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Posts tagged as “Across the Transfinite Canvas”

Ahead of where I need to be, behind where I want to be

Published November 5, 2011 by centaur
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Well, I'm ahead of schedule for Nanowrimo ... or am I? I've been determined and lucky enough to complete at least 1667 words every day, so I'm ahead of where I have to be. But I'm trying to be crazy this year. At first I thought I would do TWO books, but now I'm thinking I want to do ONE book at twice the rate. Why do this to myself? Well, one reason would be to finish early. I could start a second book if I wanted to, or finish the first book, or, God forbid, actually use the week of vacation I've taken Thanksgiving week as a fricking vacation rather than a writing marathon. Or maybe it's because it takes Nanowrimo out of a safe place. Unlike 24 Hour Comics Day, I've succeeded every time I'd tried at Nanowrimo. Trying to write twice as fast takes me out of that comfort zone. If I fail, well, I'll still almost certainly succeed at the Nano challenge. If I succeed, well ... then maybe I can write 100,000 words in a month. And the most important thing about writing is writing. The more you write, the better you get. (The second most important thing is getting prompt, high quality feedback; the third most important thing is taking the feedback seriously and acting on it. But I digress). I've finished today's quota of 1,667 words. But yesterday I slacked, also only writing about 1,667 words. To keep up the accelerated pace, I need to catch up, to write almost 3000 more words today. But it's only 3:52 in the afternoon, and I have the whole day ahead of me. So here's seeing what I can do ... and I don't think I can lose, either way. -teh Centaur

24 Hour Comics Day, Redux

Published October 2, 2011 by centaur
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24HCD at Sunnyvale No, I'm not doing 24 Hour Comics Day 2 weekends in a row ... but my buddy Nathan Vargas is. He's the other half of Blitz Comics and through an odd set of circumstances involving the Alternative Press Expo we ended up signing up for a 24 Hour Comics event at Mission Comics 1 week before today, the official 24 Hour Comic Day. (And I completed mine!) my 24 hour comic ... in my lap I owe too many people too many things (fixing my wife's computer, finishing edits of "Steampunk Fairy Chick", finishing a draft of STRANDED, doing an interview, scanning last week's comic, etc) to do 24HCD again, but after tonight's Doctor Who finale I did drop by around midnight tonight with donuts and good cheer. Krispy Kreme (and Pizza) We hung out, gave donuts to the security guards, and watched some Batman fan film. Then, while the toiling artists toiled, I spent some time cleaning up the images from last week's 24 Hour Comic Day (which I had scanned while watching Doctor Who). I just finished, it's only been two hours, but it already feels like another 24HCD! However, I'm happy with the results, and will do 24HCD again next year. I particularly like the dual page spread from Stranded, but I'll hold it back until I get the whole comic uploaded to Dresan.com and will instead tease you with the first page of the novella: The first page of the adapted STRANDED novella. Onward! Upward! Homeward, for me! And best of luck to the toiling comickers here in Sunnyvale! -the Centaur

A 24 Hour Comics Day Timeline

Published September 28, 2011 by centaur
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24 Hour Comics Day can be quite the intimidating challenge, especially if you haven't done it before. Because Nathan Vargas and I had tried it before and failed, we started thinking hard about how to succeed - and I in particular started thinking about timing: how to break down your hours, how long you typically take breaks, and so on. To keep myself on track, I started writing down panel timings as I was working, an almost unconscious decision that soon turned into a policy. As a result, I produced a nearly complete timeline of events of a successful 24 Hour Comics Day. Everyone's method will be different, and this may not apply to you. But it shows at least ONE successful approach: preparing ahead, bringing good food, other refreshments and adequate supplies, getting planning done early, keeping each page tight, noticing that you're falling behind, finding faster ways to do things, taking breaks to stay energized - and never, never, never giving up.

