Thinking out loud: Angry City

Posted on July 29, 2005

Angry City

This is something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. See, just about everybody and their mother is getting work at Tokyopop these days; Becky Cloonan, Alex de Campi… It goes on and on. So I got curious and checked Tokyopop’s submission guidelines. What they’re looking for is a story that will take at least three 160 page volumes to tell.

Hmmm.

So I got to thinking about a story I’d like to tell in that format.

Angry City

Cities in Japan are gigantic, densely packed monstrosities of humanity. Bodies packed on top of bodies, building onto the city so they can pack in more bodies. As times goes on, cities grow larger, denser. One of them begins to think for itself. It becomes annoyed with the people living their.

Then it becomes angry.

And it lashes out.

In a matter of moments, the city decimates its own population, attacking with stone and steel and glass. When the dust settles, only a handful are left alive. They want to leave the city. They’re terrified.

But the city has another idea.

Angry City is the story of a group of survivors trying to escape a sentient city that is toying with them, hunting them, changing the landscape under their feet.

Angry City

All Hail…

Posted on July 28, 2005

…The Chairmen of the Board. I’ve had one of their songs, “Give Me Just a Little More Time,” stuck in my head on a constant loop for almost twenty-four hours now, and I couldn’t be happier.

I’ll freely admit that I didn’t know dick about The Chairmen until yesterday, when the song in question (long one of my favorites) came on at work. I was finally driven to do some actual research. Go figure! I was astounded at how many Chairmen songs I recognize, and I was floored by the fact that they only recorded from 1970 to circa 1973. Now, my only regret is that I have to wait until payday to order their greatest hits collection.

So, here’s to The Chairmen of the Board and their masterful singer General Johnson. The desperate emotion of your vocals got me through one great big boring-ass Wednesday.

“Give me just a little more time, and our love will surely grow.”

Wednesday Crapola

Posted on July 27, 2005

Administrative Note: I’m trying to syndicate the column, but I’m not sure if I set it up correctly. For those who know about this stuff, could you check out the Live Feed link and let me know if it’s working. Also, if you have some clue why my archives aren’t working, could you let me know?

Boris slept the whole night through last night. That’s a miracle almost big enough to make me believe in God.

I’m about halfway through the second season of The Shield. Big thanks to Randy and Dave for letting me borrow their DVDs. Maybe I’ll be caught up by the time the fifth season starts.

Now that I’m not headed to Chicago, I’m headed to Beerland (again) on the 6th to catch the Flametrick Subs and Satan’s Cheerleaders. Y’know, if Schatzi would start playing shows again, I’d have another band to go see.

I might be back with more later. I have some story ideas I need to research.

Abort! Abort!

Posted on July 26, 2005

Just had a quick meeting with the Frequency Press folks. Looks like we won’t be in artist’s alley at Chicago after all. Danny and Zan decided (rightly, I think) to use the money we would have spent in airfare and hotels toward getting A Trip to Rundberg out in time for Wizard World Dallas.

Sorry if you were planning on coming out to see me (HA!). I’ll catch ya next time.

Killjoy Confetti, “The Fun Is”

Posted on July 26, 2005

Full Disclosure: I used to be in a band with Joy and Jill Gerwe, the respective drummer and guitarist for Muncie, Indiana band Killjoy Confetti. Joy, in fact, is probably the best friend I’ve ever had. For years, I wanted to tour the country in a rock band with these women. Later, I figured out this whole writing thing, and the rest is history.

Now, then.

I received my copy of The Fun Is a few weeks ago, a gift from Joy. Killjoy Confetti has one earlier record out, Into the Light, which they recorded when they were known as Arcade (a cease and desist order from Sony forced a name change). Into the Light, while rushed through the recording process and not the most competently played project, was full of a vital, foot-stomping energy, a pop record you couldn’t ignore. Into the Light was and remains one of my favorite records.

Then there’s The Fun Is…

I’ll start with the cover art. Why not, huh? I’ll just say that I pity the poor record store clerk who has to ring this puppy up. It’s covered, and I mean covered, with barcodes. They overlap and intersect, and I have no idea if any of them is an actual barcode. The rest of the art is full of candy canes, fishing lures, pills, and a bullet. It looks like some vague attempt at being artistic, but I can’t be sure. The liner notes, such as they are, are meant to follow arches of color, but somebody didn’t feel like spending enough time in Illustrator to make it work.

