So HeroesCon was this weekend, and I teamed up with a couple of friends and went down to Charlotte for three days of comics and crowds and other fun stuff.

Things worked out so damn conveniently for us. I had originally wanted a hotel downtown, close to the convention center, but we opted instead for a significantly cheaper LaQuinta Inn by the airport. Friday and Saturday, we were shuttled for free from the hotel to the lightrail station and rode the train straight to the con. Maybe it wasn't much quicker, but it was certainly cheaper and more interesting, especially the guy who drove us back to the hotel from the station talking about extra terrestrial intelligence and stuff.

I got. So much. Stuff. And I met so many artists whose work I've enjoyed over the years. I'm not even sure where to begin, man.

Out of my rather large list of people I wanted to see, Geof Darrow was absolutely one of the top five. He was the first person I looked for on the show floor after a quick stop by Becky Cloonan's table, which I had just happened to notice while on the way. I bought a Godzilla print from him, got my copy of Hard Boiled signed, and talked to him about Bojangles, KFC, and the weird orgy that was taking place at the beginning of the comic. The next day, he did a panel with Don Rosa, and I asked him about any future plans for the Shaolin Cowboy. Awesomely, there's an old-school pulp magazine called the Shaolin Cowboy Adventures that'll be coming out this year! YES! He also kept rambling about some weird Japanese manga about an island of vampires that make people piss themselves and stuff. I love that man to death.

The two coolest artists I met over the weekend were Michel Fiffe and Paul Maybury. Both of these guys were a part of the LiveJournal comics group Act-I-Vate years ago, which I was a pretty big fan of. Funny thing was, it wasn't until I saw them there and started talking to them that I realized how big of a part that group and their work played in my comics sensibilities. Both of them were incredibly nice, and I bought more from them than I did from any of the other guys.

I also met James Harren, whose recent work on BPRD and Abe Sapien has been mind-blowingly awesome. I freaked out looking through the original pages of the Long Death, and when I told him I wished I had brought one of his books to sign, he generously pulled out a Mignola variant issue of BPRD, signed it, and handed it to me for free.

Other folks I met: Becky Cloonan, Ben Templesmith, Matt Fraction, Jonathan Hickman, Ryan Bodenheim, Mike Mignola himself, Bill Sienkiewicz, Toby Cypress, Nathan Fox, Robbi Rodriguez, and probably some other guys I've embarrassingly forgotten. I gave most of them copies of Burst Reach too. I was afraid that some of them would turn me down or just shove it aside, but quite a number of them seemed really gracious and interested in what I was doing.

Meeting these artists, giving them my own book, and looking at their own work and seeing what all they've accomplished was so amazing and invigorating. These past few weeks I've been in this stupid slump, so down on my own work and struggling to maintain some kind of motivation to continue working on Other Sleep, and this con was absolutely the kick in the ass that I needed. Now I'm just absolutely pumped to start working on more stuff.

OTHER HIGHLIGHTS:
The panel with Dustin Harbin and Scott Campbell was incredible. Only 5 or 6 people showed up for it, so we all sat right up front, making for a rather "intimate" panel that was a blast. It was absolutely the best panel I attended that weekend.

Our hotel was dog-friendly, and Saturday night there were a number of the beasts and their lazy owners hanging around the pool, which was kind of weird. The hot tub wasn't terribly hot or even remotely bubbly, so all in all it was a little surreal and a little mundane. Still, can't complain too much, we paid just over 50 bucks each between the three of us for two nights there.

Stan Lee was there, and I caught a little glimpse of him from a distance. I think Trey and David got some blurry, distant photos of him. He wasn't looking too great, but apparently at his Sunday panel he actually RAN up to the stage and can still really work a crowd, so maybe he was just...conserving his energy?

I saw wayyyyyy too many Harley Quinns, Deadpools, and guys in Captain America shield shirts. The cosplay all around wasn't much to be amazed at. I got molested by a Tusken Raider at the 501st booth immediately after walking into the con on Friday, and kept stumbling upon a pretty amazing Silk Spectre. I think Dr. McNinja was there Saturday, which was badass, and he was walking around with Axe Cop too! I also bumped into a guy carrying Tom Servo around, and kicked myself for not getting a picture. There were two large t-shirt booths set up, and they seemed to be getting a lot of business, but the only shirts I bought were from Michel Fiffe (the one pictured above) and Paul Maybury.

