The Package, an Original Crime Graphic Novel on Kickstarter

Happy Birthday, Mom Palucki!

Today may be April Fool's day, but much more importantly, it's my mother-in-law Fran's birthday. Happy Birthday, Mom! Hope to see you soon.

-EB


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Popgun 4 Is Here

Literally. It's on my bedside table.


You can get one at your local comic shop, and I highly recommend it. Not just for the Mekano Turbo story by me and Alexis Ziritt (although that's reason enough), but because it's 500 pages of comic book goodness, in every genre and art style you could imagine. What more could you want?

-EB

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Links to Cool Animation!

I've noticed over the last few days a huge (for me, anyway) spike in blog traffic, so I'd like to say to those of you finding my blog thanks the Blogger navigation bar, welcome. And now to the promised cool links:

Do you like Space Ghost Coast to Coast? Here are a couple of "lost" episodes I wrote and produced for GameTap.com.

Do you like Tomb Raider? In 2007, I produced a ten episode animated web-series featuring versions of Lara Croft by some of the most talented people in comics, including Jim Lee, Gail Simone, Warren Ellis, Cully Hamner, Christos Gage, and Brian Pulido, featuring the voice of Minnie Driver as Lara Croft. You can check out select episodes here. (And more on YouTube, I'm sure!)

Are you a fan of classic console gaming? Perhaps a big Dave Foley fan? Then you certainly will want to check out the 6-episode Re\Visioned: Activision, a series of animated shorts based on the classic Activision 2600 games Pitfall, Cosmic Ark, Pressure Cooker, Kaboom, Freeway, and H.E.R.O. There's some pretty funny stuff there.

Thanks for stopping by,
EB

Popgun Vol. 4 is Coming

Work in Progress

I've been scripting my graphic novel, The Package, and I thought it might be interesting to provide a look at my comic book writing process, which I suspect is a little more circuitous than the process of a more seasoned comics writer.

Generally, no matter what it is I'm writing, I start with extensive notes in a notebook or on a legal pad. Every project, though, takes a life of its own, and when I was outlining this one, it went almost directly into the computer. But when I started scripting, back to the legal pad I went:

The big difference between scripting for animation and for comic books is that in comics, you're not just describing action, but instead a specific moment of action, because that's what you get in a single panel. I use the legal pad to rough out my dialogue, and to start thinking about what moments I want to see in each panel. It's also at this stage that I start thinkng about how those panels might flow, and how many I might want to use per page. However, since I'm not an artist, this is the part I find most difficult. So I've come up with a solution...

...a thumbnail sheet. I've decided for this story to plan out each page on a six-panel, three-tiered page. For the most part, I feel like I can get across everything I want to get across in six panels or less per page. I also think this keeps me from crowding the page with too much action or dialogue, and gives the artist for this project, Alexis Ziritt, enough room to work. You'll notice, though, that I'm not actually drawing crude stick-figures on the thumbnail pages - instead, I'm filling in each panel with description and dialogue, which gets revised from the legal pad stage as I go. This is the only way I've figured out (so far) how to make sure that I've got the pacing of the story and its moments to my liking. (I also think this is where my process gets a little unusual, but I could be wrong about that.) Once I'm done scribbling words in those little panels, I move on to the actual scripting:


Dialogue gets a final tweaking here, as do panel descriptions and pacing. But so far, not too much. Even though I'm typing the script for the first time, it's really almost a third draft. Works for me.

-EB


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The Package

A crime comic by me and illustrator Alexis Ziritt. We started this way back in the summer of 2008, but due to a variety of circumstances - including our soon to be published story Mekano Turbo, due out February 24 in Popgun Comics Vol. 4 - it's been delayed. But we're back it at it - date of publication TBD.

If you like the image above, feel free to copy it - it's wallpaper size for your desktop. Oh, yeah.

EB

Mekano Turbo in Popgun Vol. 4

Here it is, folks - the Popgun website has gone live with info and previews for Popgun Vol. 4, due out February 10, 2010 from Image Comics, and featuring an 8-page Mekano Turbo story (previewed previously right here on this very blog) illustrated by Alexis Ziritt and written by me. Clocking in at 512 pages of comics goodness, and billed as "the ultimate graphic mixtape by today's superstar creators and fresh new talent." I guess Alexis and I qualify as fresh and new, while my friend and future animated project collaborator Jeffrey Brown, who also has a story in this volume, would be a superstar. It's very cool. Pre-order one from your local comic shop, won't you?

