goes against both Super Ego and Id, neither filled with rage nor self-doubt, and, further, has virtually no interest in figuring out which option is best. He simply is. And that’s why he succeeds.

Punks, as a book, is about a world that shits on you. We live in a time where we’re constantly attacked by world events, from the crush of gas prices to a whole generation sent off to a war with a purpose, at the very least, that’s unclear. In the comic, this comes across as a positively surreal wash of constant insanity that never quite manages to get the boys out of their self-obsessed funk. So, in theory, all the comedy comes from how these four parts of the mind deal with it.

And lots of groin punching.

Those Crazy Russians…

A pretty decent little archive of Cold War Era Russian Kid's Books. I'm crazy about the design work on some of these like the above one simply titled "Oil."

Link found on Metafilter.

Thank You For Smoking

In a weekend with a new Spike Lee movie, I chose the son of Ivan Reitman's movie. It's really excellent. Go see it asap. Worth every penny.

Los Angeles Paperback Show 2006

Pictures of my booty from the LA Paperback Show.

Lucky

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Dina.

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Fucking Hell

My car has been randomly dying in the midst of my scuttling around town, so, with the week off from my day job I decided to get it fixed. I figured "A couple hours, couple hundred bucks, and it'll be right as rain." That was at 10:30 this morning. Took them 3 hours to look at the fucking thing, and then they handed me a quote for 1400 bucks to made the car 'road worthy.' My favorite note was "Well, you don't have to replace the axle, but, you hit a big enough pot hole and it's 'Goodbye Tires!'"

So, to make the most of this zombifying dead time, I've been trying to work through the second script for Punks. The highlight thus far being the coining of a new non-swear swear, "HOLY ANAL BEADS UP A MONKEY'S BUM!" It's a particularly angry script, I suppose mostly due to sitting in a cramped hard metal chair at Pep Boys for over 4 hours without internet to distract and pacify me.

Hopefully, I'll be done in 3 or 4 hours, and will return to a slightly less homicidal state of mind.

Here's a page of Punks #1 that Kody's showing off. To make this post something other than piss and vinegar with a heaping helping of bile.

Got a new cellphone…

One of those dope ass new Razr phones. And, it was free, thanks to Verizon's new phones every two years. So, I'm celebrating and getting it all updated etc. etc. 032206_17211.jpg Originally uploaded by Joshua Hale Fialkov.

History of Violence

Finally watched it. It's fucking excellent. Go rent it.

Wizard World Los Angeles

The internet's barely abuzz about Wizard World this weekend. I'd reckon that's because it was pretty lackluster. Downtown Los Angeles is just not friendly for this sort of thing, unless it E3 which is so massive it's sort of a town unto itself. Aside from the hot dog vendors, there's pretty much no food within a walkable distance, parking is a nightmare, and well, everybody who lives in L.A. knows that. Compared to last month's Wondercon, which is usually one of the most low-key shows I go to, WWLA was just a massive disappointment. I'm thrilled we didn't exhibit, because I know we would've lost our shirts, and frankly, there's enough other ways to do that in this business. That being said, I got to see a lot of friends I rarely get to catch up with, despite living in the same city, and had some pretty interesting business conversations. So, it was good, it just wasn't the kind of show it should be. Considering the insanity that apparently way NYCC, you'd think Wizard would step up their game, all signs, though, point to not so much.

Oh, and guys, seriously, March in Los Angeles? Rainy Season. People who live in L.A.? Don't like driving in the rain. Don't have a convention in an inconvenient location during rainy season. Oh, and the whole 'marathon' thing, too. Who has a convention the weekend of the Los Angeles Marathon, mere blocks from the start and finish line? Whether it made the convention center inaccessible or not, I know everyone I talked to was making a point to stay home on Sunday just to avoid what might have been nothing.

This weekend’s movie…

So, I'm a comic creator, with a long running fascination with Alan Moore. So after Wizard World LA on Saturday, when I decided to head out with Dina and grab a movie, there was only one movie I wanted to see. Find Me Guilty.

Yeah, to be honest, I could give two shits about V for Vendetta. I'm sure it's at least a fun time, but, reviews from trusted sources make me figure I'll just wait to be disappointed on DVD instead.

Anyways, for anyone who knows me, Sidney Lumet is pretty much my favorite director, despite some pretty uneven films later on in his career. I mean, this is the guy who made Murder on the Orient Express, Dog Day Afternoon, Network, and Equus. IN A FUCKING ROW. One after the other, each one wholly different than the others, each one a hallmark of it's genre. Plus, 12 Angry Men, Q&A, Prince of the City, and my personal favorite, the Mamet penned The Verdict. The guy has just made some of the best movies in the history of the medium, and generally gets ignored in favor of guys with less range (I'm lookin' at you Scorsese and Coppola).