We saw some TV show in the hotel room with Betty White and a bunch of other elderly folks called Off Their Rockers. It was a prank show that was...honestly kind of awesome, but pretty terrible at the same time.

Hm. I think that's it. I'm still really sore and tired from all the damn walking we did, so I'm gonna go relax and go through the insane number of comics I bought, yeah? I definitely plan on going next year, and might even try to get a table for myself. I just don't know if I can stand up to some of the awesome talent there...

...Oh crap, I gotta prepare for next month's Rob-Con!

[Brett]

I’ve seen Prometheus twice, which is more than most people will probably bother with it sadly, and I have to say I have never been so blown away and yet so frustrated by a movie in quite some time. The first time was pretty difficult for me, so many little things were getting on my nerves, mostly regarding the characters and their behavior, but after thinking on it, reading other people’s thoughts online, and watching it again, I have to say things made a bit more sense and didn’t get on my nerves nearly as much.

So here, in no particular order, are some of my spoiler-heavy thoughts on the movie.

The dome with the face on it is from one of HR Giger’s unused concepts from Jodorowsky’s 1970’s attempt at filming Dune. That put a huge smile on my face.

The spacesuits: I want one. I think they look exactly like something Enki Bilal would design, though comparisons to Wally Wood’s EC comics work are also apt. Sean Witzke pointed out their similarities to the suits from Planet of the Vampires, which I also greatly enjoy. Really, practically everything about the design work of the movie and even the way Ridley Scott shot it just screams Heavy Metal to me. I seriously wish more sci fi films looked this good.

I’m really glad they managed to bring out the same creepy, uncomfortable rape-y vibe from the original Alien. It’s not quite as heavily laden with phallic symbols and vaginal openings, but it’s still there.

The pacing is interesting. The first bulk of the movie is just discovery and awe, then BAM, dudes start getting killed, weird shit starts happening all at once, and the pace just jacks up and it turns into a relentless beast of a movie. That bothered the hell out of me the first time I watched it, but now I enjoy it for switching gears like that, just outright fucking with audience expectations in a way.

The black goo: I like the theory that the way it works depends on who’s exposed to it. The Engineer at the beginning of the movie is ripped apart at a molecular level in order to create life on…whatever planet that was. It’s a similar situation with Holloway, I think, only it’s not as quick because he only ingested a single drop of it. Both had good intentions. Fifeld turns into a monster because…well, I guess because he’s kind of a douche. As for all those Engineer corpses…I’m still not sure.

A few bits are straight out of 2001: the hanging spacesuits, David saying “I know we’ve had our differences,” and the way zombie-Fifeld was bashing people to death and running around the way the apes did.

Once you realize that Vickers is Weyland’s daughter, everything she was doing up to that point in the movie makes sense. She wants her father dead so she can inherit everything, and she despises David because Weyland views him as the superior “sibling.” Having David call her “mum” I think is a part of that, something to deal with an inferiority complex she has. She’s also impatient about leaving the planet because she doesn’t want them to find anything that could prove her father right and ruin her chances of taking over. The medical pod is calibrated only for men because it actually belongs to Weyland. This illustrates that he’s a selfish bastard (he probably used it simply to keep himself alive for so long), and is also evidence that Vickers wants what her father has, all for herself.

David’s motives are never clear, and I don’t think they’re supposed to be. What you’re supposed to notice is the simple fact that a damn robot even has an agenda and feelings of  his own. He despises Weyland and Vickers ("doesn't everyone want to kill their parents?"), the way they consider themselves superior to him, and he dislikes Holloway for the same reasons. It’s not like he knew Holloway would get Shaw pregnant or anything, he was just curious as to what the black goo does to a human being and picked him as the guinea pig. Finding out that Shaw was pregnant with some wicked creature has little to do with any plan he might’ve had, I think he’s just happy that he himself indirectly created life, something that only gods or other living beings should be able to do. I’m starting to think he might have a god complex or something, based on his belief that he’s better than humanity, and that’s possibly what drives him to behave the way he does.

I wonder just how much this film connects with Lawrence of Arabia, aside from it being David’s favorite film. I think the key to figuring out David’s motivations might have something to do with that film, especially that line that he repeats: “the trick is not minding that it hurts.”

I loved the music. I mean, well, I wouldn’t buy the soundtrack and listen to it, but it feels so much more old fashioned than what a traditional film score is these days. It’s no Jerry Goldsmith, no, but it reminds me so much of older movies in a good way.

