February

While I was in high school, there was one kid in particular in all of my history and economics classes that adhered so ridiculously to right-wing propaganda that I could barely even consider him worth debating. Then a few years later during college, a tragedy struck the nation that killed off the hearts and minds of so many Americans that Fox News was able to take its shitty influence to entirely new levels, and suddenly the same conversations I tried to avoid with him were being had left and right everywhere between everyone who had a political opinion.

It seems that we're engaged in a war for the very minds of our populace as we race to the bottom of our intellectual gene pool. Now I'm not the most pointed intellect, but I know enough to tell when a scam is in action, and it centers largely on watching the actions rather than the words of our elected political sociopaths. 2012 is an election year after all and it is staggering to watch the kinds of candidates that idiocy brings forth to represent itself, all being funnelled in their opinions by who has the biggest checkbook to influence them.

We're not being offered a choice between good or evil. We're choosing between compromise or idiocy.

And like that substandard fellow in high school, I don't quite know yet whether it's best to counter the stupidity, or ignore it. There is only so much time to invest in making a point and trying to shout over a bullhorn is rather tiresome.

Y Halo 2012

It's been awhile hasn't it? Well, Earthborn and myself have been a bit busy.

In case you missed out, we finished up Chapter 1 of No Man's Land, which can be found here.

Also, Versed is, despite my intermittent updates, still coming along. As of this writing, I have 33 pages up. Check that out here if you want.

We're off to a rocky start this year as both SOPA and PIPA, the latest horrible pieces of legislation to slide out of the collective rectum of congress have riled the internet into action. Notably, the mass e-protests seem to have turned the tide on these and suddenly it seems that, at least for now, our internets are still safe. What the next ill-informed bill lobbyists will attempt to cram through congress will be, we don't know. But this is not the end of them. There is too much money invested for them to relent, so I can only hope that the internet hate machine continues to fire up for our later rounds against the agendas of the rich, powerful, and stupid.

So we're in 2012 now and some people would have you believe that this is the next big end of the world. You never know, but if you ask me, it's just the end of a calendar. Toss it out and get the new one.

About Time

It's been a long time since I actually got the nerve to send out my work for publication, but the fear was perhaps unnecessary. My short story "Recital, Early April," which appeared on this blog in a much rougher form a few years ago, was picked up by Short Story America. "Recital" is the story of the week for Friday Aug 26 - Sept 2, and you can read it here. I'm very pleased with the publication, and I find the layout rather clever.

Deus Ex

It's been a long time since the original Deus Ex came out, and the gaming world has been worse off for the lack of games like it. Last night Deus Ex: Human Revolution, the third entry in the series, launched to mostly positive reviews. I'm going to avoid talking about the second entry in the series for reasons that should be obvious to anyone who has played(or attempted to play) it.

So, without further ado, here is my review of Deus Ex: Human Revolution...


PLAY IT!

So ends my review. Now, back to business.

Versed Page 1

It started with a tiny page drawn on an iPad.

When I first drew this page, it was an experiment to see what I could do with some drawing software(artstudio) on the iPad. I know there are other programs, sketchbook pro, brushes, etc. but artstudio was the most capable that I had tried at the time. It consistently produced the best linework.

As far as an experiment, Versed continues to be a very useful learning tool. Consistency may be its weakest point as a result. The style changes throughout, as I change programs, change hardware(I've since upgraded to drawing on an HP TouchSmart tm2), learn programs better, and learn to draw better. That last part is the main goal with most anything I do.

I posted page 26 on the website last night. You can see it here. I'm rather happy to compare it with the previous pages. What a nice time I've had along the way.

"I could spit"

Well, we're approximately 16 days from what pundits and reporters have been calling the "Apocalypse," when the US of A reaches its debt ceiling. Maybe the end of the world DOES happen in and around 2012. After all, religious nuts and blockbuster movies have been advertising this very fact since 2009. Like most Americans, I have no idea what will transpire, but it's certainly not going to be good. I get the sense that this is the sentiment in Washington as well. Something is looming. Something big.

About a week ago on "All Things Considered" I remember hearing that nothing would happen. That the US Gov't could make certain cuts and coast on tax money for about two years. Apparently some of the Tea Party members may have heard this same thing, because Michelle Bachmann has gone on record to state that nothing would happen at all. This is perhaps a bit overblown. Something is going to happen, but the public at large is not going to hear or see it until perhaps a few months after, when Wall Street starts to suffer and countries like China start realizing that the US economy is clamoring for largess. In our present society, we like to believe in that instantaneous "fix" that can come at the last moment and avert catastrophe, just like it does in the movies. Certainly Washington, Democrats and Republicans alike, has done its share of damage to reinforce this in the public eye. Obama has stated that reforms wouldn't happen until much later, months to years down the line, and this seems the more accurate admission. There is no Noah's-Ark-like outcome here. We're ALL in the same boat, and there's a mighty big leak.

As we get into the cogs of No Man's Land, and the Miller family's own money problems, I keep reflecting back on the current state of the economy and how problems, like the one illustrated in this chapter, will not only be felt by the periphery of American workers, but the majority. The small companies, unable to cope, will certainly be swallowed whole by other larger companies. C'est la vie. I'm not one to go on bashing corporations in my free time, there are plenty of people in the media who do that for me, but the concerns of the Miller household certainly do criticize the climate mentioned. There are obviously differences, and I meant it to be just as critical of the small-town business ethic, which can, at times, seem like a plane on auto-pilot, heading straight for a mountain.

I'll get off my soap-box now. Who cares what the writer thinks about his own work, anyway? As a critic of literature, I am aware of the intentional-fallacy, the death of the author, and Stanley Fish. But I feel that this blurb, as Mr. Grimlee and I have called it, should do some blurbling. It should put some of these pages into historical context and express the writer and artist's plans and concerns in charting and reconsidering its development. My critical theoretical focus is textual studies, and next quarter I'm teaching a class at the University of Washington in this very topic. In textual studies, which in part is concerned with editorial intentions as much as materiality, these things matter in the long-run. I'm not sure they matter right now, but perhaps they will in the future. Maybe my opinions will all end up in a wash and only debris of it carried along by the tide. Until next week.

Give Me A Hand With These Bags

Enter Georgia. Jen's mother; Cliff's wife. She's most certainly the "mother" character, but got a snarky side to her as well.

We're up to page 13, and things are rolling along smoothly! Mr. Grimlee has been pretty busy lately, but he's managed to keep "No Man's Land: A Tall Tale" afloat and his kitty alive. Check out our newest pages! We'll be updating, as per usual, every Sunday!