I'm going to do a bit of a braindump today. Things I've been looking at, listening to, thinking about, et cetera.

I keep listening to this song, because it's so good. It brings to mind imagery from Stalker, and makes me think of a What If? sequel to that film where, after another decade or two, Stalker returns to the Zone and finds that it's...changed, in a sinister, austere fashion. Give it a listen, it's remarkable.
 

I read Sharknife ZZ by Corey Lewis this week and HOLY CRAP IT IS AWESOME. I could only read it in quick bursts, a handful of pages at a time, because it's so dense with style and it's so overwhelmingly fun to flip through. Corey is at the top of his game with it, and it was so worth the 6-year wait it took him to make it. I did some fanart, I loved it so much:

This blog post by David Brothers about the Before Watchmen crap is absolutely venomous and on the nose.  I was initially thinking of buying the Minutemen series because I love Darwyn Cooke, but now, ugh, I'm just not going to bother at all.

I wrote a blog post over on Other Sleep about the bad 1980 movie Altered States and how it's kind of the backbone for the comic. I'm planning on doing posts every week over there about what's influenced it. I think next time I'm gonna write about Guy Davis and his work on BPRD.

I'm trying to figure out how I can really promote the hell out of Other Sleep and get people to check it out. I don't think it's something I can do myself. Right now I'm hopping on messageboards and stuff, and I made a list of comics professionals and critics and bloggers that I want to send it to, but I just haven't worked up the guts yet to email any of them...

Saturday the 21st, I'm going to be at the Tri-Cities Toy and Hobby Show. Basically I'll just be doing sketches, giving away Other Sleep postcards, and selling copies of the new third printing of Burst Reach for a buck apiece. The guy who manages the show is a really nice guy and is letting me have a table for free to do my thing. This is, I guess, my first "appearance," so to speak, since I don't think walking around Rob Con last year thrusting Burst Reach into people's hands necessarily counts, yeah?

(by the way, there I also dropped some copies of Burst Reach off at Atomik Comiks in Johnson City, so you can grab them there too. Tell Shawn I sent you)

Also? The third printing of Burst Reach is STAPLED BY ME, rather than saddle-stitched at Kinkos. This justifies the long-arm stapler I ordered in the middle of the night back in February with a copy of Redline when I couldn't sleep.
 

I'm also going to be at Mountain Empire Comics in Bristol for Free Comic Book Day, drawing and stuff.

AND I bought a 3-day pass today for Heroes Con. I'm really excited about that, since it'll be my first REAL con.

And finally, I just watched a really good documentary on digital sampling in hip hop that's called Copyright Criminals. It's great, you should check it out on Netflix.

Okay, back to work.

[Brett]

And here we are, in the year 2012, waiting for the Mayans to rise from their graves and obliterate civilization as we know it. Or something. I'm not so sure.

Here is my final drawing made in 2011, drawn while watching Top Gear and Louie:
Remember when I said I was considering doing more stuff in the same vein as Embrace Infection? I wasn't kidding. I already have a model lined up to do some shooting next weekend.

I am basically leaping headfirst into 2012 with guns blazing. The first half of 2011 absolutely kicked the crap out of me, I sincerely felt like I was at my lowest point. But I got back up and proceeded to repeatedly throatpunch 2011 into submission before finally setting its head on fire and graduating from ETSU with a BFA in Graphic Design. Whatever obstacles or challenges lie ahead for this new year? I say bring it. I will tear 2012's throat out with my teeth if I have to.

I usually never do resolutions, but I have some for this year: Make more comics. Travel more. Be even more awesome.

On the comics front, I completely finished Zimmik Looks For Love in a Barren Land yesterday. Sterlin says he'll hopefully have everything for the anthology book thing together around February to print and distribute, and is letting me come up with a cover for it. Then of course there's Project Sense, and then I'm also brainstorming on some stuff to submit to publishers. Zimmik, being only 5 pages, is also the perfect beginning for a Burst Reach #2, wouldn't you say?

The plan is also to go to several comic conventions this year. Especially Heroes Con, which I really wanted to visit last year and missed out on. I was also told my the wise man Massie that I would probably do well with my work at anime cons, so I may look into a few of those too. And if I know anyone going to cons that I can't make it too, I want to throw a bunch of work at them to hand out to people at said cons. They can be my representatives, yeah?

The idea behind doing more Embrace Infection type stuff is to keep me on my toes in between comic related things, to strengthen my skills in all areas, and if I churn anything particularly good, I want to try and start selling prints. Possibly through deviantART, maybe Etsy, but if nothing else then on this site. I'm going to have to do a bit of research on that. But not all of that will be digitally done. I've started painting again at work, trying to finish a barn I started painting for my mother over a year ago, and I think I'd like to try my hand at doing some acrylic and watercolors of strange mutated naked people, yeah?

I also need a new computer soon, because if this laptop finally gives up the ghost then I'll be stuck on the side of the road for a while...can't forget that...

So there we go, my plans for this new year. Who knows how much of it will actually pan out. I may not make it to more than one or two conventions, I may only come up with a few things to pitch to publishers and most likely none of it will be accepted, but still, I just have to try. I can't stop moving.

For the time being, the Portishead song "Machine Gun" is my anthem for the new year. I'm honestly not sure why, aside from the fact that it's Portishead, and that discordant beat is absolutely SICK. Also because someone decided to set the music to clips from Tetsuo the Iron Man, which is pretty awesome:

That's it then. Let 2012 know who they're messing with. What are your plans?

[Brett]