The ending: Am I really the only one who realized that the giant squid thing was some kind of proto-facehugger? I mean, everyone online just calls it a squid or Cthulhu or something, but I’ve never seen anyone point out that it LOOKS JUST LIKE A FACEHUGGER. Except, you know, big.

I’m hoping for an even better director’s cut when it comes out on DVD, with loads of special features. I really think it’s this generation’s Blade Runner, and a really big director’s cut would support that a lot, considering Ridley Scott’s track record and the fact that he’s mentioned in interviews all of this stuff that was cut out of the movie…

[Brett]

(wasn't even a damn line in the movie)

When I was a little kid, I always enjoyed shutting my eyes, like really tight, and watching the…I still don’t know what it’s called. The after-effects of light? The weird colored shapes that play across your eyelids. I would watch them slowly diminish, thinking they were germs or something. I distinctly remember one time, playing hide and seek in a classroom in elementary school, and my head was resting against a wall, eyes shut tight, and as I was counting, I was watching these…they looked like islands, and the way they moved across my eyelids made it seem like I was flying.

Then, years later, in the ninth grade I saw 2001 for the first time. Well, not all of it. I was flipping channels and I caught the word “INTERMISSION” on TCM, and I stopped, transfixed by that Futura font and the haunting music. I didn’t take my eyes off the TV until the end of the movie, and when it was over, I felt changed.

It was the Star Gate sequence in particular, the dazzling lights, that ever-present haunting music with the pitch steadily rising, the blink-and-you-miss-it frozen shots of Dave as it appears that his mind is SHATTERING, just like mine was while watching. And then you see those solarized landscapes, all blues and greens and oranges. The camera passing over canyons and valleys…and islands.

It’s like deja fucking vu. But I have no memory of ever seeing the movie before. It’s weird.

And it still gets to me to this day. I mean, I’m always hypnotized by Kubrick’s films, but 2001 is possibly the closest I’ll ever get to doing mind-altering drugs, more so than anything David Lynch or Alejandro Jodorowsky could ever shoot. And once it hits Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite, I can’t blink, I can’t breathe, my hands are always pulled up to my chest, gripping my shirt tightly.

I usually never think to mention the movie whenever I’m listing my favorite films, sci fi or otherwise, and I’m not sure why, because there isn’t any other movie out there that makes me feel the way 2001 does…

[Brett]

I have been busy. I'm nearly finished drawing chapter 3 of Other Sleep, and I'm deep into flatting/coloring it as well. I've got someone interested in me doing some drawings for a thing they're writing, I'm doing a flyer for a local show, and I've got to plan a photoshoot for a friend. STUFF IS HAPPENING.

Not to mention those collections I keep putting off on working on, and planning that trip to Heroes Con next summer.

I'm afraid I don't have anything terribly new to show you guys right now. HOWEVER. That comic I did at the end of 2011, Zimmik Looks For Love in a Barren Land, is finally online and you can go read it in the comics gallery. I was waiting until my friend printed the anthology book that it was for. Here's the first page:

Lots of weird semi-emo stuff and nudity in this one, yeah.

Oh, and here's a quick thing I threw together last week as a bit of a test/experiment:
 That's it. Back to work.

[Brett]

The second chapter of Other Sleep is now online! Go give it a read!

I've been really stupidly busy lately.

First off, I've been trying to work my ass off on completing chapter 2 of Other Sleep, but, well, other life-related things keep getting in the way. I'm nearly done coloring it, and after that all I'll lack is the lettering. It should be up here in the next few days, I promise.

I had that comic show in Gray, TN a few weeks back, and it was slow, not really the greatest experience ever, but not too bad either. Sold a few sketches and some comics and met the other two artists who were pretty nice guys.

I'm still working on that print collection for the Distinguished Gentlemen and Exciting Tales strips. Here's the wrap-around cover for it, though I may make a few changes to it before it's done:
 

Then my birthday happened last weekend. All I really asked for from my family was a proper drawing table, because drawing on a flat desk so much at work and on the floor or on my bed at home was starting to do some damage. Turns out we had one in the basement for years upon years with old computer stuff sitting on it. I cleaned it up and dragged it upstairs and now I got a pretty righteous setup that I sadly haven't gotten to use nearly as much as I'd like to:
I love it.

This week was my best friend David's birthday, and we went and saw the Avengers. I REALLY didn't want to go, for reasons best outlined in this Comics Alliance post by David Brothers. Buuuuuuut Leif bought our tickets, so I figured why not. Even going in, I really didn't want to like it. I was actively looking for reasons to hate it, and, well, the first act of the movie definitely gave me plenty of reasons.

