Toppohaus

Hoping to see a ustream/webisode of this:

kellysue:

I’m a little jumpy right now. 

Okay, so, I’m writing the relaunch of the GHOST series for Dark Horse.  It’s a GREAT gig — super cool property, they’re letting me make it something I really care about, I have the MOST invested and enthusiastic editor you could dream of having in Patrick Thorpe, oh, and I’m writing for PHIL NOTO.  So, you know: it does not suck. (Writing for Phil is turning out to be not just a privilege, but a real craft exercise for me. I’ve never worked with anyone who has a style anywhere near his — it’s similar to what I imagine writing for Alex Maleev would be.  It’s forcing me to see my story differently, to work in a way that isn’t second nature and I’m loving it.  But anyway. I digress.)

Yes. SO! 

Part of my pitch was that the supporting cast would consist of these guys Vaughn and Tommy, who are the hosts of the late night cable TV show PHANTOM FINDERS.  (I realize just now I really should have made that Phantom Phinders.  Dammit.  Oh well.)  DH was really into the idea and — HO HO HO — guess what?  It turns out they have a connection to one of the OREGON PARANORMAL gents.  

Say, says Dark Horse, why don’t we send you on an investigation with OP?  Wouldn’t that be cool?  Research!  

I’m all like, ARE YOU KIDDING?! YES! THIS IS A THING I MUST DO! 

And then, you know, a week or so passes. And this HILARIOUS THING that I’m about to do is suddenly A REAL THING and… I’m kind of freaked out.  

Like, my son — who is 4 — asked me why I wasn’t going to be at Family Dinner at our friends’ house tonight.  I told him Mommy was going on a GHOST HUNT to research a book and he should not worry about me because I would be very safe in the hands of the experts and I would be texting Daddy all night with updates.  Besides, I added.  Mommy doesn’t really believe in ghosts anyway.  But I’m going to try and keep an open mind. 

[I should mention when I say “all night” I mean ALL NIGHT.  This thing goes from 7pm to 3am.  Now, here’s a thing you might not know about me: I am an early riser.  Like, REALLY EARLY.  I get up when some of you haven’t gone to bed yet.  This morning I was up at 4.  Thursday, at 3.  This will effectively be an all-nighter for me.]

Where was I? Oh, right — dropping HL off at school this morning.  

Okay, so the kid was NOT CONCERNED.  He was thrilled!  

But on the way to the car and for the rest of the day, I kept thinking about my declaration. I don’t believe in ghosts, I said.  

So… if I don’t believe in ghosts, then why am I so skittish about this whole thing?

And believe me, I’ve been making light for two days but I am TOTALLY skittish about this whole thing.  

(When I was adding this to my calendar and iCal somehow intuited the end time for the event was 3am (HOW DID IT KNOW THAT?? I DID NOT ADD THE EVENT FROM EMAIL!) why did I nearly jump out of my skin?  I’m certain there’s an entirely plausible explanation that involves, I dunno, some sort of algorithm, but I felt my heart skip a beat.)

Maybe my mind is more open than I thought.  Maybe there’s something about being in the business of story that makes you want so badly to believe in magic that your heart overrides your head and you’re on the ride whether you meant to be or not.  

I don’t know.  

But! I do know that thing starts in 2 hours and I still need to decide what to wear and brew a pot of coffee so I should probably sign off now.  

I’ll be live-tweeting as I can from my twitter stream, which you can find right here. 

ADVENTURE AHOY!

Here’s hoping I don’t pee my pants. 

drawnblog:

“What else do we notice […]?  Two-tier storytelling.  Isn’t it strange how all three teams have gone to two-tier, independent of each other?

Maybe not.  You’ve cut the print page in half.  If you want each screen to make sense as a discrete entity, you have to respect the cut.  If you want each screen to contain enough information to make it worth reading, you need a strategy to maximise your panelling.  And if you want to be able to stretch out and get a big picture in there while still maintaining storytelling coherency, you’ve kind of got to go wide on the page.”

—Warren Ellis, from a fascinating post on formatting comics for reading in multiple formats, especially tablet, phone, web interface, and of course good old print. Ideas of modularity in comics composition make a lot of sense, when you consider the nested way they’re built fundamentally, in terms of discrete objects: images > panels > pages and on up.

Ellis touches on some recent comics designed for multiple platforms, including Mark Waid and Peter Krause’s new Insufferable, which has gotten some attention for being Waid’s big public splash into making webcomics. While I’m generally suspcious of Big Public Splashes, especially from old media into new media, new thinking is always a good thing. I’m especially interested in Warren Ellis’s ideas on format, as he’s been an early adopter of new formats for years and has a pretty clear-eyed thinking when it comes to what is possible and what should be possible in a given format. 

abloodymess:

how to get laid: the jacket

grantbridgestreet:

Jim Steranko.