Where the hell have I been?

(Self-explanatory, I think.)

Howdy everyone!

I've been on a bit of a sabbatical for the last week. Already? I know, I know. I'm beginning to feel a bit like Bill Watterson. Not that talented, mind you, just in need of more sabbaticals than most deem appropriate. And my apologies.

What have I been doing? Well, besides generally getting my life together (which we will not speak of, since this isn't one of those blogs), the last week has consisted primarily of getting to know The Orange Box better than the last girl I dated and finishing my first feature length horror screenplay.

(Bill Watterson predicts my early 20's with astounding accuracy from the year 1980.)

We'll get to the screenplay in a minute. Right now, I'm wondering if anyone else is encountering a hell of a learning curve on Team Fortress. No tutorials, no single-player, Team Fortress 2 just throws you into the deep end of the pool and expects you to figure out the rules to water polo. No dice, guys. I get the general principle, but my interest is already waning. Luckily, I still have Half-Life 2, Episodes 1 & 2 left. That should keep Valve in my good graces... For now.

As for my screenplay, "Bad Science" is officially a first draft and not some incomplete mass of black space and dialogue taking up small amounts of nevertheless valuable space on my hard drive. I'll be shopping it around shortly, as soon as a few close friends and associates have a look at it. It's either an enormous piece of shit or, in its way, the best thing I've ever done. Probably both.

(Bill Watterson provides a textbook example what will surely be Hollywood's reaction to my latest screenplay.)

A conversation with my roommate got me thinking today about learning how to read. Amazing, isn't it, how we turn large numbers of strung-together abstract symbols and consider it a language? A part of me also finds it hard to remember a time when learning to read was a goal, not a memory. I used to annoy the hell out of my elementary school teachers, begging them to finally teach us how to read, when in fact I'd pretty much figured it out myself. But on what?

(I agree, Bill.)

It chagrins my mother a bit, but the very first things I ever consciously remember reading were a pair of comic books, poured through back-to-back. These issues were a "gift" of sorts from my brother. Specifically, they were books that he no longer wanted or considered disposable. My brother's tastes and mine began to veer in different directions from that very point onward.

(No slight to Sergio Aragones' pencils, but Cheetara - not Chakaal - was my first cartoon crush.)

First, if I remember the order correctly, was issue #51 of Groo the Wanderer, by Sergio Aragones and Mark Evanier. In it (if memory serves), Groo - the stupidest and most deadly man alive - tries to impress brave female warrior Chakaal by helping her rid a village of helpless citizens from two warring factions. Chakaal's plan is to send messengers to both armies, each message ostensibly from the other side, enticing them to engage in battle at a certain location beneath a dam. Once they were in place, Chakaal and the villagers would destroy the dam, killing both armies in the ensuing flood. Easy, right?

Groo, in an attempt to impress Chakaal, intercepts both messengers and is shocked to discover that both armies are giving up the war forever. Infuriated that Chakaal's plan will fail as a result of them declaring peace, he murders each army single-handedly. Realizing that he screwed everything up, Groo explains everything to Chakaal and the villagers, who are already in place beneath the dam. Chakaal marvels at Groo's ability to solve the village's problem single-handed, and starts falling for Groo. Everything ends well... until Groo remembers they forgot to implement the last part of Chakaal's plan. Groo destroys the dam, flooding the valley and killing all of the villagers he was supposed to try to save.

Yeah, a few words slipped by me here and there, but the first thing I ever read dripped with more cleverness and irony than "Go, Spot, Go." I think that's a good thing, don't you?

(20 years later, I still think this cover is bad ass.)

Next came G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero #52. In this issue, the Joes are off on a training seminar when Stormshadow - the king bad ass of my childhood - crashes the party. After breaking crossbow bolts in mid-air and fighting off an entire squad of trained soldiers, he reveals that he has seen the error of his ways and wants to defect from Cobra (or something to that effect). And he would have said as much, had the Joes not attacked him on sight! His rival, Snake-Eyes - the other bad ass, who in this issue cuts a statue in half so skillfully that it stays intact until he stamps the ground - takes pity on Stormshadow and offers him his cabin in the woods to hide and find himself.

Meanwhile, Zartan is looking for new recruits for his gang of mercenaries. Placing all of his candidates in a "last man standing situation," in which the survivor gets to join, a bevy of ultra-violence ensues (well, ultra-violent for the Comics Code era, at least). The victor finally reveals himself to be the guy who stood back, let everyone else kill each other, then blew up the seeming winner. I'm not sure what I learned from this, except maybe to fight dirty should the need ever arise. Thus far, it hasn't come up. But I'm waiting...

(True for almost any art form, I think.)

The above cartoons, aside from the comic book covers, are from Bill Watterson, and were discovered at the following delightful web site: http://ignatz.brinkster.net/cbillart.html

Bill Watterson's work on Calvin & Hobbes was probably the third anything I ever read, and has been massively influential on me both as an artist and a person. When I was extremely little, I sent Bill Watterson a crudely written letter telling him how much I loved his work. I included my phone number, just in case he wanted to call. (He didn't.) I guess my parents must have mailed it somehow, because a few months letter I got what I now realize was basically a form letter from Bill telling him how much appreciated that I loved the strip.

Both the letter and the envelope it came in had drawings of Calvin and Hobbes on them, and were probably printed en masse, but the gesture was nonetheless appreciated and - eventually - both were framed and reside at my parents' house along with the bulk of my comics and the few other important heirlooms of my life. My parents go through a cleaning frenzy about once a year, after which I usually discover that at least a few of my things have been given away to Good Will or some such. And I'm fine with that, but if they ever get rid of this letter, my umbrella (I'll talk about it another time), or my comics, I will have to murder them. My childhood consisted of moments, days, weeks and years that are now largely lost to me (my memory can be hazy at best), but nothing makes them more vivid than the stories I read when I was just getting influenced to become the man I am today (for better or worse).

Sorry for the delay in postings, you three people who actually read this. I'll try to keep up with this self-inflicted workload more often now that my time has been freed by the clutches of my own ridiculous imagination, shooting out of my brain in screenplay format.