The contractual obligation post.
Dylan Meconis, you see, is a member of the Yankee cartooning supergroup Periscope, and aside from being a good friend of the Spouse (and, yes, myself) she’s also our tenant, which is among other reasons why despite the fact that this is by no means a comic book, I’ll be sitting behind a table at Emerald City this weekend. Would you like a teaser of the (mumblety-mumble) sixth issue? Find the Periscope Studios tables, and look for the one with the roses and such.
—Fun fact: one of the working titles was Emerald City, before the Spouse reminded me of certain facts. (It’s unfair, I know. Portland has far more greenspace. Hell, Phoenix has more urban greenspace than Seattle…)
—posted 10 days ago
Things to keep in mind:
The secret of clichés.
Made haphazardly, it probably made itself, if not actually against the will of its authors and actors, then at least beyond their control. And this is the reason it works, in spite of æsthetic theories and theories of filmmaking. For in it there unfolds with almost telluric force the power of Narrative in its natural state, without Art intervening to discipline it. And so we can accept it when characters change mood, morality, and psychology from one moment to the next, when conspirators cough to interrupt the conversation if a spy is approaching, when whores weep at the sound of “La Marseillaise.” When all the archetypes burst in shamelessly, we reach Homeric depths. Two clichés make us laugh. A hundred clichés move us. For we sense dimly that the clichés are talking among themselves, and celebrating a reunion. Just as the height of pain may encounter sensual pleasure, and the height of perversion border on mystical energy, so too the height of banality allows us to catch a glimpse of the sublime. Something has spoken in place of the director. If nothing else, it is a phenomenon worthy of awe.
—posted 67 days ago
Things to keep in mind:
The secret of evidence.
As the subject exited the bus, he did not comply with at least 3 loud demands for him to put his hands in the air. He kept his hands in his chest area and looked disoriented and stared off into space. Officer Park tazed the subject who was then handcuffed after the sword was removed from his person…prior to transport, [he] said bizarre things like he was just pickling mushrooms and I was just hit by a meteorite. [He] knew he was in Portland but couldn’t tell us where… The sword was taken as evidence.
—posted 72 days ago
A rather limited edition.
The hardcover “Prolegomenon,” as bound by Brenna Zedan, maker of marvels. (While you’re there, check out the juggling Griffen.)
—posted 149 days ago
Ceci n’est pas une comic book.
In the interests of publicity and such, I ought mention the fact I’ll be at the Stumptown Comics Fest next weekend. Mostly, I’ll be running around making sure everything’s going as planned, or at least not to hell, but in the occasional quiet moment I might be found at table no. 53. Dylan Meconis and the Spouse have graciously allowed me to sprinkle some roses on a corner of their space, and this despite the lack of speech balloons in my magum opus.
(I shall make no promises, and so no promises shall be made, but. Just maybe; it might.)
—posted 238 days ago
A lot like the girl on the soda bottle, though not so delicate and lacking wings.
It’s why some words are better left unused, except in direst need: you’ll wear them out.
—posted 258 days ago
Things to keep in mind:
The secret of Celtic magic.
Since the time when Macpherson exploited Celtic sources to provide a public eager for Romantic material with what they wanted, it has been the fashion to think of the Celtic mind as something mysterious, magical, filled with dark broodings over a mighty past; and the Irish, Welsh, and the rest as a people who by right of birth alone were in some strange way in direct contact with a mystical supernatural twilight world which they would rarely reveal to the outsider. The so-called “Celtic Revival” of the end of the last century did much to foster this preposterous idea. A group of writers, approaching the Celtic literatures (about which they usually knew very little, since most of them could not read the languages at all) with a variety of the above prejudice conditioned by the pre-Raphælite and Æsthetic movements and their own individual turns of mind, were responsible for the still widely held belief that they are full of mournful, languishing, mysterious melancholy, of the dim “Celtic Twilight” (Yeats’s term), or else of an intolerable whimsicality and sentimentality. (Compare the opinion of Whitley Stokes quoted in his obituary in 1909 in the Celtic Review, VI, 72, that Irish literature is “strong, manly, purposeful, sharply defined in outline, frankly realistic, and pitiless in logic.”)
—posted 264 days ago
“A hundred hundred knights have sought him out with sword and spear and hound and he has laughed at them all and sent more than a few down to dust.”
Gad, but it clunks. —So, the aforementioned deadline, not so much. Ysabel and Jo are still standing by that fence in the rain, mired in a not-argument that isn’t going not-anywhere. (She wants this person whom she’s growing to actually like not to get hurt, and she wants not to be so fucking confused, that’s all well and good, but where’s the spark, says the writer, anticipating the audience. —And do I really want to play the creepy plastic statue card?)
No promises, then, but I will have a half table at the Portland Zine Symposium (Saturday and Sunday, August 11 and 12, the Smith Memorial Ballroom at PSU) and I will have chapbooks for Nos. 1 – 5, and if this dam’ Anvil is done by then, it’ll be there, too. (And over and on to the next…)
—I’ve neglected to mention this in what is possibly the most relevant corner of my sprawling media empire: No. 1, “Prolegomenon,” has been published in the summer issue of Coyote Wild, which now bears the distinct honor of publishing the most urban fantasy stories by Portland-based authors with some little knowledge of the shadowy world of telephone surveys. Go, read, enjoy.
And, finally, for your delectation, my new logomark. A sign of quality! Look for it everywhere!
—posted 298 days ago
Deadlines, bygones.
Okay, so now I know I need a printed copy of no. 6 in hand by the evening of the 18th of July, I’m one act into the first draft, and the Anvil (remember the Anvil? This was supposed to be about the Anvil) hasn’t even shown up yet.
I think I know where this one’s going. Just not sure how to get there yet. Because it sure as heck isn’t where I’d thought.
—posted 348 days ago
Things to keep in mind:
The secret of violence.
There are no first-place winners in a shooting situation. When it’s over, believe me, you haven’t won. Deterrence is the only victory.
—posted 388 days ago
