Wanted to take a sec to show off a Love Buzz pin-up that just got turned in by my buddy/hero Steven Walters.
I've been absolutely smitten with this guys work for several years, and getting this into the back of the book will be an awesome honor. Steve's working currently on his second OGN, the tentative title of which, I believe is The Sweet Souvenir. I've read and helped him edit the script on it, and it's going to be another slice of gold from him. Seriously, anyone who checks out Love Buzz and digs the tone and the slice-of-life story telling in the comic form would be doing themselves, Steven, and myself (as probably Steven's biggest fan) a favor in ordering and checking out his first book, Suburban Folklore as well as his second one, whenever he finishes it. Both of them are brilliant, criminally under read, and some of the most emotionally affecting stories I've read out of the comics medium in the last several years. You can see more of Steven's work at his website, www.ourobor.com
And have I mentioned we're close to working on a project of our own together? ;)
It's been close to two weeks now since the ad for Love Buzz hit Previews, and this one man PR machine has hit the ground running hard. Calling comic shops around the country to ask them personally to pick up the book, or to thank them if they already have, as well as working on closing out what I need to do for the local promotional push here in Louisville. (There's talk of us throwing a party in one of our favorite coffee shop/bars and a big signing!) Anyway, I figured now could be a good time for a little info dump of new developments and press.
The book's Diamond order code is MAR094378 and the cut-off date for pre-orders is April 7th, so reserve your copy today. ISBN number is 978-1-934964-21-7.
Here's a list of places it's available to purchase online, although I stress the importance of supporting any good, solid comic shops out there.
My first big interview about the book with Jen Contino @ The Pulse! A great treat to get to give Jen my first big, in depth interview, because she's been an instrumental in helping me navigate my way into comics. I always told her once I had something to promote, she'd have the first exclusive.
And you can add Love Buzz on MySpace, even though the page is in desperate need of some sprucing up, of late. http://myspace.com/lovebuzzcomic
Naturally, I'll keep updating the blogs here as soon as new stuff comes up.
I agree, the title of this blog is a bit too obvious and lame, but I'm saving up my creativity for the night of book plotting I have ahead of me, so screw you. Probably spoilers ahead, so be warned...
If you're like me and read the book years ago and never thought it would ever be possible to make an adequate movie adaptation of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' Watchmen, you've probably been looking at the prospect of this movie, and all the footage that has leaked over the last year with a mix of promise and skepticism. It looked a lot like they might have been able to pull off the impossible with this one. I just got back from the theater about an hour ago, and I really dug it for the most part.
A minute to talk about the director of the massive opus, Zack Snyder. I became a fan of him through the surprisingly good Dawn Of The Dead remake he did a couple years back. I'm by no means a fan of remakes of almost any kind, but that movie surprised me and many others. While some hardcore zombie fans will cry foul for the concept of running zombies, I loved it. It's a lot scarier when the thing that wants to eat you can catch up to you on foot. Then he went on to adapt Frank Miller's 300, which was good and beautifully executed, but not something I was overly bowled over by. (I'm a fan of Miller, but was never a fan of 300. Personal preferences...) Upon hearing that he'd been given the keys to the notorious "unfilmable" book gave me a good bit of interest.
Snyder made a movie that visually, was pretty fucking amazing. Colorful backdrops, vivid imagery, virtually every image looking like it's been ripped straight from Dave Gibbons' art and brought to animated life. Stunning stuff, with a couple minor problems here and there. With Watchmen, I ended up thinking Snyder reeeeeally should've reigned it in with the slo-mo/fast-mo stuff. That shit was cool in 300, because 300 didn't require a brain stem to enjoy. 300 was just greased up, half-naked men beating, gouging, and stabbing the shit out of other greased up, half-naked men. It doesn't get much more base than that. A movie like Watchmen requires a bit more finesse, and I think with the tone of "realism" a story like this is most noted to bring to the world of superheroes, a much more brutal and less choreographed approach to the fight staging should have been taken. It's been a while since I watched his Dawn Of The Dead remake, but the violence in that and the approach to how it was shown would have done more of a service to a movie like this.