BEFORE THE EVENT

T-Minus 1 year: Fail to finish 24HCD ... Again. Resolve to take more life drawing classes. As a result ... actually took more life drawing classes and practiced. T-Minus 4 months: Reminded by Nathan about 24HCD. Started to panic. Nathan mentioned he was thinking about how to succeed this time. I started thinking about that too. T-Minus 3 months: Drunk guy at a comics booth at the Sub Zero festival hears us talking about 24HCD. He suggests we should do a tutorial. We go to Slave Labor Graphics, find out they aren't set up to host a full 24 hour event. A tutorial or boot camp starts to sound like a better idea. T-Minus 2 months: We decide to do the boot camp. After a marathon brainstorming session where we came up with the name BLitz Comics, we start meeting every Wednesday, producing tutorial materials. T-Minus 1 week: We do a runthrough of the bootcamp. Around this time, we find out that 24HCD at the venue we've chosen is not October 1 but September 24 ... 1 day after our boot camp. Panic. T-Minus 18 hours: Last minute trips to University Art to buy notebooks, pens, pencils for the boot camp (which will also be used at 24HCD as well). T-Minus 15 hours: BLitz Comics hosts its first 24 Hour Comic Day "boot camp" at Kaleid Gallery. The camp includes a 45 minute tutorial (that ended up going on for an hour and a half) and included 2 1-hour drawing exercises. I learn precisely what I *can't* draw in just 1 hour. T-Minus 12 hours: Boot camp concludes. Hours of packing required. Get to bed at 3:30am, get up at 7. T-Minus 3 hours: Pick up Nathan. Trek to Mission Comics begins with a hearty breakfast at Stacks, a trip to Starbucks for coffee, and a trip to Safeway for bagels, cereal, tangerines and bananas. T-Minus 1 hour: Traffic jam. Panic should be in full swing now, but we just had coffee, a hearty breakfast, and have gone through boot camp. No worries. T-Minus 1 minute: Pull in front of Mission Comics; Nathan runs in with our art supplies and I leave to go find parking.