EB

Open Web Awards Nominations

Hey, there - another break in the prolonged non-blogging to plug the following:




Who are the "us" that I'm plugging for the Mashable Open Web Awards? That would be those of us who made the web series Re\Visioned: Activision for GameTap - me and my colleagues at the world-class animation studio Six Point Harness. I've nominated Re\Visioned: Activision in the category Best Online Web Video Series, and I encourage you to click on the link and nominate us, too. C'mon, I know you want to see me in a tux, accepting an award. I look good in a tux.

-EB

Mekano Turbo!

What's this? A blog update from Elliot Blake? Indeed, it is. I'm
taking this break from prolonged not-blogging to announce that the
story I wrote for Alexis Ziritt, Mekano Turbo, has been accepted for
publication in Popgun Volume 4, published by Image Comics. I have no
idea when this will be out, but as we get closer and I get more
information, I'll once again break blog radio silence. In the
meantime, feel free to follow my Twitter feed, which is linked to the
right.

So, in the words of John Hodgman-
That is all.

EB
Sent from my iPhone

Moved

One more short break from this prolonged period of move-related not-blogging, this time to let you know that we have moved, and as of Tuesday, June 9, we are once again residents of Los Angeles. Once we have furniture and get ourselves settled, the period of not-blogging will end, and regular blogging will resume.

Carry on.

-EB in L.A.

Fungus Among Us

A break from move-related not-blogging, to bring you the following piece of animation recently discovered on YouTube:



Fungus Among Us was a Cartoon Network pilot created in 2002 by Wes Archer, who was one of the original Simpsons directors, a director on Futurama - where I met him - and, for a long time, supervising director on King of the Hill. And I think he might be doing the same on the new Mike Judge show on ABC, The Goode Family, but don't quote me on that - I'll find out on Wednesday when it debuts.

When Cartoon Network greenlit the Fungus pilot, Wes was working at Rough Draft Studios on Futurama. He wanted some help with the script, so he turned to me and Rich Moore (supervising director on Futurama), and we aided him in fine-tuning things. This was a thrill for me, because this pilot was my first on-screen writing credit. After the pilot aired, CN put Fungus back into development, and we spent the next several months writing and re-writing several more pilots which never made it past the storyboard stage, and eventually, the network passed. Nevertheless, it was a great experience, and I learned an awful lot about the development process at the network level. And, perhaps most importantly, it taught me that you have to pick your battles, because I wanted to fight every change - and that's just not the way it works. Ah, the naivete of youth.

-EB

Elliot Blake, Where Have You Been?

Well, if you've been following my Twitter feed, you might be aware that we're gearing up for a big move back to Los Angeles. If you haven't been following my Twitter feed, well, we're moving back to Los Angeles, and all of the planning for the move and the selling of the house here in Atlanta, and the looking for a place to live in L.A, and the looking for a school for the boy and a pre-school for the girl have been eating into my blogging time.

I will post when the opportunity arises - I don't know if any of you out there are still dying to hear stories of Re\Visioned: Activision (viewable here and here), but I have not completely abandoned ship on that. In fact, here are some stills from the recording session with Dave Foley, Ed Begley Jr., and Nicole Sullivan:
Nicole Sullivan voicing the campfire in Pitfall.

Me directing. Next to me is casting director Dawn Hershey.

Ed Begley Jr. and I discussing a character.

Ed Begley Jr., a consummate professional.

Dave Foley, after I told him he couldn't have any more coffee. Okay, not really - he was voicing the confused chicken Ralph for the Freeway episode of Re:Visioned: Activision.

And finally, not related to my move or professional endeavours, a video from the award-winning documentary, "Playing For Change: Peace Through Music", totally worth watching, as it will remind you of the power of music:


Playing For Change | Song Around The World "Stand By Me" from Concord Music Group on Vimeo.

I came across this on John Rogers' Kung Fu Monkey blog, and it's really great.

That's all for now - updates when time allows.

-EB

Mekano Turbo! The Package!

