Remi's Bloglet - Thursday 16 May 2002

We're going to my sister's graduation in Duluth this weekend. _
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09:59:00 PM, Thursday 16 May 2002

I first heard of Matt Fraction as a ranting comicbook geek. Now he's making cool videos that are getting rejected by MTV. _
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06:39:44 PM, Thursday 16 May 2002

Got me a whole pile, yes a mess, of Tom Waits. Blood Money n' Alice, yum. _
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06:28:40 PM, Thursday 16 May 2002

I know I post too much random art crap here, but hey, it's my blog dammit. You might have already seen this, but this is what it looks like when it's done. I'm about halfway done with page 2, with 3 and 4 pencilled. heh. This might actually happen. _
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03:35:02 AM, Wednesday 15 May 2002

Come on, you Disney puds, it's time to let [Tom] Waits and David Lynch do Kafka's Metamorphosis as a musical. _
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10:17:49 AM, Tuesday 14 May 2002

Badass! I can now play one of my favorite Tom Waits songs, 'Tango 'til they're sore'. _
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02:51:48 AM, Sunday 12 May 2002

A Voyeuristic Memory from my friend Jon Lackow's blog:

A bolt of pure rock energy

(Note: The title of this entry refers to an incident when my band, then still in transition between Vague and Carpet Head, tried out Julia Galdo as a lead singer. We played geek rock in styles ranging between punk (waves one, two and three), reggae, white boy rap, ska, surf rock, disco, hair metal, swing and alterna-pop, and we also had three Hendrix covers. Julia was a classically-trained choral singer who listened mostly to R&B, managing to hit the only categories I think we missed. The team-up didn't work so well. In my garage, Julia was singing some sweet melody from, say, Mary J. Blige, when the bassist Remy Treuer addressed the guitarist, Joe Blackwell Parullo, in a commanding voice, saying: "Joe! Blast her with a bolt of PURE ROCK ENERGY!" He hit the stomp box for all it was worth and emitted power chords of tritonal fury, drowning her out in distorted guitar licks. Unsurprisingly, she soon left the band.)
_
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01:11:11 AM, Saturday 11 May 2002

"Witches Rule! God is dead and the churches are powerless!" Everyone's favorite cartoonist, Jack Chick, gets on the Harry Potter bandwagon. To be honest, it seems like an excuse for him to draw some cool demons . . . _
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12:38:52 AM, Friday 10 May 2002

I didn't really need Marvel Heroclix, but I'm glad I have them. It's a fun game. _
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06:38:06 PM, Thursday 9 May 2002

I spent the early part of the day with Liz's and her Mom (hi Mrs. Sudduth!) and that was fun. I spent the latter part drawing and inking Too Fat and Comicollage stuff. Gawd, I hate inking, even though it's getting to the point where I can get certain effects pretty consistently that aren't possible in pencil, it still feels like tracing. I also squeezed in a viewing of Galaxy Quest and a short visit from my new friend Dave Wisdom. In all, I did nothing that that message I wrote late last night implied I was going to do, but I still feel ike I was busy. _
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11:41:25 PM, Wednesday 8 May 2002

Keenspace has been super-flaky recently. Yaaaar. _
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05:36:49 PM, Wednesday 8 May 2002

I have a timeline, I have a compression scheme, I have a skeleton on which to hang it. Now I need to execute the plan, and the execution must be as perfect as I can make it. I have a chance, and I am ready. Good night. _
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04:39:14 AM, Wednesday 8 May 2002

The timing is just a little funny . . . right after the Spiderman movie opens to huge hype a bunch of comic retailers are suing Marvel for breaching their terms of service. Other than the timing issue, it seems like a genuine problem in a field where stores struggle to stay afloat month after month. _
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11:41:16 PM, Monday 6 May 2002

I've received a message saying that openly gay, hard right, xenophobic Dutch candidate Pin Fortuyn has been shot while walking out of a radio show. I can't find any news sites reporting this. After Le Pen's defeat by Chirac, I would think this would be bigger news. Ah, the BBC has it. _
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01:08:17 PM, Monday 6 May 2002

We finally unpacked completely and . . . I somehow ended up with Tania's CD. I don't really have the ability to put all the mp3's online (I mean, I suppose I do, but where?), so what should I do? _
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10:55:54 PM, Sunday 5 May 2002

There's a special Too Fat today. It's National Cartoonist day, and the webcomics world is celebrating by throwing Web Comics Awareness 2002. Whoo! _
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01:49:20 AM, Sunday 5 May 2002

Spiderman kicked ass. It's really what a Summer movie should be. It's fun, exciting, funny. It has different tones, and Tobey McGuire's Peter Parker is such a nebbish, you can totally see him going, "Woo hoo!" as he swings between the buildings. It made me very happy.