24 HOUR COMIC DAY BEGINS

11:00AM, September 24th: Driving around for parking. Find a great place. 11:15AM: Arrive at Mission Comics. Nathan has found primo spots halfway back the main table; we're sitting opposite each other but are in easy view of the window, door, bathroom and 10,000 comics. 11:21AM: PLANNING PHASE Start comic with a planning page. Consider two ideas; decide to go for broke and adapt my novella "Stranded" rather than wussing out with the stick-figure "Story of Blitz Comics" which I had already done a 1-pager on anyway. 11:30AM(ish): Skim novella I'm adapting, especially chapter headings. Decide on a rough breakdown; can probably draw half the novella. Pick a good stopping point. 11:38AM: Did the 24-page thumbnail sheet. Laugh at my foolish notion that I can draw half the novella. Some things that take a line in the novella need a full page; other things that take a full page don't even need to appear at all or need to be completely rewritten. Added talking animal to the plot as the only way to make the story work (it's OK, it's a robot). Break down the pages into approximately the first third. 12:13PM: Done planning. Total planning time: 52 minutes In my experience, it can take 2-4 hours to plan if you don't have a story in mind (the first two years I had vague stories in mind but no novella in hand to adapt). As it turns out, that extra 3 hours of planning would not have hurt me. 12:13PM: START PAGE ONE Did a space scene (not recommended from the boot camp!) as the first image. 12:30PM: Panel 1 Done. Blacks are surprisingly time consuming even with wide Sharpie. 12:45PM: Panel 2 Done. More blacks, more time; starting to get worried. 01:08PM: Panel 3 Done. Damn spacecraft again. Almost no blacks, but it took longer. 01:34PM: Panel 4 Done. Closeup of a character in a pose I'm bad at. Argh. Total page time: 1 hour, 15 minutes. Did some calculations; need to DOUBLE my page rate to succeed. 01:37PM: START PAGE TWO No black space vistas on this page at all. Maybe easier going? 01:43PM: Finished roughs for the page. 02:10PM: Panel 1 Done. Getting a grip on figures, sound effects, word balloons. 02:25PM: Panel 2 Done. Needed to know fuse ratings to fill in detail on the end of a fuse pulled by central character. Decided to use phone instead of computer to look it up - the answer was "in kA" and 207 is a good super-high number. This worked so well I resolved not to turn computer on until I was "way ahead". 02:39PM: Finished Panel 3. Liking this "draw people from the back half obscured" trick. Total page time: 1 hour, 2 min. Need to pick up pace by at least 20 minutes. 02:39PM: START PAGE THREE One huge panel, but 4 characters and some perspective. 02:48PM: ~10 minute break + boxing in outer panel border. 02:58PM: Central character outlined 03:02PM: Dialogue outlined, drawing characters around word bubbles. LOVE the technique! Had to spend more time looking up the appearance of a bird's eye for a drawing. In hindsight, I'm glad I did that rather than wing it, I had to draw that bird eye on a helm maybe a dozen times or more over the comic. 03:22PM: Page finished. Finally ahead (ish) but not really: hour 4.5 with only 3 pages Total page time: 43 minutes. Counting the 9 minute break. 03:22PM: START PAGE FOUR Back to a multi-panel page with black areas. 03:34PM: ~12 minute break. 03:39PM: Panels done. Realize my target time (45 minutes) is 4:07. Oh shit. 03:51PM: Roughs done for Panel 1, a closeup of a character's face. 03:58PM: Panel 1 done. Came out rather nice, perhaps the nicest face in the comic. 04:02PM: Panel 2 done. 04:11PM. Panel 3 blacks done. Great music from band "07" is playing over Mission Comic's sound system. 04:16PM: Page finished. Total page time: 54 minutes. Almost on schedule. 04:16PM: START PAGE FIVE More panels, 5 this time, but no black areas. 04:21PM: ~5 minute break. 04:24PM: Pencil panel borders done. 04:27PM: Ink panel borders done. 04:40PM: Panel 1 done. Realize my human profiles suck. So do my full figures. Ugh. 04:49PM: Panels 2-3 done. 04:55PM: Panels 4-5 done. Total page time: 39 minutes. Not sure how I pulled that off. 04:55PM: START PAGE SIX More space vistas! And crosshatching! 05:04PM: ~9 minute break. 05:05PM: Pencil borders done. 05:09PM: Ink panel borders done 05:11PM: Dialogue done - needed adaptation from novella. 05:16PM: Frame 1 roughs done 05:31PM: Frame 1 blacks done 05:38PM: Frame 2 done 05:45PM: Frame 3 done 05:53PM: Page finished. Total page time: 58 minutes. Black backgrounds will kill ya. 05:53PM: START PAGE SEVEN 05:55PM: ~2 minute break ... then pizza arrives! 06:38PM: ~43 minute dinner break. Yum! 06:39PM: Pencil border. 06:43PM: Ink panel borders. 06:48PM: Roughs. 07:10PM: Panel 1 "done". 07:19PM: Further polish (it's a large and important panel that introduces Serendipity, the protagonist). 07:29PM: Panel 2 done. 07:36PM: Panel 3 done. Total page time: 1 hour, 43 minutes. 07:36PM: START PAGE EIGHT 07:53PM: ~17 minute break (flagging a bit?) 07:54PM: Pencils. 08:00PM: Panels 08:08PM: Panel 1 rough / dialogue. Realize we're in hour 10 now. 08:24PM: Panel 2. 08:38PM: Page finished. Total page time: 1 hour, 2 minutes. 08:38PM: START PAGE NINE 08:54PM: ~16 minute break 09:06PM: ~12 minute break (someone came by to talk?) 09:08PM: Panels penciled. 