For your enjoyment, the first page of MEKANO TURBO:
Created and drawn by Alexis Ziritt, written by me, headed for Popgun Vol. 4. Volume three of Popgun is out this week I believe, and sports a great cover by Tara MacPherson, who worked with me briefly at Rough Draft Studios back in the day.

And for your further enjoyment, page 1 of THE PACKAGE:
Created and written by me, illustrated by Ziritt, headed for the web later this year.

More updates when they're available!

Making of Re\Visioned: Activision - The Backstory

I've been promising this on Twitter for several days now, so let's get to it - a behind the scenes look at the making of each episode of Re\Visioned: Activision. But first, a little history:
Re\Visioned was created by my former boss at GameTap, Ricardo Sanchez, who thought it would be cool create some original animation based on existing videogame IP from the GameTap library. But rather than doing a straight adaptation of these games, Rick wanted to present new takes on the games, or as he put it, "revisioned." And when he added a backslash between "re" and "visioned," a title was born.

Initially, Rick wanted to hire great animators to spearhead the project, but given the budget and time restraints, he was willing to entertain other ideas - which is when I floated the notion of hiring comic book writers and artists to handle story and art, with the idea that those things could be handed off to an animation studio for production. He liked the idea, and then we all went back to what we were doing.

A few months later, Rick struck a deal with The Hero Initiative, a non-profit comic book industry group that raises money to help industry veterans who gave years to the business, often without a safety net or retirement plan. The Hero Initiative would provide scripts and art from a mix of popular current creators and respected veterans in need of work. Included in the group were writers Mark Waid, Paul Jenkins, John Ostrander, William Messner-Loebs, the late Steve Gerber, and Hero Initiative president Jim McLauchlin; and artists Dave Simons, Armando Gil, Joe Rubenstein, Flint Henry, Bob Hall, and Claude St. Aubin. A really talented bunch.

Scripts were written, designs were drawn. And then a decision was made at GameTap to move Re\Visioned: Tomb Raider, a more high-profile, super ambitious project intended to be season two of the series to the head of the line. The Activision project was put on the back-burner, and approved scripts and designs languished for close to a year.

When we finally did get back to Re\Visioned: Activision, the bar had been raised significantly by the quality and complexity of Re\Visioned: Tomb Raider, and while we had less money to throw at Activision, my executive producer, Chris Peeler, and I knew that we needed to find a way to live up to R:TR. With that thought in mind, we went back in to the Activision materials we had commissioned, and found that while we had a good project, some of the scripts were too modest in scope. After consulting with the boss, it was agreed that we would use the materials created by the Hero Initiative as a starting point...

More tomorrow.

-EB

At Last, Re\Visioned: Activision

I am pleased to announce that at long last, after spending a little more than a year in the can, Re\Visioned: Activision, the last web series I produced for GameTap.com, is available for your viewing pleasure. Apparently, the fine people at GameTap uploaded the six episode series - presenting new and original takes on the classic Activision games Pitfall, Cosmic Ark, Pressure Cooker, Kaboom, Freeway, and H.E.R.O. - on Thursday, which just happened to be my birthday. I don't think it was an intentional birthday gift, but after waiting for a year for this thing to be released, it certainly feels like a gift. I will write a more in-depth post about this project on Monday, but until then, please enjoy (all six episodes are available in the embedded player below, or you can view them bigger here):


-EB

Comics, Big Stack Of

Went to the comic shop yesterday with some birthday cash in hand and bought a big stack, which is always fun. But before I get into what I bought, I want to relate a little story about the store itself. While I was browsing the new releases, the manager and a staffer came over with the new order book and started trying to figure out what they should be ordering, by looking at what was on the shelves and counting what was left over. The manager actually said, "I wonder how many of those we actually sold?" This store is regarded as the best in Atlanta - possibly because it's the only one I can find inside the perimeter - and the manager didn't have any idea how much they were selling, which means that they were ordering in the dark. Before yesterday, I had not noticed the absence of a POS (point of sale) system, which means they're not using the bar codes on the comics, GN's, and various merchandise they sell to track their inventory. I am not a retailer, but I'm the son of one, and, really, you don't have to be the son of a retailer to realize this is a really bad way to manage your business. Comics retailer Brian Hibbs writes extensively about the benefits and insights gained from using a POS system in his column Tilting at Windmills, so if you're at all interested in this, it's worth checking out.