I also got new glasses and the right electronics to set up the DVD player. Yay! It's been a good day. I can see clearly now. _
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09:35:22 PM, Friday 3 May 2002

Mirabai gets most of the points, but I thought I'd add some clarification where needed on my mix. I will then get around to 'reviewing' other folks's.

I purposely frontloaded the mix with two really obnoxious songs. It's sort of to wake the listener up and say, "HEY! THIS HERE IS THE STUFF ON THIS MIX!" I'm glad I put those two songs together, although right at the beginning might not have been the brightest idea. Yesterday is Here is the first good song-as-song on the mix.

The Trail of the Dead Song has neat lyrics, and is meant to be sort of pummelling, but should segue into G-Spot Tornado.

G-Spot Tornado was originally written to be played only by a machine, the recording is the only live example of that song played by humans. I was going to put on 'Peaches en Regalia' but it was too slow and sounded cheesy no matter where I put it.

Beyond Belief was the second Elvis Costello song I could identify, and the first one I truly loved. Liz put it on a mix tape for me a loooong time ago, and it shocked the hell out of me. Such a weird and wonderful song. I sang it once at a coffeeshop and have the recording somewhere. You will never hear it.

I don't know why the transition from Beyond Belief to Svefn G Englar is so strange, but it is. I love Sigur Ros, but putting this vibrating masterpiece in the middle of the mix might have been a misstep if it weren't preceded and followed by relatively short songs. It was originally supposed to go at the end of the mix, with Pony the Penis after it with a long pause in between Svefn and Pony. That didn't work at all, Svefn just sort of sat at the end of the album like a big Icelandic turd, so I moved it.

I don't know why I used Lost in Space instead of Can't Stop the Rock, other than I have an aversion to using singles. Of course, I think Lost in Space was a single also, so it's a moot point. Bah. A fun, and very stupid, song. Mirabai apparently thinks I play like a drum machine, though :-p

I discovered both Scottish Rite Temple Stomp and Lazarus in Brooklyn on the same CMJ compilation. That magazine and its compilations started sucking mightily less than a year afterward. Still, I'm glad I have it, and it's a fun, bizarre dance song that is a bit less stupid than Lost in Space.

I love The Glow, Pt 2 for one reason: I faced death/I walk with my arms swinging. Great lyric. The songs pretty good, too. I maybe should have used 'I felt your shape' or something, but this fulfills it's purpose of cooling everything down again.

A Silver Key is probalby one of the only non-hyper songs that LiLLiPUT does. Very pretty, it reminds me of The Secret Garden or something along those lines. If I had been feeling particularly abusive I would have put a song called 'Split' by the same band after Powerpuff Girls. That has two girls shouting about Harakiri and going Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo!

I only have one live REM album and I was going to use it dammit. Swan Swan H is probably my favorite REM songs.

Reid Paley is responsible for my enjoyment of Tom Waits, not the other way around.

I'm Destructive, along with Different Drummer and Kiss Me, Son of God, was a song that Both Sandboxes wanted to play, but didn't. In order to say, "I'm Destructive" like Kool Keith, I sort of have this tight-lipped, maniacal grin. I wonder if he makes that face . . .

In One Universe . . . and Internal Wrangler are basically the same song, but one has a human singing lyrics. I like both of them quite a bit, although I like IW more, simply because I like songs that make broad quotes of nursery rhymes (the thing about 'both go up the hill').

I needed another female voice, Liz provided me with the excellent Don't Think Twice. Mirabai nails the essence of why I used this song.

A lot of people might remember Plateau from when Nirvana covered it. I actually like this stripped down version more, if simply for the bizzaro-simple musical breakdown at the end. I like his voice.

Kicker of Elves is just Guided By Voices being silly. i needed a short song, and this fit the bill and was pretty damn good, too.

She's an Angel is my favorite TMBG song of all time. This version takes the original and makes it 100 times better.

I like Sleater-Kinney, and this song is a solid one from them. Just sort of angry women kicking it just as hard and complex as any of the guys on this album. The vocals take some getting used to, but they're so expressive. Yummy.