09:13PM: Panels inked. 09:18PM: AAARGH! Blocked. PHUQ IT. 09:26PM: Panel 1. Some of the facial positions are hard. Screw it. 09:35PM: Panel 2. 09:44PM: Page finished. Total page time: 1 hour, 6 minutes. 09:44PM: START PAGE TEN 09:50PM: ~6 minute break 09:52PM: Penciled panels. 10:00PM: Inked panels. Realize it's hour 11 (actually 12, but never mind) and you should be working on page 12 or more. Cut it in half! 10:11PM: Panel 1 done. Damn black space around spaceships again. 10:28PM: Panel 2 outlines done. Was intimidated by this crowd scene, easier than I expected. 5 people and 4 ghostly background outlines - 9 people total! 10:34PM: Panel 2 done. 10:40PM: Page finished. Total page time: 56 minutes. 10:40PM: START PAGE ELEVEN 10:46PM: ~6 minute break 10:47PM: Pencil outlines. 10:49PM: Panels inked. 10:57PM: Dialogue for all panels inked. This really helped, but as I found out later, I was reading in columns but other people read left-to-right, so this was a flaw. Zoned out around here. 11:14PM: Panel 1 done. 11:28PM: Page finished. Total page time: 48 minutes. 11:28PM: START PAGE TWELVE - on a roll, no break. Thought it was hour 12, actually hour 13. 11:34PM: Panels and dialogue complete. Met Google guy, should contact later. Also found out about Mobcomics, a comic publishing platform. 11:38PM: Panel 1 done. 11:44PM: Panel 2 done. 11:51PM: Page done. Total page time: 23 minutes. That seems almost impossible! But it happened, in part because I was skipping pencils or just doing light pencils on certain characters. 11:52PM: START PAGE THIRTEEN 12:00AM: Break. Didn't even realize it was midnight and September 25 now. Did realize it was not hour 12 but hour 13 (not true, actually hour 14 had started). "On Schedule" ... NOT! :-) 12:07AM: Script complete. All those people who are complaining that by adapting a novella I'm "cheating because the script is worked out already" can go jump in a lake. It isn't that simple. That's why they call it ADAPTING, folks. 12:21AM: Page done. Total page time: 29 minutes. This page went fast because it was primarily diagrams and dialogue, no figures - this is the point where the crew of Independence realizes that they're screwed if they don't land. 12:22AM: START PAGE FOURTEEN 12:32AM: ~10 minute break. 12:45AM: Panel 2 done. 01:03AM: Page done. Total page time: 41 minutes. I don't know it yet, but I'm just about to get caught up with where I "should" be to finish on time. 01:03AM: START PAGE FIFTEEN 01:04AM: No significant break, really. 01:14AM: Panels done. 01:38AM: Page done. Total page time: 35 minutes. I don't know it yet, but I am now officially AHEAD. 01:38AM: START PAGE SIXTEEN 01:55AM: ~17 minute bathroom break 01:58AM: Panels done. I now realize my hour count was off and this is hour 15. 02:06AM: Panel 1 done. 02:15AM: Panel 2 done. I am digging that it's hour 16 and I'm progressing on page 16. 02:23AM: Page done. Total page time: 45 minutes. We may win this thing yet! 02:23AM: START PAGE SEVENTEEN 02:31AM: ~8 minute break 02:34AM: Panel borders 02:45AM: Panel 1 done ... digging that it's STILL hour 16 and I'm on page 17. 02:54AM: Panel 2 done. 02:58AM: Page done. Total page time: 35 minutes. I am now officially a page ahead. 02:58AM: START PAGES EIGHTEEN AND NINETEEN - DUAL PAGE SPREAD 02:59AM: On a roll, jazzed that I have finally gotten to a dual page spread, will LEAP ahead now. Sure, it's a gigantic outer space vista that requires some actual diagramming and thought, but its SO COOL that I'm going to go from just about ahead to way ahead in one swell foop! 03:07AM: Borders and sketch done. 03:16AM: Inks done. 03:39AM: Blacks done. 03:47AM: Page done. Total page time: 49 minutes. I am now TWO pages ahead. 03:47AM: START PAGE TWENTY 04:04AM: ~17 minute break. 04:21AM: Panel lines done. 04:28AM: Page done. First (and only time I had to use whiteout) because I was inking and not sketching. Total page time: 41 minutes. I am now THREE pages ahead. 04:28AM: START PAGE TWENTY-ONE 04:35AM: ~7 minute break 04:43AM: Script done. Repeat note to snarky guys who don't know what "adapting" means. 04:44AM: Boxes done. Wow, that was fast for that many panels. 04:51AM: Panel 1 done. 04:54AM: Panel 2 done. Largely skipping pencils now. 04:57AM: Inks on Panel 3 done. 05:04AM: Panel 3 blacks done. 05:09AM: Panel 4 inks done. 05:13AM: Panel 4 blacks done. 05:26AM: Panel 5 done. 05:31AM: Panel 6 done, page done AND IT'S STILL HOUR 18. Total page time: 1 hour, 3 minutes. 05:31AM: START PAGES TWENTY-TWO AND TWENTY-THREE 05:33AM: ~2 minute break. I am so glad I put in two dual page spreads. And this is my favorite page - a redo of the very first drawing I did of Serendipity two or three years ago, before I even knew her name: a young centauress with her barrel draped in tapestries, bouncing along a field of wheat towards a castle beneath a gas giant floating in the sky. Had to completely redo the drawing, but ultimately this was the point of the story. 05:38AM: Border done. 05:48AM: Sketch done. 06:06AM: Page done. Total page time: 35 minutes. Woo woo on dual page spreads! 06:06AM: START PAGE TWENTY-FOUR 06:13AM: ~7 minute break. The last page is a huge single panel "to be continued". Go for it! 06:41AM: DONE and DONE! Total page time: 35 minutes. DONE and DONE! Total comic time: 19:20 minutes!