Now, to the fun stuff - here's what I bought:

• Captain America #48 - Ed Brubaker's run on Captain America has been outstanding, and the Butch Guice art on this arc is the best I've ever seen from him. Really great stuff. Killing off Steve Rogers and bringing back Bucky could have been hokey, but Brubaker's mastery of character has made this a compelling read every month for four years now, and that's quite an accomplishment.
• Daredevil #117 - Another great run on a book by Ed Brubaker, who for my money is one of the top three writers in comics. The Kingpin made his return last issue, and Brubaker, along with artist David Aja, showed us a side of Wilson Fisk that we've never seen. The great runs on Daredevil have always been less about the costume and more about the man inside it, and there's no character in comics with more drama in his life than Matt Murdock. Bad for him, but good reading for us, which is what it's all about.
• Black Lightning #6 - A good updating of the characters origin. I usually buy a comic for the writing, but this one was all about the art, and I don't think I've seen anything finer from Cully Hamner. (Who, in the interest of full disclosure, is a friend.)
• Fantastic Four #565 - I've really enjoyed Millar & Hitch's FF - it's no Ultimates, but it's been entertaining and typically full of big Millar ideas.
• Scalped #26 - One of the best comics currently being published, by writer Jason Aaron and artist R.M. Guera (although this issue is drawn by Davide Furno). Crime stories at their most brutal. I wrote about Scalped extensively here.
• Ex Machina Special #4 - Lost writer/producer Brian K. Vaughn's political fable set in New York, following the exploits of its mayor, the world's first and only superhero.
• Potter's Field: Stone Cold - A follow up to last year's Potter's Field miniseries by creators Mark Waid and Paul Azaceta. Solid crime/mystery comic.
• Batman: Battle for the Cowl #1 - I have to admit I was skeptical about this effort from writer/artist Tony Daniel, which is about the struggle to succeed Batman, who seemed to have perished at the end of Final Crisis. Not the best comics writing I've ever come across, but nevertheless, this was a lot of fun. If you're a longtime reader of superhero comics, it's easy to predict who's going to wind up as the next Batman, even when it's not accidentally leaked (all indications point to Dick Grayson), but the comics geek in me wants to see how it unfolds.
• Wolverine #71 - A continuation of the "Old Man Logan" storyline by Mark Millar and Steve McNiven. I've enjoyed it. It's nice to see Marvel do a story which is clearly a stand-alone, non-continuity piece, as part of the monthly series rather than a mini. Of course, there's plenty of in-continuity Wolverine to go around on a monthly basis...
• Wolverine Saga - A free offering from Marvel that appears to be a linear explanation of Wolvie's convoluted history.

A couple of comics fell off my list of regular titles I'm following, including New Avengers and Dark Avengers. I generally really like Brian Bendis' writing, but I'm burned out on these books. I don't really buy the Norman Osborn Dark Reign thing (I've explained why here), and I'm feeling like I've had enough of the Marvel U status quo-changing storylines, which is part of what has made Captain America and Daredevil really appealing. They may touch on this stuff, but they're not about it - they're about the characters, and that's why I keep buying them.

-EB

Goodbye 38, Hello 39

A somewhat self-indulgent post today. But this is my blog, so aren't they all self-indulgent?

Anyway, it's my birthday, it's gray and rainy outside, and so I thought why not take a few moments to reflect on the last year - which, in many ways, was not what I expected it to be. First, a year ago I was gainfully employed, nominated for several southeast region Emmy awards, and, while I had pretty good idea that the end was coming at GameTap, I also thought I'd pick up something new pretty quick. Boy, did I call that one wrong. Two months later, my unit was shown the door; three weeks after that, I won two of those Emmy awards:
That's me with the statue I took home (the other went with my co-winner Greg Taylor, who really deserves most of the credit for crafting the promo we won for) - it sits on my dresser, a glorious golden paperweight. I'd say that was the highlight of Elliot Year 38, but the truth is, for all the unanticipated difficulty I've had with re-inventing myself as a freelance producer of content - it's a longer process than I thought it would be, and the sorry state of the economy hasn't helped me or anyone - the real highlights are far less complicated and much more profound, and they greet me with a smile every single day...