Back and Forth is the closing song on the Dismemberment Plan's album, Emergency and I. It's a little like cheating, but it's a good enough song to warrant it. For Mirabai: The Lyrics

In all, I feel that I did a pretty good job of organizing this mix. As usual the middle-end gets a little murky, but I don't think it overstays its welcome. _
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04:35:10 AM, Friday 3 May 2002

Oh, by the way, Saturday is Free Comicbook Day at most comic stores around the country. Bizarre. I'm going to try and get free swag, of course, but knowing the evil machinations of the Local Institution Comic Store, they probably aren't participating. _
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03:08:16 AM, Friday 3 May 2002

Parish Priests are awful nice
with relish and a bowl of rice
scent with basil, radish stew
cut the legs and barbecue!
a rabbi sandwich can't compare
give me catholic, make it rare! _
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02:55:21 AM, Friday 3 May 2002

Well, I've been working on 'End of the Age' a little. I've got a couple of samples here. There's the initial character sketches, the inked character shots, and a rough pencil of the first page. _
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02:13:15 AM, Friday 3 May 2002

'End of the Age'
An action/adventure series based loosely on the Zealot's struggle against the Romans offers some interesting opportunities. The rise of a major new religion, apocalyptic prophesy, cultural crossings, great setpieces, it's all there to be mined, changed, and adapted. Throw in some bizarre mystical battles and I think I have it. _
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03:14:45 AM, Thursday 2 May 2002

I created a new character for Comicollage, he premiers tomorrow, but you can check out Lester LeSinge, the Demon-Monkey Pants Hunter here. _
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03:05:14 PM, Wednesday 1 May 2002

You can hear audio streams with surprising good sound (even on a 56k modem) of the new Tom Waits albums, to be released May 7. Alice is currently playing, with Blood Money taking over May 3rd. Yay! _
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12:14:09 PM, Wednesday 1 May 2002

Why does the ::shrug:: emote fill me with so much rage? _
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04:48:50 PM, Tuesday 30 April 2002

Thought El Sarazin might be interested in this (he might not be the only one): An interview with China Mi�ville, with some bizarre gamer-ish questions and a few interesting revelations. _
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02:27:06 PM, Tuesday 30 April 2002

I'm listed on the 24 hour comics index on Scott McCloud.com! _
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02:12:33 PM, Tuesday 30 April 2002

Croquet was great. It was great fun to see everyone and meet all the new folks I half-knew through blogging. Finding Mirabai in the bathtub was a grand experience I have decided to do a short comic about, so watch for that in the near future. I had loads of fun hanging out on our blanket, offering people drinks or snacks, wandering and seeing random people and just generally enjoying myself. Eating at Joss, despite a certain dietary piccadillo, was loads of fun, as was meeting Homeslice's pal, Solomon, whom I hope comes to croquet in the future. He was truly a Johnny non-Johnny, plus he liked chicken katsu and he talked history and music with us. I thank Neil and Martin, once again, and profusely, for allowing this weekend to be devoted to food, drink, and friends, instead of logistics, hotel fare, and wandering in from downtown. _
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03:07:04 AM, Tuesday 30 April 2002

For those interested, I've put up a samples page of some art I've done for Too Fat, but haven't posted, and unrelated projects. _
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03:14:48 PM, Thursday 25 April 2002

Because 49 West was up in the air, I've made reservations for 20 at Aromi D'italia. The Gelatto Grab and the Blogledyte Dinner will be combined, I guess. _
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05:17:55 PM, Wednesday 24 April 2002

I'm having trouble getting a reservation at 49 West for the Blogledyte dinner. Any other ideas? (I'll try to catch the owner tomorrow, but who knows?) _
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05:00:45 PM, Wednesday 24 April 2002

For those in the Blogledyte CD Swap, you need to bring a CD for:
Remi/Liz
Mike/Debbie
Moss
Mirabai
Tania
Neil
Martin
Christopher

So bring seven copies of your CD. _
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02:21:36 AM, Wednesday 24 April 2002

I want a Black Job Figure! _
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10:11:11 PM, Tuesday 23 April 2002

Okay, I have a contact with a big MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) development team, and a chance to show them my art (with possible employment being on the line). This leads to two connected questions:
Should I try to get a job with them?
If so, what should I show them?

I've been thinking of this and some action shots of Stewart I did recently and haven't posted yet, and one of the maps I did at SJ Games. Perhaps with a link to the current story in Too Fat, to demonstrate 'quicker' art and storytelling skills. I feel hopelessly out of my depth and element. _
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07:33:29 PM, Tuesday 23 April 2002

A collection of beautiful Tesselating Animations. _
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02:02:26 AM, Tuesday 23 April 2002

Tycho, of Penny Arcade, has possibly the best eulogy for a rockstar I've ever read. (third newspost down, 'Layne Staley' as the headline) _
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04:44:31 PM, Monday 22 April 2002

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