Another big flaw is that his direction of the actors seemed kinda bloodless at times. A movie like this should have demanded a bit more from some of its performers. Jackie Earle Haley as Rorschach/Walter Kovaks was a pretty great performance, despite the constant low, growling "Christian Bale as Batman" voice. I've been a fan of Jackie's since I saw his creepy and sad performance in Little Children, (also featuring his Watchmen co-star Patrick Wilson and Kate Winslet.) so hopefully this role will prove to be a breakout for him, and get him much more work. Jeffery Dean Morgan as The Comedian fit really well, and you can tell Morgan had a blast playing the sadistic asshole the entire time. Billy Crudup's lifeless performance as Dr. Manhattan fit in really well, because... Dr. Manhattan is about as disconnected a personality from human emotion as you can find. I'd call Matthew Goode's performance as Adrian Veidt/Ozymandius lifeless too, but I'd mean it in more of the bad way. The character to me demanded someone with a little more presence. Not some moosed up, twig wristed fop who I'm supposed to buy as the world's smartest man and world class athlete. Watching the guy kick the crap out of everyone else in the movie was just too hard for me to buy and ended up being disappointing. Carla Gugino's turn as Sally Jupiter/Silk Specter I was a bit of a let down as well, but I blame that fact more on the direction than anything else. Carla playing Sally in the early, younger days was a great fit and she did a good job, but I have a hard time, no matter how much makeup you wanna cake onto her, believing that this beautiful woman is playing a 67 year old. They got an older actor to play Hollis Mason for the five fucking seconds he was in the movie, why couldn't they have done the same for Sally?
As for the new ending, and it's deviations from the book, I'll just say I think putting Manhattan as a scapegoat, even though he probably is too detached to give a shit was a shitty thing to have done, but for a movie going audience, I think it's a more plausable idea than a totally out of left field "here comes the giant vagina-mouthed octopus from space". I don't agree with it... But I understand.
Overall I enjoyed Watchmen more than my skeptical ass expected too. It's just that some of the problems that stuck out really kept bugging and keeping me from loving it.
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Obama is planning to sign an executive order Monday to overturn Bush-era policy that limited federal tax dollars for embryonic stem cell research, according to administration officials familiar with the deliberations.
Obama's move will be hailed by advocates for those suffering from a host of afflictions, ranging from diabetes to Parkinson's disease, who believe that an expansion of stem-cell research could boost medical progress toward eradicating the debilitating diseases.
But many conservatives object to the destruction of human embryos because they contend that it ends a human life.
The officials said the administration is planning a Monday event at the White House at which Obama will overturn the executive order signed by President George W. Bush in August 2001. It barred the National Institutes of Health from funding research on embryonic stem cells beyond using 60 cell lines that existed at that time.
Tony Perkins of the conservative Family Research Council accused the White House of leaking the details Friday night so that the move gets little attention, declaring that it is "a slap in the face to Americans who believe in the dignity of all human life."
House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, said, "Advancements in science and research have moved faster than the debates among politicians in Washington, D.C., and breakthroughs announced in recent years confirm the full potential of stem cell research can be realized without the destruction of living human embryos."
In addition to signing the executive order, Bush twice vetoed legislation -- in July 2006 and June 2007 -- that would have expanded federally funded embryonic stem cell research.
At the time, Bush also argued that scientific advances allowed researchers to conduct groundbreaking research without destroying human embryos. Bush's moves led to Democratic charges that he had put politics over science.
Speaking as someone whose life has been saved by cutting edge technology and experimental surgical procedures in my life, I've been hoping and praying that the world would come to their senses on this issue. It means a lot to me, and even more now than in the past, since I've spent the last ten years counseling camp for children with heart conditions like myself. Over the years, I've seen so many of them die way too young, and I'm just so tired of it. Stem cell research may not be the cure-all to every situation, but I can't help but thinking a lot of these deaths might have been avoided, if these new sciences could have been better pursued here. It shouldn't matter what your stance on abortions is, because they're still going to happen and they're going to keep happening whether we like it or not. It seems more reasonable to me to put any aborted fetuses to use to at least save a life than to let them go to waste.
This whole ban was one of my biggest problems with the Bush administration, and I'll rejoice all day long when the lift is finalized.
It would so appear that today's issue of Previews has hit stands and Love Buzz has now been officially solicited by Oni Press. (Click for full image)
Pressure's on now... Seven years of toil and heartache of putting it together and it all comes down to this. I sincearly hope everyone heads out to their local comic stores and pre-orders a copy. A lot of love, blood, sweat, and tears have gone into it on the behalf of not only myself, but Michelle, Dave, and the countless other people who have been involved in and encouraged this project ever since I wrote my first draft when I was 19 years old.