...my daughter Hannah and my son Sam, who also has a birthday today, turning six, and who will always be the best birthday present I could ever get. Not pictured - because as good a job as we do taking pictures of the kids, we almost never take pictures of ourselves - is my lovely wife, Laura, who really is the most supportive person in the world. Daily reminders that I while I'm going through a period of professional re-adjustment that isn't the most fun I've had on a bun, I have it pretty damn great, and that I'm actually pretty damn lucky.

So, here's to hoping that Elliot Year 39 will see some of the professional things I set in motion during E.Y. 38 come to fruition, including:
-my comic book trailer business, starting with the release of the trailer I produced for Wildstorm.
-some motion comics work; I have some solid ideas for advancing the medium I'd like to put into action.
-Jeffrey Brown's Sketchbook
-a potential non-fiction comic book guide to a casual activity that people enjoy but which shall remain nameless at this juncture, as I don't want to give it away.
-The Package, my webcomic crime novella with artist Alexis Ziritt.
-Mekano Turbo, a comic I'm writing for Alexis.
-Sword-Maiden, a project I conceived of as a comic, but which I'm considering writing as a screenplay.
-a documentary project; we shot the footage for the pilot, featuring comics artist Cully Hamner, now we just need to get down to writing and putting the thing together.

A lot of stuff, all potentially fun, some potentially revenue producing - which would be nice. Most importantly, I have my family backing me up and keeping me hopeful.

-EB
p.s. Just had a birthday phone call with one of my oldest and closest friends from high school, David Sachs. Always great to speak with him - I think life for everyone would be better with a daily dose of David Sachs.

UPDATE: 9:35PM, 3/26/09 - I meant to mention this when composing the above, but forgot, I would guess because my neurons probably aren't firing like they were when I was 29, but other than that, I don't feel like I'm 39. I look in the mirror and I don't see a guy a year away from 40, so it's really hard for me to believe that I've reached the end of my thirties. I know this is a cliche, I know I'm not the first person to say this, think this, write this, but it's the truth. I still feel like a kid. Now I'm going to go read some comics.

I Watched the Watchmen

I wanted to call this post "I Watches the Watchmen," as a jokey kind of answer to the "Who Watches the Watchmen" graffiti tag featured prominently in the Watchmen comics and its movie adaptation, but I figured everyone would I assume I had just made a typo. Anyway...

I finally saw Watchmen last night, and I'm still processing it. But here are some quick thoughts on the subject, because I'm sure you've all been just dying to hear my opinion:

• Jackie Earle Haley makes a great Rorshach. I always thought he was a great actor - remember him in Breaking Away? - and it's nice to see him make a comeback.
• Also thought Patrick Wilson was good as Dan/Nite Owl II, Jeffrey Dean Morgan was good as the Comedian, and Billy Crudup was good as Dr. Manhattan. And while a lot of people thought Malin Akerman was bad as Laurie/Silk Spectre II, I thought she was perfectly fine. I could not stand the guy playing Adrian Veidt/Ozymandias, though - he had the weirdest accent and affectation, and every time he spoke, it pulled me right out of the movie.
  
• Seeing Malin Akerman naked is never a bad thing, but the sex scene aboard the owl ship was really laughable. Setting the scene, where Dan is finally able to get an erection thanks to finally putting on his Nite Owl costume and doing some good, to Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" is just too on the nose.
• SPOILER! I get the logic of not using the squid, and the new story device works. I just liked the overall absurdity of the squid. That was the real joke that finally broke the Comedian.
• Too gory. I re-read the comic last year, and while it has it's violent moments, I don't remember this much graphic blood-letting, some of which made me turn my head.
  
• If I start working out really hard right now, by the time Halloween comes around, I should be able to pull off a Dr. Manhattan "costume" pretty well. You can read into that whatever you like.
  

Overall, I don't think the movie was bad; it was certainly faithful to the source material in a lot of ways, particularly visually, but really missed the point of the book in other, really important ways. In the book, writer Alan Moore and artist Dave Gibbons did a really good job of taking the sexy out of the violence of superheroing - it wasn't sexy, and it wasn't heroic. Director Zack Snyder, however, makes it really sexy and cool-looking with all the slow-mo and super-thrilling fight scenes, and that just goes against the message of the book, in my opinion. It was like those subtleties - although, in the book, they're anything but - went over Snyder's head.