AFTER THE EVENT

Not timing it. Chilling out. Futzed around for an hour or so, talked to people, texted my wife. Took a nap around 7:40 to 8ish, then read a comic I'd bought during one of my breaks. Chilled out a while, looked at other people's finished and unfinished comics, then when Nathan finished, bought one more book, thanked Leef of Mission Comics and went to get the car. We packed up, had a great breakfast at Mel's, and I dropped Nathan off at his apartment right at 11am - two 24 Hour Comic Day victors.
And that's it. I'm pleased to see that even with adapting the novella on my side, I still finished early enough to absorb the 3-4 hours I took getting the story straight on the previous two 24 Hour Comic Days, so I think the technique would work even if I didn't have a story to tell. Knowing how many stories I have buzzing around in my head, that's never likely to happen - but if you're a 24 Hour Comic purist, it's good to know that preparing ahead, carefully tracking your page timings and shooting for 45 minutes or less per page is a technique that can make you succeed. Best of luck on your own comics! -the Centaur (Anthony Francis) Crossposted at BLitz Comics.

BLitz Comics 24 Hour Comic Boot Camp @ Kaleid

Published September 23, 2011 by centaur
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blitz comics boot camp september 23 2011 at kaleid gallery in san jose Nathan Vargas and myself are facilitating a 24 Hour Comic Boot Camp at Kaleid Gallery in downtown San Jose tomorrow, September 24 from 7pm to 11pm. For those that don't know, 24 Hour Comics Day is a challenge held each year to create a 24 page comic from scratch in 24 Hours. Nathan and I have tried this five times between the two of us, and we've been discussing techniques to succeed over the last year. Then a drunk guy manning a comics booth at the Sub Zero festival overheard us saying that and said we should put on a tutorial. And since we have a policy of always following the advice of random drunk guys when it sounds like they are serving as a hotline for God, we said OK! The Birth of Blitz Comics Our work has produced a pretty nice 24 Hour Comics Day Survival Kit which is now getting distributed to a lot of 24 Hour Comics venues. And it's free under a Creative Commons license! So you can download it and use it on your own. But we're going one step further and providing a "Boot Camp" where we'll help participants create a 2 page comic, involving discussions of comic theory and 2 hours of drawing exercises. So please show up and enjoy ... or at least check out Blitz Comics and our survival kit if you want to survive 24 Hour Comics Day. -the Centaur

Who Am I?

Published September 7, 2011 by centaur
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me in front of the bell bridge books promotional material for BLOOD ROCK Who are you? Good question. I'm Anthony Francis, and I write stuff and make computers jump through hoops for a living. What have you done? I'm most notable for the EPIC award winning urban fantasy novel FROST MOON and its sequel, BLOOD ROCK, which are about magical tattoo artist Dakota Frost and are therefore hopefully both more interesting than my ~700 page PhD thesis on context-sensitive computer memory. Also on the computer side, I've done some exploration of robot emotions. What are you doing next? Forthcoming in the Dakota Frost series is the third book, LIQUID FIRE, and this November for National Novel Writing Month I plan to work on HEX CODE, the first in a spin-off series featuring Dakota's adopted daughter Cinnamon Frost. Are you working on anything other than Dakota Frost? I've also recently completed a rough draft of the first book in a new series, JEREMIAH WILLSTONE AND THE CLOCKWORK TIME MACHINE. A short story set in this universe, "Steampunk Fairy Chick", will be included in the forthcoming anthology UnCONventional. What are you working on currently? I'm also currently working on a fourth new series with the working title STRANDED, a young adult science fiction novel set a thousand years in the future, featuring a spoiled young centauress who must rescue a shipload of children who have crashlanded upon a world she wanted to claim as her own. This story's set in the "Library of Dresan" universe from which this blog takes its name and which was setting of my very first unpublished novel "homo centauris", which I am now happily milking for its 57 billion year backstory. Anything else? I have a flash fiction story called "The Secret of the T-Rex's Arms" to appear on the Smashed Cat Magazine. I've also published one short story, "Sibling Rivalry" in the Leading Edge Magazine. I have a webcomic, f@nu fiku, on hiatus. And I'm actively involved with helping people succeed at 24 Hour Comics through tutorials that I and my friend Nathan Vargas have put together at Blitz Comics. Is that enough questions for now? Yes, it is. Please enjoy. -the Centaur

