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Posts from the ‘personal’ Category

Jan 17

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Wait What?

Aaannnd we’re back…. welcome to the FUTURE!

I’ve written before about how hard it is to resume blogging after coming out of a “production coma” (which is a weird inversion of a regular coma, in that you are actually functioning ridiculously more than the mean, and yet your friends all think you’ve been kidnapped or something).

The reason why I usually don’t blog in production are many. Not just because time is at an incredible premium (which is true), or because of “teh spoilers” – but more because I tend to get incredible “tunnel vision of interest” and I’m well aware that blogging about, say, ACTRA bonds would get old fast.

So, mum’s the word.

If you haven’t been on twitter – the last five months have been a mad-cap sprint on an adaptation of “Billy Bishop Goes To War” that I’ve been (no hyoerbole) honoured to be involved with, and I hope we’ve done some small measure of justice to. There’ll likely be more news on the “Billy Bishop” front in the new year, so I’ll maybe talk about it then (hopefully when I’ve got some more distance).

But the important thing is that I’m back in 2011 with even more things I want to discuss – starting with my new obsession with “My Little Pony”.

…

This would be known as the “cliffhanger ending”.

Mar 29

1 Comment

Wickahd Smaht

Did I mention that "Zero Day" is great and is available for purchase and download... NOW!

Content has, indeed, been pretty light lately – mostly because what’s been occupying my time for the last couple months doesn’t really lend itself to discussion. If you think comic writers and artists get frustrated when wanting to discuss work with months of lead time, imagine my frustration when there’s a chance some of the seeds currently being planted will pay off next year. Maybe.

However, I am… slowly… starting to warm to the whole Twitter thing, thus cementing my reign as “that guy who alternates between being way ahead of, and way behind, the curve.” It turns out that the excellent Tweetie client was the tipping point, if you’ve found it equally hard to get into this tweet-business. I’m going to look at embedding a twitter widget here as soon as I get a chance – but I will warn in advance my tweeting is pretty asinine (irreverent if you’re charitable).

So – given that I’ve just returned from a Beantown roadtrip, that included (amongst other things) a visit to Ye old PAX East, and that people seem interested in my thoughts on the same I present one of those grand traditions of lazy blog-posts since time immemorial – THE NUMBERED LIST:

Best Five Surprises in Boston Over the Weekend:

Mar 18

3 Comments

The Sandwich Manifesto

scanwich

Things are going to be a little quiet through next week as I’m starting production on something for a few days. In the meantime, amuse yourself with scans of delicious sandwiches.

Food for thought (or comments, hint, hint). In this day and age of “gourmet” sandwich ingredients, is the concept of the sandwich itself obsolete? There’s a great local bakery which makes a roasted vegetable sandwich with five types of hand-roasted vegetables, smoked provolone, and a home made garlic aoli on thick fresh-baked bread. When I eat each element individually they are truly epicurean delights. When I eat the sandwich? I taste yams and lettuce, the two largest ingredients (by taste intensity and surface area respectively).

Yet, by prying my sandwich into it’s component parts it’s hardly a sandwich, it’s a salad with some bread on the side. The sandwich was borne of an era with ingredients of middling quality, where it’s delivery mechanism alone was unique. I certainly don’t think the sandwich is done, there’s still nothing to beat a pile of smoked meat on rye (maybe a little sauerkraut), but a graph correlating increasing number, or quality, of ingredients against “overall sandwich enjoyability” would be interesting. What is the critical mass of a sandwich?

I won’t be getting on that any time soon.

Discuss, and I’ll see y’all in a couple of days.

Feb 19

What the heck is that word?

ka-blooey!

Okay, I need some help (more so than usual ba-dum! Try the veal).

For two weeks now there’s been a word on the tip of my tongue that, for the life of me, I just can’t remember. I’ve tried Google, I’ve tried dictionaries and thesauruses… all to no avail.

There is a particular term that refers to intentionally only exposing oneself to information sources which conform to pre-existing biases. Like a liberal who will only read DailyKOS or a conservative that will only watch FOXNews… etc.

So the word itself is kind of a conglomerate of partisan homogeneity, the “media echo chamber”, and solipsism. Homeoinformative isolationisim? Monomedia stagnation? There is a singular specific term, and I just can’t recall what it is.

And it’s driving me crazy.

Feb 11

1 Comment

Network Shaping is Bad. Period. Full Stop.

News out of the US that representative Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) is trying to sneak anti-net neutrality language into the stimulus bill.

In a nutshell, the senators amendment would tie additional broadband funding in the US with amended legislation that would allow ISP’s to implement “network management techniques” ostensibly to deter child pornography, and movie piracy, and the like.

I recently noted the different approach to piracy in Canada and the US – but here’s yet another concrete example as this amendment appears to be driven by the MPAA in their ongoing anti-piracy campaign.

Let me make this as clear, and concise as I can: The moment content producers allow ISP’s to make a “value” judgement — of any kind — as to data they carry on their network, producers have lost. You have set a precedent that allows the ISP to become the content gate-keeper who will forevermore determine what legitimate services customers will have access to. Read more

Jan 28

Crazy Lawsuit Wednesdays!

DROP THAT CHALUPA!

Greetings from Hoth! The heat in my office has now been out for two days, and as a trademark Toronto SNOPOCALYPSE ™ kicks up around us things are looking decidedly grim for the rebellion.

Since my poor frozen brain is too sluggish for deep insight here’s some decidedly hot and spicy odd lawsuits from this week:

… you know what? This is just getting depressing… so we stop here. You don’t like it? SUE ME.

Jan 26

Awww… you like me, you really li**Bandwidth Exceeded**

509-bandwidth-limit

Awww… I just popped over to fix a broken link in my Mad article from this morning and got the dreaded “509 – Bandwidth Exceeded” message – marking this as (clearly) my most successful month of blogging ever.

Of course around now most Bloggers would be decrying their scumbag webhosts for cutting off the juice in the first place… but since the scumbag webhost in question resolved the issue immediately, and also is me, all is forgiven.

Just wanted to say “thank you” to all you scary web-folk who keep coming here. I promise to keep doing whatever the heck it is that this thing is.

Jan 26

From the (Fone)boned-by-the-economy department

Man, I love this illustration

Mad Magazine cutting back to a quarterly publishing schedule? If Don Martin were alive he’d be Ka-PTHLONG-A-DONG-A-DONG-A-DONG’ing in his grave. William Gaines would be incensed, and hungry. Dave Berg would need THREE pipes just to calm down. Sergio Aragonés… well Mr. Aragonés would probably be exactly the same as he is. Because: A. He’s still alive. B. He’s all suave as hell. and C. Because death fears to face the magnificence of his moustache. Hmmm, I kind of lost my track there for a second.

This is, of course, sad news for anyone who grew up indebted to Mad (and more importantly boxes and boxes of back-issues of Mad from parents, relatives, neighbours, and garage sales)… as their first introduction to the world of comedy. Real comedy. Gut-busting comedy, the likes of which Riverdale’s denziens certainly didn’t deliver.

While there’s still some debate about the effectiveness of satire as an educational tool – there really is no question in my mind about the mass of material I only know about thanks to Bill Gaines singular vision. Read more