So, a friend of mine forwarded me this email today... I know, I know. Email forwarding is best off being ignored and sent to the spam folder and when acknowledged in passing with a grunt when you friend asks what you thought of it, but this one had a title that just grabbed my attention and wouldn't let go for some reason.
The title read...
"Fwd: Proud to be white"
And the email read as follows... (I'm leaving it intact with all of it's shit grammar, spelling, and incomplete thoughts, because I just really don't know where this guy is going some of the time.
"This is great. I have been wondering about why Whites are racists, and no other race is......
Proud to be White
Michael Richards makes his point.....................Michael Richards better known as Kramer from TVs Seinfeld does make a good point. This was his defense speech in court after making racial comments in his comedy act.. He makes some very interesting points...
Someone finally said it... How many are actually paying attention to this? There are African Americans, Mexican Americans, AsianAmericans, Arab Americans, etc. And then there are just Americans. You pass me on the street and sneer in my direction. You call me 'White boy,' 'Cracker,' 'Honkey,' 'Whitey,' 'Caveman'... And that's OK. But when I call you, Nigger, Kike, Towel head, Sand-nigger, Camel Jockey, Beaner, Gook, or Chink .. You call me a racist.
You say that whites commit a lot of violence against you... So why are the ghettos the most dangerous places to live?
You have the United Negro College Fund. You have Martin Luther King Day.
You have Black History Month. You have Cesar Chavez Day.
You have Yom Hashoah. You have Ma'uled Al-Nabi.
You have the NAACP. You have BET... If we had WET (White Entertainment Television), we'd be racists. If we had a White Pride Day, you wouldcall us racists. If we had White History Month, we'd be racists.If we had any organization for only whites to 'advance' OUR, lives we'd be racists. We have a Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, a Black Chamber of Commerce, and when we just have the plain Chamber of Commerce. Wonder who pays for that?? A white woman could not be in the Miss Black American pageant but any color can be in the Miss America pageant. If we had a college fund that only gave white students scholarships ...You know we'd be racists. There are over 60 openly proclaimed Black Colleges in the US . Yet if there were 'White colleges' That would be a racist college. In the Million Man March, you believed that you were marching for your race and rights. If we marched for our race and rights, you would call us racists. You are proud to be black, brown, yellow and orange, and you're not afraid to announce it. But when we announce our white pride, you call us racists.
You rob us, carjack us, and shoot at us. But, when a white police officer shoots a black gang member or beats up a black drug dealer running from the law and posing a threat to Society, you call him a racist.
I am proud... But you call me a racist.
Why is it that only whites can be racists??
There is nothing improper about this e-mail. Let's see which of you are proud enough to send it on. I sadly don't think many will. That's why we have lost most of OUR RIGHTS in this country. We won't stand up for ourselves!
BE PROUD TO BE WHITE!
It's not a crime YET ... But getting real close!"
Classy, right?
Reading all of this, I felt compelled to delete it to the trash bin, roll my eyes and say "Oh well", but the churning feeling of gravel this had put in my guts ended up getting the best of me. I pulled it out of the trash folder and proceeded to write the following response.
Sorry, but yeah... This reads as extremely racist to me, and even just a tad bit whiny. The Michael Richards thing, for one... The guy full on blasted a guy in the audience, who was heckling him and called him "Nigger". Not just once, but several times, and went further by saying that "If this were a few decades ago, they'd have you hanging from a tree with a fork in your ass." Again, extremely racist. As a guy whose done stand-up in the past, I've been heckled too, and it sucks, and it makes you fucking furious, but at the same time, I don't care what race someone is, or if they call you something that's the "white" equivalent of a racial slur, it doesn't make it okay to hit their ignorance back with more ignorance. If Michael Richards didn't want to get the shit storm he had justly brought down on his has-been head, he'd have just engaged the guy in the audience like any good comedian would do when someone fires something off at them. Disarm it and turn it into your own joke. Or better yet, just call him an asshole and be done with it. There were plenty of other ways that shit could have gone down without having to lose your shit and act like the only thing to do is put him on blast over the color of his skin. It's bullshit of the highest caliber, and for anyone to try and defend what he did is even lamer.