Back at Comic-Con

Published July 23, 2011 by centaur
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the gateway to comic-con I'm back at San Diego Comic-Con again ... my con home away from con home (my con home being Dragon*Con). Comic-Con is also where I get to visit with 125,000 of my closest friends. the crowds begin Like Dragon*Con, San-Diego Comic-Con has grown far beyond its original roots. The con is about far more than just comics: it's now a full bore genre media event. the convention floor They've got sexy space girls ... star trek babes ... sexy space guys ... the 5th, 11th and 10th doctors ... and everything in between. the total recall car and robots And lest there be any doubt about what I meant, here's what I took the closeup of in that last tableau ... I am a roboticist after all: the total recall robot While I'm here, I'll not just be renewing my creative juices ... I'll be working on the final proofs for BLOOD ROCK, which is due the day after I get back. If only I had a way to get more time...wait, maybe I do! me and the tardis Wish me luck! -the Centaur

I hate to urinate during somebody’s eulogy but …

Published February 24, 2011 by centaur
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Dwayne McDuffie died. He's the author of many comic and series, including a run I enjoyed of the Fantastic Four. He will be missed. But I have to take issue with the article announcing his death:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2011/02/23/133988062/dwayne-mcduffie-rip-championed-diversity-among-champions His individual contributions as a writer and producer, which I'll get to in a bit, remain impressive. But McDuffie was more than a writer, he was a voice — a passionate proponent for change in a genre (superhero comics) that reflexively resists it. And it's that voice that will be most acutely missed.
McDuffie will be missed, and perhaps he was a passionate proponent for change ... but what superhero genre, precisely, has the author of the NPR article been reading over the last forty years? Because it sure ain't the one I've been reading. (NOTE: the author of the article claims to have started reading in the early 1970's and to have skipped the 1990s, and I started reading in the later 1970's and skipped part of the 1980's which I've since mostly caught up on, so we are essentially contemporaneous). Superhero comics were a force of stasis in the 1950s to the 1970's largely because of the Comics Code Authority, which effectively censored comic book content; innovation existed but largely got squeezed out into underground comix whose heyday was the late 60's to early 70's. But issues of social relevance - drug use, alcoholism, environmentalism - began to kick in in the 1970's. Titles like Squadron Supreme, the Dark Knight and later Watchmen subverted the conventions of the genre in the mid 1980's. By the 1990's, the modern age of superhero comics and its antiheroes had begun - and the genre has continued to evolve, with newer iterations like widescreen comics changing how stories are told. Examining other areas, for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered comics we've gone from demonizing and censoring them to talking about it and introducing characters in the 1990's to putting them front and center in the 2000's, including the modern Batwoman, a female superhero and lesbian of Jewish descent. Even on the author of the article's signature issue, race, we've gone from ridiculous and marginalized cariactures to prominent front and center characters to Ultimate Nick Fury, based on Samuel L. Jackson and later played by him after he considered the comic version a flattering portrayal as the ultimate nexus of coolness in the Ultimate Marvel Universe ... Need I go on? No. There will always be people marketing towards the least common denominator, but that subset does not define or limit or even accurately describe the arc of the superset - a very typical mistake that people with axes to grind will make. Clearly, comics has a lot of work to do, and I'd never suggest it doesn't have further to go. Resistant to change, however, it has not been ... not at least for the last forty years. -the Centaur

Oh, the point … what Warren Ellis uses.

