Saturday, September 29, 2007

The Next Saturday Night


It's Saturday night again. And this week I have demanded that the lower levels of Labor Days' Towers remain active all night stitching and mending and designing for me an outfit to rival the young Master Churchill's.

Next week I may start posting about some books I've been reading. Or something interesting like that.

But for now, I have to go downstairs and whip the tailors. I need this sweet suit, as soon as possible.

Saturday, September 22, 2007

Saturday Night



The lights are dim at Labor Days' Towers as AMC is showing the final night of their Hitchcock fest.

I find my mind wandering to two things.

1) Hitchcock was a bastard genius.

And more can be learned about both film and mankind in general from one of his films than from most of the last 20 years of American filmmaking.

2) Saul Bass.

I'm captivated by Saul Bass and his ilk. The type of film professional who is a complete madman; talented and essential. But who is, in a sense, unsung. Walter Murch is another one like him.

Rick owes you folks 2 character bios now. Both are written and sitting in his e-mail.

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Crossing the Finish Line



So I've just finished the script for Volume 1.

It feels a bit weird. Like I've finished a term paper or something and am now waiting for grades.

This is how it ends:

I kind of hate that for a parting line of dialogue. But that's what editing is for.

So that's it. My part is mostly done. Now I just get to play around on the blog till release date.

And post links to some things. Like this. M. John Harrison being a smart bastard.

Stay tuned for more character bios from Rickle.

Up the Bloody Bags!

Sunday, September 16, 2007

Victoria Arnheim

Bio Number 1: Victoria in Ten Parts
Written by Phil Gelatt





1- She was born and raised in an experimental home for the mentally unbalanced (read: asylum), daughter of its controversial head doctor. She never knew her mother.

2- She has a younger brother for whom she cares very much.

3- She is a bit unbalanced but he is homicidally insane.

.

4- They both work for their father as he attempts to remake the human psyche. She works in retrieval services, he works in the first phases of patient re-education

5- She believes most buildings would look better if they were on fire. She swears it's an aesthetic thing not a political thing.

6- She has tried to date 4 inmates of the asylum.

-Bill and Tony both died during various stages of illegal surgery. Bill had long black hair and liked to play his cell bars like drums. Tony had a mustache and a cute nose. She liked Bill more than Tony.

-Terence was driven to incoherence by an experimental treatment based on certain techniques used in the 1990 capture of Manuel Noriega.

- John was the cutest, but his supremely paranoid nature prevented him from getting over the idea that Victoria was a KGB plant and only after certain secrets that only he knew.

After their first kiss, he did, in fact, reveal these secrets to her. They included two recipes for pickles (one for sweet and one for dill) and an incoherent explanation of the many branches of the secret government of Easter Island.

Their relationship ended soon after.



7- She is quite lonely.

8- Once she sat on the roof of the asylum and tried to dream about what her life would have been like elsewhere. When she failed, she went back inside and found the moanings, the jabberings and the silences of the inmates comforting. That was a year ago.

9- If asked, she'd say her favorite film genre is romantic-comedy, pause, and then add that she thinks Hugh Grant acts too much with his eyebrows.

10- She knows that a better world is possible. She learned that much from her father. It might just take some vision and kerosene.



Rick Lacy's 2 damn cents:

Creating Victoria was the easiest of the three main characters. I had a pretty decent idea of what I wanted her to look like. Strong, cocky and bit filled out in all the right places. She's careless, for sure, in at least her attitude so I wanted to reflect that along with her penchant for bucking the system in her attire. In the first drafts she had no glasses or freckles. She was a straight haired brunette. A friend suggested the glasses to add extra quirk and I decided on freckles to push it even further. Her hair then became (dyed)red and a bit wild to make her more a symbol of fire.

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Curing Reality.


(An IMversation between Rick and me. About a year and a half ago. About a project that has yet to come to fruition, denoted by "HU".)

RICK
Dark Horse isn't really going to see much HU.
Most people aren't.

ME
Most people won't... until they get their comp copy.
Until everyone in the U.S. gets their comp copy.
No...
Everyone.
In.
The.
World.
Free HU for everyone!
Rick, listen...
It'll cure heroin addiction.
It'll cure homosexuality and heterosexuality.
It'll cure death.
It'll cure night time
and storms.
It'll cure male pattern baldness
and fat childrenitis
and it'll help kittens stay cute
and it'll help puppies with only three legs
see that everything is okay
and it'll help crack babies find crack.
Because, Rick, they need HU, but they need
crack more.
Because we're going to save the fucking world with this stuff.

RICK:
Uh...

ME:
The whole world.
One household at a time.
And even if you don't have a household,
we'll save you anyway.
Poor little Sudan boys will read it
and their eyes will clear
and their bellies will fill
and they'll know it's time!
Time for a better world.

RICK:
Can I shine a ray of reality here for a moment?

ME:
No, Rick, we're curing reality.
No more reality!
For anyone!
We're free now.

(Photo by Charles Lavoie. Taken three nights ago. See that off-kilter smile? I'm still trying to save you all, whether you like it or not)

(In other news, Rick has yet to post those character bios he promised us)

Wednesday, September 5, 2007

An Unlikely Trio

In the coming days Phil and I will be spoiling yon readers with juicy biographies on our main cast of characters. The loosers, the ladies, the liberators and the spys who loved them. We'll tell a bit about they're backstory and juicy bits about their lives as well as show some evolution in design and perhaps even a panel or two from the book.

For now, I introduce the trio of players that the Days of Labor will follow most closely. These are head shot marker sketches I did on post-its with a Pitt artist pen and a nearly dryed out Staedtler Mars Graphic brush pen.

Right now...

... as I type this, Benton Bagswell, hero of Labor Days, is wishing his life were a little more like this



And I can't say I blame him.

Sunday, September 2, 2007

"I am the Lord Of Darkness..."



So Ridley Scott has proclaimed film sci-fi to be dead.

I think he might be right. I'd yell "Starship Troopers" but that was a decade ago. "The Matrix" passes with a stong B, but that was 8 years ago now. "Serenity" is alright, but it's not pushing any genre territory. Maybe "The Fountain." Maybe. I've heard "Primer" is good, but I've not seen it.

If I were part of a thriving filmmaking community, I think I would want to take this as a call to arms, a challenge, to prove to Sir "Black Rain" Scott, that films can still jet us into speculative fiction territory that is new and fresh.

But I'm not. So instead I'll just sit over here and stew about it.

In other news...

Also, tomorrow is Labor Day, the holiday named after our comic.

What will we do to celebrate, I wonder?