Onto the disc!

The Fun Is opens with a slow build into “Standford Prison Experiment No. 2.” The only problem is, it doesn’t build to much of anything. The song simply drones, making such rich and intersting subject matter as the Stanford Prison Experiment sound downright boring.

Maybe this is the problem with The Fun Is. It’s much more competently played than Into the Light, while not being anything near as interesting. That’s a shame, because I get the feeling Killjoy Confetti was trying to be more interesting than entertaining with this record.

There’s some great stuff there, no doubt. Much of the vocal overplay between singer Carrie Conley and the Gerwe’s is incredible, especially the rising and falling vocal tremors on “Neer Neer”. Carrie’s voice falters often, though. She just don’t have the lungs yet. The interaction between the guitar and Lisa Fett’s bass is very accomplished. Those or things that can be said about bands like Rush and Jethro Tull, though, and those bands bore the crap outta me.

I really wanted to like this record. I love the people involved, and I loved what they used to be, but while their last record included such great tunes as “Holly,” “Closer to the Moon,” and “Slipper,” all I can say about the current disk is that some of the songs are pretty good. Still, The Fun Is will probably do well with those who fancy themselves artists and intellectuals. Us poor folks who have to live in this world, however, will have to hope for an Arcade reunion.

Highs: “Things I Wanna Do” “Neer Neer”

Lows: “Excuse the Blood” “Crooked Teeth”

Rating: 2/5

A New Week

Posted on July 25, 2005

That’s right folks, I can finally update regularly after a week of only posting about San Diego and how much my formatting and spelling sucks. I’m back!

Had a fun Frequency Press meeting last Thursday. We’ve found out that we’re going to have an artist’s alley table at Wizard World Chicago, and we’re left to prepare for it all last minute like. Shouldn’t be too much of a problem, but then I received a VERY exciting phone call that night. There’s a new writing thing on the horizon. I don’t think I can talk about it yet, but it’s pretty-damn cool. We’ll see where it goes.

Speaking of phone calls, I received a phone call from Sherry Heck and Mark Cheeseman on Saturday. I haven’t seen either of these people in seven years or more. They were calling from my ten year high school reunion, which I didn’t attend due to time, money, and interest factors. Didn’t think I’d be scolded for it.

More San Diego Errata

Posted on July 23, 2005

Tess just informed me that the Veronica Mars panel was on Friday, not Thursday. I said the memory was fuzzy, folks. You shoulda believed me!

Oops!

Posted on July 23, 2005

Randy Lander tells me my con report is full of typos. Sorry about that, everybody. Anybody who wants to complain can find me at Wizard World Chicago in Artist Alley.

A Note on Format

Posted on July 21, 2005

Something wonky happened in the blogger code for the Friday/Saturday rundown. I’ve tried to fix it, but I need to search through the code to find the problem. I don’t feel like doing that, so just enjoy the changing font size.

The San Diego File: Friday and Saturday

Posted on July 21, 2005

FRIDAY (aka Hey Everybody! Meet Phil Hester)

We finally made our way through the doors at almost half-past, and we immediately split up, Randy to make his coffee date, and I to pay Rob G the cash I owed him.While I was at the Gigantic Graphic Novels booth, I also picked up a copy of Rick and Rob’s new zombie western, Dead West. Once I returned home on Sunday, I read through this story in a single sitting, and it was incredible. You need to pick this one up today!

With a warm sensation in my chest and tummy, I scooted over a few feet see Ken’s boothmate, Jimmy Ma. Jimmy has a book out called Burn. I loved the art, so I picked up a copy from him. I also earned a free sketch for this, so here’s what Jimmy made me. I asked for something creepy, and I got something both creepy and sexy…

We stopped at the Ait/PlanetLar booth a few times, each time to see somebody else. I chatted to Joe Casey there, who’s sporting a new shaven hairstyle. We’ve both got graphic novels under option with the same production studio, so we were able to chat about that a bit. I promised to bring Joe a copy of Drive on Friday (which I did).

Two incredibly nice guys, or just good actors?

Angry or happy? Who’s to say?!

Really, wouldn’t you just attack this?

Nate has a fanboy moment.

Oh, and a final thought…

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