Published November 14, 2010 by centaur
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books, montalbano, reflected books, and gabby Oh, there was a reason I got on the Warren Ellis kick. He posted a note on what he uses to write. Maybe I'll me-too sometime and post a note on the tools I use, already having done the why and the how, but for now I wanted to focus on the following piece of wisdom from Warren Ellis which should be familiar to anyone who's ever worked on a Ph.D. thesis:
Back-ups. Oh, my god. Burning your stuff to CD or DVD is not good enough. Trust me on that. Things go wrong. Understand that Storage Will Always Fail. Always. I have a ruggedised, manly and capacious 32GB USB memory stick that can withstand fire, water, gunshots and the hairy arseteeth of Cthulhu itself — but my daughter decided she wanted to liberate one of my bags for her use, took the stick out of it and put it ’somewhere safe.’ It has never been seen again. Storage Will Always Fail. Dropbox is your friend. 2GB of storage for free, a frankly superb little piece of software that syncs your stuff off into the cloud as easily and simply and clearly as possible. I know writers, artists and tv producers who swear by Dropbox, and so do I. I have Dropbox on both computers. If you have a smart phone of the iOS or Android type, you can also have an Dropbox instance on your phone, a fact that’s saved my arse more than once. I also auto-sync Computer 1 hourly to Jungle Disk. Very cheap, very good. My media library lives on another storage service, Zumodrive, that lives both in the cloud and on my machine as a z:/ drive. (The Zumodrive application also lives on Computer 2.) Also, I do all mail through Gmail. Which means that a copy of every document I send off lives in the Gmail cloud. And every five minutes or so, a Western Digital 1TB MyBook copies everything on Computer 1’s desktop. Paranoid? Yes. Covered? Yes.
Got that, everyone? If you write, especially if you want to do it for a living, go do something like this. And for God's sake, please, keep a copy offsite. I know too many people who have lost their homes and their art or writing to fire. -the Centaur Pictured: Books, Montalbano, reflected books, and Gabby - a reminder to me that my library is a potential firetrap (God forbid!) and that I should be better at storing stuff offsite.

Station Ident … NOT

Published November 14, 2010 by centaur
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This is not warrenellis.com. If it was, I would be more irritated, irritable ... and interesting. this is not warrenellis.com (Also, Warren Ellis doesn't post me-too station idents because he's overslept for church after a long night writing. I don't think he does go to church, but if he did miss church because he'd spent a hard night writing, the minister would come to him, at the pub, when Warren Ellis was damn well ready - God being everywhere, of course, and it's the minister that would need him some Ellis. Me, I need me some God. Stupid earlybirds. Why doesn't anybody have proper Evensong anymore?) -the Centaur

A noble failure

Published October 3, 2010 by centaur
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Well, it was a noble failure, but a failure it was. I had indeed not overcome my food poisoning, not that I threw up or anything but I indeed got gurgly. During Page 7, I started having sleep microbursts during my crosshatching. And finally, as I was recovering from gurgle and looking at Page 8, I realized it was even more complicated than the previous page, and flipping through the remainder realized I needed to finish each page in ten to twenty minutes ... and I was taking forty five minutes per page. There was no way to make it. So that was it. Took a brief nap, freshened up, and started packing it up. What a fantastic experience. I have a complete 24 page story roughed out, 7 inked pages, and a lot more learning under my belt. Two of the five people who were at our site look like they are going to finish. Oh well ... next year! Ad comika! -the Centaur