As for the rest of this shit pack of other whiny "Oh, it's so hard for me because I'm a white guy" statistics, Martin Luther King Jr. was an African American man, but his accomplishments were enough to transcend the racial boundaries at a time when white people were living on a pretty high horse. Martin Luther King day represents that wall "supposedly" being torn down, but obviously, that's not the case. MLK's accomplishments aren't or at least shouldn't be centralized to African Americans. He helped everybody. Saying that white people are the only ones the world considers racist, is wrong at worst and a half-truth at best. White people get called out most as racists, because we've got a history of opressing different races. We're not going to live that down for a couple more generations at least, so why don't we just get the fuck over it and move on already? On the other hand, ANYONE can be a racist. African American, Asian, Mexican, etc. Anyone can have a prejudice against someone else for any stupid reason without even talking to them. It's no more right for anyone to call a black guy "nigger" than it would be for him to call me "cracker" or whatever. Our own past racisms have bred a flawed system where people of so called "minority" races find it okay to take pot shots at slurring white people. Am I saying that's okay? Absolutely fucking not but this whole "You call me 'cracker', you're not racist but if I call you 'nigger', I'm a racist." arguement is just as fucking childish as a pair of five year olds fighting crying to their mother because one of them called the other one a 'doo-doo head'. It's a stupid arguement, and I think any sane, rational person should be able to rise above it and turn their backs on anyone who stoops so low as to call them by whatever racial slur might apply to them.
Racism isn't going to end. People are going to be hating other people for dumb, surface reasons until the end of fucking times, and even in the age of Obama, where a significant wall has been broken down and people want to believe racism is over, racism is still around and still going to be around until humanity nukes itself back to the Stone Age, as illustrated by this ignorant ass chain email. And that last line, "It's not a crime YET..." Give me a fucking break. Whoever wrote this piece of crap should be shot out of a fucking cannon for being brainless. Racism is still alive because of people who believe in this shit. Who believe that white people should have shit like "White History Month" and stuff like that. That's exactly why Black History Month does, and SHOULD exist. African Americans get one month out of the year. Other races get maybe a couple of holidays, but at the end of the day, America was built by white people. (although, I could argue it was also built on the backs of slaves from Africa, but that would get me started in a whole 'nother direction and my fingers are already tired.) White people get America for the rest of the year whole fucking year.
Rant over. I know it won't win me any friends, but I'm half tempted to forward this back up the entire chain of email addresses I've got here from the ones before it, because I think anyone who had to read a dose of this poison should be presented with an antidote and they can feel free to write me back and disagree.
My name is Len. I'm a 'white' American. I'm part Scotish, part German, and proud of my heritage going back as far as 800 A.D. I believe in pride in one's culture and heritage over pride in the color of one's skin. Skin is what's on the surface of us, and whatever color we are, that's not what makes us "who" we are. Anyone who believes that I question that they've ever taken a step outside their own neighborhood. That we even refer to ourselves as white people or black people just rings as stupid to me. We don't refer to Asians as "yellow people", or Middle Eastern people as "brown people". At least not loud enough that I've been hearing it, so why don't we all just quit with the dumb "color coding bullshit" and go back to hating on someone because they're an asshole, or because they cut you off in traffic. Y'know, the shit that really fucking matters!
Grow up, 'white' people...
Sincerely, Len N. Wallace
I hope when the person who sent this to me reads this, they'll give it some serious thought. I've known them for a very long time and have come to love and respect them a great deal, but there's clearly something there they need to be taught.
So, we'll just call this an open letter to everyone who runs across it, just to say I'm not dead and haven't abandoned my post. Here's the story as I know it. It appears some off-shoot of Hurricane Ike blew through my home town and has left 200,000 people including myself without power, and it's looking like it could stay that way for up to two more weeks. Lucky for me, the community college library is back up and running, so I'm here to send out a few emails to people I work with, as well as whine about having to sit around in the dark on this here blog.
It's quite pathetic how technologically dependant I am, that I've gotta sit here in the library like some kind of asshole and charge my phone, laptop, and iPod, so I can maybe have something to do tonight. My phone's been out of commission for like, two days now so at least I can get in touch with my family, artists, and editors and let them know the skinny now.
Went for a walk around the neighborhood and on down Bardstown Road earlier today to try and spend a gift certificate I got for my birthday at my local comic shop, to hopefully find something to read and pass the time, and power's back up in some places, but there are still massive pieces of splintered trees and shit in the middle of the road in some places. You'd think a damn tornado blew through here, but no... It was just wind.
It's fucking wind, people! It should never have been this serious!