Also, and I know I'm not the first person to say this, but I think the whole story could have been better served with more time. Like about 12 hours worth of time. This just would have worked better, and could have captured some of the depth of the source material, if it had been a series on HBO, perhaps produced by Ron Howard and Tom Hanks, like From The Earth to the Moon and Band of Brothers (which was actually co-produced by Spielberg, but you get my point).

Finally, I don't know that it was really necessary to keep the original setting of the book, which is 1985, with a world on the brink of nuclear war. I get that retaining the setting was being faithful, but watching the movie, I couldn't help but wonder what a more nuanced director could have done to update the material and make it more relevant to the times we live in now. It would have been interesting to see an adaptation of Watchmen that honored the spirit and themes of the original, but that was not so slavishly devoted to it, so that it could stand on its own merits.

So, to distill all this down into a handy rating: it's not quite a thumbs up, and not quite a thumbs down - I give it a sideways thumb. Glad I saw it, not sure if I'll need to see the expanded "definitive" version when it comes out on DVD later in the year.


-EB

p.s. Hey, guess what? Thanks to writing this blog post, I'm no longer processing how I feel about the movie! Thanks, blog!

Great Ribs

Over the last couple of days, two people I follow on Twitter have mentioned Memphis and asked about good restaurants. Now, I've only been to Memphis twice, but both times I was sure to eat at one place: Charlie Vergos' Rendezvous, known for their legendary dry-rub Memphis ribs. That's good eatin'.

I learned about the Rendezvous back in 1987, thanks to a John Hiatt song called Memphis in the Meantime, which has a line that goes "At least we can get a decent meal, down at the Rendez-vous." As I was seventeen at the time, and far less knowledgeable in the ways of barbecue than I am now, I had no idea that the Rendezvous mentioned in the song was an actual place - until my dad mentioned he had eaten there while on a business trip to Memphis.

I never expected to actually eat there - I couldn't think of a reason I would be in Memphis - but I in 1990, while on a cross-country trip with my high school friends, our last stop found us in Memphis in order to hit Sun Records and, of course, Graceland. And, because I insisted, the Rendezvous. We had a great meal, and from there headed back to Baltimore.

The Rendezvous took on mythic proportions for me the following year, while I was once again driving across the country with a couple of college buddies after completing an internship at a production company in Los Angeles. We were taking three or four days to head back east, and on the third day, we decided we would make Memphis by dinner, and if we were going to be in Memphis for dinner, we were going to eat at the Rendezvous. I can't remember exactly where we started the day, but as we pushed on, we realized Memphis was a lot further out than we realized. It was probably 9:30 at night when we finally reached Memphis, and after securing a room at a Motel 6, we headed downtown for ribs, hoping they'd still be open.

One of the charming things about the Rendezvous is that it's down an alley, so after walking down a dark alley that seemed vaguely threatening at what must have been 10:30pm, we arrived at the restaurant, walked in to the tremendous aroma of charcoal and barbecue rub, and found out they were no longer seating, and that they kitchen was done taking orders for the night. We were crestfallen. But my buddy Steve wasn't going to just give up - he pleaded with one of the waiters, explaining that we had driven halfway across the country that day, just for the ribs. This seemed to have made an impression on the waiter, because he called the manager over, and Steve really turned on the charm; moments later, "Mr. Tom", as the waiter called him, was seating us, sending in an order for three full racks of ribs, and offering us some drinks on the house. He said if we had spent all day driving for Rendezvous ribs, than we were going to have Rendezvous ribs. Never in my life did a plate of food look more delicious:
Here's the icing on the cake, or I suppose more appropriately, the rub on the ribs: we thought Mr. Tom was just buying us drinks for being enterprising young men on a mission for ribs, but when we got the bill, he picked up the whole tab. I guess he admired our moxie. We left the waiter a $30 tip, which for three 20-year-olds in 1991 seemed like big money, and he certainly seemed to appreciate it. To this day, it was one of the best meals I have ever had.

-EB
Photos from Roadfood.com