The Halfway Point

Published October 2, 2010 by centaur
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What you see is Page 24 of my rough layouts - THE HALFWAY POINT: On time, on schedule. 24 roughed up pages complete. For those who don't know my process, the act of putting together a comic
  • begins with some scribbled sketches and notes
  • continues with 24 tiny scribbled panels all one page
  • continues with 24 super rough letter size (actually 9x12, what I had on me) pages
  • continues with 24 "detail roughs" on larger (10x14, what I had on me) pages
  • then I pull out the lightbox and the vellum and trace each page over and over itself until it looks good
Normally I'd scan those pages and screw around a lot with Photoshop, Illustrator, Painter and Xara, but screw that. This time I'm inking, lettering, drawing panel borders by hand. No time. No time. To help me along, these are the tools of the trade, my crutches, and my models ... that and Google Images. We're doing this at Noisebridge in San Francisco, a great shared hacker space I should blog. Later. It's their second, or third, birthday. Huge loud distracting party. I've met quite a few friends from The Search Engine That Starts With A G. I've explained 24 hour comics day like 24 times. More on that ... later. Here's another hardworking comicker: Here's Nathan Vargas, who shanghaied me into this: And here I am, from a few hours ago, looking a lot fresher than I do now. And this is me closing the laptop and getting back to work. Out of time to blog. Page 1 of the roughs becomes a real page now. See you in 12. -the Centaur

24 Hour Comic Day Begins

Published October 2, 2010 by centaur
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SO once again I'm participating in 24 hour comics day, the insane attempt to complete a new 24 page comic from scratch in 24 hours. Add to that that I've gotten less than 8 hours of sleep in the past 48 hours because of food poisoning, fully expect the food poisoning to kick back in in about 12 hours, and the fact I need to go back to my church and set up some tables, I think this is more likely going to be a 4 hour comics day. :-( However, I'm not going to bail too early: my buddy Nathan Vargas has shanghaied me up to Noisebridge in San Francisco, a great shared hacker space you can see below. So here goes nothing! TRANSNEWTONIAN OVERDRIVE: The Front begins now...

How to react when your {book|comic} is made into a movie

Published July 6, 2010 by centaur
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Warren Ellis's comic Red is being made into a movie, and a friend of mine commented how reasonable Warren Ellis seems to be about adaptation (as opposed to, say, Alan Moore, who is of course entitled to his own opinion). From Warren Ellis's blog:
http://www.warrenellis.com/?p=8099 The tone: no, the film isn’t as grim as the book. The book is pretty grim. But it’s also pretty small. When I sell the rights to a book, they buy the right to adapt it in whatever way they see fit. I can accept that they wanted a lighter film, and, as I’ve said before, the script is very enjoyable and tight as a drum. They haven’t adapted it badly, by any means. People who’ve enjoyed the graphic novel will have to accept that it’s an adaptation and that by definition means that it’s going to be a different beast from the book. The film has the same DNA. It retains bits that are very clearly from the book, as well as, of course, the overall plotline. But it is, yes, lighter, and funnier. And if anyone has a real problem with that, I say to you once again: Helen Mirren with a sniper rifle. I mean, if you don’t want to see a film with Helen Mirren with a sniper rifle, I’m not sure I want to know you.
Amen to that. -the Centaur

Help Bear and Fox Rescue Jon from Garfield

Published July 2, 2010 by centaur
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bear and fox rescue jon from garfield So I'm a fan of the highly obscure but highly funny comic "Bear and Fox" - with cute characters, a wry sense of humor, and a nerd factor of approximately 9.0 on the Geek Hierarchy scale, it's right up my alley. Well, Randall Christopher, the creator of Bear and Fox, is at it again, and is looking from some help kickstarting the project!
Hi everyone, The first two pages of the new Bear and Fox comic book are posted online! I am still trying to raise the funds to get the comic book printed.  I've raised a little over a third of the amount needed with three days left to go.  Thanks to all who have pledged so far!  If the funds are not raised by midnight monday, the project will go unfunded and no one will be charged. The new comics! http://www.bearandfox.com Where to pledge: http://www.kickstarter.com ps. if anyone wants to help me out by blogging this, stumbling it, diggin it, facebooking, friendstering, etc by all means, yes
Very well then, so noted. I never knew Jon was actually a prisoner in Garfield's police state ... it makes Garfield minus Garfield all the more poignant! (Note: I actually loved Garfield as a child, though I haven't kept up with daily newspaper strips as I no longer subscribe to a newspaper. And Jim Davis loves Garfield Minus Garfield - hopefully he'll get the same kick out of Bear and Fox). SO ANYWAY, help Randall Christopher help Bear and Fox save Jon from Garfield. Because, goodness knows, Jon's not going to do it himself... a real man of action UPDATE: The Kickstart was successful! Here's to Bear and Fox 2!