Hey gang,

I just went to see Spiderman 2 last night! FANTASTIC! Better than the first one by far and the first one rocked the house!
I will try to post a more full review later, so c'mon back now, y'hear?

---Doug

I finally got around to seeing the new re-make of Dawn Of The Dead last night on video. As remakes go, it was not great, but not bad either. The script was a bit stupid in places, and Matt Frewer was criminally underused. About the only thing in common with the original was the fact that there were a) Zombies and b) some people holed themselves up in a shopping mall for a while. I really disliked the fact that the zombies in this movie were like supermen, being able to sprint and jump. Usually death brings about a kind of rigor mortis and decay that stiffens muscles and impedes movement. So the whole fast moving thing really put me off. It did still manage to be creepy in parts, but did not have the guts to slow things down and really let the tension mount like the original had. I do have to give it points of partial success: last night I woke up at 430 am from having a protracted "zombie nightmare dream" and couldn't get back to sleep. Of course it could have been the spicy spaghetti sauce I had at dinner.

immediately following the movie I had to pop the Billy Crystal/Jack Palance opus: City Slickers into the DVD player so I could chase the zombie horror with a palette cleansing comedy. Of course I fell asleep on the couch about 45 minutes in. When I was having trouble getting back to sleep at 4:30am I kept trying to think about City Slickers, but somehow my thoughts kept going back to Dawn Of The Dead. I know that it is not real and completely unrealistic, but something about zombie films just unnerves me. I don't know if it is a fear of death or an uneasiness facing a hopeless situation over which you have no control.

In other, more relevant news, I worked on the new website design a little bit on Friday night. Hopefully I will have that rolled out before too long. I just need to buckle down and make it a priority. It is very minimalistic compared to some of the other things I have done in terms of color and background. New sections will be added and some old sections will be going the way of the dinosaur! Should be fun when all is said and done.

Talk to you all soon!

--Doug

I am starting to get sucked into the undertow of hype surrounding Spiderman 2. And I have an opportunity to see it a few days early! Emily got some passes for a preview screening on Monday and I am planning to go with my Dad. He is looking forward to it too! I will log a full report next week!

aloha,

--Doug

I came up with an idea for the look of my new website. It flashed on me last night, and today I scribbled out some sketches. Nothing fancy. Less is more, as they say in the biz. I should have fun working it up. Hopefully I'll get it up and running before too long, but my summer is already beginning to fill up with activities.

Out.

You've got to be kidding me! Dodgeball, was tops at the box office this week? What is the world coming to?
Well anyway...I had a pretty enjoyable time this weekend with the in-laws in Rochester. My first Father's Day was spent playing poker, miniature golf and racing go-karts with the kids! Very fun, but tiring...Then of course a 3 hour drive home at the end of the day!

More soon!

---Doug

Another week coming to a close and I still haven't gotten to finish my strip! Very frustrating but I am so busy and the many vagaries of life keep pulling me in several directions at once (and none of them toward the drawing table)!

Wednesday night, as I do every week, I went to my parents house to do some work fixing up their home. They are starting to get along in their years and need some help in doing these small projects. I really enjoy helping out and doing the manual labor. There is something queerly satisfying about building something with your own hands and looking back at it when you are done. Over the last few months I have repainted their downstairs bathroom and added baseboard trim all the way around, and I am just finishing up working on re-doing the downstairs bedroom/computer room. These have been pretty big jobs and limited by my only being able to work on them 2-3 hours a week on them.

Last night, Thursday, Emily and I finished watching KILL BILL Vol. 2. We had started watching it on Tuesday night but only got about 45 minutes in before we had to switch it off and do other things, but last night we committed to finishing it. It was fantastic! I liked it much better than Vol. 1, and I liked Vol. 1! It is truly a shame that Quentin does not make movies more often. But I guess the trade off is the quality of his work. He has a real knack for dialogue and in Vol. 2 he delivers in a way that was missing from Vol. 1, which seemed to focus more on blood-soaked battle action. This volume was much more character driven and as a result is superior. Structurally, Tarantino is at it again, jumping back and forth in time to add emphasis to some of the action. For the un-initiated I can see where it could be confusing, but I find his de-construction of the typical Hollywood script format to be a refreshing change of pace and a challenge to the viewer to pay attention to the details. His time-hopping is not done sloppily or haphazardly, but with a sense of purpose that is usually revealed sometime later in the film. The great thing about this one is that you don't necessarily need to have seen Vol. 1 to enjoy Vol. 2. So check it out!