The main big thing that bothered me for the majority of the 2 hour+ movie was simply the way it was shot. For one thing, it was shot digitally, when I feel like it could have looked so much better if it were shot on film. But you know, Hollywood is trying its hardest to kill film and make everyone go digital. I'm not saying movies shot digitally are bad, I mean hell, Crank 2 was shot with cameras you could go purchase for yourself at Best Buy and I LOVE the look of that movie. The problem here was in some part due to the way Joss Whedon shoots, coming from a TV background. For practically half the movie, it feels like you're not watching a REAL movie, just something straight-to-DVD that somehow got a larger budget than usual. There was a lot of stupid camera work that got on my nerves and the lighting, combined with the super-high-def clarity of being shot digital made the costumes, especially Captain America's, look WAY too fake. It felt more like a guy doing really expensive cosplay, not an actual soldier/superhero, until the costume got battered and ripped up later in the movie, then it looked good. Everything was just too clean, and the lense focus too sharp, it was so distracting.

This actually DID work to its advantage in one scene between Loki and Thor where it felt like I was watching an 80's fantasy film, and it actually developed a certain sense of charm that everything coming before it lacked.

So I was not happy for the first 45 minutes or so. But! BUT!! I must give credit to Joss Whedon for keeping the "witty banter" down to a tolerable minimum, and for having a good sense of character development and understanding of how to handle a big cast of unique characters and how they work with/against each other. The movie would sink or swim depending on how it was written and how the character dynamics worked, and Whedon made it soar. Once the plot REALLY kicked in and the stakes started going up, the movie got good and I wasn't so distracted by how it was shot.

The final act is insanely impressive, despite the alien army reeking of another common Hollywood problem: being over-designed. The CG is great, very realistic yes, but I hate how everything is so damn unnecessarily detailed that rather than looking like something that could very well exist, you can just tell that the aliens were designed by a team of artists locked in a studio somewhere. There's just too much detail.

But it's okay because the Hulk steals the bloody show and wrecks things good. And Mark Ruffalo's performance as Bruce Banner was great, he was definitely my favorite character in the movie. Loki was fantastic as well.

Also? The final, post-credits scene was probably my favorite in the entire movie. And it was, weirdly, the most grounded, human, relatable scene in the movie too.

So yeah, I actually really enjoyed the movie after I got through with the irritating first act.

Anyways!

Yesterday was Free Comic Book Day, and I got the opportunity to go to Mountain Empire Comics in Bristol and set up for the day to sell copies of Burst Reach and stuff. I was partnered with a man called Dionysis Metalcult, creator of Metalcult Comix, drummer/vocalist for a metal band called Cult of Dionysis, and owner of one sweet mustache. We traded comics and he gave me a couple CDs which I'm listening to right now. I couldn't have asked for a cooler guy to share a table with.
 (Spider-man was there too, he's pretty cool)

I met another artist there, Betty Ogletree, who does fantasy art. I'm jealous of her use of color and attention to detail in her work. She let me try out her Copic markers, which were awesome. I plan on getting me some.
Also, legendary illustrator Charles Vess showed up for a while, and we kind of nerded out at him. Here's a pic of him with Burst Reach and Metalcult Comix:
All in all, a good time was had, and this BLEW that show a few weeks ago out of the water. I had such a blast.

And now it's back to work. Gotta finish chapter 2 and put it online, finish designing that print collection of strips, get chapter 1 printed, AND work on Burst Reach 2 and get it finished and printed in time for ROB-CON 2012. No rest for the wicked...

[Brett]

This is, more or less, a cry for help. Well, not necessarily. It’s more of a…I dunno, a personal appeal.

I’m proud of the work I’ve put into Other Sleep, and, obviously, I would like for as many people to see it as humanly possible. I want this comic to be a major stepping stone towards making a career out of my comics and art. I’ve been trying to promote it in a bunch of ways, screaming at friends on Facebook, distributing postcards, going onto forums and other sites to tell people about it, and emailing people too.

I’ve always been of the do-it-yourself mentality, and I don’t enjoy asking for help, but, honestly? I can’t do this by myself.

