Rumble... Winner!

Well, the response to Rumble I: The Experiment was... underwhelming.

That's okay though, because we're doing it again soon and next time we're doing it through comments. So all you lazy ones out there can play along.

But there was one reader who took up the challenge. And so I proclaim Kevin Houlihan of Madison, Wisconsin to be Winner and Supreme Champion.

A few of his responses:

• Will Farrell is funny, I think you have him confused with Ben Stiller. Ben Stiller is not funny.
  
• Greatest American film of the 80's? Didn't the 80's give us one of the Smokey and the Bandit films?
• 24 is bad for America. As is any reality tv based on winning celebrity, getting married, or buying a house.
  

But Kevin is wrong about one thing: "Star Wars is great" he says. "It opened the door for film in creating an alternate world and environment and addressing every detail... it was also the first movie I saw with my dad in our local downtown theater."

See what Kevin's doing here?

a) He's being flat out wrong

b) He's mistaking nostalgia for redeeming quality.

That's okay though, because Kevin's adorable:


Also, congratulations again on getting engaged.

Rumble!

Loyal Readers, Occasional Skimmers, Folks who just Stumbled here by Accident,

Last week, I yapped on and on all week long (till the break of dawn?)

This week, I want to try something else. I'm gonna call it the "Mid August Labor Days Pop Culture Brawl."

Below is a list of a few pop culture opinions that I support. I've tried to choose contentious ones.

Now here's the game. If you don't agree with one or many of those opinions, e-mail me and tell me why and we'll have it out.

I'll post responses and back-and-forths to the blog. Provided, of course, that I get any.

I love an all-out all-in-good-fun pop culture row.

The List:

- Will Ferrell: Not Funny

- Robo-cop: Greatest American Film of the 1980s

- 24: Bad for America

- Interview with the Vampire: Hunkiest Movie of all Time

Subset: Also most homoerotic film made in Hollywood, to date

- Cameron Crowe: Almost Complete Crap

- On Her Majesty's Secret Service: Best Bond Film till Last Year

- Twin Peaks Fire Walk With Me: Pretty Damned Good

- Star Wars: Not a Single Redeeming Trait

If you have some other controversial pop culture opinions you'd like to share, e-mail me with them.

I'll probably argue even if I agree.

Basically, this is an attempt for me to see who's out there. There might not be anyone out there. But I aim to find out and I aim to do so by hearing what you think about shit.

People who I know in the real 3D world can feel free to participate as well.

Reach me at pmg0628ATearthlink.net. Replace the AT with the symbol, you know the drill.

The Road to Now, pt. 5

Everybody Out of the Car: Now!

And so, as my re-writes got under way, Rick and I came to become fans of a certain Oni comic.

Fans to the point where we ended up sending an e-mail to its creator professing our love for the book.

And he passed our information onto the fellows at Oni. Who were intrigued by the concept, and, let's be honest, impressed with Rick's work on Venture Brothers. They said they wanted to do it, and after a lovely dinner/drinks meeting in the sadly now closed Cedar bar, we had a deal.

So the Labor Days publishing contract was born, many long years after the first hand shake that got the endeavor going.

And that brings us today, with Rick hard at work drawing the first book and me hard at work writing the end of the first book.

Next week, I'm in Wisconsin. Anyone want anything?

The Road to Now, pt. 4

Off To War

Ah re-writes. I hate the idea of them. I hate every moment before I start them. I get all bent out of shape "how dare the first draft not be perfect?!" Or even worse "how dare the [second/third/fourth..tenth] draft not be perfect!?"

But once I start them, I love them.

It's like writing, but less than half the work.

And so it was with Labor Days. A little over a year ago, I cracked the file open, realized there were a ton of things that could be fixed very easily. And so I did.

I got the page count right, went through and put in panel breaks, and added a shit ton more drama.

(That should always be cardinal rule number one for writing. Don't bore your audience. Ever. They will walk away from you and never come back. Unless you're James Joyce. In which case they might come back to you but only out of some guilt about never having read you.

Back when I used to read screenplays for a living it was a startling revelation how few writers new how not to bore an audience. It is my opinion that so much of understanding screenplay structure, and story structure in general, is simply knowing how to hold interest.

Aside over.)

The watch words for the new Labor Days became things like "emotional poignancy" and "beat up Bags at any opportunity."

And so a leaner, meaner, funnier, fighting weight Labor Days was born.

All told, and working sporadically, the revisions took me about a month to do. Inevitably, the necessitated Rick re-drawing everything. I don't think he minded, as the merits of this new LD were pretty apparent.

Meanwhile, the opportunity to pitch to Oni had come about through rather odd means.

The Road to Now, pt. 3

Teen Times

I have in front of me a copy of the original Labor Days script. Draft is dated March 2003. Yikes.

As written it is 26 pages. That ended up ballooning to over 36 pages after Rick expanded the comic's fight scene into an 11+ page epic of back alley scrapping.

Let's see here.

I haven't broken the pages down into panels in the script.

I haven't paid a lick of attention to pacing or structure.

Dialogue scenes are bloated, rambling, and at times baldly self-indulgent.

The third act is laughably convoluted (we actually fought over this third act quite a bit, with me constantly using this as an argument "just trust me, it makes sense.")

As a very first draft, I guess it functions. It did give Team Labor Days something to spar with in the interest of developing our skills and functionality as a team.