Tonight we leave for Rochester. It is the annual family party for Emily's niece and nephews. They all have birthdays within a few weeks of each other so rather than have multiple parties, they just have one big party for the three of them. It is always fun to get together with the family and should be especially nice this time since Emily's brother David is flying in from San Diego. Emily's family has not been all together in one place for awhile so it should be nice.

So no drawing board for me until next week sometime. But life is funny like that. And not always in a bad way.

Duty now,

---Doug

I am beginning to get the impression that if you don't update your blog everyday you are considered a slacker within the "blog community", whatever the hell that is. It's all a matter of having something to say. I don't feel I have anything to say most days, so I don't say it. Makes sense. Makes me wonder how quiet the world would be if every one did it.

more later...

---Doug

I am beginning to feel more and more like a real home owner. Last night Emily and I bought our first ever gas grill. I spent over an hour putting it together, but it was worth it. Now we have to actually get some fuel for it so we can cook up some hot dogs and hamburgers! Maybe even some chicken or salmon. As a result of all my domesticated manliness, I didn't get to sit at the drawing table last night, but I am hoping I might get there tonight!

Out.

Another weekend slips away to the steely grip of time. I was pretty busy this weekend.
Friday night Emily and I ordered in pizza and watched Once Upon A Time In Mexico on video with our friends Lisa and Mark. It was fairly enjoyable, if a bit bloody, but not nearly as good as the first 2 films in the "El Mariachi" series. Not Robert Rodriguez's best film, but solid and entertaining nonetheless. I am very much looking forward to his next film, an adaptation of Frank Miller's classic noir graphic novels SIN CITY. Miller is supposedly very involved with the filming (Rodriguez was even trying to get him co-directing credit on the film until the Director's Guild struck that down as against the by-laws of their contracts.)

I spent the latter part of Saturday afternoon getting ready for our monthly "Game Night". This time I was treating everyone to another test play of my game ELECTION! I tweaked some of the rules a bit and printed the cards on a heavier paper stock and I have to say it went very well! Everyone involved actually played the game until completion, offering up some great suggestions to improve gameplay and speed up the play. All said the game took about 4 hours to finish, but we came up with an idea to speed it up to about 2 hours, which I think is a bit more manageable. So thanks to my play testers: Derek, Kate, Emily and Mary! I think with a few more adjustments I may be able to get this ready enough to submit to some game companies! More on that as time marches on.

I did get to put in about 20-25 minutes on my comic strip taking it that much closer to completion. I don't think I have much left to do on it, but I feel like it needs a little more zip and punch in the artwork. I'm not sure how I am going to achieve it yet but I'm sure I will think of something....

I also found the time to re-arrange my upstairs studio/computer room just a bit. Not a huge change, but an improvement nonetheless, I think. Emily hasn't seen it yet, so I may have to change it back! Biggest change is that I finally got my stereo hooked up to my huge Acoustic Research speaker cabinets. These suckers are a good 4 1/2" tall and sound great, but are a pain in the ass to move! I probably won't get an opportunity to blast them unless Emily and Alena are gone for the weekend as they were last week, but it is great to hear them popping again!

Movies that I still haven't seen yet this summer....

Shrek 2
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Stepford Wives

Concerts I really want to go see, but in all probability won't:

Devo live in Central Park, NYC July 23rd

Duty now,

--Doug

Now playing on my iPod: Folsom Prison Blues, Johnny Cash

Hey gang,

Not much progress on the comic strip this week. The heat and personal life getting in the way once again. I do hope to get some more work done on the latest this weekend. Squeeze a few last drops of perspiration from my already moist forehead.