It’s a strange and common belief that if it exists on the internet, then hundreds, if not thousands, of people have seen it, and I don’t think that’s necessarily true. Or maybe it is, I don’t know. My personal website was only averaging about 10 unique visitors per day, but lately it’s dropped. Any piece I upload to Deviantart usually only gets 5-10 views. I have all kinds of social networking accounts that no one really pays attention to, and I have to admit that sometimes it’s discouraging. Not that it stops me, no, not at all, but when you’re an aspiring artist who hopes to one day make a living doing his thing, you kind of hope for more people to take notice, yeah?

And that is where YOU come in. The best way to get people to look at Other Sleep, and my work in general, is if YOU talk about it. All I’m really asking is that you spread the word. If you really liked the first chapter, why not post a quick link to it on Facebook? Or maybe you know one or two specific people who you think would really enjoy it, go tell them about it! Got a blog, or a Tumblr, or something similar? Share it on there. “I read this weird new webcomic, check it out here.” That’s it. That’s all you have to do. That’s all I ask of you.

Promoting my work is an uphill battle, especially when it comes to Other Sleep. Being monthly as opposed to posting pages two or three times a week is one thing that makes building interest difficult. And, well, the number of webcomics out there on the internet is MASSIVE. Making things even more difficult is the fact that, unlike most of the popular webcomics these days, Other Sleep is not a gag comic. It doesn’t reference anything remotely popular like Star Wars or My Little Pony or videogames. There are no superheroes or moe-blob underage girls for the otaku to obsess over. It is its own unusual, unique thing, an original creation that I’ve put a lot of myself into, not to mention time and effort.

It’s a sad truth that original work DOESN’T get as easily and frequently seen as some dork’s Dr. Who/Adventure Time mash-up does. I mean, I see people sharing memes all the time. ALL. THE. TIME. Can’t you, just this once, rather than re-share something George Takei posted on Facebook that most of your friends have probably already seen anyway because they also like George Takei, can’t you help build interest in something new, something different, something that has nothing to do with Game of Thrones? JUST ONCE?

Your friends probably wouldn’t notice anyways because someone else will have posted a wacky screenshot from Draw Something, so what does it matter?

But no, in all seriousness, if you tell one friend about Other Sleep, or just post the link to the website, or like/share the Facebook page, just one small gesture like that, I WILL BE SO GRATEFUL TO YOU AND WILL LOVE YOU FOREVER.

Just…just think about it, won’t you? My birthday is this weekend, and you can do this for me as a gift. Thanks.

(also: Chapter 2 should be up in the next week or so! GET PSYCHED!)

[Brett]

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]

You read that right folks, the first chapter of Other Sleep is now online! Click the image below to go read the first chapter!

This image also doubles as a postcard I'm getting printed in order to hand out at local comic book stores and such. Woo!

I'm excited. I've been working my ass off on this and it makes me so happy to see it now up for public consumption.

Things have been set in motion. Gotta keep the momentum going. I've already got almost half of chapter 2 drawn now, I'm still writing the later chapters, and putting together other ideas and stuff. 

I also made a page specifically for it on this site, so you should check that out.

That's it for now. There's yet more work to do. SO MUCH WORK.

[Brett]

Maybe I should start titling all of my blog posts after Wu-Tang Clan songs.

SO! After an 8-day drawing binge, I have FINISHED drawing the first chapter of my graphic novel!

This is one heck of an accomplishment for me. It's a huge step forward. Massive progress.

I'm also excited to announce that I have a website set up for it and everything already!
 YES. The comic is titled OTHER SLEEP, and the website is up and running! All you gotta do is click that picture. CLICK IT.

I'll be posting OS-related things on the blog there, and I've got a 3-page preview for the first chapter set up for you to ogle too. AND YOU CAN COMMENT ON IT. Go go go!

The complete first chapter will be up sometime in mid-to-late April. My self-set deadline is end of the month, so I can print some copies of it for Free Comic Book Day. Rob, the man who runs Mountain Empire Comics and Bristol's own Rob-Con comic convention, talked me into making a FCBD appearance at the store, and I don't want to show up empty-handed now do I?

I've also got a table for this year's Rob-Con, of course. I plan on having quite a few things there for people, including Burst Reach 2!

Exciting times, these are.

Also, in between all the drawing and planning and website tomfoolery, I did another photography thing:
The copy machine at work is old and does those wicked looking, lo-fi punk prints like you see in older textbooks, and I'd been dying to do something with it for a while now, and thus this was born!

And that's it. I got more work to do tonight. I'm just about finished lettering those pages up there, yeah...

[Brett]