Sunday, March 25, 2012

American Nightmare

I'm excited. Tomorrow I start a new job for the first time in 20 years, if you don't count the 2 years during which I served a mission for the LDS Church. I'm a little nervous, but excited, overall. It will be nice to get into a change of scenery and shake me out of my rut that I've been stuck in.

I've been toying with the web comic idea, and, well, it's going to be a lot of work. It's going to take a while to get it up and going, but in the meantime, I'm having fun. I haven't drawn this much since high school.

I've got another strip finished, here you go:

Like I said, still working on things, including the title, though the working title I've been throwing around is American Nightmare. The general idea is the adventures of Bricker Bracker, as he struggles to find his way through the bureaucracy that pervades our society, particularly in the business district.

Anyway, that's all I've got. Let me know what you think.

Saturday, March 24, 2012

Changes, Movies, and New Web Comic

It's been a rough couple of weeks.

I had to cancel my porterwrimo, no sooner had I started than things started to go off the rails. I've been wrestling with a decision for quite a while now. Finally, I had to make a choice, and I chose to go through with it.

For the last three and a half years I have been working 60 to 80 hours a week for a family-owned restaurant. Business has been steadily declining, between the souring economy and the location(dying downtown district). The job was making decent money, but with little future. It was keeping me from being with my family. It was getting in the way of my writing. And it was standing in between me and finishing my accounting degree.

I made the decision to take a leap of faith and left. The past two weeks has been a little scary, as the job market is not what it once was. I've been applying on average to 15-20 jobs a day. I've interviewed with a few. And, maybe, maybe, as of Monday, I will be emerge from the dark tunnel and head out into the light again.

Needless to say, this has been hard. The first week I only slept with the help of sleeping pills. It wouldn't be so bad if it were just myself, but I have my family to consider. Still, I felt that it was the right thing to do. It will be better for us, even if it will be hard for a while.

The new job will allow me more time with the family, and, something that is important to me, time to exercise my creative talents. Namely, writing and drawing.

To that end, I'm now working on a new project. A web cartoon. Still working it out, gotta pick a title, flush out characters a little more and outline the story. But here's a trial strip:


So that's what I've been up to the past two weeks. Oh, and, I managed to get some TV and movies in, too. Notably Game of Thrones and The Hunger Games.

First, Game of Thrones. Overall, good. Big issue with the nudity in the series though. I know, I know, it's HBO, but really? Aside from that, the show is really good. They shot it in various climes and terrains throughout Europe and I have to say, it was visually spectacular. The story is really good, I haven't read the books yet, but from what I hear it follows the story pretty well.

The Hunger Games. Ahem. Well, I was excited but nervous to see this one. I loved the books, but I really didn't want them to ruin this story. I wasn't disappointed. It was fantastic. In every way I was pleasantly surprised. The cast was phenomenal. The sets were fun and despite the odd fashions of Capitol, it worked, and worked well. The soundtrack was good too. All round, this one was worth it. Definitely glad I saw it.

That's it from me. I hope to be getting more into my new web comic and getting back to working on my book, too. The new job is going to be a challenge at first, but I think it will be a pleasant change at the very least and a life-altering move for the better at the best. Wish me luck.

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

"And here...we...go!"

Was there ever a better movie than The Dark Knight? Probably, but I'll be damned if I can think of one right now.

Anyway, the quote from The Dark Knight in the title of this post is in reference to a new project I am embarking on. I have a new book idea. It seems that I have no shortage of ideas these days. What I lack is a) time to complete the books that come from the ideas, and b) the motivation required to re-prioritize my time to allow me to complete said books. Well, that is going to change.

I figured that if you're going to go, go big, so I decided to commit myself to my own version of nanowrimo. So, for the next thirty days, writing is king. I will finish this project, or die trying. Ok, so maybe that's a bit melodramatic, but seriously. I'm going to put aside distractions(cough, cough, video games, books, music, movies, etc...) and get this done. I'll be posting my daily word counts here, along with a short post, but other than that I only have eyes for my novel.


As for now, time-nazi-grizzly-bear is telling me to get a move on.