Emily had some free passes to go see an advanced screening of The Chronicles of Riddick earlier this week. We went with our friends Kate and Derek. I was the only one who had seen the first movie in this series, Pitch Black so I wound up telling them about Vin Diesel's character beforehand. It was actually pretty enjoyable. Some of the fight sequences were a little "over edited" in my opinion, but that has been a bad trend for about the last 10 years or so, but it is getting worse. Memo to Hollywood: You don't have to have an edit every quarter second during a fight sequence to make it exciting! Sometimes it cuts so quickly, that when its over you can't help but think..."What the hell just happened?" slow down a little and pull back. SHOW the action...It doesn't have to be all close-ups! There were of course the usual head-scratchers in logic including some scenes on a hot desert planet named appropriately Cremetoria, but overall a pretty good show. Vin Diesel makes a surprisingly charismatic lead actor, and Writer/Director David Twohy has put together a pretty inventive universe even if some of the concepts are recycled from other sources. The Necromongers reminded me a bit of Star Trek's Borg (convert or die!) but he adds an element of religion to it that makes a commentary on zealotry and cult like mind-think. Desert prison planets have been done before, but Cremetoria really ups the ante! Dame Judy Dench shows up as an "elemental" and honestly doesn't do a whole lot but she does add an element of credibility to the film which is populated with decent unknown actors...Well unknown to me anyway. Some of the leads are pretty big in British theater, I guess.

I did put in a little time into my ELECTION! game, as I plan on play testing it some more this weekend! Derek and Kate are the latest Guinea Pigs for the cause! Hopefully I can get this thing into shape enough to maybe submit to a real company and see if I can sell them on it! More on that when the time comes!

The new web site design is coming slowly. I have toyed with a few things but nothing is really sticking. Nothing is really grabbing me by the collar. I hope I have a break in that soon.

Cryptic note:

an idea has sprung to mind recently that I am working on regarding my book division. Nothing I can report yet since it is in the idea stage, but I will reveal more when it is ready!

ciao for now,

---Doug, who still hasn't seen Shrek 2

I got in a good solid hour of work on my latest comic strip yesterday and it is getting much closer to completion. I showed it to Emily even though it wasn't done yet and she said she thought it was pretty funny. I guess if I can make the wife laugh, that's all that matters. I'm hoping to get it done this weekend, though it will have some competition from painting the bathroom ceiling and cleaning the carpets! In between all the side projects, I will have a little bit of free time this weekend and I might go see a movie. Not sure what yet, but I'll be sure to give my review come Monday.

Ciao for now,


---Doug

45 minutes.

That is how long I worked last night on my new comic strip! 45 minutes of bliss for me! I sketched in the idea on the bristol board with my blue pencil, then roughed in and tighten the pencils a bit indicated some of the areas that I will fill in with black or perhaps some zip-a-tone. Then I used my Ames lettering guide and layed out the words. I busted open the inkwell and began inking the figures and used my #3 rapidiograph tech pen to begin finishing up the lettering. I usually ink the lettering first on my strips to ensure I have enough room for them. If I need to rearrange some art or re-draw, I will. I find this works best for me. I am really looking forward to tonight when I can get back to the drawing table and work on this some more...I may even stay up really late just to finish! I have the day off tomorrow, so why not??

In other notes of interest...If you are wondering what that jangly staccato guitar music is on the latest Mitsubishi ad (the one with the two cars speeding towards to end of a bridge in order to test the brakes) it is none other than Uncontrollable Urge by one of my favorite bands, DEVO! Their music has been showing up a lot lately in the most unlikely places, quite a pleasant surprise for this fan I must say!

Let's see:

Beautiful World was featured in a series of ads for Target
Freedom of Choice was featured in a beer ad (the one with all the dominoing people)
Whip It was sung by the cast of American Idol a few weeks back
and now this.

My question now is this...Since Bob Seegar was recently elected into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame it seems like they will vote in anyone who has had their music played in commercials, so is the time ripe now for DEVO, one of the greatest influences on popular music in the late 70's and early 80's to get their due?

Feel free to discuss by adding your comments by clicking the link below!


-----Doug

I actually sat down at the drawing board last night with a renewed sense of urgency, unfortunately it came after midnight and my eyelids began to droop after about 20 minutes. I did however get a good jump on sketching out my latest comic strip. It wasn't even an idea I had kicking around in my pad, but something new that I had come up with in the kitchen the day before. Emily actually inspired it. She may not realize it, but she can sometimes be my muse for such things. It is not a multi-panel idea, but a single panel strip so it will be large and have some amount of detail to it. I have a punchline for it, but I am trying to think of some of what I call "joke enhancers". Little throw-aways that by themselves aren't necessarily that funny, but layered on with others create a rich bean dip of humor.
Bust out the chips!

---Doug

ps. I am still working on the new web site. Please be patient, this is taking longer than I had hoped. I am trying to design a new look and haven't settled on anything yet. I am think about a minimalist design that is uncluttered, but still cutting edge...For me anyway. :)