Find Me Guilty is a bit of an oddball, and more in line with his more recent movies like Guilty as Sin and Night Falls on Manhattan quality wise. The thing that I was left with at the end was this feeling that I'd seen a real movie. Not neccessarily a great movie, or a life-changing movie, but, by the end, you feel like you've been through this epic life with the characters (and you have, the movie chornicles two years of a trial in suprising depth considering the movie isn't that long), and like you're slightly different for having watched it. There's a few mis-steps, mostly in terms of music choice (they use this Benny Goodman like score that belies the slightly heavier tone, which I suppose was to help make it feel more like a comedy than it actually is.)

And, then, there's Vin Diesel. I've had an embarassing man-crush on Vin since I saw Pitch Black years ago. It's just a great little movie, and he's got more charisma then Steven Seagal and Jean Claude Van Damme combined. He's no Bruce Willis, mind you... but who is? Anyways, I've always enjoyed his work, even the excretable XXX and Fast and the Furious. I knew underneath all of the muscles and smart ass exterior, there's someone with a lot of talent. Find Me Guilty, well, I don't know if it quite proves that, but, it shows that Vin is definitely capable of more than he does normally. He's pretty excellent, although, I'm still left wondering how far the character is from the guy underneath. He's volatile, uneducated, and aggressive, with a hang dog look and slight paunch that goes against the usual cut and shaved Vin look, and a wonderful sense of comic timing. He's pretty remarkable in the movie. The rest of the cast is great as well, including Peter Dinklage as the lead attorney and Ron Silver as the judge.

So, look, it's not Armageddon. There's nothing exploding, and really, nothing much happens, but, it's a damn fine film, that'll take you back to the 70's at least in ethos, and considering what else is in theaters these days, that's not a bad thing.

Heh.

Just realized how embarassing my Last.fm play list in the corner must be. I'm working on this little spec in my spare time that's essentially an 80's action movie, so I have the bad 80's arena rock blaring day and night.

Oooh, Mutants on Hoverbikes!

Have you been reading the World's End blog? There's a bunch of new stuff up from last week, including the above.

Check it out.

Say that in a Sean Connery accent.

Movie & TV News @ IMDb.com - WENN: "Scottish superstar and The Untouchables Academy Award winner Sean Connery is convalescing after undergoing surgery to remove a tumor from his kidney. The 75-year-old From Russia With Love actor underwent the operation in January in a New York City hospital, and is now back home in the Bahamas with his wife Micheline. He says, 'I was opened in five places, including a tube up my d**k.' Brother Neil says, 'As far as I'm led to believe the tumour was benign. He seems to be quite upbeat about it.'" Trust me, when I had my kidney and bladder problems, the last thing I was was upbeat about it.  Sean Connery has bested me again.

The Los Angeles Vintage Paperback Collector’s Show

How fucking cool is this? In case you guys don't know, I'm positively obsessed with pulp crime novels. I'm reading about one or two a week (and for dirt ass cheap thank to the Hard Case Crime Book Club.)

So, anyways, I know where I'll be the weekend of the 26th.

Oh, and if you're looking for kickass old paperbacks, I'd also highly recommend: The Bookhouse, I literally crapped my pants when I went in.

My pants. Not the store. The stores INCREDIBLE.

It was messy.

Addendum to the last post…

Poof of Pudding = In Eating. Just finished the first draft. I'm... well. That was emotionally draining to say the least. Very fucking cathartic though. I think I'm going to go pass out for a bit.

Oh, also, the script is LOADS better with the different approach. I swear.

The Most Interesting Thing About Writing…

for me, anyhow, is no matter how well planned out a story is, when you're actually executing it, things have a tendency to just go where they want. Best laid plans and all of that. I've been hammering hard at Elk's Run 8's script for a couple months now. When things slowed down at Speakeasy, I took some time away from the book to get the other projects up and running, only to come back to the book with, at the very least, a very different sense of place and purpose for what I'm doing. So, I have this interesting little fight with myself between the story that I've been planning to tell since page 1, panel 1 of issue 1, or, just letting it roll where it needs to.

We'll see how it goes, I suppose.

Rue Morgue’s Got Elk’s Run Review Fever

In that issue there, there's a beautiful Elk's Run Review that says things like the following:

"Easiest described as Stephen King's The Body (aka Stand by Me) crossed with M. Night Shyamlan's The Village, but comic's best kept secret is actually a great deal more."

and

"A far from happy ending is exactly the reason we're reading why we're reading this excellent book in the first place."

So, go support the best horror mag on the stands, cause they've supported the best indie comic on the stands. It all works out karmically.