Comic-Con Post 2: Panelling

No pictures from the con yet. But Team Labor Days did get to sit on the Oni panel along with many of the company's creators.

Rick gave a little spiel and I laid out the "it's repo man meets james bond meets hercules" line. I give the performance a B. We should have mentioned the blog. Oops.

And Rick had a great line prepared that he didn't use. (Point to the crowd and declare: "It's about all of you if something awesome happened to you.")

Next time, we'll be ready.

Our poster looked fantastic as does the ash-can. And it's been great seeing the Oni boys.

In other news, I've seen many more klingons and starfleet uniforms. It's coming, brace yourself.

Comic-Con Post One: Arm the Showless

Bags loves sci-fi (more on that and his favorite film later). And so do I.

I am, however, done with calling Star Wars sci-fi. It's sci-fa(ntasy). I've heard it argued in "clever" intellectual circles that a close study of Star Wars would show it had more in common with the western than anything else. I don't buy that.

It is fantasy, both scientifically and morally. And I am sick to death of it.

(noted: "Rick Lacy is certainly not sick to death of Star Wars >:P" - Rick Lacy

And so I eagerly await the day when Star Trek and its legions of slumbering fans (I know you're out there, I've seen the documentaries), march back upon Comic-Con and the nation at large to retake a portion of what is theirs.

Never a Star Trek fan myself, I am eagerly awaiting J.J. Abrams film. I want the trekkies to arm themselves and storm the gates of Nerd and get rid of some of these damn lightsabers and white helmets.


(Fast forward five years for a version of this post begging Star Trek to go away)

(China Mieville argues, as do others, that science-fiction and fantasy are actually the same genre wearing different masks, if you will. I pretty much buy that. So maybe I'm just going to call Star Wars shi-fa. Insert the "t" and the "ntasy" as you see fit.)

(I could rant about Star Wars and science-fiction all day, so be glad this ended here)

(If you want to know where my major tv/film sci-fi allegiances lie, look to a little space station called Babylon 5 or a ship called Serenity or a data-dog named Ein)

(More on comic-con as it develops)

What's He on About?

Go. Rent. It.

Prelude To A Bad Day

That was the original title for a prequel story phil and I created to lead into the Labor Days adventures. I hope we get to revisit that story one day, but for now we have this little bad boy. Its a basic ashcan comic that will be released at San Diego Comic Con to serve as the first promotional material for the comic. Printed and lettered by the good people at Oni Press. So if you're in the neighborhood of the Oni booth stop by and pick up a copy. And say hi to me and phil. I'll be the one with the throngs of slave Leias and Phil will be the disgusted antithesis to so much of my Han Solo.

Chapter 4, Page 29, Panel 5

As of 1:26 am, this is the most recent panel of Labor Days to be written.

It comes at the very end of the fourth chapter.

Page 29 Panel 5

A wide shot of the entire tableau. Le Mans knocked out, the women, Victoria among them, hold their guns on Stryker, Bathory gazes behind her at the smoldering building. Smoke from the embattled structure leaks up into the Nordic sky. In the middle of it all, Stryker shrugs as an uncertain smile crosses his lips.

STRYKER
So, now what do we do?

9 Days till Comic-Conapolis

Team Labor Days will be in San Diego this year!

Stop by the Oni booth to see our poster and check out our 5 page preview ashcan.

Accost Rick on the con floor and ask him about his newest haircut.

Accost me on the con floor and ask if I've completed my San Diego to do list:

• Beat the jet lag
• Drink enough to regret it but not enough to wish I was dead
• Tolerate the overly personable San Diego wait staff with a smile
• Purchase no more then 2 and no less 1 comic book character busts with intent to display prominently in new apartment and mortify girlfriend
• Have at least one professional meeting
• Do not sweat through shirt at aforementioned meeting
• Stalk the Whedon, clutching desperately in my grubby hands a Spike toy
  
• Convince Rick to join the 501st
• Tease him, relentlessly, after he does so

In other news, I move to Brooklyn approximately 48 hours after returning from San Diego. It's going to be an exhausting week.

Stay tuned as I melt down on both sides of the country!

Rick, get on here and show them how we do a punch and an explosion.

We do it like this!

WA-BAM!

* Phil says "That's technically a punch-splosion. But you all get the idea: We do it damn well."

The Gist

It's hard to distill a thing to its quintessential nature. Especially a story. Hard and frustrating work trying to sort out those words that'll make it all together.

But I've been down in the basement lab all night trying (that's me on the right), because I want you all to get it.

So here it is again, the question:

What is Labor Days?

It is the story of Benton Bagswell. He's in his 20s. He lives in London. And he's a loser. He does chores for a living.

One day, into Bags' life comes a mysterious videotape. You remember those, the old VHS kind. And with the tape comes a cast of bizarre characters, revolutionaries, spies, arsonists, mad psychiatrists, and etc. All of them gunning for possession of the tape.

And so Bags travels down the rabbit hole of misadventure, his life somehow adhering to a mythological logic (a mytho-logic?) that he might never understand. All of this leading to him making some serious decisions about the world and his place in it.

.... huh.

Still doesn't quite capture it how I want.

Did I mention there will be explosions? And lots of punching?

Rick, get on here and show them how we do a punch and an explosion. While we wait for the him, I guess I'll head back to the lab to try something different:


(that's me on the table)

Happy Fourth!

We here at Labor Days Towers choose to celebrate the founding of this country by drinking a frosty toast to utopian ideals. And who better to share the brew of freedom with than Leon Trotsky and Antonio Gramsci, our resident Marxists.

They're the type that wanna get up in your country, corrupt your capitalist assumptions, pervert your bourgeois morality and dance a lusty jig all over your cultural hegemony. Then jet off on super scooters towards a golden tomorrow.

But they're both dead. So that's all a bit tough.

Lucky then that versions of them live on between the pages of Labor Days, sharing a flat in London, plotting for the day when they can return to prominence, smash the state, remake the world, and get it done right. But to do all that, they'll need to get their hands on a certain mysterious object. And therein lies the crux of their involvement in our little tale.

So Happy Fourth of July from the ghosts of revolutions past and the spirit of revolutions yet to come! Go watch some fireworks, and think about those moments when the world changes.