We worked from this pimply, awkward monster, as well as it slow-witted brother (the original chapter 2 script), for about 2 1/2 years. In that time, Rick drew most of the first issue, including all of that epic fight scene he laid out. What a humdinger that thing is.

Meanwhile, in our lives away from Labor Days, I started honing my writing and thinking seriously about the "how" of writing. Rick was off getting other professional comic book gigs along side his animation work.

In other words, we were figuring some shit it out.

So when the decisions to gut the script and build it better came along, it seemed the obvious thing to do. I think we both knew that we loved the material and we loved the characters, but that this version wasn't working.

In particular, I knew I could do it better. Or maybe I knew I had to do it better if we ever wanted to find a publisher who'd want to work with us.

So in the interest of a leaner, bolder, stronger Bags, I started ripping the thing apart.

Rick, would you mind giving these people some of the old pages to look at? Or at least the old designs? They've been suffering through a shit load of reading this week.

And now here, just to prove it's still out there, the first page of "Storms a'Brewin," the original LD script:

The Road to Now, pt. 2

Early Childhood

The original typed Labor Days document was a pitch I threw together in the days after our initial brain storm session, without Rick's knowledge. I was genuinely intrigued by this idea of a mysterious tape and I started to pull together a number of sources of inspiration in the hopes of stumbling on a story that would be fun to do.

It gave an initial form to Benton Bagswell ( though his original name was Bertrand). It gave him a job ("Chores for Hire"). It gave the story a structure (12 labors). It gave Bags a personality (skeptical-sarcastic-loser).

It also added a number of new characters to the mix. Among these were the marxists, Bags's ex-girlfriend, and Rick Stryker (much more on him soon).

The one thing it didn't add was a title. It would be at least 6 or 7 months before the words "Labor Days" became associated with the work at all.

I don't know quite what Rick thought about the pitch upon first receiving it.

But I do know the first thing he said to me was "It's good but we need to change Bertrand's name... how about his name is Benton Bagswell and his friends call him 'Bags'?"

And after a brief discussion, it was agreed that I would write a script and we'd go from there.

Oh and then we got gun-swords, rented hyper-armor, fled the space castle and stormed the fiery ramparts of Mega-Fortress Void.

Next installment? the horrors of a first script.

The Road to Now, Pt. 1

Birth Site

Labor Days as a concept was born in old apartment of mine sometime in 2002.

Rick and I had known each other for a year or so. I had just graduated from college and Rick had just moved back to New York from a dalliance in Florida. We'd talked about doing a comic book together but only in the vaguest sense.

And, one night, we ended up sitting around in what turned out to be an impromptu brain storming session. Although, at the time, neither of us quite realized that's what it was.

Rick started talking about a character who was obsessed with a mysterious videotape and we started blabbing about a chase across a city.

And then there was the single moment in which I believe Labor Days was truly born: Rick grabbed his forehead and pretended to be this as of yet unnamed character. "But what is on that tape?" he said, in an overblown dramatic stage whisper.

The character, who would end up being Bags, had no more definition than that. The tape was pure mystery. The locale was simply a city.

But, as it turns out, it was enough.

Stay tuned for part two. When we get swords.

It's Saturday Morning and Your Just in Time...

... to fuck the average reader.

Once again, a post unrelated to Labor Days.

But seriously folks, The Wire is the best show on television. You'll hear it from loads of people and now you're hearing it from me. I dare you not to agree.

Chunks o' Hunks

Team Labor Days as seen on the Oni Panel. Photos, as always, by Charles Lavoie.

Look at Rick, all confused and yet somehow still sexy.

Look at my ever growing bald spot, visible from across the room and yet somehow still sexy.

Been an exhausting week over in my wing of Labor Days' Towers. Next week is gonna be a big blog week.

I promise.

PS: If your weekend is slow go get some social education from Bill Moyers or Greg Palast.

First step into a larger world..

Hey all you Labor Daydites! Labor Daysians? Er....anyway, Phil is gonna kill me for quoting Obi Wan Kenobi. But thats how it felt at this years Comic-Con.

The convention was awesome for Phil and I, especially since we got to announce our book and release some of the first art. The ashcan i've already posted so here is the cover of the book which was seen as a poster at the Oni booth. I composed the drawing and my friend Liz Artinian, who is an amazing artist was kind enough to do up this spectacular painting. The logo was designed by another friend of mine, Dong Lee, who's graphic design skillz are just awesome.

Newsarama has posted a little blurb about our upcoming book on their blog too. Which we appreciate immensely. I believe my reaction was "buh, wah!?"

http://blog.newsarama.com/2007/08/03/gelatt-and-lacys-labor-days/

Thanks Newsarama!

So the convention was a good trip for the LD boyz and stick around for further developments, as listed below in Phil's previous post.

Rick, out! SWOOOOOOSH!

Comic-Con: Post-Op

The convention ended three days ago and I moved yesterday into an apartment that is not yet finished. So we have no kitchen and no room to unpack.

There's a lot to do in August for Labor Days so hopefully this apartment construction will finish itself and then I can get on with my portion of the comic construction.

Coming soon to the LD blog:

• comic-con photos
• character back stories
• script selections
  
• more talk of this thing called Zardoz
• more Rick sketches
• more Rick personality, splattered across the page
  

If you're joining us for the first time having seen our ash can in San Diego, welcome.

I'm off to unpack a box or two.

Up the Bags!

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.